Report on the 13th "End the Occupation" Conference - San Diego - Sep.

19-21, 2014


Foreword.

I apologize for the fact that its taken me a good two weeks to write this report, but as you will see, this was a
lot of material to go through. I could have done it faster by skipping many quotes and giving a quick
summary, but I opted for the longer version to give the reader a more accurate sense of what was said in such
an anti-Israel gathering, and consequently (I hope) better appreciate what were up against. The result is
fairly long, but you can be assured that it is comprehensive (interspersed with my comments). And you dont
need to read it all in one sitting. Additionally, if youre a glutton for punishment, or are simply keen on
relying on direct sources rather than on my reporting and interpreting alone, you will find towards the end of
the introduction below links to a few videos and several audio files of the sessions analyzed in this report.

Still, in order to not delay any more, Ive decided to send this report in two segments. This first one covers
all the plenary sessions, and the second one, which will cover all the workshops, will be sent next week. I
hope you enjoy this first part already and will eagerly look forward to the second one.

J.J. Surbeck


Introduction.

Like many other organizations, some pro-Palestinian groups organize their annual convention in different
cities across the country. As luck would have it, San Diego was selected to host this year the 13th National
Conference of a group called US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (endtheoccupation.org). This 3-
day gathering took place over the Sep 19-21, 2014, weekend at the Town & Country Hotel and Resort, one
of the less glamorous but convenient spaces available in San Diego for this type of event.

The US Campaign is actually an umbrella organization that purports to coordinate and liaise with more
than 400 groups nationwide. That may be a bit of an exaggeration given the fact that just above 300 people
registered to participate in this conference, and rarely did more than 200 at most show up together in the
plenaries (from what I could see), and rarely more than 20-30 in the workshops.

Overall, the tone was typical of this type of gathering, i.e. very much rah-rah for the cause, just as AIPAC
unites Israels supporters once a year in an experience meant to inject enthusiasm and renewed energy into
their activists and supporters, but thats as far the parallel goes: no comparison can possibly be made
between 300+ and 13,000 participants. Not even close. Here we had a mixed bunch. Roughly half were
young and middle-aged Middle Easterners, while the rest was overwhelmingly older white Caucasians, the
same crowd one finds at every anti-establishment event, with dominant grey hair dressed as eternal
hippies. Besides these folkloric characters, there were some individuals who clearly meant business, in
particular the nefarious members of the misleadingly named Jewish Voice for Peace, who have pushed J
Street aside to become the most pro-Palestinian Jewish organization in the country among Jewish radicals.
They opened their San Diego chapter last year and have since been busy organizing one event after another,
"
some of which were attended by T.E.A.M. volunteers and myself, only to find out that the majority of
participants are Palestinians! So much for the Jewish fig leaf! JVP felt very comfortable in that
environment of uniform vilifying of Israel, with their own table where they handed out material and
brochures. Note to the community: that is one group that should never be admitted to any type of Jewish
event. They should be called Jewish Voice for Palestine, not for Peace. To the contrary. And as such they
dont belong anywhere in the big tent, or even in any small one for that matter. J Street is bad enough. JVP is
far worse.

If I were to give a global assessment, Id say that there was a lot of bravado in chanting the old repetitive
slogans, but behind the usual aggressive faade, I heard a lot of whining as well, and even some anxiety and
concern, together with plenty of anger. There was complaint of a general pushback on the part of Jewish
organizations that seemed to have been a shock to many. Why the indignation? Because thanks to the
methodical work accomplished by groups like the AMCHA Initiative (run by our friend Tammi Benjamin-
Rossman from UC Santa Cruz), the Brandeis Center for Human Rights and CAMERA against pro-
Palestinian abuses, several pro-Palestinian figures have been put on the defensive, and it was comical to hear
their indignation and wrath, when for many years now they have been the ones bullying and intimidating
anyone who disagreed with them. The fact that several speakers kept mentioning AMCHA in unflattering
terms is the best proof - if we needed any - that Tammis approach is the correct one. Practically alone
among all mainstream Jewish organizations, she forces college administrations to do their job, which is to
enforce their own rules, especially when pro-Palestinian faculty and students ignore them. For members of
the Jewish community concerned about effective action on campus, AMCHA is the organization most
worthy of their support in my estimation. Forget other groups that claim to have everything under control
there, and go with AMCHA (see amchainitiative.org/donate/), thanks to whom we see results. If everything
was under control as claimed by the other, more traditional Jewish institutions, AMCHA would have nothing
to do and even no reason to have come into existence in the first place.

