social networks & sub-platforms
friends of the ISM
Alliance for Education Protests Cologne/Bonn
All Nepal National Free Student's Union
Amnesty International Liberia Group
Bildungsprotest (= Education Protest) Würzburg
Dept for Higher Education Politics at the OvG University of Magdeburg
Free Education Movement Marburg
Portland Coalition to Defend Education
SMI Centre
(Indonesian Student Union)
SMI Semarang City
(Indonesian Student Union)
Statewide Pupils Association Bavaria
Students for a Democratic Society - Arlington
Students for a Democratic Society - Dallas
...
to have your group/project added contact united.for.education@gmail.com
Co-ordinated Actions
Who's online
Space for Discussion on Israel / Palestine conflict
The mailing list is mainly to spread announcements, reports and general information related to the struggle against the privatisation of public education and for free and emancipatory education. Furthermore there are close to 1,200 addresses on it, therefore we should try avoid having discussions over the list. This is to avoid that people not interested in a particular discussion will not be flooded with spam.
Therefore I suggest and urge all those interested in discussing the Israel/Palestina issue to use the forum here.
For all to be on the same level of information I am publishing all the messages sent to the mailing list in connection with this issue so far:
"University occupation in Naples, in solidarity with the activist of the Freedom Flotilla"
01st June 2010
This morning, 'University L'Orientale' in Naples has been occupied to denounce Israeli crimes, the block of Gaza Strip and yesterday's barbarian attack to the boats which were supposed to bring humanitarian aid in Palestine. This attack caused at least 9 deaths and a lot of wounded in the night between May the 30th and the 31st .
It's just another massacre of Palestinian people and its mates! We must stop the Zionist politics of apartheid, imperialism and violence! Just like in January 2010, we must occupy faculties and take the streets, reclaim justice, boycott Israel and all the governments which support it...
Israel kills, indifference too!
Collettivo Autorganizzato Universitario ? Napoli
www.caunapoli.org
Red Net - Network of self-organised students
www.red-net.it
- sent by Julik -
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Peace
- sent in Andreas -
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The National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts in Britain has released a statement. I think it is right for students internationally to show solidarity with the Palestinians.
It has come to the attention of NCAFC that, following the recent attack by Israel on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza, a demonstration is planned on Saturday 5 June at 1.30pm in front of Downing Street– when NCAFC was due to have its national meeting. Given that campaign members from across the UK have already booked transportation, we have made the decision to go ahead with our national meeting as planned, but we stand in solidarity with those attending the protest.
Additionally, the NCAFC has prepared a statement about the attack:
The National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts condemns Israel’s recent attack on the flotilla boats taking crucial aid to the Gaza strip. We condemn Israel’s three-year blockade of Gaza and their military assaults on the Palestinian people.
During the 2009 attacks on Gaza, students in Britain launched a wave of occupations to show their solidarity with the Palestinian people, the first occupations in many years. Many of the students who took part in the occupations and mass demonstrations have remained active in the fight against fees and cuts today.
We also offer our support and solidarity to the many students involved in the aid flotilla that have been attacked, and in particular send our solidarity to the SOAS students currently detained in Israel.
Our internationalism means that the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts stands in solidarity with the students and workers living under oppression in the occupied territories and with movements within Israel resisting the aggressive imperialist policies of the Israeli state.. Their struggle is our struggle.
- sent by John -
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Hi Andreas,
My family left Jerusalem when I was 8. I am a Jew.
Some of my family are survivors of the Holocaust, others, of the earlier pogroms; many others did not survive. I have relatives in Tel Aviv and friends and family who have served in the IDF.
I personally have reflected many times over, as have many American Jews, and am strongly opposed to the policies of Israel, to its government, and to the idea of Israel as an exclusively Jewish state.
I do not think it should be a problem for students in Italy - or Wisconsin - or Haifa - to post updates about their protests regarding the attack on the Free Gaza Movement. I think you are wrong to react so strongly to that informational posting. And frankly, I wish Europeans who wished to do something about anti-Semitism would spend time updating us in the rest of the world about your efforts to destroy it in Switzerland, France, Britain, Poland, and especially Austria, where to us in the U.S.A., it appears most dangerous.
