TEL AVIV – Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of California, Davis, on Friday admitted that it does not believe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be resolved “so long as the State of Israel exists.”
“The goal of Palestinian resistance is not to establish ‘love’ with those who are responsible for the suffering of the Palestinian people,” the group said in an article published by the student paper California Aggie.
Rather, the essay said, “it is to completely dismantle those forces at play.”
The full paragraph in question reads:
Lastly, it is an ideological fantasy to really believe that progress is possible so long as the state of Israel exists. Underlying this naive fantasy is the belief that a state that engages in racist laws, systematic killings and home demolitions can also function as a beacon of peace. The goal of Palestinian resistance is not to establish “love” with those who are responsible for the suffering of the Palestinian people; it is to completely dismantle those forces at play. So continue to watch in “horror,” because we are here to stay.
The piece was a response to a June op-ed written by the Aggies for Israel club, critiquing an anti-Israel protest against its “Choose Love” campaign.
In it, Aggies for Israel said the protesters held up signs saying “Justice is our demand, Palestine is our Land,” and “Resistance is justified when people are occupied.” The demonstrators also held posters declaring “Gofman has got to go,” referring to student government President Michael Gofman who is also member of Aggies for Israel.
Pro-Palestinian protesters also saw to it that property belonging to Jewish campus group Hillel at the University of Oregon was vandalized with expletives.
“As people shouted ‘f**k Israel,’ ‘f**k Michael Gofman’ and ‘you should have learned from Germany,’ in our faces, a question emerged: How could we have a ‘Choose Love’ campaign while people were choosing hate?” the oped asked. “These blatant anti-Semitic phrases go beyond any acceptable criticism of Israeli policies.”
SJP countered that the Germany reference was merely a comparison between the Berlin Wall and the West Bank security barrier, which Israel built during a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings during the Second Intifada.
Last year, a new report by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs said SJP seeks to “to isolate, demonize, and ultimately destroy” Israel and even had backing from terror-affiliated groups. Its authors, Dan Diker and Jamie Berk, warned against viewing SJP “as a pro-Palestinian equivalent to pro-Israel student groups.”
American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) was named as “arguably the most important sponsor and organizer” for SJP. Senior AMP employees include individuals who worked for organizations with links to Hamas.
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