Category Archives: Israel

Jeff Halper: Israel is Warehousing Palestinians

I’m sure there are many who watch Israel’s Jewish settlement policy unfold in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and ask themselves: is there actually a method to this madness? Among the most compelling answers to this question comes from veteran Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper, co-founder and coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

One of the truly great Israeli peace organizations, ICAHD has been indefatigably tracking the demolition of homes and evictions of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories since 2007. Even more critically, Halper and Co. have been exposing Israel’s institutionalized displacement of Palestinians and their resettlement in concentrated areas throughout the West Bank.

In an interview last week, Halper offered a detailed – and profoundly troubling – picture of Israel’s resettlement of Palestinians throughout the Occupied Territories:

(Area C of the West Bank) contains less than 5 per cent of the Palestinian population. In 1967 the Jordan valley contained about 250,000 people. Today it’s less than 50,000. So the Palestinians have either been driven out of the country, especially the middle class, or they have been driven to areas A and B. That’s where 96 or 97 per cent of them are. The Palestinian population has been brought down low enough, there is probably somewhere around 125,000 Palestinians in area C, so Israel could annex area C and give them full citizenship.

Basically, Israel can absorb 125,000 Palestinians without upsetting the demographic balance. And then, what is the world going to say? It’s not apartheid, Israel has given them full citizenship. So I think Israel feels it could get away with that. No one cares about what’s happening in areas A and B. If they want to declare a state, they can…

In other words, we’re finished. Israel is now from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, the Palestinians have been confined in areas A and B or in small enclaves in East Jerusalem, and that’s it.

To better understand Halper’s point, look carefully at the map on the top right of this post. Areas A, B and C refer to regions that were created through the terms of the 1993 Oslo Accords. According to the agreement, Palestinians are responsible for security and for the civil administration of Area A; Area B is under Israeli military control and Palestinian civil authority; and Area C is under total Israeli military and civil control. (In reality, however, the Israeli military has ultimate control over all three areas – for over a decade the IDF regularly has made incursions into Areas A and B with impunity).

According to the terms of the Oslo Accords, these three regions were intended to be temporary until 1998; today they have become permanent facts on the ground. As you can see from white portions of the map, Area C comprises the strong majority of the West Bank. It contains nearly all Israeli settlements; it is crisscrossed by Israeli-only access roads that connect the settlements to each other and to Israel proper; it includes large buffer zones and almost all of the Jordan Valley and the Judean Desert (the large swath of white on the east).

As Halper points out, Israel is pursing policies that are systematically driving Palestinians out of Area C, to the extent that these regions now contain less than 5% of the population. The overwhelming majority of West Bank Palestinians now live in Areas A and B (on the map, grey and black) – which are essentially concentrated, disconnected cantons separated by checkpoints and choked off from Israel by the Separation Wall.

Bottom line? Israel has succeeded extending its control over the majority of the West Bank by moving Palestinian residents into what amount to “legal” open-air prisons – or as Halper calls it,”warehousing.”

(Warehousing) captures what’s going on better than apartheid. Warehousing is permanent. Apartheid recognizes that there is another side. With warehousing it’s like prison. There is no other side. There is us, and then there are these people that we control, they have no rights, they have no identity, they’re inmates. It’s not political, it’s permanent, static. Apartheid you can resist. The whole brilliance of warehousing is that you can’t resist because you’re a prisoner.

Prisoners can rise up in the prison yards but prison guards have all the rights in the world to put them down. That’s what Israel has come to. They are terrorists and we have the right to put them down. In a sense Israel has succeeded with the international community, and the US especially, in taking out of this situation the political. It’s now solely an issue of security, just like in prisons.

Halper actually predicted the warehousing phenomenon as long ago as 2008, in an important piece that offered an in depth analysis of Israel’s practices throughout the West Bank. Among other things, he compared Israel’s practice to South Africa’s creation of Bantustans, in which 3.5 million black South Africans were forced from their homes from the 1960s through the 1980s:

Warehousing…is in many ways worse than the Bantustans of apartheid-era South Africa. The ten non-viable “homelands” established by South Africa for the black African majority on only 11% of the country’s land were, to be sure, a type of warehouse. They were intended to supply South Africa with cheap labor while relieving it of its black population, thus making possible a European dominated “democracy.” This is precisely what Israel is intending – its Palestinian Bantustan encompassing around 15% of historic Palestine – but with a crucial caveat: Palestinian workers will not be allowed into Israel. Having discovered a cheaper source of labor, some 300,000 foreign workers imported from China, the Philippines, Thailand, Rumania and West Africa, augmented by its own Arab, Mizrahi, Ethiopian, Russian and Eastern European citizens, Israel can afford to lock them out even while withholding from them a viable economy of their own with unfettered ties to the surrounding Arab countries. From every point of view, historically, culturally, politically and economically, the Palestinians have been defined as “surplus humanity;” nothing remains to do with them except warehousing, which the concerned international community appears willing to allow Israel to do.