The conference was divided between a small number of plenary sessions and a larger number of workshops
(see the whole program attached below as PDF file). Even though I had suggested repeatedly in the weeks
leading to this conference that a coordinating committee be established to decide on a common strategy, my
entreaties to that effect, sent to several Jewish organizations, were met with silence (the Federation at least
was courteous enough to respond that they did not intend to do anything). So at the last minute, literally the
day before the opening session, I was lucky to be able locate three brave volunteers willing to attend the
whole event with me and thus make sure that we covered all sessions, in particular the workshops, over the
three days that the conference lasted. There were a few mishaps, but by and large we succeeded in attending
almost everything. Anyone interested in going through what was specifically said at each session is welcome
to contact me directly at jjs110@cox.net. This memo is just a summary (admittedly detailed, but a summary
nevertheless by definition). Video footage of the first two plenary sessions is available
here: tinyurl.com/m9d4m3h (the first session is OK, the session one not great, especially the audio track, and
that was the one provided by the conference!). Audiotapes of most plenaries and workshops also surfaced a
few days later from an anonymous source, and I put them all here: tinyurl.com/l848pvp . I recommend you
print first the program (attached PDF document) to help you find your way in this maze (entitled
"CampaignToEndIsraeliOccupationSDNationalConference.pdf").

As an aside, what this experience has taught us is that T.E.A.M. is actually the only organization in town that
goes straight where Israels enemies gather to monitor them and, whenever possible, counter them. None of
the others does that. You may want to remember this when you start thinking of whom you want to allocate
your year-end donations to this year (donation link: sandiegoteam.net/donate). Support T.E.A.M. and
support AMCHA, and the pro-Palestinians will have more reasons to complain about a pro-Israel
pushback. Thank you.


#
1. First plenary session: Confronting Challenges to Palestinian Activism (evening of Sep 19, 2014).

The first plenary session was one of the most interesting ones. It was essentially devoted to hearing a series
of complaints about the increased climate of persecution anti-Israel activists say is happening all over the
country. As mentioned above, they seemed clearly in shock that such a thing could even happen. Theyve
had such a free ride abusing the system for so long that they have a difficult time accepting the notion that
there may actually be consequences, and when there are consequences, they cry bloody murder in a touching
chorus from coast to coast.

The first speaker was Rahim Kurwa, from the UCLA SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine). Polished and
well spoken, he gave a good background of the current situation as pro-Palestinian activists bemoan it, citing
one case after another of alleged repression. Referring to the Campus Climate study commissioned by
then-UC President Mark Yudof five years ago, which concluded sensibly enough that pro-Palestinian
student groups should be subjected to balancing and monitoring, he said that this actually "twisted the anti-
racist intent of the study to protect minority groups. He concluded by affirming that today, the notion of
campus climate has been replaced by the idea of civility, meaning that free speech is conditioned on how
it is spoken (this elicited laughs in the audience because it was a quote by a university official, indicating
that they knew exactly that, to them, free speech should have no limits of any sort). In other words, civility
is a ploy to limit free speech (a theme amplified by the third speaker, Bill Molin - see below).

He was followed by Rabab Abdulhadi, Senior Scholar of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora
Initiatives at San Francisco State University, a known hotbed of rabid anti-Israel activities. One wonders
who on earth comes up with that kind of title and why do such studies have to take place in a US university
rather than in a Saudi one? While her very strong Palestinian accent made her difficult to understand at
times, what set her apart was her tone. That was one angry woman. And we could see why: last year she
thought it perfectly normal for her to allocate SFSU funds to bring students on a study trip that would end
up going - of course - to Palestine, where they met with former star terrorist Leyla Khaled. What could be
wrong with that? That went undetected until the AMCHA Initiative turned the spotlight on this cozy
arrangement, putting Ms. Abdulhadi - deservedly so - and SFSU in an embarrassing situation. The case is
still under review at SFSU, but assuming she doesnt get outright fired from her position, this may put a
damper on her activism and on how much freedom she will have from now on to conduct similar "study
trips". Here though, she was in a combative mood and not prepared to express any contrition, on the
contrary. She opened her remarks by confiscating the Ferguson case and establishing a parallel between
Michael Brown and the victims of the last Gaza war, a classical misappropriation by Palestinians of other
causes in support of their own. Then she lost no time to follow up immediately by denouncing the AMCHA
Initiatives smear campaign against her. She painted herself and a list of other professors as victimized
by a collection of Jewish organizations and figures all bent on preventing her from having views that deviate
from theirs. She explained away the Gaza war by the necessity for Israel to have wars every few years to try
their new military hardware (to which I wanted to respond even if that was true - which it is not - why do
you keep giving Israel so many opportunities to try their hardware by constantly firing rockets then?). She
went on to claim that there is more legitimacy for the resistance (i.e. Hamas) with the Palestinian
population than ever before. This is very questionable, especially after that same population suffered the
devastating consequences of their latest rocket attacks. She triumphantly reminded the audience that Israel
didnt meet any of its goals, in particular the demilitarization of Gaza. While shes right on the last point, it
was Hamas nevertheless that was forced to accept the same terms for a cease-fire which Israel had offered at
the beginning of the war and Hamas rejected then, which could therefore have spared over 2,000 Palestinian
lives (and close to 70 Israeli ones). But of course she didnt mention that.

