momentum that is indisputable and i'm going to talk about a few of those things which are not as well talked about going to try to talk about a few other things that she didn't mention and it's become a fast growing grassroots opponent of the israeli occupation it's not a mentioned companies that are being pressured for their activities in the west bank in the occupation and mention motorola which makes surveillance systems for settlements caterpillar as we heard a made the bulldozer that actually killed rachel corrie and operated by an i d f soldier obviously you packard makes biometric id systems for security checkpoints and that's the reasons why we want to target companies like that she mentioned also the g four s and one thing that she didn't mention was that in as a result of the gates foundation action do you force itself announced that when the end of their contract with the israeli prison system and the israeli occupation came to conclusion that it was no longer going to have any commercial interactions with israel that's a direct that's a direct reaction to the gates foundation and another the had the opposite result so we are continuing to make progress and it's again all because of this momentum it's the momentum both of b d s becoming more of a helsel name and it's also unfortunately  for israel the result of its continuing policies that become more and more extreme more and more violent and aggressive and lose more and more support in the world i wanted to talk about what led up to this presbyterian vote and that was yesterday i think there was an address to the presbyterians by the leader of the reform movement in the united states the largest jewish denomination his name is rob t jacobs he gave an address which basically was a begging them to do anything other than vote for us and the speech was covered in the jewish forward and this is what he said in part quote a vote for divestment will cause a painful rift with the great majority of the jewish community and you'll notice that he's trying to speak on behalf of the entire jewish community whether he has a right to or not and say how many of the jews will be in favor of this supposed rift that he's talking about which is questionable i think he continues if we are truly partners and you disapprove of the divestment overture i look forward to sitting with your leadership in the prime minister's office in jerusalem he followed that up by saying don't miss this you can choose partnership and engagement or you can choose separation and divest in other words he is saying that if you endorse b d s you endorse the boycott we jews will we will boycott you which doesn't seem quite logical to me but ok he said that he shared the presbyterians concern about the the  about israeli settlement policy notice he doesn't say anything about the occupation he doesn't say anything about a palestinian state he only restricts himself to talking about settlements and says that yes the reform movement or american jews agree with you about the settlements are against settlements he said we are for the two state solution but we can't fight alone we need each other and if you choose partnership over divestment and b d s to gether we can change the world and i'm surfing thinking like we are the world is going to start you know blasting from the speakers there any second he's essentially telling what of american protestantism is major denominations if you don't reject the boycott then american will boycott you and why does rick jacobs think a meeting with bibi netanyahu would induce them to reject b d s why does he believe that israel's prime minister would be a persuasive voice in the debate on the contrary it's on yahoo who does have a reputation believe it or not in israel of being a very persuasive order has the opposite reputation of israel and for some reason the leaders the america so jacob's assumption and what he offered the presbyterians in that passage exposes the weakness of the reform commitment to real change in israel palestine when he talks about the common agenda of jews and christians after after they reject b d s it amounts to one thing opposing settlements but settlements are only one part of a much bigger issue he omits israeli democracy which now to talk about rules doesn't permit people that are associated phillida with it officially to be involved in supporting settlements and supporting the occupation so oxfam agreed to give her a choice what is your choice do you choose us do you choose posing occupation you choose human rights or do you choose being the global ambassador that's what her title was for soda stream and all the money that comes with it she her response obviously  so the movement and not has talked about this talked about cultural boycott and the academic boycott and we should mention also stephen hawking was another academic who refused to go to israel and speak in an academic conference an important figure  and one of the best known figures who who's done that and it enables i think other academics who might be afraid of taking that step seeing someone like of his stature doing it and they will them to follow suit and so that's what b d s is it's a it's a gradual evolution of a movement that starts out being defined controversy will and being ostracized and gradually becomes more and more accepted over time the more it fit effective that b d s has become the more it's opponents of target with the terms again not to mention anti semitic anti israel the latest example again not of you alluded to that and i want to go into a little more is the seattle jewish federation and virtually every jewish communal organization in every synagogue in seattle united behind a program that they put on  those people are to be commended for not getting on that bad wakin so but unfortunately the lion's share of the community in almost in unison except for colin smile and some others we got on this bandwagon and the title which is important here for this event was the b d s campaign against israel bad for jews in seattle and beyond when i read that my blood started to boil and that's when i started thinking about how to do something that