At the same time, I also think that you are correct that for this issue - Palestine/Israel - should not be conflated with the ISM itself.
They are related, but they are not the same.
- Ben Manski
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What's wrong with being Anti-Zionist. A lot of Jews are Anti-Zionist and I consider myself an Anti-Zionist to.. But that's because I know what Zionism is about: Zionism is about taking the jewish people to historical Israel (wherever religious and ethnic Jews may be) and to displace the native Arab population. Make no mistake about it. This is Zionism. And a lot of Jews deplore this very concept. Yes, historically speaking the Jewish has of course endured a lot of suffering (the Holocaust being just the last chapter), but of course to any rational/emotional person none of this justifies the displacement and killing (yes this also is justified in Zionism) of the native Arab population. If someone agree to this then they should look up the meaning of cognitive dissonance in google.
As for the Jews that are against zionism: Neturei Karta (I'd advise you to read a little bit on their literature) and a lot of people and organizations. But this is nothing extraordinary if you know what Zionism is about. It is ruthless, it is barbaric, and it is totally inhuman.
To criticize the latest of Israel has nothing to do with being Anti-Zionist by the way. It just has to do with being a coherent and decent human being. The Gaza blockade is illegal, at no point the people in the flotilla put at risk Israel territory integrity and at no point they intended to go to Israel. Gaza isn't Israel.
Some things that aren't being that much reported.
The activists are talking about being shot at before the IDF entered the boats.
The activists were tasered, clubbed and manhandled.
The poor treatment continued during interrogation and the deportment.
The activists are being accused (in the legal sense of the word) of entering Israel illegally. They were forced into Israel!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2qNHnjjrjQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6jF37fURHk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1sH_RE4CY0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU1EAFshLv0
Norman Finkelstein is a jew that had both his parents in concentration camps.
He had a lot of family members killed in concentration camps. And this is what he has to say about using the Holocaust to justify the abuse of millions of people that had nothing to do with it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nSKsdK57b8
By the way the anti-semitism accusation is a really pathetic one and it borders on racism. If you criticize Israel's actions you're labeled as an anti-semit, but Arabs are semitic too. And I have never heard no one that criticized an Aran state being called an anti-semit. Kinda odd don't you think?!
Peace
- sent by Armando -
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I think it's perfectly legitimate to criticise Israel's actions in this case and to "take sides" in the sense of condemning the attack on the flotilla and the continuing oppression of the Palestinians.
I say that as a member of an organisation - Workers' Liberty - which has consistently criticised the "absolute anti-Zionist" "reflex" of much of the left in the UK. In fact I suspect the reason the NCAFC statement is much more nuanced than the statement from the Italian comrades (Israel = apartheid, boycotts etc) is that my comrades had some hand in it. Or at least that others know we would fight against the NCAFC putting out a statement similar to the Italian one.
- sent by Sacha -
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No, Armando, that is not correct. "Anti-Semitism" is a place-specific term that has its origins primarily in northern Europe. It means anti-Jewish, and specifically, European anti-Jewish racism. You will not generally see Jews referring to Arabs as anti-Semites because, not only is the term ridiculous in that context for the reasons you state, but much more importantly, anti-Semitism is a European invention.
This said, this list is not the best place for such a discussion, I don't think. As we say here in the states . . . keep your eyes on the prize.
- Ben
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Armando,
1. No offence, but this last comment is silly. Yes, both Jews and Arabs are "semites". But "anti-semitism" as a term means anti-Jewish racism.
People regularly refer to anti-Arab racism (including that of the Israeli government), but that is just not what anti-semitism means. Your comments are wordplay, not seriously analysis.
2. Also, please note that while not all criticism of Israel is anti-semitic, some critics of Israeli ARE anti-semites! The left fails to acknowledge this at its peril.