Then she told yet another big lie: Israel could not destroy all the tunnels, which were a lifeline for the
Palestinians. We are used to hearing lies and misrepresentations every time a Palestinian opens his or her
mouth, but this was a whopper: the tunnels Israel destroyed were attack tunnels dug under Israeli territory for
$
the exclusive use of infiltrating trained killers whose mission was to kill everyone they would come across if
they had succeeded (scheduled to happen this week, as a matter of fact, to coincide with Rosh Hashanah).
The ones she referred to as lifeline were the ones leading into Egypt, which the Egyptians have done a
much better job than Israel ever did of destroying. So for this woman (an SFSU professor, lets not forget) to
confuse the two types gives an idea of her total lack of honesty. Who brought this character to brainwash our
students at SFSU? Is there any accountability left? One can only imagine what she tells her students in the
privacy of their classes. Continuing on her disingenuous course, she then launched into a fake sincerity act to
claim that, yes, the Palestinians should "demilitarize and get rid of their few stones, their few Kalashnikovs,
and their few Kassam rockets, the few crude missiles that they have, but in exchange of something.
What? Oh, not much: "destroy the Israeli B-52 bombers (!!!), destroy the F-16s, destroy the Apache
helicopters, destroy the nuclear weapons (applause), and destroy the very essence of this very militarized,
and aggressive, and ugly, and hateful empire. Right. Sounds like a fair deal. Confirming her delusional
perception, she proceeded to maintain that even in the middle of the war the people of Gaza repeatedly stated
that they supported Hamas and would rather die standing than submitting to the collusion of Israel and Egypt
that allowed an Israeli genocide. She crowed that we witnessed the widespread condemnation of Israeli
crimes against humanity, adding that Israeli colonial rule is doomed, the reality being that "Israel attacks
UNRWA schools (never mind that on three occasions at least UNRWA was found to stand for UN Rocket
Warehousing Agency rather than its original name of Relief and Works Agency), destroys universities,
arrests children and kills them. Then she turned her venom towards Israeli universities: Hebrew
University, Haifa University, Tel Aviv University wholeheartedly and enthusiastically embraced Israels
genocidal war on Gaza. A professor at Bar Ilan University called for the rape of Palestinian women with no
impunity [sic], as if he has never heard, or more likely he does not care, what humanity thinks of sexual
violence. Why do they do it? Sigh. listening to this drivel was painful, but it gave us a good idea of how
far removed from reality professors like her are and in which universe they operate. Its not pretty. Academic
freedom and free speech are both precious, but when it is abused by hate-mongers of this caliber without
counter-weight of any sort, we have every right to object to the fact that this is what our children hear day in
and day out when they are in college (and it is the parents as well as all California taxpayers who are paying
her salary). It cannot get more absurd. Measures must be taken to rein in abusive professors like this one.

She was followed by Bill Molin, a professor at Purdue University, who was called to replace at the last
minute the announced speaker, i.e. Curtis Marez from UCSD and former President of the American Studies
Association, the very same who responded Youve got to start somewhere when asked why the ASA had
singled out Israel for condemnation for alleged human rights violations. Just the same, Mr. Molin said he
was there to read Curtis Marezs prepared text, which was entitled Resisting the new civility. That sounded
promising, and it didnt disappoint. He started by bragging that the controversy over the ASA vote against
Israel, condemned by more than 200 academic institutions, had resulted in a large increase in membership
and funding. He then mocked these institutions for insisting now that free speech must be qualified by
civility, but to Marez and Molin, civility has emerged as a privileged mean of silencing political speech
while denying that it was happening. He continued: critical thinking often requires resisting civility. But
beyond these facile formulas, he was not able to explain why civility was unwelcome. What these characters
want is unfettered freedom to criticize Israel and support the BDS movement irrespective of whether what
they say is accurate or not. In another respect, this was particularly hilarious to hear when you know that on
the Jewish side of the equation, it is the so-called liberals, and in particular Hillel, who keep preaching the
gospel of civility. Who knows, maybe Hillel is in on the anti-Palestinian voices conspiracy.

Then we heard from Marjorie Cohn, a radical left-wing professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in
San Diego. Curiously though, she was mentioned in the program only as former President of the National
Lawyers Guild. This is the same NLG that only a week before had decided to indict Barack Obama and a
few of his cabinet members for . aiding and abetting genocide and ... (it gets better) for helping
Israel build Iron Dome (click on the link if you think Im making this up). She is one of those lawyers
who tend to interpret international law along political lines rather than strictly legal ones: I know because
%
Ive had heated arguments with her over these topics. At any rate, she started by announcing what she was
going to talk about: legal consequences of free speech, material support issues, boycott and divestment.