Perhaps most crucially, Halper places Israel’s policies and practices within a larger global context. He refers to a “Global Palestine”: a new 21st century reality in which political considerations and human rights are jettisoned in favor of a corporate-military model that seeks to control, manage, contain (and profit from) “surplus populations.”

Again, from last week’s interview:

(Warehousing) does not have any legal reference today but we’d like to put that in because warehousing is not only in Israel. Warehousing exists all over the capitalist world. Two-thirds of the people have been warehoused. That’s why I’m writing about Global Palestine. I’m saying that Palestine is a microcosm of what’s happening around the world.

Even though Jeff Halper may be a secular Israeli anthropologist, I believe him to be a prophetic figure of the highest order. He has long been speaking hard truths on the wages of corrupt power in his country. Do we have the courage to listen to his message?

United Methodist Divestment: Standing in Solidarity in Tampa

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It was my honor to attend the opening of the 2012 General Conference of the United Methodist Church in Tampa, where they will be considering a resolution to divest church funds from three companies – Motorola Solutions, Hewlett-Packard and Caterpillar – that profit from Israel’s oppressive occupation.

I’ve been so inspired by the amazing people I’ve met in Tampa – Methodists from around the country, Palestinians, and many Jews – who constitute a new community of conscience on this profoundly important issue. This coming-together has been particularly important for me, because many quarters of the United Methodist Church have been unfairly demonized by the Jewish establishment over the issue of church divestment.

The resolution will be considered in committee some time over the next few days – and may possibly be voted on in plenary next week. If you, like me, stand with our Methodist brothers and sisters in our desire for justice in Israel/Palestine, please sign our Rabbi’s Letter that supports “conscientious nonviolent strategies, such as phased selective divestment, to end the occupation.”

You can read a thorough report about our efforts here on Tampa Community Radio. The clip above: my statements at a press conference yesterday which was convened by my friends at United Methodist Kairos Response – the primary sponsors of the UM divestment resolution.

Rabbi Mordechai Liebling: Why I Now Support Church Divestment

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My good friend and colleague Rabbi Mordechai Liebling has just written one of the most eloquent and thoughtful statements in support of church divestment I have yet read. Mordechai’s voice on this subject is particularly noteworthy becuase he has long been an important Jewish community leader on the issue of ethical investing.

Mordechai has previously served as the director of the “Torah of Money” initiative at The Shefa Fund and later became the Executive Vice President of Jewish Funds for Justice. He currently serves as the director of the newly created Social Justice Organizing Program at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. His statement is all the more powerful because in 2004 he wrote a public article questioning the effectiveness of divestment as a strategy – and as late as two years ago, he still viewed divestment as counterproductive.

As he wrote in his statement, he has reconsidered his position for compelling reasons:

What happened that made me change my views? I changed a little, and the reality on the ground changed even more.

At the time I wrote the article I was organizing the Jewish Shareholder Action Network in my capacity as the Torah of Money Director at the ShefaFund. I was very involved in the world of faith-based socially responsible investments and learned a lot about shareholder activism.

When Protestant churches started considering selective divestment from corporations profiting from the occupation back in the mid-2000′s, I knew many of the socially responsible investment staff people in those denominations. I did not think divestment was a good strategy and said so to my colleagues. But things have changed since.

I was concerned about the potential that divestment measures would have in undermining the Israeli political center. I was concerned about Israelis feeling more isolated than ever and adopting a circle-the-wagons mentality that would make peace harder to attain. These concerns are valid and real. But in the last number of years, the Israel political center has moved to the right–even without divestment. The Israeli government has become more intransigent in its position; the settlers more aggressive. The Netanyahu government has already circled the wagons.

Given this reality, we need to take a look at new approaches. We cannot rule out options that are rooted in non-violence, promote non-violence and call for an end to unjust practices. Divestment is one such option. Palestinian nonviolent direct action is another.

