Free Palestine conference at Wesleyan University promoted anti-Semitism
By Matthew Scherzer
Impressionable youth were the latest victims in the assault on Israel during an event at Wesleyan University last Saturday.
A so-called "Activism 102" conference designed to teach participants how to lead successful divestment and boycott campaigns against the state of Israel, influence the U.S. government, and respond effectively to "bias" in the media, drew some 75 pro-Palestinian activists, many of whom attend Connecticut colleges and universities.
To be sure, anti-Israel activity occurs on college campuses on a regular basis, but what differentiated this conference is that the comments made and the materials distributed, which included literature with swastikas on it, were antisemitic in nature.
The event sponsors included Wesleyan Students for a Free Palestine, The Middle East Crisis Committee, and the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, the latter two of which are run by Mazin Qumsiyeh, a Yale University genetics professor.
Qumsiyeh, who encouraged participants of his media activism session to be both factual and accurate, accused Israel of engaging in terrorist activities and implied that Israel was deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians. He also noted that Israel receives more than $3 billion dollars in U.S. aid, but neglected to cite the large sum of money that the Palestinian Authority receives from nations around the world and the billions in aid that the United States also gives to countries like Egypt ($2.4 billion).
The following quote characterizes the tenor and thrust of the seminar.  In an article distributed at the conference, published in the Jordan Times on Dec. 7, 2003, "Promoting a Failing Apartheid Solution," Qumsiyeh makes the classic antisemitic claim that Jews conspire to run the world.
"The foreign policy of the only remaining superpower was hijacked by Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon's clones in DC (Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Wurmser and other neoconservatives').  They are content to lead us into endless preemptive' wars for securing the (Israeli) realm.'"
In this same article, Qumsiyeh compares Israel to apartheid South Africa, a claim that was reiterated tens of times during the conference.  He fails to mention other states in the region, including the Palestinian Authority, whose government-sponsored religion, Islam, discriminates against non-Muslims.  By singling out Israel for a higher standard of behavior n even though it confers full freedoms and citizenship to Muslims, Christians and other groups n Qumsiyeh conforms to the standard definition of antisemitism.
Even the brochure from Qumsiyeh's Palestine Right to Return Coalition was laced with falsities.  Here, he alleged that Israel "ethnically [cleansed] 75 percent of the native Palestinians," a claim he also made during his media activism session.
The hateful ideology also spewed from conference goers.  During the "Creating a Growing Organization" session, one student from the Free Palestine Group labeled as racists those professors and students who opposed the conference.  The organizers and moderators let this remark stand.
The materials distributed during the sessions reinforced the hateful themes that were prevalent throughout the seminar. The most egregious was a fake dollar bill, which showcased President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the front of the bill, labeling them with the words "International terrorists." Other phrases on the bill implicated Israel's foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, in the September 11 attacks. The corners on the back of the bill read, "9/11 Bush knew" and "9/11 Cheney did it." President Bush's tie in the picture was covered in swastikas.   
That wasn't the only Holocaust reference in the literature passed out at the seminar.  In the publication, "Sustain: Stop U.S. Tax-Funded Aid to Israel Now!" a poster depicts an Israeli soldier pointing a gun at an Palestinian woman, and written are three phrases, "PalestineThe Largest Concentration Camp in the World, 3.3 Million People Denied Their Freedom" and "Boycott Israeli Goods."
The conference culminated with a protest against the state of Israel, complete with puppetry, chants and signs.  A public lecture with Adam Shapiro from the International Solidarity Movement followed.
Yes, the First Amendment allows hate groups to spew their poison, but precisely because this is so, there is a corresponding duty for institutions to speak out against hatred when a program like "Bigotry 102" comes to campus.
The American Jewish Committee urges Wesleyan University President Douglas Bennet to sign a pledge, joining more than 300 of his colleagues across the nation in decrying intimidation on college and university campuses, and voice his strong disapproval of the events that transpired last weekend.
A conference that distributes literature with swastikas on it should be condemned; any institution or organization that remains silent in the face of this kind of provocation passively endorses bigotry, hatred and antisemitism.
Matthew Scherzer is assistant director of the American Jewish Committee, Connecticut Chapter.
PULLQUOTE:
what differentiated this conference is that the comments made and the materials distributed, which included literature with swastikas on it, were antisemitic in nature.