would present a different perspective on the issue and that's what led to this event eventually so that event last month featured very facile but his arguments and his intellect i think personally are extremely weak and he just came out with a book which i can't remember the title of  is it called my promised land reviewed everywhere the new york times give it a glowing review david remnick in the new yorker everybody charlie rose had him on you know he was the liberal sort of daily it was  the like the soup to sure you know for american media in terms of presenting a liberal quote unquote liberal perspective on on israel his talk his pitch at this event was people opposing media's argue that the full return of the refugees under the right of return would flood israel with millions of refugees millions of palestinians millions of people alien to israeli society alien culture and would overrun israel and would end the project of israel as a jewish state and would turn israel into you know i i haven't even conceived of what there is you know imagine they talk about destroying israel or eliminating israel as if b d s is going to you know take an army and march in to tell of eve and and take over which obviously has a nonviolent movement it's not going to do that but it is going if it succeeds it is going to change israel  so for ari shapiro and others like him it's a hop skip and a jump from something that is going to quote unquote destroy israel to something that is anti semitic because of israel is a an expression of the jewish people represents the jewish people then if you destroy israel you are in effect engaging in an act of aggression against the jewish people that sort of like thinking of it  we jewish students locally students at university washington just i think the name of the group is super and they put forth a vestment b d s resolution before the student union and i read a really interesting thoughtful piece by the hill rabbi on campus in the jewish newspaper in which he said we made a big mistake in opposing b d s we let the crazy ideologues extremists in our community take over this campaign and so we let stand with us take over we let them run this campaign we let them turn it into a mud slinging contest and you know with blaring trumpets and slogans and whatever and that was detrimental to he says it was detrimental to our goal not only in in in in opposing b d s but detrimental to our goal in achieving some kind of ability to talk to those who so the vote at last but it's the first step as we've been talking about b d s is not going to win as is it already hasn't win one in a year it's maybe not going to win  decade it's going to take time for these things to evolve there's probably going to be a second vote at the u w at some point in the future and that second vote just like the vote at the presbyterians in a second vote will probably be different down in california where we talked about u c l a being one of them so that's going to you know this is what happened with south africa it started out also as a controversy subject sanctions and there were lots of arguments by the equivalent of the neo cons talking about how we're going to hurt south africans if we if we hurt their economy it's going to hurt the poorest of south africans we hear that again with b d s it's only going to hurt the poor workers at the soda stream factories who are all palestinians in there and you know they are not good we wage at soda stream factory in why would you want to take that employment away from them and that of course loses sight of the fact that we are not this is not a movement that is trying to take jobs away from people it is a movement that is that is set its sights on the broader issue of how do we create a just solution to this conflict that is going to be just for both israelis and palestinians i want to talk also about how b d s is controversy because of all of this struck out i tried with a local public radio station and i tried with the seattle times the public radio station was willing to have a former israeli ambassador michael oren speak on air with the condition put forward by the israeli consul that he would not speak with any other guest on air and he wouldn't take any call and questions this is a program in the morning that all of you listen to i won't say the name of station but  because i'm hoping that they might broadcast the audio of this possibly but they were willing to agree to those conditions so michael oren didn't have to face any controversy and afterwards when i asked the general manager he said well our interview it was the one who was going to ask the to him the tough questions but that's not the issue the issue is that you're format is your whole show is based on the promise of having more than one guest usually and having call ins from the community so you can hear different perspective and you can hear a wide range of views so you close off debate you close off discussion about israel when you do something like that and also this radio station would not interview david or joe on air  and you know i never heard why just they wouldn't the seattle times a little different i pitched them an op ed on this and i wrote the op ed when they said to me that i could write the bed and their response was the seattle times does not publish bankrupt israeli companies or your american companies it wants to change a political consciousness and one of the ways of doing it is going to be by trying to hurt the bottom line of some of these companies and persuade them otherwise there is a supreme court u s supreme court decision from the one nine hundred sixty s n a c p against a mississippi hardware store the n a c p was boycotting the hardware store i don't know whether it's because they didn't hire a black blacks or whatever it was and the any c p we think of as a nonviolent organization but they told their members that if you shop at this hardware store we're going to we're go beat your head in and so the u s supreme court said that kind of boycott was acceptable because the boycott was for a moral purpose a political purpose and they were there was not actual violence there were