If the reality on the ground in Israel and in the West Bank has changed, so have the attitudes of Israeli Jews and Jews abroad towards the use of tools such as divestments and boycotts. Previously very few Jewish groups would have supported such initiatives. Now we see a lively discussion inside our Jewish communities about the appropriateness of using these tactics to end the occupation and oppose settlement expansion. Countless Israeli artists refuse to perform in the Cultural Center of the settlement of Ariel in the West Bank. Boycotting settlement goods is now discussed in Israel, in the pages of the New York Times, and inside our very own Jewish communities. Symptomatic of its move to the right, the Israeli government has outlawed this practice, and the brave Israelis that speak about it, risk heavy court-mandated fines for expressing their views. But inevitably, the more intransigent the Israeli government, the more popular this and other nonviolent measures will become.

Now to be sure, boycott and selective divestment are not the same thing. The former is carried out by consumers; the latter by investors. Divestment from a corporation does not come in a vacuum. It is the logical step that follows after shareholders try to negotiate with a company to address their concerns and after shareholder activism fails. Back when I opposed divestment, I was concerned that divestment was being invoked when the first two steps had not been tried yet, or at least pursued to its completion. This is not the case today. To their credit, the churches have gathered a full record of failed corporate engagement and have experienced years of frustrated shareholder resolutions that do not achieve the desired change in corporate behavior. Now that step one and step two have failed, it is time to move to the inevitable step three, and that is divestment. Not doing so puts at risk the integrity of the whole socially responsible investment model.

I want to make clear that I would not support divestment or boycotts from Israel as a whole. I do not support turning Israel into a pariah state. And it is precisely because of this that I support the churches’ measure approach to selective divestment. The resolutions under consideration–divesting from Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, and Hewlett-Packard–do not single out Israel, and they certainly do not single out Jews either. They single out specific corporate complicity with the occupation. Churches hold tobacco companies in their no-buy list, not because they believe that smokers are bad people. They do not single out smokers for criticism. They do so because smoking is wrong. In the same way, bulldozing civilian homes and making people homeless is wrong too. It does not matter whether this happens in Israel or elsewhere. The problem is not with the place or with the people, but with the action. This bulldozing is taking place in Jerusalem, where Palestinian homes are being bulldozed to make room for more Jewish settlements. Not condemning wrongdoing simply because it happens in Israel is singling out Israel. Israel does not need affirmative action; it needs to be treated exactly the same as every other state, not better, and not worse. This means acknowledging when it does things right, but also taking corrective action when it does not.

I’m thrilled that Mordechai has now signed on to our Rabbi’s Letter campaign in advance of the United Methodist Conference in Tampa this week, where the divestment resolution will be presented once again.

There will be much more to report on this important story – please stay tuned.

For Yom Hashoah: A Palestinian Meditation on the Holocaust

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In recognition of Holocaust Remembrance Day, please read these words of Ahmed Tibi, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and member of Knesset, who offered the following words before the Israeli Parliament in 2010:

This is the place and the time to cry out the cries of all of those who were and are no longer with us, the cries of those who have remained and who are struggling, justifiably so, to unburden themselves from the scenes of death and horror. I will once again repeat that I am full of empathy for the families of the victims of the Holocaust wherever they may be around the world, including those with whom I live on the same land, in the same country.

This is the moment in which every individual must relieve oneself of all of his nationalist or religious hats, relieve oneself of the otherness and wear just one robe: the robe of humanity. One must look at himself, look around him, and be human. Only human.

Full speech here.

Moment of Truth: Hunger Striker Khader Adnan Released

What Must Be Said: We All Profit from Occupations

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There’s been a great deal of analysis written about German writer Gunther Grass’ now-infamous new poem, “What Must Be Said” (in which Grass criticized Israel’s nuclear program as endangering an “already fragile world peace.”) For me, the most astute response by far comes from Mideast historian Mark LeVine, writing in Al-Jazeera.

LeVine skillfully parses the psychology and the politics behind the uproar – but it is his identification of the larger context of the issue that resonates most powerfully for me. Here’s a long excerpt from a much longer article. The entire piece is well worth reading:

Israel has always sought to portray itself as a “normal” country, yet goes out of its way to ensure no one “names it” – to use Grass’ words – as what it is, a colonial state that every day intensifies its occupation of another people’s land. And so Grass has taken it upon himself to “say what must be said”, to name Israel as what it is, a “nuclear power” that “endangers the already fragile world peace”. It’s worth noting he doesn’t even mention the occupation, which is the far greater threat to world peace.

