ANN ARBOR, Mich. — In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the United States is considered Israel’s last remaining key ally.
Aiming to change that, the anti-Israel movement on college campuses has adopted a message rooted in bedrock American ideals.
The Second National Student Conference on the Palestinian Solidarity Movement, held at the University of Michigan last weekend, framed its anti-Israel arguments in the language of civil liberties and human rights.
The new, slicker message showed the challenge Jewish groups will face after a conference that both sides considered a pivotal moment for anti-Israel activism on American campuses.
It’s still unclear whether the Oct. 12-14 pro-Palestinian conference, sponsored by a Michigan group called Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, will give the anti-Israel movement a lasting boost or, instead, show that the tide has turned against it.
The movement has come under increasing scrutiny in the past month after Harvard’s president said the anti-Israel activism bordered on anti-Semitism.
Some 300 university presidents then signed an American Jewish Committee ad criticizing the anti-Israel movement for allegedly intimidating its opponents.
The developments drew publicity to a movement that until then primarily had attracted campus radicals, but they also put the anti-Israel forces on the defensive.
The weekend conference showed that the pro-Palestinian groups are reacting to the spotlight by crafting an increasingly sophisticated message — and that Jewish activists are split on the proper strategy to confront it.
Mainstream groups such as Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life sought to avoid direct confrontation so as not to give the conference more publicity.
Hillel planned pro-Israel programming to highlight Israel’s democratic values, placing ads in campus newspapers, bringing pro-Israel lecturers to campus and sponsoring a pro-Israel rally on Oct. 10 with speakers from mainstream organizations.
A new group, Michigan Student Zionists, worked with Aish HaTorah, the Zionist Organization of America and Coalition for Jewish Concerns — Amcha in crafting a more confrontational approach.
The Zionist activists flanked the doors of the conference building, chanting that the pro-Palestinian movement was “justifying suicide bombing” and was anti-Semitic. They also staged a prayer service, counterconference, rally and a “street theater” demonstration where students scattered on the ground simulated the aftermath of a suicide bombing.
Leaders of Michigan Student Zionists filed a lawsuit trying to force the university to cancel the conference on the grounds that guest speakers — including Sami Al-Arian, a University of South Florida professor under federal investigation for links to terrorist groups — would incite violence.
A judge denied a hearing on the lawsuit, saying the plaintiffs didn’t have legal standing. Many of the 400 people at the pro-Palestinian conference represent extreme elements from 70 universities across the country.
Wayne Firestone, director of the Israel on Campus Coalition, a coordinating body for Israel advocacy sponsored by Hillel and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, said he wasn’t impressed by the Palestinian supporters’ new message. “I believe they’re very much on the defensive and they’re essentially failing,” he said. “They had almost no buy-in from the local Michigan population. And most of the participants were fly-ins.”