// essays //
December 2015
Israel Advocacy on Trial:
An Insider's Take
Marissa Young
When I tell people that I study at Columbia University, they usually ask me two questions: What are you studying, and how do you defend Israel? In fact, since a viral article published in early 2015 by David Horowitz of the Freedom Center designated Columbia as the number one “worst anti-Semitic campus” in the U.S., I get the feeling that people think I live in a battlefield. The logic goes that Jewish students on campus must stand up to defend Israel against its detractors. And my honest response, that our defense is often harmful to our cause, is hard for people to swallow. Israel advocacy, also called hasbara, has become a powerful institution that, despite its good intentions, has inadvertently narrowed the scope of what it means to be a pro-Israel university student. Israel is no doubt facing a crisis on campuses across the U.S. However, it is a problem that requires deep introspection about what this rallying cry of defense actually accomplishes.
For over a decade, Israel advocacy groups have actively assisted pro-Israel students on campus organize around Israel. Many of these hasbara groups were founded with the expressed mission of raising support for the Jewish State, and they boast their high success rates in terms of number of events held and number of students engaged. Certainly, education of pro-Israel students is crucial in fostering a knowledgeable community and should continue in earnest. And there is no question that anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiments are increasingly present across America and on many college campuses swastikas have been painted on fraternity houses and students’ leadership positions have been called into question or revoked because of their Jewish identity. Anti-Israel movements have been particularly vocal, staging highprofile events, and successfully linking the Palestinian struggle to an array of liberal causes, particularly civil rights. If Israel advocacy groups have been successful in curbing an anti-Israel trend, why do many claim that this trend is now stronger than ever? We must, therefore, ask ourselves the question: Have anti-Israel movements gotten stronger, or have our methods of Israel advocacy simply failed to subdue them—or perhaps a little of both? Indeed, when it comes to supporting Israel, we are doing something very wrong.
Though many hasbara organizations claim to embody a proactive approach to defending Israel, it is the language of defense that represents their fundamental flaw. It elicits the imagery of a courtroom, and it is this problematic approach that guides much of hasbara activity. The analogy goes like this: The pro-Palestinian prosecution has brought a series of claims against Israel, and the most prevalent among them is that Israel is an apartheid state that abuses human rights. It is up to the pro-Israel students, Israel’s defense attorneys, to argue against those claims and provide the judge—that is, the general public—with reasonable doubt to rule in our favor.
Knowing Your Audience
In the courtroom analogy, the first task is to identify the intended audience of the defense attorney’s case. Certainly, this group does not include active members of groups like Students for Justice in Palestine or those with strong anti-Israel sentiments. Rather, the intended audience is a neutral side of the conflict–the majority of college students who have not yet formed their views on the conflict. Many hasbara organizations claim to recognize this “apathetic” demographic, yet they train students to relate to the so-called apathetic as though they have already been convinced of an anti-Israel narrative. This means entering any sort of dialogue already on the defensive, unwilling to entertain concerns about Israel’s actions because it would just legitimize anti-Israel claims. However, unlike a courtroom scenario, a pro-Israel student is usually not debating the accuser herself, and therefore has a lot more leeway to acknowledge that a spectrum of opinions about Israeli policies exist even in Israeli society. Passionately arguing that you are right might be the best strategy in a trial, but aggressively fighting someone who does not perceive you as an enemy only makes it more likely that your interlocutor will become your enemy. And in the reality outside of a courtroom, a defense that refuses to admit even the slightest wrongdoing gives off the impression of guilt. Israel isn’t perfect and we shouldn’t need to pretend that it is in order to justify our support.
We also cannot make the mistake of viewing these undecided students as a jury. The job of a jury is to sit and listen to every detail of a case in order to make the most informed verdict possible. But very few people will take a fine-toothed comb to review Israel’s “case.” There are many issues in the world, and while we cannot possibly be experts in all of them, we inevitably form opinions on things we know too little about. Consciously or subconsciously, this occurs through a process of association, by which a person chooses the position that seems to best fit with their preexisting beliefs. While pro-Israel organizations supply bundles of talking points that explain why Israel is right, often all it really takes is a well-worded accusation full of buzzwords related to human rights (apartheid, occupation, oppression, etc.) for a person to assume that Israel is not a cause she wants to support. What matters, at the end of the day, isn’t the correctness of the position you take but the resonance of the language you employ. And sadly, the reasons why one would support Israel against these accusations require a broad and historical explanation that simply does not hold that “buzzword” power.