I have no idea if Grass really believed himself to be “bound” to Israel; if he did, we can imagine the bond is broken today, at least by Israel, now that he’s banned from returning. But Grass’ feelings are not what’s interesting or important. What’s important is the larger context, all the other “facts” which refuse to be accepted as “pronounced truths”.

These facts are that Israel, however egregious its crimes – and anyone who denies them is either completely ignorant or a moral idiot – is but one cog in a much larger global machine, one that includes too many other cases of occupation, exploitation, and wanton violence to list comprehensively here (we can name a few – Syria, China, Russia, India, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Bahrain, Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka, the Congo, and of course, NATO and the United States – whose oppression, exploitation, and murder of their own or other peoples is a far more concrete “fact” than the potential for mass destruction caused by Israel’s nuclear programme)…

The larger fact is that the global economy is addicted to war, to militarism, oil and the rape of the planet for the minerals and resources that fuel the now globalised culture of hyperconsumption that will doom our descendants to a fate we dare not contemplate. Israel’s gluttony for Palestinian territory, and its willingness to encourage a regional nuclear arms race to keep it, is ultimately no different than the the gluttony for the 60-inch TV, the iPhone/Pad, the cavernous homes and cars, the ability to live at levels of consumption that are only sustainable if most of the world lives in poverty that increasingly defines all our cultures.

Israel has gotten Palestine on the cheap, and it costs relatively little to continue the occupation. Far less than it would cost to end it. So why bother? Especially when everyone else is doing, more or less, the same thing and, it’s clear, no one really cares anymore. Germany, whose remarkable economic stability in the recent global financial crisis is in good measure due to its central role in this global economy of hyper-consumption (think of all the energy and resources that go into making and driving all those fancy German cars), is certainly playing its role all too well.

If Grass is right that we must talk about the threat to world peace posed by Israel’s nuclear programme – and far more by its ongoing occupation – then we must also talk about the threat to global peace posed by the sick global system of which Israel is merely one of the more easily identifiable symptoms. Unlike my parents, I’m happy that Germans finally feel secure enough publicly to speak critically about Israel. But if they want their words to have a chance of bringing about a change in its behaviour, they, and everyone else, needs to broaden the discourse to include their own role in enabling and profiting from the system that Israel’s actions so benefits, and the global scope of the victims it daily produces.

Of course, this discourse would require a much longer and more complex poem, written by an even better poet than Grass. If someone manages to write it, I hope it will get the same publicity as “What Must Be Said”.

Moral Courage from the General’s Son

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Please, please take 30 minutes of your time to watch this presentation by Israeli peace activist, Miko Peled, author of the recently published book, “The General’s Son.”

Among other things, Peled’s ideas and convictions carry a profound sense of moral authority because he comes with impeccable Zionist credentials. His grandfather, Avraham Katznelson, was a prominent Zionist leader and signer of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. His father Matti Peled was a major Israeli military leader who fought in the 1948 War of Independence and was an Aluf (“Major-General”) during the 1967 Six-Day War. He later became a scholar of Arabic literature, a leftist politician, and a prominent Israeli advocate of peace talks with the PLO.

Miko is following in his father’s footsteps in more ways than one. In reading his book, it is so clear to me that he is an Israeli through and through and very much a product of his family’s remarkable history. At the same time, he has carried his father’s work of moral witness firmly into the 21st century.

In the video above, he addresses what he considers the fundamental myths of Israeli society: the “Land Without a People for a People Without a Land” myth of 1948, the “War of Survival” myth of 1967, and the myth of “Israeli democracy.” He also speaks eloquently about the moral outrage of the war in Gaza and the issue of Palestinian terror. (Tragically, Peled’s family has first-hand experience with the latter subject: his niece Smadar was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber in Jerusalem in 1997).

Please watch the clip and send the link on. Moral heroes such as Miko Peled deserve the widest possible audience.

PS: I’m thrilled to be able to say that the publisher of “The General’s Son,” Just World Books, will be soon publishing my book – a curated anthology of “Shalom Rav” posts and comments from 2008-2010. Much more on this soon – stay tuned!

Jewish Voices of Support for Church Divestment Resolutions!

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I’m already on record as fully supporting the Presbyterian Church (USA) divestment resolution that is being brought to the PC (USA) General Assembly this summer. Now I’m thrilled to report that my colleagues on the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council have released a letter in support of both the Presbyterian and the Methodist Church’s efforts to divest from three companies (Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, and Hewlett-Packard) that profit from the Israeli occupation.