She warned would-be activists that while free speech means that generally, you can say what you want, but
not necessarily where, when and how you want to say it. The rest of her presentation was actually very
interesting and would deserve to be transcribed in full, but it was particularly interesting to hear her describe
when free speech is in fact not protected (incitement or fighting words intended to provoke others
defamation, which means spreading damaging information about others that is false hate speech is speech
aimed at an individual or group that is offensive or even hateful, and may have no value other than to
disparage, all definitions which describe perfectly what pro-Palestinian activists have been doing on
campuses for years, right? Wrong. She immediately added that Speech critical of Israeli policies is not hate
speech aimed at disparaging a religious or ethnic group identity (applause) Rather, criticism of Israel is
political speech addressing an issue of domestic and international importance. Speech that condemns Israel
as an apartheid state is not anti-Semitic. Criticism of Jewish people as a whole because of Israels actions is,
on the other hand, anti-Semitic Generally, there are no first-amendment rights on private property: you
must ask the owners permission to do anything on private property, or you could be liable for trespass if you
dont get permission first. On campuses, one needs to differentiate between public universities and private
universities. Public universities, like other government entities, are limited in the ways they can limit
speech while private universities are not required to protect students' free speech rights unless state
law says otherwise.

She then moved on to discuss material support, which refers to activities described as offering material
support to designated terrorist organizations. Because of the wide array of activities falling into this category,
she urged her audience to be careful (remember who she was talking to: several of the people attending could
easily fall within the parameters of material support given the nature of their activities and/or declarations,
as some in other student groups in the past have, and subsequently faced arrest, imprisonment or
deportation). She went on to add something that I found deeply disturbing: she said that material support
laws do not restrict independent advocacy, by which she meant that an individual expressing solidarity or
support for a designated terrorist organization is not the same thing as providing material support. So as long
as they appear to express "individual opinions" rather than coordinated ones, hate-filled pro-
Palestinian demonstrators are free to do so. Funny, I could have sworn all the Palestinian activists I have met
in my life repeat the exact same accusations and coordinate their actions rather well. Silly me... She gave
additional information on boycott, what it is and how permissible it is under federal US law, pointing out
that since NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) are, precisely, non-governmental, they are not
subjected to the constraints of federal law prohibiting boycotts promoted by foreign governments against
countries friendly to the US. And she finally concluded by giving some good advice for pro-Palestinian
students intending to have anti-Israel divestment resolutions adopted, i.e. keeping in mind that while the
concept of socially responsible investments allows for trustees of trust funds to invest or divest on the base
of human rights concerns, outside resolutions cannot force them to make such choices and are therefore
unenforceable. In other words, all these resolutions can hope to accomplish is to try to convince trustees and
ask them to invest or divest in certain ways. Therefore, divestment resolutions language demanding
socially responsible investments must comply with two principles 1. There must be alternative
investments of equal value available and 2. Divestment resolutions cannot dictate to fund trustees when or
how to divest.

After that, Rahim Kurwa came back to the fore and started by asking Rabab Abdulhadi, the SFSU
professor, what she thought of the civility issue vs. academic freedom. That gave her the opportunity she was
waiting for to attack again AMCHA for accusing her of wrongdoing by neglecting to inform SFSU that
she would expose her students to terrorist Leila Khaled. To her, thats a typical attempt to trample "the rights
of the marginalized to challenge the status quo. She explained AMCHAs call to investigate and punish
my activities [as] because they wanted to suppress the scholarship and activities of those who discuss
&
Israels violations of Palestinians rights She also added that in her view AMCHAs goal was to prevent
agreements of understanding to be signed between SFSU and two Palestinian universities. She then went
into a long explanation detailing the ups and downs of the affair, only to conclude that without inciting
anyone (laughter in the audience, wink-wink), she advocated not observing prevailing rules since it was
done to right wrongs. .

Kurwa turned next to the other two speakers, and asked in particular Marjorie Cohn what she thought
about a rumored legislation to ban the BDS movement. She responded that AIPAC is reportedly drafting
legislation, not yet introduced, but which aims to prevent US companies from participating within the BDS
campaign without infringing on Americans First Amendment rights to political speech. She also said that
this law would have future trade with the European Union conditioned on Europeans countries opposing
BDS. She then switched to another topic to warn the audience that The attacks on professors who are pro-
Palestinian is only going to increase, especially in public universities, and Alan Dershowitz - Im sure
youve all heard of him - is one of the driving forces behind it, and Im very proud to say that Alan
Dershowitz came out with a scathing indictment of the National Lawyers Guild just a couple of days ago
Im really honored (laughter and applause). He hit the roof! I think its in the Forward. This was in
reference to the NLG indictment of Obama, and Dershowitzs comments appeared also in the Jerusalem Post
(see http://tinyurl.com/p9oeaeq).