- sent by Sacha -
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Yes. I agree that the term anti-semitism is ridiculous, but I also think that the current usage of the term borders on racism. But like you say: this is not the place to discuss these things.
Take care.
- sent by Armando -
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> When you start to talk like this, me and a lot of Swiss activist will leave
> the international Movement.
When you talk like this, it is no loss that you leave, really. But much better: educate yourself!
- sent by mp -
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this is one of the bad things, that I start to have a reflex against the reflex.
one should be aware that antisemitism is a part of our culture and that this (as it is in Switzerland) unreflected anti-israel reflex of a lot of lefties in CH is dangerous and supporting this reflex.
I said above one can criticise Israel, but he should do it without an anti-israel refelx.
It is somehow wiered (and somehow not) that there are demonstrations all of a sudden when Israel does something, allthough it doesnt influences our lives actually, like other conflicts.
There havent been such strong public reactions and OCCUPATIONS of universities, when for example Russia (seemed to) invaded Tschetenia.
So this reflex is a part of our culture, and I am against this reflex.
Peace
- sent by Andreas -
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Internacionalist greetings from Brazil,
Ricardo Malagoli
Active forum topics
News
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We think the response to
We think the response to Israeli attacks against Palestinians is necessary. That is the claim about the freedom of living for one country, matters relating to the person's right to life, just as demanding free education, as part of a person's right.
Today, we will carry out the action in Jakarta and Yogyakarta to respond to Israeli attacks. Our demands are Stop Killing Palestinian People, Against Zionist and Political Apartheid that do by Israel. Independence and Justice for Palestine now.
we did not think to fight the Israeli society, we also know that the people of Israel take action to oppose the Israeli government against Palestinian. Our attack is zionism that carried out by the goverment of Israeli.
In Solidarity Movement,
Mutiara Ika
Not my own text!
Hey there! The following text is not my own. I got it from
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/anti-semitism-without-anti-semites/?singlep...
The author is a well knwon german publicist. It´s a speech he held in front of a Domestic affairs committee of the german "Bundestag" (the german parliament).
I think the translator made enough notes to understand the german-specific hints. But it concerns a general, not only german, problem of the left: anti-zionism. If you have any other questions regarding the text´s understanding don´t hesitate to ask.
Thanks for reading!
"I thank you for the invitation to this hearing. It is an honor for me to be able to speak to you. I know that there has been some unhappiness on account of my participation. But I am sure that by the end of my statement you will not regret having invited me.
This is not the first hearing on the issue of anti-Semitism and it will not be the last. Ever since the writer and self-avowed Jew-hater Wilhelm Marr published his “The Triumph of Germandom [Deutschtum] over Jewry” in 1879, thus becoming the leader of political anti-Semitism in imperial Germany, there have been numerous attempts made to define, explain, and neutralize anti-Semitism. They have all failed. If this was not the case, we would not be here today. Every discussion of anti-Semitism starts with a definition of the concept. And many get no further than that, such that after all the efforts to get a grasp on the phenomenon one is left merely with the finding that anti-Semitism is, as the old joke goes, “when one can’t stand Jews even more than is normal.”
I would like, therefore, to concentrate on two points: two arguments to which one has to pay special attention if one does not want to conduct a merely virtual debate. Firstly, anti-Semitism is not a matter of a prejudice, but rather of a sort of resentment. In and of themselves, prejudices — literally “pre-judgments” [Vorurteile] — are harmless. I have prejudices, you have prejudices: everyone does. It is only negative prejudices that bother us. If I say to you that Germans are hardworking, disciplined, and show their guests great hospitality, you will happily agree with me. If, however, I say that Germans are cheap, infantile, and lack a sense of humor, you will presumably get upset. That’s an unacceptable generalization, you will say. It is the same with Jews. We gladly hear positive prejudices expressed — on the “people of the book” or Jewish humor — but negative prejudices, which thematize our worse tendencies, we take as an insult.