Here’s an excerpt of our letter:

Every day Jewish leaders are building alliances with our interfaith partners to oppose all forms of oppression and to express our outrage over the confiscation of Palestinian land, the destruction of Palestinian farms, groves and homes, and to work to end the daily harassment and violence against Palestinian people.

Several Christian denominations are making brave, constructive decisions to investigate whether their churches’ investments contribute to this violence and oppression in Israel and Palestine.

We believe that to invest your own resources in corporations which pursue your vision of a just and peaceful world, and to withdraw your resources from those which contradict this vision, is the best way to support Muslims, Christians, Jews, Israelis, Palestinians –truly all people.

We can think of no greater act of friendship than to work with us, side by side to bring justice, equality and self-determination to all people. This selective divestment process is one of the strongest tools we have.

In making this decision, we are together, Jews and Christians, living up to the biblical promise to pursue justice.

I encourage you to visit rabbisletter.org for a plethora of resources, including FAQs, additional Jewish expressions of support – and the opportunity to sign on to our letter.

You can also click here to directly support the Methodist resolution (which will be considered at the United Methodist Church General Conference in Tampa on April 24-May 4) and here to support the Presbyterian initiative (which will brought before the PC USA General Assembly in Pittsburgh, June 30-July 7).

Rabbis of JVP Call on Obama: Don’t Let Bibi Pressure US into War on Iran!

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The Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council has just released the following statement, below. If you are a rabbi or cantor, please consider signing on.

We, the undersigned American Jewish clergy, are deeply concerned about reports that Prime Minister Netanyahu will demand of President Obama, at their meeting at the White House today, that either the United States attack Iran, or else, Israel will.

We do not welcome the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. We call on all the military forces in the region – including Israel’s – to divest themselves of their nuclear armaments and renounce any belligerent nuclear aspirations.

The State of Israel refuses to acknowledge its own nuclear arsenal or to submit to international monitoring. We believe it is hypocritical of Israel to demand of Iran what it refuses to agree to itself.

Most of the people of the State of Israel oppose Prime Minister Netanyahu’s military threats against Iran. They fear the consequences of an attack on Iran. As Jewish leaders, we too believe that the path of wisdom towards achieving peace and stability in the region is through dialog and engagement and not through acts of war. We call on the United States government to safeguard the interests of the people of Israel and Iran.

Nine years after the United States launched a war against Iraq that is widely recognized as having been badly executed and unjustified, Israel would have the U.S. implicate itself in a new war in the region, this time against Iran. We believe that Jews, and other Americans, will not support more reckless adventurism in the Middle East.

In this election year, we call on President Obama not to give in to warmongering. As Jewish leaders we cannot endorse an Israeli act of war against the people of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Bible teaches us: “bakesh shalom v’rodfehu – seek peace and pursue it.” We urge President Obama to stand firm and to use his power as Israel’s chief supporter to draw Israel to the path of peace and justice.

In the meantime, I strongly recommend MJ Rosenberg’s analysis of Obama’s much-anticipated speech at the AIPAC conference yesterday:

The President, in the middle of an election year, offered AIPAC no more than the bare minimum. In order to get away with that, he larded up the speech with embarrassing professions of love for Israel. I say embarrassing because no other country in the world demands such endless coddling. If a president spoke about Canada or the United Kingdom (two far closer allies) the way Obama does about Israel, he might be considered seriously off his game. Not to worry, he won’t.

But the lard doesn’t mean much except to smooth his way to the substance of the speech which Obama knew that neither AIPAC nor Prime Minister Netanyahu would like.

Why I’m Presenting at Harvard’s One-State Conference

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The Harvard Kennedy School is hosting a “One State Conference” this weekend and already the usual suspects are crying foul. Since I’m going to be speaking on a panel at the conference on Sunday, I thought it might be a good idea to weigh in with some thoughts.

I’ll begin with the stated vision/goals of the conference, according to student organizers:

To date, the only Israel/Palestine solution that has received a fair rehearsal in mainstream forums has been the two-state solution. Our conference will help to expand the range of academic debate on this issue. Thus, our main goal is to educate ourselves and others about the possible contours of a one-state solution and the challenges that stand in the way of its realization.