threats of violence is not threatening anyone they're not threatening to knock anybody over the head if they you know don't do something so the idea of somebody saying we can't run in our bed because it advocates a boycott you know is inconceivable to me so i wrote that and i got a response back and said you're kind you're right i think that point cut that wouldn't be a good reason not to run your your op ed but we're still not going to run it we're just not going to give you a reason this time they weren't smart in giving me a reason the first time because then i could argue against a little of what opponents of b d s say is true about b d s the problem lies with your definition of israel does being a jewish state mean that jewish citizens should be guaranteed superior rights to non jewish citizens or does it merely mean that israel must be saved in which jews are secure and may realize their dreams of self determination alongside those other ethnic or religious groups inside israel who want to same thing for their ethnic group or for their their their national for their for their ethnic group or their religion the mission  s is nothing more than realizing the principles of israel's declaration of independence which have remained unrealized since one thousand nine hundred eighty eight it calls for israel to be a state of all its citizens it calls for equal economic political civil and religious rights for jews and on jews and this is far from the death knell for israel that's claimed by opponents it's a call for a democratic israel which doesn't designate one religion or ethnic group is superior to another though many who support b d s may support a one state solution that would bring israeli jews and palestinians the west bank and gaza in israel into a single state the elegance in my opinion s is that it doesn't make any explicit claims about that it says that's an issue for later let's just deal with these three important basic principles and let's get israel to do those is will be forced to change fundamentally as a result of doing those three issues three principles and then we can get to the other issues of what israel should be whether it should be one state to state whatever this strategy what to me is elegant about the strategy as an american jew is that there are some jews in israel and in the united states who i don't have a lot in common with they're called liberal scientists and i disagree with a lot of what they stand for by the way i used to be a liberal zionist ten or fifteen years ago when i first started writing my blog and have changed gradually circumstances have called for but there are liberal zionists who support two states there's someone named larry derfner who writes for the jewish forward and he writes for the los angeles j journal and i disagree with larry on a lot of things but larry supports b d s and i want people like larry who support a two state solution even if i don't necessarily believe the two states as is a possibility anymore i might have it one time but i don't see it anymore but i want someone like that to be able to feel that he can say he supports b d s this is what happened in south africa because part of the opposition to apartheid in the sanctions moving started out controversy oh it started out with you know south african blacks and their allies advocating for this and then gradually it became a steamroller and took in every virtually everyone who had a moral conscience and that's why i think you know where b d s is going to go b d s is not his real enemy in fact both jews and israelis have been divorced it you've heard of neve gordon is a professor barlow on university he wrote one of the first important is statements of support for b d s for which he has a president used is university said damn i wish there was some way i could fire this guy but he had tenure so they couldn't they tried but they couldn't and others have and i'm going to read to you something very important it was written by an israeli liberal zionist his name is run a list and it was published in this month's issue of a magazine in israel which i had never heard of which has an odd name  liberal i have thought liberals are dead in israel apparently not there's a russian oligarch who's providing money for the for the for the publication so i guess you can exist as long as you have that kind of support but anyway he wrote a piece it's  it's an ironic take on these really national anthem which is called take four which means the hope so the title of his piece is hope is not yet lost for international pressure and here's the money para it's clear a by the way he was peace now which is a prototypical israeli liberal zionist kind of movement it's clear that peace cannot take hold here either with this nation or this current government it's also clear that if something drastic doesn't happen we are on the road to slaughter now the next sense i'm going to read i fundamentally disagree with but before you get upset just listen to the whole passage and because i'll talk about both we were on the road to slaughter on the way to the slaughter house called a binational state but still the skeptical israeli public rocks in its chair gently and leisure living life in a bubble luckily we have the world slowly but surely the world understands that it must draw out the splinter which interferes with too many people and interests slowly but surely more than a few israelis and you stand that without international pressure we will fly off the fiftieth floor towards the pavement below an accident waiting to happen this pressure isn't meant to destroy israel's economy or security but to clarify to those who are hopping a ride on the messianic nationalist horse that this horse is dead if we survey from a bird's eye view of the organization of the pressure campaign against israel there's much that is hopeful now i'm not sure if he's being ironic here i'm not but even if he is it's mine there's much that is hopeful economic sanctions cancellation of artistic performances academic boycott arms embargo prohibition of buying products marked quote made in and shomer own and quote all this by the way is happening