As students who are concerned about the plight of Palestinians, we could not help but take heart at the way the events of Nakba Week went. Hundreds flocked to our events at a busy time of the year. Dozens of Columbians—of different backgrounds and all academic levels from first year to post-doc—met at 7 a.m. on a rainy Monday morning to post 2,000 posters carrying the names of destroyed Palestinian villages all over campus. The reaction was overwhelmingly positive and appreciative of our efforts at raising awareness.
As if to confirm the success of our week, we received the most predictable and vindicating reaction from the Zionist hard-liners on campus. They were seemingly devastated at our use of the word “Nakba.” As if the Palestinians, the victims of what we believe to be mass ethnic cleansing, need to be apologetic and use a more benign term to describe the destruction of their homeland—a term that suits the oppressor who destroyed that very homeland. Ironically, however, Zionists found no way out of using and repeating this very same word when objecting to its use. This is evidence of the success of the Palestinian narrative in asserting itself, proving that no matter how much effort is put into rewriting history, the ethnic cleansing and destruction of a homeland will be remembered with the word “Nakba,” rather than the phony “Ha’atsma’ut.”
Further, we were even more vindicated when we read the letter by Jacob Shapiro criticizing our organizing of Nakba Week and going public with an invitation for us to a meeting to diligently think and plan how we could have a debate on the Middle East.
Anyone can see through this charade: LionPAC is obviously not interested in debate itself, they are only interested in appearing to want a debate and in painting pro-Palestine groups as extremists who do not want a debate. When pro-Israel groups cannot answer arguments with better arguments, they turn the issue into a meta-debate about the need for debate.
All year long, not a single time were we approached by LionPAC to debate or discuss the Middle East, not in person, in print, in private, or in public. In fact, we approached them to co-sponsor an event and were ignored. Only now, in the final week of classes, after the success of our Nakba Week, did LionPAC realize that what we need most in Columbia is a planning meeting to discuss how we can discuss the Middle East.
The pattern is all too predictable, as is the racist thought-policing inherent in it: pro-Israel groups can hold their own events and shower us with their narrative and propaganda without ever thinking of our viewpoint or of engaging us in a debate—but when we want to have our events, we are told “enough” and that we should instead engage in a discussion on how we construct a debate. Through this sleight of hand, our expressing our narrative and our lexicon becomes a provocative, uncomfortable exercise that needs to be countered with an invitation to “dialogue.”
The reason pro-Israel groups do not engage in the discussion itself is that they know that Columbia and other universities are no longer the bastions of Zionism that they once were—as evidenced by Nakba Week’s success. The old pro-Israel arguments, which essentially boil down to justifying oppression and denying history, no longer have the same appeal they once had. So instead of attempting to engage in the discussion, the pro-Israel camp resorts to obfuscation and discussing the terms of discussion.
The response we have to Mr. Shapiro is simple: we are more than glad to join in any debate you want, any time you want, anywhere you want. However, we are only willing to debate the issues themselves, and have no interest in any meta-meetings to discuss how we discuss the issues, nor do we accept a McCarthyist dictation of what language we are allowed to use. And more importantly, what Mr. Shapiro needs to realize is that our organizing of our events is itself part of the debate that needs to happen, just like all of the events that LionPAC organizes are part of the needed debate. A real debate happens when people talk freely about the conflict, attend stimulating events, and discuss them, not when people organize meetings to talk about what language to use and how we can move on with talking about talking about the conflict. It is only if we engage in such open, honest, and inclusive debate that there can be a chance for the Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace.
Saifedean Ammous is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in sustainable development and a member of the Arab Student Association board. Omar Khalifah is a second-year M.A. student in Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures and a member of the Filasteen Club.