In the short Q&A period that followed, one character asked what Marjorie Cohn thought of the concept of
derivative crime, a concept developed by Martin Luther King to justify ignoring unjust laws in the process
of resisting them. By analogy, he offered, the crimes of which the Palestinians have been accused of
committing in the process of resisting the genocidal occupation should be considered as derivative crimes.
I thought that was pretty creative, if completely inappropriate since the civil rights movement shunned
violence while the Palestinians encourage and glorify it. M. Cohn responded by stating first that yes, people
under occupation have the right to resist that occupation (applause), and the occupiers cannot attack the
occupied and then claim self-defense (laughter) now there is a movement whether Palestine will join the
International Criminal Court so that Israeli leaders - even though Israel is not a party to the ICC - who
committed war crimes and genocide against humanity (!!!) on Palestinian land could theoretically be
prosecuted And that was it. She never answered in a way that would admit that the Palestinians have
committed far more war crimes than Israel ever did.

Bill Molen had the last word when he said that in order to move forward, his recommendation was to show
less civility, not more. And I agree with him. Civility in this context is another name for hypocrisy. Were
not dealing with people interested in fair debates and dialogue. Were dealing with fanatics. Dealing with
them with civility only serves to put Israels supporters at a disadvantage.


2. Second plenary session: Mainstreaming BDS & Connecting Struggles (morning of Sep 20, 2014).

Technical note: this session was supposed to be streamed, and it was, but it was obviously done on the
cheap, and the acoustics were terrible, so I put my videocam in front of my computer and filmed it all, while
hoping that someone would provide an audio tape from inside the ballroom where it was taking place.
Luckily, thats what happened, although the audiotape was also very bad due to the terrible acoustics in the
room. Still, Im glad I videotaped it, because after it was streamed, it disappeared

As for the content, the speakers were all young leaders with experience as activists eager to share their
stories and recommendations. But there was a problem: like many of their peers, they tend to speak very fast
without actually pronouncing their words intelligibly, and in addition several kept their microphone away
from their mouth, as if it was a fashion accessory rather than the crucial communication tool it is, making it
even harder to grasp whatever it was they were saying. As a result, reporting on this session has been
'
particularly challenging, as you will see from the gaps in the text below. Luckily for us, one of our
volunteers took great notes, which have been included. Otherwise, to the extent that it can help, the video of
this session is in the folder indicated above.

The moderator was Shirien Damra (on staff with the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation).
Speaking way too fast on a monotone tone, all she did was introduce the different speakers. I couldnt
understand anything else she said.

The first one was Amal Ali, former president of UC-Riverside Students for Justice in Palestine. Her
comments were extremely hard to understand due to her speech pattern and the poor quality of the taping
(both audio and video). I think the gist of what she said was to describe how the SJP student group at UC-
Riverside developed their activities on campus, establishing alliances and building relationships with
administration officials, and how important these aspects were to make a difference on campus, etc. The first
group in 2004 focused on the struggles and marginalization of women, people of color, and forms of
oppression intersectionality. A good example was the action taken by SJP at UCSD a few years ago in
support of African-American students after the Compton cookout incident. Another is the solidarity
expressed with the citizens of Ferguson, Missouri. The ultimate goal of these initiatives is to develop
relationships and make them as natural as kinship, sort of a universal liberation movement.

Next came Gabriel Schivone, a youth organizer with UNIDOS, an indigenous-based ethnic studies group in
Tucson, AZ. Just barely easier to hear than the previous speaker, I think he described how an alliance
between pro-Palestinian students and the Department of Ethnic studies at the UofA in Tucson led to the
discovery of common grounds and common goals. He explained his own story as a youth of mixed heritage
suffering from discrimination who ended up fighting for the introduction of Mexican-American studies and
Middle-Eastern studies at UofA, the latter having been banned for a number of years in Arizona (surprisingly
enough, allegedly under Title VI and with the support of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, but that
would have to be checked given the lack of clarity of the communication). Overall, his point was to reinforce
this conference theme of pro-Palestinian voices being persecuted in parallel to other voices, but since I
couldnt understand more than that, Ill leave it at that.

