Dear Editor,
As an organization, the Campus Antiwar Network was disappointed by the lack of political content in John Dress’s letter to the editor on Nov. 19. His accusations are baseless and distract from the purpose of discussion on Israel/Palestine: creating a dialogue between different opinions to find a lasting, peaceful solution to the continuing conflict.
CAN is committed to using our power as students and citizens to oppose wars the United States is waging militarily or economically. Darfur is different from the Israel/Palestine conflict – the United States does not give $3 billion annually to the Sudan military and the United States does not veto U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for ceasefires or the observation of international law.
But economic and diplomatic assistance of this scale has been the defining feature of U.S./Israel relations for more than 30 years. Obviously, we oppose the Unites States’ occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, as outlined in our Points of Unity. We invite students to join in on our educational lectures on Afghanistan held regularly throughout the winter quarter.
It is offensive and ridiculous for Dress to suggest that CAN finds anti-Semitism “more acceptable” because it is not one of our Points of Unity. All discrimination is abhorrent. But anti-Semitism has never been used to justify the United States foreign occupations, while Islamophobia, racism, sexism and homophobia continue to be used in this way.
It is our assumption that Dress’s letter was written in response to the CAN event, Israel-Palestine: Eyewitness to the Occupation. The event featured a history of the conflict and peace process from the perspective of international law and presentations about the reality of the occupation from members of CAN who spend part of their summer in Israel/Palestine.
For CAN, the purpose of any dialogue on the subject of Israel/Palestine is to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict. We seek to reconcile three major issues that have validity under international law:
1. Both Israelis and Palestinians have the right to live in peace and security.
2. In 1948, a war between Israel and Palestine ended with 700,000 Palestinians outside of their land. Legally every refugee has the right to return or be monetarily compensated should they decide not to return.
3. In 1967, the state of Israel invaded its neighboring countries and has continued to occupy the West Bank.
It is noncontroversial that land acquired by a military campaign is inadmissible and that Israel is obliged to withdraw from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Instead, Israel began settling this land strategically in the 1970s. There must be a just resolution for the 500,000 Israeli settlers living on land acquired by force.
For this reason, it is pretty well understood that perfect justice on the issue of the settlements and refugees will not be achieved, but will have to be negotiated. We made the argument that the obstacle to peace in the last 30 years has not been the result of Palestinian or Arab intransigence. Instead, peace has been blocked by the policies of the United States and Israel, which have favored continuing expansion into the West Bank, making a peaceful settlement more and more complicated.
For example, on Nov. 18, Israel announced it would build 900 more houses in East Jerusalem. The U.S. press secretary noted that the Obama administration is “dismayed,” as if they could not make the annual $3 billion of military aid given by the United States conditional on respect for international law. The continuation of illegal settlements is counterproductive and cannot possibly have anything to do with security.
We spent two hours making this argument – that U.S./Israeli policies have been the primary obstacle to peace – during our Israel-Palestine: Eyewitness to the Occupation event and expected thoughtful critiques. CAN is a serious organization with serious political critiques. We expect to be challenged on the merits of our arguments.
Paul Erb
Campus Antiwar Network
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2. The issue is not that I cannot handle critiques. The issue is that I expected a critique to my argument about that the policies of the US/Israel are the primary obstacle to peace in Israel/Palestine. This is not a popular conclusion and I do not doubt that thoughtful critiques could be made, and I would appreciate them. I did not expect a critique about CAN is an organization. That seems irrelevant to me if our goal is to outline the contours of what a peaceful solution in Israel/Palestine should be. It is distracting from the issue to engage Dress in an argument about CAN, though we did try to answer questions that he and others might reasonably have about our group. I do not want to debate the merits and faults of CAN. Sure, I will do it with you over coffee if that is what interests you, but we are not going to organize events or submit articles to engage Dress in this distraction.
3. No one has ever given me a source or an agenda. I have read lots of books on this and many other topics by lots of different authors with different conclusions. I certainly have not agreed or liked every author I am willing to read and learn from. We agree that we should be willing to hear other people’s arguments and read their books seriously. This was actually the whole point of our event: to invite people who are likely to approach the issue of Israel/Palestine differently and engage them in thoughtful dialogue. I have never hid that I have reached a conclusion on the issue, but I continue to value other people’s thoughts and critiques. Again, my principle objection has been that I have yet to hear one. You have continued in the steps of Dress maligning CAN the organization and have added your own ad hominem approach. You have not critiqued my framework (international law), my conclusion (that the policies of the US/Israel are the principal problem), and no one who was at the presentation asked for any of the many sources I was prepared to give them. These would all be good examples of engaging my argument and making critiques. You might think of others.
4. As an organization we have done a lot around the Afghan War. We have shown the movie “Rethink Afghanistan” three times and PBS Frontline’s “Obama’s War” once. To commemorate the 8th year anniversary of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan at the beginning of the quarter, I spent many hours researching and organizing in order to present a 45 minute speech and truncated it to provide an article to the newsrecord. Overall, we have done a lot more around Afghanistan than Palestine. We didn’t include all of this in the article, because it is irrelevant and would have wasted our space limiting our ability to bring the conversation back to what should be the issue in replying to Dress: creating a civil dialogue between people with different conclusions on how to resolve the Israel/Palestine conflict.
5. I am sorry your experience in college has been a joke. I respect your opinion in blaming me for your bad experience, but I think the problem is your own.
6. I understand the issue may be “dead for 50 years” to you, but it just is not that simple for the Israelis and Palestinians. As I argued at some length in my presentation, the major obstacle to peace seems to be the policies of the US/Israel. We as citizens can do a lot to change our government’s unjust policies. I am often shocked how little people know about the salient issues to this conflict, especially given all the media attention that it gets (and, of course, US dollars). I do not share your conclusion that we “clog up space” by trying to educate people about it and by wanting to create dialogue. I think the issue is political apathy.
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