Senate Bill 160, which calls for targeted divestment from companies that profit from human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, passed last week in U.C. Berkeley’s student senate. The debate it sparked left us frustrated with the broken campus dialogue on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — yet also hopeful because the conversation in the Berkeley Jewish community seems to be changing.
We both come from Jewish homes in Los Angeles, where we spent countless Shabbat mornings in shul. We both spent high school semesters studying in Israel. We arrived at Berkeley as dedicated supporters of Israel who were looking for an open space in which to ask challenging questions about Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank.
We found that space in J Street U. We found people who believe, just like us, that American Jews have an obligation to protest and discuss the injustices we witness, especially those in Israel, a place with which we have deep, personal connections.
The fall before we arrived at Berkeley, J Street U was denied membership in the school’s Jewish Student Union. More than a year later, we still hear members of the new JSU board declare that “now is not the time” for us to be invited into the campus Jewish community. We hear others in Hillel murmur that we are not pro-Israel enough.
Upon hearing that a divestment bill was returning to the student senate (one passed in 2010 but was vetoed by the student president), we braced ourselves for what we anticipated would be a contentious discussion within U.C. Berkeley’s Jewish community.
Instead, Jewish students representing perspectives from Tikvah to J Street U were invited to collaborate on writing an actionable alternative to the divestment resolution. We viewed this collaboration as a hopeful sign.
Our suggestions to oppose Israel’s occupation and promote American responsibility in achieving a lasting peace became the focus of SB 158, the bill Jewish student leaders wrote in response to SB 160. Prior to the April 17 senate meeting, a town hall for Jewish students and faculty to discuss our arguments against divestment and in favor of our alternative bill was held at Hillel. We were told to stress the necessity of taking proactive steps toward a two-state solution in our public comments.
Unfortunately, this was not the message heard by the hundreds of students who packed the senate hearing.
Many of the Jewish students who spoke emphasized their own marginalization, instead of acknowledging the legitimate grievances presented by Palestinian students and their allies. But problematic rhetoric was not limited to the anti-divestment side.
Advocates of divestment called for a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea,” ignoring the lengthy history of Jewish connection to the land and exacerbating Jewish students’ sense of marginalization. They snickered when Jewish and Israeli students told stories about terrorism, failing to acknowledge these real and legitimate security concerns. They mocked students who were seriously attempting to wrestle simultaneously with Israeli and Palestinian narratives of suffering, alienating the people, like us, most interested in finding common ground.
People spoke past each other without truly hearing or respecting the other side’s narrative. They did not realize that supporting one community’s claim to self-determination requires that they recognize the other.
We did not support the divestment resolution because it did not explicitly endorse the Jewish people’s right to a homeland; but we recognize it as a well-intended effort to end human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, problems we, too, care deeply about addressing. However, we had hoped to do so by rallying support for SB 158, whose proposed path of political engagement could have built a powerful constituency that includes the masses of Jewish students concerned about Israel’s future.
We believe that peace can come in our lifetimes and that we have an important role in bringing it. We are proud that, at the senate meeting, many in our community pressed for a two-state solution. We hope to hear these same individuals speak out against settlement expansion, support democratic rights for all who live within Israel’s borders and be willing to openly criticize Israel’s human rights violations — and not just when they are desperate to defeat divestment.
The Jewish community will only be considered a serious partner in campus discussions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if we demonstrate our commitment to supporting Israelis and Palestinians in making the necessary sacrifices for peace. If we can back up our rhetoric with serious action and sustained political engagement to advocate for a two-state solution,
hopefully we will empower pragmatic moderates on the other side to do the same.
Last week’s divestment debate was just the beginning. Join us, and let’s prove to our peers that the Jewish community is committed to peace, justice and freedom for all — and that we too have a strategy for acting on our values.
Shayna Howitt and Zoe Lewin are undergraduate students at U.C. Berkeley.