The Trap of Reaction
Unlike a court case, where the only way to win is with a strong defense, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on campus is not a simple battle between plaintiff and defendant. Unfortunately, traditional hasbara has yet to recognize the inherent flaw of this adversarial approach. Defense is inherently reactive—it arises only out of provocation. In this case, that means responding when a claim is brought against Israel. Such reaction is the root of the problem, because it places the pro-Israel side at a disadvantage from the start.
When faced with an accusation against Israel, there are two methods that Israel advocacy groups use to respond. The first is to answer the claim directly and explain why it is simply not true. Yet, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s complexity makes it hard to comprehend without a broad picture of the situation. At the end of the day, it is hard to explain to someone with no background knowledge why Israel is not to blame for the “x” many children killed in Gaza or for the Palestinian refugee issue, and even if a succinct explanation were sufficient, the bystander would likely still leave with the initial gruesome accusation dominating his thoughts.
Advocacy groups’ second defense tactic is to say, “there is so much more to Israel than the conflict and we should respond by highlighting the positive aspects.” This is an attempt to circumvent the problems of the first. But however impressive it is that Israel is the “Start Up Nation” and that its technological advances have contributed to the world, this is merely avoiding the problem when used as a response to a seemingly legitimate accusation. As opposed to a court case, where an alibi will tell a story of what innocent activities the defendant was involved in at the time of the crime, claiming that Israel was busy inventing the USB and the Intel chip is not a justification for the claims brought against it. Likewise, claims of “pinkwashing” have accused pro-Israel students of diverting attention from Israel’s alleged human rights abuses by pointing to its progressive treatment of its gay population. To be clear, pro-Israel students should be making conscious efforts to highlight the lesser-known aspects of Israel, such as its technological innovations, but this should be done for its own merit and not with the goal of answering, and avoiding, the tough questions. The tragedy of this response is that it invites anti-Israel students to use the whitewashing claim to delegitimize nearly any legitimate Israeli accomplishment.
But there is yet another reason why being reactive works against the pro-Israel community, and it is probably the biggest threat to Israel’s image on campus: reaction is what makes Israel news on campus in the first place. Many Israel supporters say that we are losing the PR war and Israel advocacy groups point to the way the country is portrayed in the media, fearing that a distorted picture of reality will convince college students to join the fight against Israel. Skewed coverage may indeed be the case, but it is not the root of the problem. The real issue is that we are extremely effective at spreading their narrative instead of our own. There is an ongoing conversation about how best to respond to SJP’s annual “Israel Apartheid Week,” but it is this response that creates a color war-like scene on College Walk and a comment frenzy in the Columbia Daily Spectator. In reality, anti-Israel events feed off of the pro-Israel reaction for their own publicity because, as everyone knows, controversy makes for interesting news. Protesting simply gives them a springboard from which to launch the controversy into the public sphere, and worse, on their terms. The conversation, no matter how many op-eds proIsrael students write, will always be centered around the original claim: Israel is an apartheid state, an oppressor, a gross violator of human rights.
Let’s face it: The people who care most about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have already made up their minds. The argument for reaction stems from the idea that we cannot leave the sizable chunk of apathetic students open to the noxious anti-Israel narrative that groups like SJP aim to spread. But does a demonstration on College Walk convince students to be antiIsrael, or doesthe sensational op-ed war surrounding the demonstration force them to notice and choose a side? There are all kinds of events on College Walk on many weeks of the year, but none receive as much media attention as Israel Apartheid Week does year after year. This is not because it is the most important issue to the student body. It is because it is the issue of most importance to the pro-Israel community. Our love for the State of Israel is such that it is painful to see it disparaged, and it is only natural that we publicly defend ourselves. But what ends up happening is that we bring an accusation that the pro-Israel community should not even legitimize to the forefront of campus conversation, and we lose all nuance in the process. This very dichotomy makes people feel like they need to make a choice—and it is much easier to support the accuser than stand with the accused.