right now and if nothing changes we will jump up step by step till we reach the roof from which we will plummet to the ground now i said that there is wisdom in this passage but there's also liberal zionism so the idea that a binational state is going to lead to slaughter is the  approach for american jews and israelis who don't want to face certain issues they don't want to lose a jewish state that provides superior rights for jews it's too comfortable so instead of dealing with the issue and trying to figure out how they can get some place and compromise with the other side and still have a resolution that it's going to be reasonably comfortable for both sides they say no if you do this it's going to be a holocaust we're going to have the holocaust all over again so it raises kind of like these these red flags if both for jews using terms like the holocaust and for the rest of the world because the recent world is going to feel guilty if they hear jew saying you're go solution what is true is that there will be enormous tension and conflict in israel how is israel as a state going to realize these three principles and whatever else comes after you're going to have to give up a lot of  rights not i would say you can have to give up you can have to reinterpret your rights so that you share your rights it doesn't mean i mean if if jews are going to have superior rights it doesn't mean the jews have to become slaves it doesn't mean they have to live mean that israel will become rwanda or bosnia or whatever you know genocidal situation you want to evoke palestinians and israelis when faced with the inevitable will understand that they must live together or die both are practical people and will choose life i believe as the bible exhorts what is astonishing about a list article is that he recognizes that israel itself is incapable of doing the right thing he's begging the world to quote unquote stop us before we kill again he's saying to the world don't worry about the impact of b d s on our country we know you're not trying to destroy us we understand that your intent is instead to destroy the political power of the messianic nationalists currently rule ruling us go right ahead there is in this perspective a sad fatalism the fatalism of the liberal left in israel which realizes that it's come to the end of its road it no longer wields any meaningful power in israel there's no labor party anymore labor party used to be socialist zionism the key would seem you know the leader saying the world must come to our rescue the admission his admission though although it's pathetic is a tonic because it allows us to realize that if the world doesn't intervene israel will die a list is inviting us to stop israel before it's too late as israel's government grows increasingly extreme those of us who care deeply about what will happen resonate with the word words of the canadian jewish novelist illit wallman who was born in israel and married to the noted writer michael sharon she was interviewed by israel's hauritz and they asked her if she thought the country could serve still serve as a refuge for desperate jews facing anti semitism is one of those sort of basic israel is the jewish homeland a refuge for jews from the holocaust etc this is earth response very instructive quote it could be if you don't ruin everything if something is left once netanyahu and its friends are done the road is getting more and more national the the road is getting more and more nationalist and i don't see any way at the end will be anything but it's faster unquote desperate times call for desperate measures well some come to b d s enthusiastically others come reluctantly after all previous attempts at reason ended in failure since nothing else has worked a dose of stronger medicine is needed to bring israel to its senses thanks to say three short things before i start the formal talk one is how did i get involved in this i've always been interested in this issue but i didn't really become an activist in it until about last spring and i was part of the first i could demick organization to vote for the boycott academic boycott of israel which was a very small i could emiko organization i'm positive you haven't heard of except for maybe in this context which was the association for asian american studies and we voted unanimously for the boycott and the thank you you're welcome  middle east and as i well i replied to him and then i blogged on this in truthout and i said well if you think of an academic organization the studies asian america you might think that we would know something about the annexation of the sovereign state of hawaii and the suppression of the indigenous peoples there you think that we might know something about the internment of the japanese americans and you might think that we would know something about the attacks on south asian muslims after nine eleven and you might think we would have learned something about the principle of solidarity which means that even if your group isn't particularly directly affected you understand that in justice and equality is something that we should all be concerned about and that's something i'll talk more about today you secondly i want to talk about the academic part of it in terms of academic freedom after the essay vote american studies association which is a much larger association than asian american studies after we voted for that resolution we were again attacked and about two hundred university presidents wrote letters decrying the vote saying it was a horrible affront on academic freedom and that you know universities all are all about open investigate inquiry and collaboration and free flow of ideas and that's pretty astounding because nothing in the resolution prohibits that and so i called my university president i explained i said well have you read the resolution though he's a smart guy and so i explained i read it to him and then he said well so it's really not all about academic freedom i said no he said so you going to get slammed for being at a semitic i said yes thank you the the the best analogy i can use is as  stanford which we tried to do many times did