The distinction between a prejudice and a resentment is as follows: a prejudice concerns a person’s behavior; a resentment concerns that person’s very existence. Anti-Semitism is a resentment. The anti-Semite does not begrudge the Jew how he is or what he does, but that he is at all. The anti-Semite takes offense as much at the Jew’s attempts to assimilate as at his self-marginalization. Rich Jews are exploiters; poor Jews are freeloaders. Smart Jews are arrogant and dumb Jews — and, yes, there are also dumb Jews — are a disgrace to Jewry. The anti-Semite blames Jews in principle for everything and its opposite. That is why there is no point in trying to debate anti-Semites or in wanting to convince them of the absurdity of their views. One has to marginalize anti-Semites: to isolate them in a sort of social quarantine. Society must make clear that it disdains both anti-Semitism and anti-Semites: just as it disdains parents beating their children and rape — including spousal rape — even though it well knows that it cannot monitor everything that transpires behind closed doors.
Secondly, if you want to come to terms with anti-Semitism, you must realize that it is not a fixed quantity like the meter prototype in Paris or the definition of the volt, watt, or ampere. Like all social phenomena, anti-Semitism is susceptible to transformation. Even poverty is no longer today what it once was at the time of Oliver Twist. The anti-Semitism that we are most readily inclined to discuss is an artifact of the last century and the century before that. It is the anti-Semitism of fools, who are still chasing chimeras. [In the late 19th century, the German Social Democrat August Bebel famously described anti-Semitism as the "socialism of fools." -- Translator's Note] The common anti-Semite has no real idea about the object of his obsessions, but only a diffuse feeling. He lets off steam by painting swastikas on aluminum siding and scribbling “Juda verrecke” ["Jews go croak!"] on gravestones. He is a case for the police and the local courts, but nothing more than that. Nobody is going to feel sympathy for thugs who raise their arms to give the Hitler salute and shout “Juden raus!” ["Jews out!"]. This sort of anti-Semitism is ugly, but politically irrelevant: it is its own death notice.
The modern anti-Semite looks entirely different. He does not have a shaved head. He has good manners and often an academic title as well. He mourns for the Jews who died in the Holocaust. But at the same time he wonders why the survivors and their descendants have learned nothing from history and today treat another people as badly as they were once treated themselves. The modern anti-Semite does not believe in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But instead he fantasizes about an “Israel lobby” that is supposed to control American foreign policy like a tail that wags the dog. For the modern anti-Semite, it goes without saying that every year on January 27 he will commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz. But at the same time he militates for the right of Iran to have atomic weapons. For “how can one deny Iran what one has permitted Israel or Pakistan?” as Norman Paech [the foreign policy spokesperson of the German Left Party] has put it. Or he inverts the causal relationship and claims that it is Israel that is threatening Iran and not vice-versa — as [German Middle East scholar] Dr. Udo Steinbach did in a recent radio interview. The modern anti-Semite finds ordinary anti-Semitism disgraceful. He has no problem, however, embracing anti-Zionism and is grateful for the opportunity to express his resentment in a politically correct form. For anti-Zionism is a sort of resentment just like classical anti-Semitism was. The anti-Zionist has the same attitude toward Israel as the anti-Semite has to Jews. He is not bothered by what Israel does or does not do, but rather by the fact that Israel exists. That is why he participates so passionately in debates about the solution to the Palestinian question — which could well mean a final solution for Israel. On the other hand, he is left indifferent by conditions in Darfur or Zimbabwe or Congo or Cambodia, because there are no Jews involved in those places. Ask the foreign policy spokesperson of the Left Party, for instance, how many statements he has issued about “Palestine” and how many about Tibet.