Limiting Israel’s Supporters
There is a third consequence of this courtroom strategy that often goes unnoticed. Positioning Israel as a polarizing and divisive issue decreases the number of students who will outwardly identify as pro-Israel. And, if you are not involved in a pro-Israel group on campus, or do not feel like your knowledge of the conflict is vast enough to formulate an opinion, you might be among the large group of students who feel better off never broaching the issue at all. Thus, Israel constantly loses voices of support because students do not want to tarnish their relationships with their uninvolved peers, or do not wish to get into an argument. And as the situation stands, with many a discussion that includes the word “Israel” devolving into a cross-examination, that makes complete sense. So with most of the vocally pro-Israel students concentrated in the pro-Israel student groups, the rest of the campus community has no reference point from which to understand the conflict other than the one presented when antiIsrael students take to College Walk. If these silent students felt that they could talk about Israel without getting into a political debate, or get into a political discussion while acknowledging that they don’t have all the answers but they do have some, perhaps the topic of Israel would be a little less taboo.
The Way Forward
When I tell people that we should stop reacting to anti-Israel groups, they often respond that to do so would be to fail in our duties as pro-Israel students. In fact, I would argue that it is our duty as pro-Israel students to stop reacting altogether. Our identity and connection to Israel should be no more evident during Israel Apartheid Week than during every other week of the year.
The whole premise of the Israel advocacy movement is that we must defend Israel—this is a flawed notion. By claiming to defend Israel, we allow anti-Israel students to put Israel on trial, and help craft the perception that it may very well be guilty as charged. We are not Israel’s lawyers. When we spend our time preparing counter arguments and cross-examinations, we simply make this a high profile case in which we are the big bad Goliath, deserving of the deadly rocks slung our way. As Ze’ev Maghen, a Columbia alumnus and professor at Bar Ilan University and Shalem College, said in 1990, “It is only when we stop begging for approval from the world […] to aim at living up to our own rigorous moral and ethical standards and not those that others none too ingenuously set up for us…will others begin and continue to respect us.” Ironically, unlike the strategies of advocacy organizations, this strategy should come naturally.
The first step is to simply embody the principles we believe in—democracy, human rights, social justice, and more. Israel is indeed a haven for the LGBTQ community, a leader in environmental and technological development, and an emissary of humanitarian aid around the world—and, make no mistake about it, pro-Israel students are proud of Israel’s remarkable track record in these areas. These are values of the Jewish state, and it would only be natural for its supporters to join groups that champion these causes across campus, both in and out of an explicitly pro-Israel context. And so, when anti-Israel students make it seem as though they are the only ones with anything in common with social justice groups on campus, pro-Israel students will be in a better position to demonstrate that this is not the case. Moreover, engaging in social justice work proactively—and decidedly not as a response to anti-Israel accusations—means that genuine social justice work will be less likely to be obscured by “whitewashing” claims.
From there, the question of how to convince students to view anti-Israel events critically is addressed preemptively. Upon seeing a demonstration against “Israeli Apartheid,” a student will immediately think of her pro-Israel friend from her social justice club and ask her about what she saw. Contrary to the courtroom analogy, this exchange does not require pro-Israel students to be on the defensive. Rather, it makes room for critical discussion, in which it is okay for people to acknowledge a mistake Israel made, or a policy with which they disagree, and still ultimately convey the justice of their cause. This conversation will be more credible and more impactful than talking points from an organization with a clear agenda. No doubt, pro-Israel organizations are essential for organizing cultural, political, and academic events for anyone who is interested in learning more about Israel or being a part of a pro-Israel community. But the most effective way to influence people in times of controversy is to simply be friends with them. Students are more likely to connect to Israel as a result of natural friendships that are built on shared interests rather political precepts.