not renew its contract with nike just refused to buy any sports equipment no switches on any of the uniforms right but individual faculty students staff could buy all the nike products they wanted that's what the academic boycott is about is a it's a corporate decision on the part of the a say or the aaa s of the native american indigenous studies group to say we don't want to have our name associated with israeli universities but the essay invited is really scholars to our conference we actually paid for them we paid for palestinian scholars to come to because another porton point to get out third point i want to make is how this issue has really tapped into a strong emotional current and this is brought to me by my son who is a stanford undergraduate many years ago but he's to come  know we talk about politics and he said well you know i can't talk about this with my friends i mean i can i have read he had really i mean jewish friends that he had had since middle school and he would just mention the  word palestine and they would just shut him up and that to me is not just a personal problem isn't a problem but education why is it that in our institutions of higher education we're supposed to be precisely entertaining diversity of opinions arguing ideas attaining new law knowledge that we didn't have before and fighting prejudice that we can't talk about israel palestine and so that's really what got me more active in this than i ever thought before simply as an educator so now let's begin my presentation which will be relatively short and it's unavoidable unavoidable perhaps that discussions of israel palestine have intense emotional content but any project on university or college campuses that wishes to teach about peace and justice and to address the issue of israel palestine needs to seriously address the question of emotions it's too easy to imagine that emotions will steam plea evaporate once facts hit them that doesn't happen when i returned to campus from the american studies association conference in d c last year as we members began deliberations are a much publicized resolution to support the call for academic boycott of israel i anticipated that there might be some fallout because of my various pope book boycott blogs and a quote from one of my statements the made into the front page of the new york times actually got the last w will i said it was quoted people who truly believe in academic freedom would realize the protests in the blatant and systemic denial of academic freedoms to palestinians which is coupled with material deprivation of a staggering scale far outweighs concerns we in the west might have about our rather privileged academic freedoms i was expecting some reaction when i returned to campus but nothing prepared me for a comment that a jewish colleague of mine made to me when we happen to bump into each other he put his hand on my shoulder and not entirely i'm a couple way and said after the moment it took to process that remark i replied i'm not obsessed with jews i'm concerned about palestinians now why are my affective investments and political actions open to such radically different interpretations my friends comments comments seem to reinforce the issue i tried to get across in the new york times when i suggested that our concern might be better placed with the palestinians an actual aggrieved group and the specific specific harms done to them by both the occupation and structures of domination the continued to be imposed upon them in israel as sort of hypothetical harms that might be visited upon us by the boycott most important is to consider how radically divergent his description of my actions were from my own he simply could not accept a non jews interest in the middle east especially if it seemed to emerge from a sensibility and political position to him for his my friends obsessions with jews why should he is jewish  by clear seem to have natural outcome of his ethnic identity he has his obsession raise no questions his interest could only be interpreted as being naturally interested in his people on the other hand my concern about palestinians was recoded by my view my friends were few as an inexplicable obsession with jews by that i can only assume he meant that i seemed to him to be in ordinate least interested in criticizing the behavior of the jewish people when in actuality i was and am involved in critiquing the policies of the state of israel that do persistent and unjust harm to palestinians is precisely that fluid slide into misinterpretation the makes working on peace and justice in israel palestine tremendously hard in fact any work toward peace and justice must tackle the question of on whose behalf are we doing what we're doing i'll come back to this later on well similar to the way my friend characterize what i thought was my concern with the situation of palestine's as an obsession with jews the public and private discourse around israel palestine is saturated with heated passionate language for example in the same new york times piece there was very grave and very saddening with this happens particularly so in the united states and quote i interpret this last phrase to reference the fact that for decades and decades not only has the us been israel's staunchest political ally and most financially generous supporter it has also happened the criticism of israel state policies has been for the longest time nearly nonexistent on college campuses and in academic organisations such as  clearly the latter situation is changing and in trachtenberg eyes and many others it's grave and saddening i'm not in any way denying the legitimacy of these settlements in fact part of me is deeply sympathetic i cannot honestly say that i would not feel exactly the same way how i've been brought up in similar circumstances and with those cultural and historical memories deeply ingrained in my life and those of my relatives but while we cannot and should not disregard the past we can and should take responsibility for knowing that as fully as possible and for not automatically discounting other narratives and other facts even for reasons that seem into spiritually