Sound reasonable? Not according to self-appointed Jewish community watchdogs like the ADL and NGO Monitor and the ubiquitous Alan Dershowitz and Jeffrey Goldberg. According to the ADL, such a conference could only be interested in “the elimination of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people.” Dershowitz referred to it as an “anti-Israel hate fest.” Goldberg thinks organizers share “a goal with Hamas: the elimination of Israel as a homeland and haven for Jews.”

Reading incendiary words such as these, I can’t help but be struck by the abject hysteria that gets regularly mistaken for public relations by the American Jewish establishment.

I find it fascinating that these concerned institutions and individuals are more than willing to rail against the wide eyed extremists and useful idiots participating in this conference, yet cannot take the time to ponder what might have brought us to this point in the first place. Has Abe Foxman, for instance, ever called out Israel over its settlement policy that has by now made a mockery of a viable two-state solution? Is Alan Dershowitz willing to bring half as much righteous anger to the concern that Israel is fast creating “one state” all by itself?

I wrote recently about the “ever-closing window” on the two state solution. We might still argue about whether or not the window has closed yet, but I think we can all agree that the prospect for a viable, equitable two state solution for Israel/Palestine is in serious jeopardy.

As I pointed out in my post, sooner or later we’ll be forced to choose between a patently undemocratic Jewish state that parcels out rights according to ethnicity and a democratic state in which equal rights are enjoyed by all its citizens. Given this scenario, is it unreasonable that people of good will seek to open conversations and suggest fresh, creative approaches that might ensure a better future for Israelis and Palestinians?

It’s even more ironic when you consider that notable and respected Israeli figures have been discussing a potential one state solution for some time. While the American Jewish establishment grows apoplectic at the very thought, Israeli society seems more than secure enough to tolerate the discussion.

As far back as 1991, for instance, respected Israeli/American political scientist Daniel J. Elazar promoted a one-state “federal solution” for Israel/Palestine (most notably in his book, “Two Peoples – One Land: Federal Solutions for Israel, the Palestinians, and Jordan.”) Meron Benvenisti, an Israeli political scientist who was Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem under Teddy Kollek from 1971 to 1978, has publicly advocated the idea of a bi-national state for several years. A more recent Israeli advocate of one state is Avrum Burg, former Speaker of the Knesset and chairman of the Jewish Agency, who wrote about the subject in a widely read 2011 op-ed in Ha’aretz.

It is even less widely-known in the American Jewish community that prominent numbers of the Israeli right wing, such as former Minister of Defense and Foreign Minister Moshe Arens and current Speaker of the Knesset Reuven Rivlin, have suggested the desirability of some form of a one-state solution. Granted, the solution advocated by Arens and Rivlin – an undivided state that nonetheless retains it’s exclusively Jewish character – differs significantly from the federalist or bi-national models promoted by Elazar, Benvenisti and Burg. Still, I believe these unlikely bedfellows share critical aspects in common: the conviction that a two-state solution is unworkable, a willingness to pursue fresh creative ideas, and – contrary to what many might claim – a hard-headed political realism.

Many of the conference’s critics have pointed out that secular multi-ethnic states simply do not work. Goldberg claims that it “barely works” in Belgium and Dershowitz points out that it failed in India and the former Yugoslavia. Fine. If this is the criticism, then let’s put this issue on the table and discuss it – as we most certainly will be doing this weekend (most likely at the panels entitled “Nationhood and Cultural Identity: The Preservation of the Peoples” and “What are the Obstacles to the Realization of a One-State Solution?”) But must we seek to marginalize the conference for simply seeking to have the conversation?

There are also criticisms that the conference is too “one sided” and that the presenters are unduly “biased.” In truth, the presenters in the conference represent a spectrum of opinions on this issue. Some (like Ali Abunimah) have openly advocated a one state solution, others (such as Stephen Walt) support a two state solution and some (like me) are agnostic on the issue. But I know many of the presenters personally and have long admired many more. Contrary to the venom being slung their way, these are thoughtful – if sometimes controversial – people of good will. While we are a diverse lot, I believe we share a common desire to broaden this scope of conversation and an eagerness to bring fresh new thinking to a painful and paralyzed status quo.

The student organizers of the conference have released an open letter to their critics. Here’s an excerpt:

The aim of this conference is to explore the possibility of different solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Invoking inflammatory language like “anti-semitism” and “destruction of Israel” to describe the ideas and speakers of the conference is not only incorrect and defamatory but serves to prevent rational discussion of ideas and preempt the effective exercise of speech.

I look forward to reporting on my experiences at the conference.