Santis was responding to the sight of Israeli and Palestinian flags mingling together on the wide green lawn at the entrance to Stanford. Some people sang “Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu,” the Israeli pop hit that has become a theme song for peace.
It was a calm ending to an afternoon rally last Friday, where about 150 people gathered to hear speakers call for the end of U.S. aid to Israel, while 250 people in a counter-rally massed in the background. Billed as “pro-peace,” the rally brought speakers, including Stanford Professor Joel Beinin and San Francisco Rabbi Michael Lerner, who were highly critical of Israeli military action and called for an end to the occupation of Palestinian territory.
“The speakers were very polarizing,” said Santis. “Statements like, ‘Israel was born in terror’ [by Stanford Professor Rush Rehm] were propaganda, and not conducive to dialogue.”
The Palestinian partisanship drew the occasional angry shout and boos from the blue-and-white draped contingent, but order ruled the day.
On other Bay Area campuses, encounters between those who feel Palestinians are being oppressed and those who feel Israel is fighting for its existence have been less than civil. But at Stanford, where students are better-known for creating Yahoo! than creating a stir, tensions have remained low.
“People [here] aren’t that political, especially about international issues,” said sophomore Seth Rosenbloom, who attended the commemoration of Yom HaAtzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, two days earlier. He expressed surprise at the degree of passion on display. “[The issue] is very controversial, and the U.S. isn’t not even involved in the conflict — at least not militarily.”
About 100 Palestinian supporters ringed Stanford’s White Plaza on Yom HaAtzmaut, April 17, bearing signs like “Sharon is a War Criminal” and “End Israeli Massacres.”
“It’s about educating people that a human rights approach is better than sticking to a narrowly nationalistic position,” said graduate student Yael Ben-Zvi, who is Israeli and held a sign saying “Stop U.S. Aid to Israel.” “I feel very sad that the Israeli government is doing murder for me in my name. It’s not just hurting Palestinians but the security of Israel for the long term.”
While the messages were highly provocative, the Palestinian supporters at Yom HaAtzmaut let their placards do the shouting, except for a lone boom box playing John Lennon’s “Imagine” in the background during one of the speeches. Addressing a crowd of about 300, Jewish students kept their comments relatively apolitical.
“I ask you to step back objectively for a moment….to see Israel….[as] a place defined only by the people that constitute it — Arab and Jewish, secular and non-secular, immigrant and native. They’re all Israelis together,” said junior Uri Pomerantz, fresh from a semester abroad at Tel Aviv University.
“Some members of the community came up to me and said, ‘This is awful, these protests,'” said Debra Feldstein, executive director of Stanford Hillel. “But this is nothing compared to what is going on at other campuses. There’s no violence here, we’re grateful.”
However, Feldstein and other members of the Jewish community were more worried about the Friday rally. It was publicized as a multicampus gathering, with students from U.C. Berkeley, San Francisco State University and others. The event was scheduled during Admit Weekend, when hundreds of prospective freshmen and their parents were visiting campus.
As it turned out, the rally, organized by a couple of unaffiliated graduate students, was a fairly laid-back affair, with Israel’s staunch supporters outnumbering Palestinian sympathizers and curious onlookers.
“I expected a very large and very hostile group — at other demonstrations you see swastikas, Jews called Nazis — and this group was genuinely respectful,” said senior Josh Saidoff, who organized the pro-Israel counterdemonstration.
In his speech, Beinin criticized the United States for failing to stop Israeli military action, called for the end to U.S. military aid to Israel and urged an international peacekeeping force to step in.
“I realize that people are frightened and angry,” he said after, “but those are exactly the wrong emotions to be forming a political response. What Israel has done since March 29 [when Israel began its military campaign in the West Bank] will result in more terrorism, not contribute to a political resolution.”
Both groups cheered Lerner, the editor of Tikkun magazine, when he said, “Most Israelis and most Jews around the world really want to see an end to the occupation of the Palestinian people and would support that — if only they could feel that was a path to safety. There’s only one way to convince them, Mr. Arafat. Reject all forms of violence.”
Earlier, Lerner said he felt it was demeaning to label Jews who were critical of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as against Israel. he contended that the “overwhelming majority of Jews” are in that camp.
Some were disappointed by the fractured nature of the gathering. “There’s a lot of yelling at each other,” said Andrew Cope, a staffer at Stanford. “I thought the point of the rally was to come together, rather than have separate pro-Palestine, pro-Israel groups.”
Sophomore Jared Cohen, who stood with the pro-Israel crowd, and his good friend Tarek Hammam, who supports the Palestinian cause, were two people who made a point of joining together at the end of the event.
“We want to organize a huge demonstration and hold Palestinian flags and Israeli flags together to make a giant peace sign,” said Cohen. “One thing both sides can agree on is that people need to stop dying. If people are standing together, they might be able to talk about it without getting mad at each other.”