right to us because we feel them so deeply to study and to work for peace and justice requires a full set of information and knowledge about the cases that one is working on the fact that the various interpretations of events do not necessarily jibe many times they do not the fundamental principles of educational institutions is that people are intrusted to form their judgments based on their interpretation of facts and critically people are responsible for testing out those interpretations in conversation and debate with others it's here that abstract words like peace and justice come alive and are reshaped and adapted to the cases at hand until then and this is the pragmatic position there can only be a provisional  contingent consensus of what these words might actually mean most important perhaps is when human beings act on the basis of those words that we see what the real world effects and consequences are interpretations have it's in colleges and universities they were supposed to be exposed to and have a wife access to views and opinions but this is sadly not the case when it comes to one the most important and urgent issues of the twentieth and twenty first century i would wager that at every college an institution of higher education the us talking about the subject of israel palestine is fraught this of course opens up a huge contradiction succinctly found in this fact that lawrence summers in the same breath can condemn b d s or indeed every protest against israel as anti semitic and also insist the college campuses should resign in energetic debate and just two examples that all close with one is this  group called am cha which is as they describe it on their website a nonprofit organization dedicated to investigating documenting educating about and combating anti semitism semitic demonizing israel do you legitimizing israel holding israel to a double standard promoting boycott divestment sanctions against israel these are some specific concern to free speech on campus because even discussing any of these things is not just advocating for them but discussing these things can be construed as being at a semitic simply raising the issue and i wrote one letter of protest to  university it says quote most alarmingly at the end of the event she announced to the audience the she was working toward organizing collaborative agreements between c s u campuses and to palestinian universities and she urged students in the audience to let her know if they would be interested in studying at those universities that's the high point so this is troubling because obviously i mean well obviously it's individual faculty members can't just create these  lee affiliations have to go through a lot of bureaucratic process to do so but what the point i'm trying to get at is simply by introducing the possibility that some students might want to study at these universities was cause for this person to be investigated the other thing i want to talk about is title six and the use of title six cynically as a way to sign this debate title six of the nine hundred sixty four civil rights act was used in the one nine hundred sixty s to desegregate public schools in the south it prohibits discrimination based on race color or national origin but does not include religion but in october two thousand and ten u s secretary of education arnie duncan reaffirmed a set of guidelines initially promulgated in two thousand and four and quote this applies title six to the protection of jewish students from at a summit ism on campus under the department of education guidelines the civil rights act can be even invoked if anti jewish behavior is considered to be based on shared ethnic characteristics to be clear it was not just jewish students who are now to be protected under title six on its face the new protocol said that a group with a common religion would not be denied protection if they also shared actual or perceived ethnic characteristics or incest all ties and the examples that were given were sikh americans arab muslims jewish americans however various groups have attempted to interpret this new feature of the act by saying that anything that might cause emotional distress and this goes back to the emotional issue emotional distress to jewish students must be curtailed and punished and the vast majority majority of these campuses cases had to do with college protests after those guidelines were put in place several complaints were filed with the u s department of education asserting things things like israel for example at u c santa cruz tammy rossman benjamin filed a complaint arguing that quote as a result of their experiences in such a university sponsored anti semitic expression jewish students at my university have expressed feeling emotionally and intellectually harassed and intimidated by their professors isolated from their fellow students and unfairly treated by administrators some have even reported leaving the university dropping classes changing fields of study and hiding symbols of their jewishness and quote despite this and several other attempts to deploy the new guidelines as noted in article published in march two thousand and twelve in the jewish daily forward quote a year and a half the after the federal government extended a landmark civil rights law to cover jewish students jewish groups have yet to succeed in using this law against what they see as anti semitic anti israel activity on campus a survey by the ford found that at least ten antisemitism cases have been filed with either the department of education or in courts under title six of the nine hundred sixty four civil rights act in only one of these cases so far has the completing been favored and this was a high school case in which israel played no role the determination letter written to u c berkeley by the department of education contains the most succinct statement possible it found that the  based the basis of complaint quote constitute expression on matters of public concern directed to the university community in the university environment exposure to such robust and discordant expressions when personally offensive and hurtful is a