Earlier — let’s say at the time of classical anti-Semites like Wilhelm Marr, Karl Lueger, and Adolf Stoecker — everything was plain and simple. There were Jews, there were anti-Semites, and there was anti-Semitism. After 1945, for the well-known reasons, we then had in Germany an anti-Semitism without Jews. And now today we are again confronted by a new phenomenon: an anti-Semitism without anti-Semites. Another new phenomenon is the professional profile of what might be called the “leisure time anti-Semite” who does his regular job during the day, perhaps even in a federal government office, and then in his spare time writes “critical” texts on Israel that appear on obscure anti-Zionist websites. [The reference is to Ludwig Watzal, an official of Germany's Federal Office for Civic Education (BpB), many of whose articles have been reprinted on the site antimperialista.org. See here on Watzal. The BpB has resisted calls for Watzal's dismissal, arguing that the writings in question are not connected to his professional activity. -- Translator's Note] Nobody wants to be an anti-Semite, but the “anti-Zionist” hall of shame is getting increasingly crowded.
Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are two sides of the same coin. If the anti-Semite was convinced that it is not him, the anti-Semite, who is to blame for anti-Semitism, but rather the Jew himself who is to blame, so too is the anti-Zionist convinced that Israel is responsible not only for the suffering of the Palestinians, but also for the hardship it suffers itself. The older persons among you will perhaps remember what a Green Party politician, who is still a member of the Bundestag, said about the Iraqi rockets that were fired at Israel at the time of the first Gulf War in 1991: “The Iraqi rocket attacks are the logical, nearly unavoidable consequence of Israeli policy.” [The author of the quote is Green Party Member of Parliament Hans-Christian Ströbele. -- Translator's Note] At the time, the same Green Party politician also opposed the delivery of defensive weapons like Patriot rockets to Israel, because this would, he claimed, lead to an escalation in the hostilities.
Today, some 17 years later, we hear similar remarks about rocket attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon or the Gaza Strip: namely, that they are the logical, nearly unavoidable result of Israeli occupation and that Israel would do well not to react in order to avoid escalating hostilities. The modern anti-Semite pays tribute to Jews who have been dead for 60 years, but he resents it when living Jews take measures to defend themselves. He screams “Beware of the Beginnings!” when a handful of weekend Nazis hold a demonstration in Cottbus, but he justifies the policies of the current Iranian president and defends the continuation of German business with Iran.
Ladies and gentleman, we will not solve the problem of anti-Semitism: not at this hearing nor at the next. But the mere fact that you are discussing the issue — when there are also other and more pressing problems that need attention — is a good sign. If I may in all modesty make a suggestion: leave the good old anti-Semitism to the archaeologists and antiquarians and historians. Devote your attention to the modern anti-Semitism that wears the disguise of anti-Zionism and to its representatives. You will find some of the latter among your own ranks.
I thank you for listening."
Response from an activist at National Union of Israeli Students
Dear friends,
Yesterday I returned from Poland after a one week journey with 120 Israeli students.
We visited concentrations camps - Auschwitz, Meidanek, Treblinka…
There, I saw and experienced what hatred can do…
Millions of people were murdered by human beings (even though it's hard to call them humans because of their monstrous actions).
Millions of Jews were butchered, murdered and burned just because they were Jews…
Upon my return to Israel, the first thing I hear in the news is that a business man was attacked in Madrid, that people in London think Israel does not belong to us and we should leave, that there are calls for boycott everywhere, that the white house correspondent (who by now apologize and resigned from her job) says that we (the Jews) should go back to Germany and Poland and more…
I couldn’t believe it…
Probably all of you heard about the Flotilla of 6 ships to Gaza at the 31 of May. The Israeli soldiers didn’t have a choice and needed to defend their lives. But everyone thought that we are to be blamed and that it was a peace flotilla (when actually it was a terrorist Flotilla - at least on Mavi Marmara ship).
I decided to send you a link in which you can find some facts and short films which describe what really happened there:
www.flotillafacts.com
We cannot sit on the fence - we have to do something. We the students have the power to influence and change.
We, the Israeli students, are very concerned with what is happening in the world and do whatever is needed so that our history doesn't repeat itself…
Sincerely yours,
Lilach Meir
Head of the Foregin Affairs Department
N.U.I.S (National Union of Israeli Student)
E-mail: lilach@nuis.co.il