Two different faces of the Palestine Solidarity Movement appeared at their fifth annual conference held at Georgetown University this weekend - the first was divisive, the second inclusive.
Saturday's events opened with a speaker panel of activists for the movement's cause, divestment from Israel similar to the divestment from apartheid South Africa. The panel attracted numerous supporters and a few dissenters, and resulted in at least three men being escorted out of the room by Georgetown public safety for disrupting the program.
In a workshop later in the day called "Why divestment? Why Now?", more discussion took place about not only the movement for divestment but what the end goal should be and how to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Speakers looked to the South African divestment movement as an example of how to make their movement successful. Noura Erekat, one of the speakers and a former student leader for the movement at University of California, Berkley, called on current student leaders to revive the divestment movement in campuses across America.
"Are you ready to sleep on the lawns of your university president's homes [to protest for disinvestment]?" she asked students.
While the speakers were talking, a Jewish man dressed in white robes stood at the back of the center aisle, silently praying. Another dissenter, who did not use the microphone because it is traditional not to do so on the Sabbath, asked a question during a question-and-answer session that turned into shouting and name-calling and the man was escorted out by Georgetown public safety. Another dissenter asked for a policy statement from the movement saying they denounced suicide bombing but was escorted from the room after he yelled back that he did not receive a sufficient response.
The dissenters shouted at the speakers and called them liars, but the speakers responded. Sue Blackwell, another speaker on the panel, said she condemns terrorism in all forms, but Hamas is not the only group of terrorists in the world.
"I also unreservedly condemn the state's terrorism of Tony Blair, Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush, all of whom ... have more blood on his two hands alone than the whole of Hamas and Islamic Jihad together," she said.
Ali Abunimah, co-founder of The Electronic Intifada news service, and Mohammed Abed, lecturer in the department of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, led discussion at the workshop. Focusing more on the end goals of the divestment movement, Abunimah said the vision should be for a single, inclusive state.
Abed suggested a constitutional framework that would allow for federalism and group rights as well as individual rights. He acknowledged that the Israelis have a legitimate fear of losing power and suggested that this could be remedied by an inclusive system - not a Jewish state, not a Palestinian state, but one state with equal rights for all.
Both Abunimah and Abed emphasized the importance of the divestment movement as a non-violent way of effecting social and cultural change and the need to change the way supporters talk about the cause.
"This movement needs to start changing its language very, very quickly," Abed said. "[People need to] start speaking about the conflict in terms that other movements can relate to."
Abed said he would not advocate for an economic boycott of Israel on moral grounds, but a change in international civil society could bring a change in Israeli civil society. To attract support from other groups, including from Jews and Israelis, Abunimah said they need to clarify that their struggle is not against Israelis as human beings but against the system that he believes is racist.
Rainu Kukreja, a junior in the School of International Service, attended one of the workshops at the conference on organizing on campuses for awareness of the conflict issue. She said she was amazed by how many people came and how far they came from.
"Everyone had a very good energy," and knew a lot about their causes and what they wanted to do to affect change, she said.
Rachel Victor, a senior in SIS and the president of Students for Israel, did not attend the conference and does not agree with divestment. "Divestment is not what's going to help the Palestinians," she said. "It's a movement that's goal is really to destroy Israel"