circumstance that a reasonable student in higher education may experience and quote i focus on this case because it perhaps more than anything else highlights what is unique about efforts to find peace and justice in israel palestine coupled with what has been up to now our government's immense reluctance to criticize israel and the long tradition of accepting an historical narrative with regard to israel palestine that favors and legitimizes israel denied being even deny even the existence of palestine this use of the civil rights act to sign this debate about israel in the name of protecting the sensibilities of certain students is remarkable and alarming the title of my meant was about peace and justice in israel palestine was meant as a rejoinder to my friend who posed to me the question i know why i'm obsessed with jews but why are you to really work for peace and justice we have to see both as under the  stewardship of all of us and that justice are they entitled peace and justice are entitle ments of all not just jews palestinians but of all people as certainly it's not restricted to people that we are so obsessed with or just care deeply about we should each be given the right and indeed obligation to care about everyone and caring about peace and justice means as well that we need to take care of peace and justice and taking care of peace and justice decidedly does not mean to maintain a false sense of peace by quieting debate that is hardly just the dio is finding was just right one comes to university not to reinforce already existing beliefs why would you spend thousands and thousands of dollars to do that or simply to gain knowledge and skills when it comes to institutions of higher education to be challenged in all sorts of ways the much heralded virtue the value of diversity is not meant to be merely cosmetic it's meant to bring diverse experiences and perspectives into the conversation to actually understand and use that diversity different views and perspectives must be given a fair and impartial hearing one can certainly disagree debate raise questions and if one could and one should but that cannot take place in environment where only some people are entitled to care and to care only about certain matters and style and in certain styles peace and justice should be seen as in divisible not the right or privilege of only those we immediately  arce care about to really study peace and justice and to work for it requires an openness and an inquisitive energy that transcends our immediate perceptions and emotions and we should not only be able to care for others not like ourselves we ought to thank you i think we should focus more on the people that are endorsing the boycott and let the other ones fade into obscurity the momentum is clearly in our favor i also think that every defeat is also a victory in the sense that how many times have you heard the word palestinian rights in the exponentially more than the last decade so even discussing it in the terms of a defeat is still a victory because we're keeping it in the public consciousness as long as it's out there it's viable in terms of the universities i think generationally things are are slipping in our favor if you think about the whole open hillel movement it's amazing you know you would not have had that a few years ago as far as i know right so  openly no matter what side they're on because that's that's necessary if you're always sort of coming thing short before the discussion begins you've lost so at least we have their tent as that wonderful quote from god you know at least we have their attention and i think then you know my point from my paper was we have to understand the emotion we can't just disavow the emotional aspect of it is huge and it's really important when we do them a disservice by denying that but we can't let that dominate the discussion so i think that's an important corner to turn and i think we're turning it now one thing that we were thinking about at stanford is to also have more direct relations between u s students and students going to school in palestine so the whole issue of israel in some senses gets bracketed out because once you humanize the situation the palestinians because let's face it the whole discussion has been dominated by american academics right and jewish politicians and what not and for and interest groups palestinian voices are completely silenced on this so we need to have more direct contact with palestinians of all ages and groups so we can understand directly from them rather than having this mediated discussion which always gets bogged down so that's that's another one of our strategies betrayed tiny suggestion which is very easy to do which is to talk to a friend that you know doesn't support p d s i mean just sit down with them one to one whatever don't because you won't convert them but it's just a matter of again giving them information they would have otherwise and hopefully if their friend would be receptive to it a larger scale issue right after the a safe vote i was invited to to be interviewed on sh program was about but anything like that just just just exactly conversations so i can report that the friend that david spoke about who i won't mention his name but he's my friend too thing to that answer is that basically for me the beauty of b d s not that not only is it that everyone can engage in it but it's like so very often enough all of us have been speaking about this for decades and it used to be that at the end of a talk people would say what can we do well there is something you can do b d s so very often when people say oh it's so complicated what can we do it's going to go on no no no it's not it's not going to go on forever it's complicated or not there actually is something you can do so that's really very very empowering that you actually can do something about it and in fact most of the talks you know this is like a huge shift that i have seen having spoken about palestine for here in the u s for some twenty five years it used to be that the talks would end up like with a lot of long faces of not a month on month can we do and we didn't have an answer