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April 4, 2003/Nisan 2 5763, Vol. 55, No. 32
Are war protestors anti-Israel?
RACHEL POMERANCE
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON - Since military action against Iraq began, American college campuses have erupted in protests against the war - many of them including aspects of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel rhetoric.
"I personally think that" the Iraq war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are "really related," said Shaun Joseph, 22, who heads Students Against War on Iraq at Brown University.
Joseph, a non-Jew who describes himself as a socialist, characterizes the two conflicts as acts of "U.S. imperialism - both in the U.S. support of Israel's actions against the Palestinians and in this direct war on Iraq."
Jewish leaders fear that the anti-war activists' support for the Palestinians may help bring the Palestinian message to a broader audience.
Experts say anti-war forces represent a minority on campus, but they are far more vocal than the war's supporters.
With students transfixed by the war - MTV, which has sent a correspondent to Kuwait, says young people rank the war as their top issue of interest, alongside drugs - Jewish leaders fear anti-war protesters could introduce the Palestinian agenda to a huge audience.
According to Jonathan Kessler, leadership development director for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, "The anti-Israel activists on campus have made a strategic decision to embed themselves into the anti-war movement," so they can "engage large numbers beyond their traditional coalition of disenfranchised."
But not everyone thinks the Palestinian perspective will catch on.
"It could easily work to the pro-Israel point of view," said Jonathan Snow, 22, a senior who writes a biweeekly column on the Middle East for Johns Hopkins campus newspaper.
Facts on the ground, he said, may work to Israel's advantage: Palestinian supporters who claimed that Israel would take advantage of the war with Iraq to commit human rights abuses have been discredited. Meanwhile, Palestinian terrorist groups such as Islamic Jihad have launched attacks on Israel ostensibly to show solidarity with Iraq, and Palestinian volunteers reportedly are flowing through Syria to fight U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
In any case, not only do most college students mirror the general U.S. public in sympathizing with Israel, but polls have shown that 18- to 35-year-olds support war on Iraq more than their elders do. And several campuses showed signs of support for U.S. troops once the war began.
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