College liberals love to hate on the role of money in politics. The Koch Brothers and Art Pope are perhaps more reviled even than the conservative candidates they bankroll. Worst of all, purportedly, are the “low information voters,” the mindless sheep who let their opinions be bought and sold. But we, the college educated, newspaper-reading, cultivated liberals (and conservatives) are better than that. We think for ourselves.
When I was president of College Democrats of North Carolina—my term ended just a few months ago—I was amazed by how often people I met from College Democrats of America (CDA) would complain about money in politics, despite describing how they went on trips overseas paid for by lobbyists just minutes later. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee—which calls itself “America’s Pro-Israel Lobby”—systematically courts the public opinion of college students with a dogged enthusiasm that, in three out of four years, exceeds the energy expended by the Democratic and Republican Parties put together.
Leaders on college campuses—College Democrat and College Republican chapter presidents and student government representatives mostly—get all-expenses-paid trips to D.C. to attend conferences and trainings, where they meet with congressmen, senators and sometimes even presidential candidates or the president. Some will go on the Campus Allies Trip to Israel—in 2012, this included 40 percent of the College Democrats of America Board, along with leaders from the College Republican National Committee and Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
For some obvious reasons, the Palestinian people aren’t likely to have the resources to woo young college students with all-expenses-paid trips to forge “unshakeable” bonds between Americans and Palestinians anytime soon.
The diaspora is largely poor: Over one million Palestinians worldwide live in refugee camps. Palestinians living within Israel are largely poor, underserved by a government that purports to treat them fairly, while openly acknowledging to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child that in past years they have spent only 60 percent on Arab pupils what they did on Jewish pupils. Palestinians living within the Gaza Strip are largely poor, their economy weakened in part by a blockade from Israel banning virtually all exports from Gaza. With exports from Gaza in 2012 at just 5 percent of 2007 levels, according to the head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, we shouldn’t be surprised that the Gazan people are dependent on foreign aid.
We all realize that oil and gas companies have a lot more to spend than environmental lobbyists, and that wealthy have more resources with which to defend the carried interest tax break than the poor have to defend the Earned Income Tax Credit; we understand what consequences this has in a country where our legislators spend more time fundraising than they do governing. I’m not here to stake out any particular claims in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, only to insist we consider the outsize voice one side of the story gets when the board members of their lobbying group are each able to write out $72,000 checks to candidates.
Duke Students for Justice in Palestine-sponsored Israeli Apartheid Week just ended, and an installation by Duke Friends of Israel entitled “My Israel Story” just went up in Perkins library. One “My Israel Story” in Perkins is titled “Humanitarian Aid” but doesn’t speak of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Another is titled “Democracy” but ignores the fact that West Bank residents live under Israeli occupation but don’t have a vote in Israeli elections.
When it comes to Israel and Palestine, Duke students, even politically-minded ones, express apathetic agnosticism. Fearing controversy, they defer to an “It’s Complicated” relationship. And while, perhaps because its the safest position, they’ll say they think both sides have valid arguments, they’ll often also express discomfort with the rhetoric or tactics employed by Duke Students for Justice in Palestine. DSJP tactics are often times designed to make us uncomfortable; as an example, when DSJP posts eviction notices on our doors, that small disruption of our space calls to mind the much greater disruption of the Nakba.
Jonathan Kessler, director of AIPAC’s Leadership Development Department said the following to an audience at the 2010 policy conference: “Every future senator will pass through an American campus. Every future House representative will pass through an American campus. … AIPAC’s job is to identify, engage and educate those individuals that are already self-defining, self-actualizing as campus political leaders.” Kessler went on to promise that AIPAC would help “pro-Israel students take over the student government” at UC-Berkeley, which had recently attempted to pass a resolution urging divestment from Israel.
When I realized through my involvement in College Democrats of North Carolina the systematic influence exerted by AIPAC on college campuses, I suddenly became much more understanding of why DSJP used such attention-grabbing techniques—although notably, they aren’t tipping over any other student group’s tables. DSJP might not represent the type of campus activism we’re comfortable with—but it is the type of campus activism we need if the perspectives of the Palestinian people will be at all considered in American foreign policy. Only when both sides have a true voice will we be able to move beyond “Pro-Israel” or “Pro-Palestine” posturing toward a philosophy that is pro-peace and pro-human-rights.
Elena Botella is a Trinity senior. Her column runs every Thursday. You can follow Elena on Twitter @elenabotella.
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