The following speaker was Kristian Davis Bailey, a young journalist and former president of Stanford
Students for Justice in Palestine. The soundtrack wasnt much better, so I couldnt figure out much of what
he said (these audio files need to be filtered in order to eliminate the loud hissing that prevents understanding
what the speakers said). All I could make of it was that, as a young African-American himself, he urged
alliances and bridges between the Palestinians and the American black community given the parallels
between their respective causes. He called it joint struggle. He did make a parallel between Israel and San
Diego, both lands which were stolen and colonized. The tactics used today are not specific to the
Palestinians. In America, the colonizing and enslavement continues to this day because the U.S. empire
depends on colonizing and enslavement. Black people today in America dont know what justice and
liberation look like. What is needed is intentional relationship building. And that was pretty much it. It was
hard to hear and hard to understand substantively. But this young man seemed to have absorbed all the
classical extreme-left rhetoric dispensed by left-wing professors allowed to shape young minds along their
political views without any balance or differing views.

Finally, Suhad Khatib, a young woman from the Saint Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee, spoke. She
also explained how she started a coalition. Her family lived in Jordan, but was originally from Palestine
and Jordan would not grant them citizenship, leaving her "very confused about her identity". After moving to
the U.S. she gained clarity in this respect by working in support of Palestine. During the recent protests in
Ferguson after the death of Michael Brown, she developed ties with African-American groups to help
reinforce the links between the Palestinian struggle and the situation of black people in Ferguson.

(
In conclusion, one can admire the zeal and dedication for their respective causes and their attempts to unite
them into a single front, but I wasnt convinced that they succeeded. The idea of building alliances on
campuses is of course fundamentally sound, and pro-Palestinian groups have done a much better job of it
than have Jewish students in many schools, but - once again - the success of such alliances lasts only as long
as the other groups dont know enough about the conflict to question the lies the Palestinians feed them. The
solution for pro-Israel voices is to increase their efforts in educating these Palestinian allies to the point
where they realize that they are in fact helping the oppressors rather than the victims they were led to believe
they were.

3. Third plenary session: The Battle for Justice in Palestine (during dinner, Sep 20, 2014).

Introductions were made by Nasser Barghouti, our local pro-Palestinian hyper activist (and Board member
of the local ACLU, which sees no contradiction in having a Palestinian activist advocating the Palestinian
right to resist the occupation - code words for violence and terrorism - but thats another story). His tone
was one of triumphalism. Contrary to the previous speakers, he sees nothing but reasons to be optimistic,
stating that we are on the verge of a tipping point in the belly of the beast - without the United States, none
of this could continue - and because of this tipping point, our movement is maturing, because many more
people are joining us, because theyre angry at the massacre in Gaza, and they want to do something, and its
up to us to invite these people to our movement.

With this motivating pep talk behind him, he then proceeded to introduce Tariq and Suha Abu Khdeir.
Tariq is a cousin of Mohammed Khdeir (Suha is his mother), the young Palestinian murdered in a horrible
way on July 2, 2014 by three Israelis furious to learn that the three Israeli youths (Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad
Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah) kidnapped by two Hamas terrorists on June 12, 2014, had in fact been gunned down
at short range shortly after their abduction. Tariq, who was born in Baltimore and has American citizenship,
was beaten by two Israeli police officers during a demonstration following the death of Mohammed, and
subsequently jailed. Here the story diverges between Tariqs version, which is that he was merely watching
the demonstration and doing nothing wrong, i.e. not participating in it, and the Israeli police version, which
is that Tariq was actively engaged against them. Here is a JPost article that tells the story in
detail: http://tinyurl.com/lozko5a. As the article indicates, other media reports mentioned him throwing
stones and even Molotov cocktails at the police, hardly doing nothing. Anyway, this is for the background.
Here is what he said at that dinner in San Diego. He started by saying that when he landed in Israel,
immigration put him aside and kept him isolated for 10 hours, which left him confused. He then only
added that now that he is back in the US, he appreciates his freedom, which (of course) the Palestinian
people dont have. He followed up with a detailed description, well narrated, of his ordeal. According to his
version, he was caught in the melee and was entirely innocent of any wrongdoing. He concluded by saying
the day I left Palestine (not Israel), they took all my cousins away (for questioning) Three of my cousins
are still in jail, because they dont have an American passport and they didnt have a video that showed the
brutality of Israel.

His mother Suha Abu Khdeir then took the floor and described how she felt as a mother when she was
informed of Tariqs beating, his being thrown in jail and finally visiting him in the hospital. She said that she
didnt recognize him and didnt know if he was still alive. The US Consul contacted her the next day and she
was shocked to learn that her son had been transferred back to jail despite his physical condition, but the
prison authorities didnt let them in, until finally, after many phone calls, the consul alone was allowed to
visit Tariq and made sure that he was medically cared for. After all this, she pointed out, Tariq was not
charged for anything. She concluded by pointing out that when they go to Jerusalem, they are made to feel
like second-class citizens because of our religion. While both Tariq and his Mother spoke well and
eloquently, it was symptomatic of their victim mentality that not a word was said about the three Israeli
youths who had been brutally murdered a month before. It was all about how her son had been brutally
beaten. As usual, the context of the events, let alone their responsibility in the events, is forgotten to focus
)
only on the Palestinian victims. That kind of discourse does nothing to build bridges.