Somewhat counterintuitively, none of this involves protests or rallies. Rather, it calls for crafting an image of Israel on campus through action, rather than reaction. Most importantly, instead of letting our detractors define us, we must define ourselves. When leaving Israel through Ben-Gurion airport, one comes across a sign that says in Hebrew, “Outside of Israel, the state is you. Represent us with honor.” It is time we start representing Israel by honoring its values, not by representing it in court.
For over a decade, Israel advocacy groups have actively assisted pro-Israel students on campus organize around Israel. Many of these hasbara groups were founded with the expressed mission of raising support for the Jewish State, and they boast their high success rates in terms of number of events held and number of students engaged. Certainly, education of pro-Israel students is crucial in fostering a knowledgeable community and should continue in earnest. And there is no question that anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiments are increasingly present across America and on many college campuses swastikas have been painted on fraternity houses and students’ leadership positions have been called into question or revoked because of their Jewish identity. Anti-Israel movements have been particularly vocal, staging highprofile events, and successfully linking the Palestinian struggle to an array of liberal causes, particularly civil rights. If Israel advocacy groups have been successful in curbing an anti-Israel trend, why do many claim that this trend is now stronger than ever? We must, therefore, ask ourselves the question: Have anti-Israel movements gotten stronger, or have our methods of Israel advocacy simply failed to subdue them—or perhaps a little of both? Indeed, when it comes to supporting Israel, we are doing something very wrong.
Though many hasbara organizations claim to embody a proactive approach to defending Israel, it is the language of defense that represents their fundamental flaw. It elicits the imagery of a courtroom, and it is this problematic approach that guides much of hasbara activity. The analogy goes like this: The pro-Palestinian prosecution has brought a series of claims against Israel, and the most prevalent among them is that Israel is an apartheid state that abuses human rights. It is up to the pro-Israel students, Israel’s defense attorneys, to argue against those claims and provide the judge—that is, the general public—with reasonable doubt to rule in our favor.
Knowing Your Audience
In the courtroom analogy, the first task is to identify the intended audience of the defense attorney’s case. Certainly, this group does not include active members of groups like Students for Justice in Palestine or those with strong anti-Israel sentiments. Rather, the intended audience is a neutral side of the conflict–the majority of college students who have not yet formed their views on the conflict. Many hasbara organizations claim to recognize this “apathetic” demographic, yet they train students to relate to the so-called apathetic as though they have already been convinced of an anti-Israel narrative. This means entering any sort of dialogue already on the defensive, unwilling to entertain concerns about Israel’s actions because it would just legitimize anti-Israel claims. However, unlike a courtroom scenario, a pro-Israel student is usually not debating the accuser herself, and therefore has a lot more leeway to acknowledge that a spectrum of opinions about Israeli policies exist even in Israeli society. Passionately arguing that you are right might be the best strategy in a trial, but aggressively fighting someone who does not perceive you as an enemy only makes it more likely that your interlocutor will become your enemy. And in the reality outside of a courtroom, a defense that refuses to admit even the slightest wrongdoing gives off the impression of guilt. Israel isn’t perfect and we shouldn’t need to pretend that it is in order to justify our support.
We also cannot make the mistake of viewing these undecided students as a jury. The job of a jury is to sit and listen to every detail of a case in order to make the most informed verdict possible. But very few people will take a fine-toothed comb to review Israel’s “case.” There are many issues in the world, and while we cannot possibly be experts in all of them, we inevitably form opinions on things we know too little about. Consciously or subconsciously, this occurs through a process of association, by which a person chooses the position that seems to best fit with their preexisting beliefs. While pro-Israel organizations supply bundles of talking points that explain why Israel is right, often all it really takes is a well-worded accusation full of buzzwords related to human rights (apartheid, occupation, oppression, etc.) for a person to assume that Israel is not a cause she wants to support. What matters, at the end of the day, isn’t the correctness of the position you take but the resonance of the language you employ. And sadly, the reasons why one would support Israel against these accusations require a broad and historical explanation that simply does not hold that “buzzword” power.
