As I am sure we are all aware, recently for Israeli Apartheid Week the Emory Students for Justice in Palestine (ESJP) set up a display on the terraces of the Dobbs University Center (DUC). The display, a simple wall of facts, showcased a very large title that read “Israel is an Apartheid State” in bold, capitalized letters. For those of you who don’t know, apartheid, as defined and adopted by the United Nations refers to “acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.” The wall listed several supposed facts that all supported its declaration.
As Emory is well known for its large and active Jewish community, a display of this nature was not taken lightly. Unfortunately, the wall was almost immediately vandalized, an act of crime that has been strongly condemned by Emory Hillel, a Jewish student group. But, in an almost retaliatory manner, Hillel constructed its own fact wall, dubbed “The Truth Wall,” which was quickly erected on McDonough Field. Positing the opposite claim that Israel was in fact not an apartheid state, the wall showcased three supposed “myths” about Israel and its policies, as well as further listing a handful of facts demonstrating Israel’s inclusivity. While the matter appears to be hardly resolved, so far there appear to be no further plans made by either team to erect a third wall.
Which brings me to my point. ESJP clearly thought that setting up a wall that displayed their opinion was the right way to go. Hillel, in turn, clearly believed that setting up a wall of their own was the proper response. The futility of setting up walls to facilitate open discussion notwithstanding, both walls prominently displayed facts of their own, snippets of statistics that I am sure are all in fact true. Let me repeat that. All facts, on both walls, are probably true. But wait, you say. If both walls arguing completely opposite points are supported by true facts, then which one is right? Here’s the truth about the facts on both walls. Every fact posted on either wall came with no context, outside of its intended use on said wall. In the interest of not bombarding students with a wall of text (ironically), the groups decided to handpick short and easily remembered clips of statistics and display them as truths. This means that while the numbers and facts students read off of them may in fact be entirely true, no one without further research can truly come up with a conclusion. In reality, both walls of facts are presented by two completely biased groups with their own agendas of disseminating information and rallying the masses. There is a term for such a “fact,” one that I am sure you all know: propaganda. As defined by Oxford Dictionaries, propaganda is “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.” Sound familiar?
[padding type=”medium_left_right”][quote_box name=””]If both walls arguing completely opposite points are supported by true facts, then which one is right?[/quote_box][/padding]
A caveat: by my own argument then, one could argue that no fact or information presented by an individual or group is reliable, as everyone is biased. The news industry, by nature, is largely run by reporters and corporations who all have their own political beliefs and personal biases. However, what sets apart The Emory Wheel, for instance, from ESJP and Hillel is quite simple. The Wheel, I hope, strives to be as unbiased as possible when presenting facts, news and information, even while understanding that achieving perfect objectivity is impossible. This means that while they may not be perfect, they are doing their best to be as reliable and newsworthy as possible. The same cannot be said of ESJP and Hillel, two student groups who in their recent actions have blatantly made it their mission to disseminate information that further supports their own political agenda.
Now, I am not saying that these student groups, or student groups on Emory campus in general, should abstain from furthering their own beliefs and platforms. Part of being in college is to engage in discussions on relevant and controversial issues. Only in an open discussion can people question the facts presented by both groups, share different and conflicting ideas and earn mutual respect for either side. The thing is, ESJP and Hillel did not set up those walls to facilitate discussion in an effective manner. While yes, each board was accompanied by members of their respective group to answer questions, turning to a student group with a stake in a controversial issue for an objective answer would be naïve at best. Neither wall (nor its student facilitators) bothered to represent or acknowledge the multiple facets of a troubling and complex problem. Students were not meant to question the facts presented on the wall. Instead, students were meant to simply accept the statements as truths, with no further thought of their own.
Come on, Emory. We are better than this.
Eugene Ahn is a College senior from Raleigh, North Carolina.
Communicating any complex political situation (or any situation) is difficult. But some political situations are very important. So the question is: if a political situation is important, how do you communicate that to people? Walls or lists of facts don’t end a conversation, but they’re one way to initiate a conversation. If you feel both sides had good points. that’s a reason to look further into the issue: it’s not SJP or Hillel’s fault that you don’t know what to think about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
There’s also a difference between “bias” and “having a political agenda.” Sometimes a political agenda is true. What you’re asking for is a moderate, not an “unbiased person”: a moderate can just as easily be biased if the truth lies with one of the two “sides.”
Finally, this piece reads like an indictment of activism, as if no one should ever care enough about a political issue to try to persuade other people to care about (and act on) it, too. The problem is 3,000 people just got killed in Gaza and Netanyahu just said he never wants to see a Palestinian state. Rather than criticizing other peoples’ communications tactics, the question is: what are you doing about it? If you think Hillel or SJP should communicate their ideas better, then join the organization you agree with. If you don’t know who’s correct, then do the work and find out.
Is anyone here aware of the original Palestine? This is the nickname that the Roman Empire gave to the Levant ca 70 Ad. The Levant not only includes Israel, but also Lebanon and Jordan. The so-called “Palestinians” are Jordanians. They have no different language, nor culture. They are simply Arabs, as opposed to Israel which has its own language, culture, and which has historically been there for hundreds of years. Yes! Israel deserves its own state, on land that is historically theirs! Before the 1968 war, Israel warned its citizens of the impending conflict, and most of the Arabs fled. They hate Israel, and they want it to be wiped off the map. They don’t deserve their own state. Giving them their own state right next to the country they want to annihilate will cause even more conflict and will cause even more death and destruction. Did you know that the Arabs who stayed in Israel during the 1968 war became Israeli citizens? They are called Israeli Arabs. Did you know that they have jobs and have just as many rights as Jewish Israelis?