The keynote address was then delivered by Ali Abunimah, co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, one of the
most virulent anti-Israel web sites there is (on a par with Mondoweiss maybe). He started by bemoaning the
massacre in Gaza, which was to be expected, but then he pointed out that out of the 2100 people killed on the
Palestinians, some of them were resistance fighters fighting heroically a heroic and legitimate battle
(applause), the vast majority civilians. this is a pogrom, this is a massacre, and (altogether with the
wounded) 1% of the population of Gaza was killed or injured. The litany went on. With some worthy
quotes, like Israel dropped the equivalent of an atomic bomb on Gaza this summer, or There were many
hands on these guns (especially artillery guns), Barack Obama being the first and foremost (!!). This was a
massacre made in Washington, the European Union, Brussels, Oslo Why are the Palestinians the only
people with no right to self-defense? (That was a good one: I was under the impression that the Palestinians
were the ones who had started by firing hundreds of rockets, triggering Israels right to exercise its self-
defense, but when the Palestinian got clobbered, then were told that they were not granted a right to self-
defense? Im missing something here He then made a vain attempt at equating demilitarization of Gaza
with demilitarization of Israel (as SFSU Professor Abdulhadi had suggested the night before). He went as far
as to call the Egyptian regime of General Sisi the Zionist Egyptian regime. I got a chuckle out of that one.
He even blamed Mahmud Abbas "for supporting the siege. What followed was an angry rant against
Mahmoud Abbas with his militias engaged in security collaboration with the Israeli army. "Today, after 51
days of siege, the resistance has not been broken. It is still there, as the siege of Gaza is still there. Typically
also, he then shifted his ranting towards the fate of the 500 Gazans who drowned at sea when trying to
escape Gaza. While acknowledging that the smugglers were responsible for their deaths, ultimately it was
Israel that was responsible for their deaths (of course). Hamas maybe? Nooo Israel is the only one to
blame for every Palestinian death, even when they kill each other. Zionism threw them into the sea!

He made then a bizarre statement to the effect that "the situation in the West Bank is more horrendous than
ever, worse than ever in many ways and has been forgotten only because of Gaza. If we are to believe him,
the stealing of land goes on because Israel feels emboldened by all the support it gets from Washington
and the Europeans. Really? We are clearly not relying on the same sources for news and information. His
belong to the world of perpetual Palestinian victimhood, while mine are more reality-based news. He went
on to list a series of incidents and statements by Israeli extremists which prove that all of Israel, from the
Prime Minister on down, hates Arabs and is a racist society. Strong words for someone who comes across at
first as mild mannered. And of course he had to make a comment underlining the similarity with Ferguson.
And on it went: The lives of Israeli children are not more sacred to the Israeli government than those of
Palestinian children. I beg your pardon? He further denounced the collusion between the Obama
administration and Israels settlement policies. To hear Abunimah, Obama is Israels BFF (Best Friend
Forever), when I was under the impression, illustrated during the last Gaza War, that Israel could in fact not
count on him in time of crisis). What seemed to gall him the most was the so-called liberals of the Obama
administration who spout over shared values between Israel and the US. Sure He concluded by making
the case that there can be no Jewish state without massacres and Gaza represents the future of all
Palestinians (i.e. to be massacred) unless Israel and Zionism are stopped in their tracks. His ending was the
best: I can predict this: the Zionist thuggery will increase. We can expect the smears and attacks to become
more vicious and more desperate. Were already seeing a renewed effort by the anti-Palestinian lobby to go
after the Federal funding of many Middle East Studies centers in universities across the country and they
may succeed if theyre not faced down and resisted, or they wont stop there. We can expect that more of
us will face the repressive tactics and reprisals seen by the Irvine 11, by Steven Salaita, by Yasmiya Odeh
and so many others. But the answer is not to shy away from the fight. Zionists have already lost the
ideological argument Well, that may be a little premature as post-mortems go. Actually, it's more wishful
thinking on the part of people who tend to prefer to believe their delusions than face reality. As you will have
noticed, not a word about the rockets, but thats logical because in the mindset of Abunimah and his ilk,
firing rockets on innocent civilians all over Israel is a legitimate act of resistance. No doubt, no contrition, no
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apologies and no promise to lay down their arms. More attacks and more aggression is all Israel can expect.
That goes for its supporters as well.

4. Fourth plenary session: The Continuing Struggle for Palestinian Rights (noon, Sep 21, 2014).

The moderator for this session was Dina Omar, founding member of National Students for Justice in
Palestine. She said nothing besides introducing the speakers.