The Trap of Reaction
Unlike a court case, where the only way to win is with a strong defense, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on campus is not a simple battle between plaintiff and defendant. Unfortunately, traditional hasbara has yet to recognize the inherent flaw of this adversarial approach. Defense is inherently reactive—it arises only out of provocation. In this case, that means responding when a claim is brought against Israel. Such reaction is the root of the problem, because it places the pro-Israel side at a disadvantage from the start.
When faced with an accusation against Israel, there are two methods that Israel advocacy groups use to respond. The first is to answer the claim directly and explain why it is simply not true. Yet, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s complexity makes it hard to comprehend without a broad picture of the situation. At the end of the day, it is hard to explain to someone with no background knowledge why Israel is not to blame for the “x” many children killed in Gaza or for the Palestinian refugee issue, and even if a succinct explanation were sufficient, the bystander would likely still leave with the initial gruesome accusation dominating his thoughts.
Advocacy groups’ second defense tactic is to say, “there is so much more to Israel than the conflict and we should respond by highlighting the positive aspects.” This is an attempt to circumvent the problems of the first. But however impressive it is that Israel is the “Start Up Nation” and that its technological advances have contributed to the world, this is merely avoiding the problem when used as a response to a seemingly legitimate accusation. As opposed to a court case, where an alibi will tell a story of what innocent activities the defendant was involved in at the time of the crime, claiming that Israel was busy inventing the USB and the Intel chip is not a justification for the claims brought against it. Likewise, claims of “pinkwashing” have accused pro-Israel students of diverting attention from Israel’s alleged human rights abuses by pointing to its progressive treatment of its gay population. To be clear, pro-Israel students should be making conscious efforts to highlight the lesser-known aspects of Israel, such as its technological innovations, but this should be done for its own merit and not with the goal of answering, and avoiding, the tough questions. The tragedy of this response is that it invites anti-Israel students to use the whitewashing claim to delegitimize nearly any legitimate Israeli accomplishment.
But there is yet another reason why being reactive works against the pro-Israel community, and it is probably the biggest threat to Israel’s image on campus: reaction is what makes Israel news on campus in the first place. Many Israel supporters say that we are losing the PR war and Israel advocacy groups point to the way the country is portrayed in the media, fearing that a distorted picture of reality will convince college students to join the fight against Israel. Skewed coverage may indeed be the case, but it is not the root of the problem. The real issue is that we are extremely effective at spreading their narrative instead of our own. There is an ongoing conversation about how best to respond to SJP’s annual “Israel Apartheid Week,” but it is this response that creates a color war-like scene on College Walk and a comment frenzy in the Columbia Daily Spectator. In reality, anti-Israel events feed off of the pro-Israel reaction for their own publicity because, as everyone knows, controversy makes for interesting news. Protesting simply gives them a springboard from which to launch the controversy into the public sphere, and worse, on their terms. The conversation, no matter how many op-eds proIsrael students write, will always be centered around the original claim: Israel is an apartheid state, an oppressor, a gross violator of human rights.
Let’s face it: The people who care most about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have already made up their minds. The argument for reaction stems from the idea that we cannot leave the sizable chunk of apathetic students open to the noxious anti-Israel narrative that groups like SJP aim to spread. But does a demonstration on College Walk convince students to be antiIsrael, or doesthe sensational op-ed war surrounding the demonstration force them to notice and choose a side? There are all kinds of events on College Walk on many weeks of the year, but none receive as much media attention as Israel Apartheid Week does year after year. This is not because it is the most important issue to the student body. It is because it is the issue of most importance to the pro-Israel community. Our love for the State of Israel is such that it is painful to see it disparaged, and it is only natural that we publicly defend ourselves. But what ends up happening is that we bring an accusation that the pro-Israel community should not even legitimize to the forefront of campus conversation, and we lose all nuance in the process. This very dichotomy makes people feel like they need to make a choice—and it is much easier to support the accuser than stand with the accused.
