RE: “SAIA misinforms about Israel”
In the Charlatan’s last issue, a letter written by Andres Gallacher claimed Students Against Israeli Apartheid-Carleton (SAIA) “misinforms about Israel.” Gallacher seemed incensed that a group on campus might have an opinion different from his own, an opinion that is becoming an enduring consensus: Palestinians have human rights.
As members of SAIA, we would like to deconstruct the core claims of Gallacher’s letter.
Regarding the allegation SAIA “attempts to shut down debate,” we contend there’s no group on campus that has faced more repression, including vandalized and banned posters, physical assaults, and many attempts from faculty, student, and outside lobby groups to constrain our discussions of Palestinian human rights.
The first argument in the letter implied the Arab minority of Israel’s population is equal because they can engage in political life. More than 30 Israeli laws discriminate against Palestinian citizens, spanning all fields of public life, including access to land, employment, and education.
Gallacher also forgets Palestinians living in the occupied territory have no right to vote for the Israeli government, although it governs almost every facet of their society.
Second, the letter claimed Israel is a “haven for sexual, religious, and ethnic minorities who would never be able to achieve their full human rights in any of the surrounding countries.”
This claim invokes a racist discourse of the Arab and Muslim world as savage and oppressive while Israel is painted as a liberal Western beacon in the darkness of the East.
The statement is untrue. Palestinian queer organizations have contended Israeli apartheid provides them no safe haven. Moreover, Israel’s treatment of African migrants is notorious, from detention camps to the forcible sterilization of Ethiopian-Israeli women.
Third, the letter refers to the 2012 Inter-Cultural Report, which has since been discredited in a letter signed by students, faculty, and even members of the commission who wrote the report. It was struck down not only for ignoring the struggles of most racialized groups on campus, but also for falsely equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
Israeli Apartheid is a matter of law, not opinion. SAIA doesn’t use the term “apartheid” lightly. Apartheid refers to the institutionalized domination of one group over another, also known as state racism. By its legal definition, apartheid includes distinctions based on race, religion, and national origin. In the case of Israel, the Jewish identity is codified as preferred.
Various bodies of legal experts have affirmed Israel’s practices constitute apartheid.
In 2009, the Government of South Africa commissioned a study which concluded Israel’s practices against Palestinian people amount to crimes of apartheid and colonialism.
Palestinian children are prosecuted as adults at age 12, for example, while Jewish settler children are at 18. Palestinian public gatherings of more than 10 people are outlawed, unless Israel is given advanced notice, while the same laws do not apply to Jewish settlers.
SAIA provides an important avenue for learning about the rights of Palestinians and other oppressed groups. We are calling on Carleton to divest from companies supporting military occupation. An educational institution like Carleton, which divested from South African apartheid in 1987, should welcome the conversations SAIA brings to campus.