Christian Ramirez, Human Rights Director Program at Alliance in San Diego and Southern Border
Coalition. This was a little bit of an oddity. Originally from Mexico, Mr. Ramirez spent a lot of time trying
to make the case for the similarities between oppression of the Palestinians and oppression of undocumented
aliens in and by the US. The border is patrolled by 55,000 border patrol agents, making the US-Mexico
border a whole militarized session, which leads to many cases of human rights violations. He complained
that Israeli companies are profiting from building the fence between US and Mexico. He objected to the fact
that Latino officials invited to visit Israel come back stating that the occupation is, if not a good thing, at
least understandable, and as Latinos it is important to counter that message. Then he tried to establish a link
between the struggles of local undocumented aliens and the ones endured by Palestinians under the
occupation. He then concluded by showing his true colors: The background of the wall (between Mexico
and the US) is the occupation of 1848 by the United States in California, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico,
Nevada and the truth is that the border wall between Mexico and the United States came as a result of
occupation (applause), of colonialism, and because of that, our ties with the Palestinians are profound.

Reem Assil, Arab Resource & Organizing Center, a Social Activist and labor organizer based in the Bay
Area. She explained that even though the BDS movement has had notable successes, it needs to develop an
even better strategy because the fight is about to get really hard for the BDS movement. She told then a
long story about her involvement in the first BDS attempt in Somerville (MA) in 2004, to get the city to
divest its bonds from Israeli companies, all based on a simple message: Israel violates Palestinian human
rights through the occupation. They lost because the pro-Israeli side made an emotional presentation that
carried the day. The rest of her comments made little sense, but here is a page that explains why the
Somerville affair was the BDS Waterloo: http://tinyurl.com/nasmogv . She concluded by repeating her
warning that the fight is about to get really hard for the BDS movement. A warning for them, an
encouragement for us (that is, if we can be as well organized as the Jewish community proved to be in
Somerville in 2004, which does not appear to be the case here today).

Robin D.G. Kelley, serves on the Advisory Board of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural
Boycott of Israel, and is a Professor at UCLA. He charged right away by declaring that this was the summer
of outrage, then proceeded to prove his point by listing all the people and groups that protested the Gaza
war. He then used this alleged collection of fact to declare that there is a shift, not so much quantitative as
qualitative in the way people around the world perceived the Gaza war, and therefore have come to accept
more and more the notion that Israel is a brutal occupier. The more I listened to this man, the more I thought
that this was another case of an academic living in his ivory tower with a completely warped perception of
the outside world. He sounded like someone who confuses his wishes with reality. He described what he
wanted to see rather than what actually exists (that affliction seemed to affect quite of few people among
those attending this conference). Interestingly enough, he defines BDS as "a campaign that is changing the
conversation in educating the public. (And I thought thats what WE were doing!) He also added that in
most of the US today, to criticize Israel and support the Palestinians is still considered a form of dissent.
Good to know. But universities remain the most disputed battlegrounds. The rest was a long and
discombobulated rant, jumping from one topic to the next with little logic. I would have hated to have this
guy as a professor.

Hind Awwad, former coordinator with the Palestinian BDS National Committee, representing over 120 pro-
**
Palestinian organizations. She started by listing all the damage caused to Gaza by this past summer war,
which he called a massacre, like all her predecessors. She sounded like an anchorwoman reading her news
sheet. But then she added the signs of increasing fascism in Israel have been everywhere during this
attack She then listed what in her view was a string of BDS successes, such as the ASA anti-Israel
resolution, the Presbyterian divestment resolution, and a few Universities adopting divestment resolutions.
That said, the Gaza massacre showed that Israel still enjoyed a lot of international support. While a little
light on substance, her delivery style, quiet and poised, was powerful. A welcome change from the usual
hysterical screamers, but also far more effective. There is a lesson to absorb here.


Phew. A lot of conclusions can be drawn from all these remarks, but the one that strikes me the most is the
complete refusal of all the speakers to mention, and let alone admit, that this last Gaza war was a response
from Israel to the flood of rockets fired by Hamas. The collective lie that Israel attacked Gaza without
provocation and then proceeded to intentionally massacre over 2,000 people is monstrous, but they all
stuck to it without exceptions. This fact alone indicates without a doubt that there is no point trying to foster
a dialogue with, contrary to what some dreamers still believe. For them, Israel is the guilty party from
beginning to end, and the Palestinians are the aggrieved party, from beginning to end. We cant change their
views in this respect (weve always known that), so the best we can do is to focus on the rest of the
population and provide it with accurate information (a vaccination program of sorts) before the Palestinian
narrative hits them. Its a race against time. Are we up to the challenge, or will our inability to work together
doom our efforts? You decide.


J.J. Surbeck
Executive Director