Limiting Israel’s Supporters
There is a third consequence of this courtroom strategy that often goes unnoticed. Positioning Israel as a polarizing and divisive issue decreases the number of students who will outwardly identify as pro-Israel. And, if you are not involved in a pro-Israel group on campus, or do not feel like your knowledge of the conflict is vast enough to formulate an opinion, you might be among the large group of students who feel better off never broaching the issue at all. Thus, Israel constantly loses voices of support because students do not want to tarnish their relationships with their uninvolved peers, or do not wish to get into an argument. And as the situation stands, with many a discussion that includes the word “Israel” devolving into a cross-examination, that makes complete sense. So with most of the vocally pro-Israel students concentrated in the pro-Israel student groups, the rest of the campus community has no reference point from which to understand the conflict other than the one presented when antiIsrael students take to College Walk. If these silent students felt that they could talk about Israel without getting into a political debate, or get into a political discussion while acknowledging that they don’t have all the answers but they do have some, perhaps the topic of Israel would be a little less taboo.
The Way Forward
When I tell people that we should stop reacting to anti-Israel groups, they often respond that to do so would be to fail in our duties as pro-Israel students. In fact, I would argue that it is our duty as pro-Israel students to stop reacting altogether. Our identity and connection to Israel should be no more evident during Israel Apartheid Week than during every other week of the year.
The whole premise of the Israel advocacy movement is that we must defend Israel—this is a flawed notion. By claiming to defend Israel, we allow anti-Israel students to put Israel on trial, and help craft the perception that it may very well be guilty as charged. We are not Israel’s lawyers. When we spend our time preparing counter arguments and cross-examinations, we simply make this a high profile case in which we are the big bad Goliath, deserving of the deadly rocks slung our way. As Ze’ev Maghen, a Columbia alumnus and professor at Bar Ilan University and Shalem College, said in 1990, “It is only when we stop begging for approval from the world […] to aim at living up to our own rigorous moral and ethical standards and not those that others none too ingenuously set up for us…will others begin and continue to respect us.” Ironically, unlike the strategies of advocacy organizations, this strategy should come naturally.
The first step is to simply embody the principles we believe in—democracy, human rights, social justice, and more. Israel is indeed a haven for the LGBTQ community, a leader in environmental and technological development, and an emissary of humanitarian aid around the world—and, make no mistake about it, pro-Israel students are proud of Israel’s remarkable track record in these areas. These are values of the Jewish state, and it would only be natural for its supporters to join groups that champion these causes across campus, both in and out of an explicitly pro-Israel context. And so, when anti-Israel students make it seem as though they are the only ones with anything in common with social justice groups on campus, pro-Israel students will be in a better position to demonstrate that this is not the case. Moreover, engaging in social justice work proactively—and decidedly not as a response to anti-Israel accusations—means that genuine social justice work will be less likely to be obscured by “whitewashing” claims.
From there, the question of how to convince students to view anti-Israel events critically is addressed preemptively. Upon seeing a demonstration against “Israeli Apartheid,” a student will immediately think of her pro-Israel friend from her social justice club and ask her about what she saw. Contrary to the courtroom analogy, this exchange does not require pro-Israel students to be on the defensive. Rather, it makes room for critical discussion, in which it is okay for people to acknowledge a mistake Israel made, or a policy with which they disagree, and still ultimately convey the justice of their cause. This conversation will be more credible and more impactful than talking points from an organization with a clear agenda. No doubt, pro-Israel organizations are essential for organizing cultural, political, and academic events for anyone who is interested in learning more about Israel or being a part of a pro-Israel community. But the most effective way to influence people in times of controversy is to simply be friends with them. Students are more likely to connect to Israel as a result of natural friendships that are built on shared interests rather political precepts.
Somewhat counterintuitively, none of this involves protests or rallies. Rather, it calls for crafting an image of Israel on campus through action, rather than reaction. Most importantly, instead of letting our detractors define us, we must define ourselves. When leaving Israel through Ben-Gurion airport, one comes across a sign that says in Hebrew, “Outside of Israel, the state is you. Represent us with honor.” It is time we start representing Israel by honoring its values, not by representing it in court.
// MARISSA YOUNG is a Senior in Columbia College. She can be reached at my2356@columbia.edu. Photo courtesy of flickr user thisisbossi.