I want to give credit to the Muslim Student Association for engaging in a pretty clever ‘bait-and-switch’ strategy for Tuesday night’s presentation. The presentation was promoted as a panel discussion on the situation in Gaza. Well, we learned last night that it was just pretext for unabashed, unwavering criticisms of Israel’s policies and positions since its inception in 1948.’ Even more egregious, the introductory comments included phrases like ‘diversity of views.” Please – the views were diverse to the extent that the speakers criticized Israel’s actions at its inception, Israel’s conduct in 1967, Israel’s conduct in 1971, Israel’s conduct in 1973, Israel’s policies and conduct in 1982, Israel’s participation in peace negotiations in 1993 and 2000, Israel’s military actions in 2006 and, of course, in 2008-09. That doesn’t really sound like the ‘diversity of views’ that would lend credibility to this type of discussion.
I also found the conduct of the audience to be appalling and shamefully ironic in light of what the speakers discussed. Several of the speakers mentioned that mainstream American media either misinforms its followers or stifles viewpoints from the Palestinian side, that those seeking information should instead turn to international sources that are ‘fairer’ (read: more critical of Israel). OK, that’s fine – I’ll accept that people who want to formulate opinions about the conflict should be formulating those opinions based on access to all available information. But how ironic it is when the same audience and moderator and sponsoring organizations who agree with the speakers on this issue attempt to repress the voice of anyone who doesn’t agree with their opinion about the conflict. We did not hear one catcall from the audience when the panel speakers were espousing their views during their allotted time; yet, when someone attempted to provide context for his question or attempted to offer a statement regarding his position, his voice was drowned out by groans, boos and derogatory remarks.
Aaron Wernick
LAW ’10
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
Inviting supporters of a murderous, racist, neo-colonial state to speak is somewhat less than admirable. I commend the Muslim Student Association for picking the speakers they did.<p/>-Jeff Stein<br/>CAS ’11