Response to ‘The PSC and Palestine Solidarity: Frequently Asked Questions’ by Rank and File Action (RAFA) and to ‘The Resolution in Support of the Palestinian People’ by PSC-CUNY

Attacks against the Jewish people have been waged by diverse religions and ideologies across continents and centuries. There are today three movements for which the age-old hatred of the Jewish People is a central organizing principle and source of solidarity. These movements have different attitudes towards Jews and Israel. Many on the far right loudly proclaim their antipathy towards Jews, but are not opposed to Israel’s existence, in part because Israel provides a place where Jews could decamp. In contrast, extremist Islam is even-handed in its abhorrence of both Jews and Israel. For their part, many on the extreme left, disavow antisemitism and proclaim that they are merely anti-Israel. They say they are battling for human rights and dignity for Palestinians who suffer under Israeli ethnic cleansing, settler colonialism, massacres, and genocide in pursuit of its racist and apartheid policies against an indigenous people. Israel’s supporters, they say, provide cover for its abuses by protesting that anyone who is anti-Israel is antisemitic. 

Invective against Israel such as found in the PSC Resolution and in RAFA’s Statement on Frequently Asked Questions have become the backdrop of our lives; they bolster the moral authority of the far left by focusing their defiance on the arch-villain, Israel. With the unceasing demonization of Israel, it may be easy to assume that Israel has only itself to blame for the unique calumny to which it is subjected. But, still, we should expect to see some factual basis for the animosity towards Israel. Since the anti-Israel left has so completely joined the battle with extremist Islam against the only democracy in the Middle East, for example, castigating Israel for its support for gay rights with charges of pinkwashing while not raising the alarm to the persecution of gays in the Palestinian Authority, Gaza and surrounding states, it is fair to ask for the facts that underlie its hostility towards Israel. One would expect to find the factual basis for the hostility towards Israel in the PSC Resolution or in the eight-page RAFA email, which was sent to all PSC members, but one would search in vain; no facts are to be found. We have therefore attached detailed answers to frequently asked questions in which the particulars of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians are given. We encourage you to read both The PSC and Palestine Solidarity: Frequently Asked Questions and our Response. The Response shows that the claims made by RAFA against Israel are transparently false and in many cases are inversions of the truth, where the intent or actions attributed to Israel are precisely the intent and actions of Palestinian leaders. Below, we provide a few facts related to the charges against Israel: 

• Ethnic cleansing: The Israeli Palestinian population has increased five-fold since the 1948 Armistice, while the Jewish population in the Arab world has dropped to 1% of what it had been. 

• Settler colonialism and indigeneity: Jews have lived in the Middle East and in the land now part of Israel and the Palestinian Authority continuously for thousands of years. Half of Israeli Jews are Mizrachi without roots in Europe. Zionists sought to recreate a society built with their own labor in their historic homeland that would be a refuge for Jews facing oppression in Europe and the Middle East. Their goal was to create a refuge from oppression, not to enrich any home country, as colonialists, by definition, do.

• Massacres and genocide: Hamas proclaims and acts to kill as many civilians as possible, whereas Israel, when defending its citizens from rocket attacks from Gaza, seeks to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties. Despite inevitable miscalculations in the heat of war, this reduces casualties, but casualties are inevitable since Hamas’s military infrastructure and rocket launchers are placed in densely populated areas.

• Racism and apartheid: Israeli Palestinians are active in every aspect of Israeli society and governance, including the Knesset and the Supreme Court. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas have not allowed their people to vote; they remain in power by denying civil rights to their people and deflecting criticism by racial incitement against Jews and Israel. 

We are dismayed by the contempt that RAFA expresses towards CUNY faculty and staff in its email. It speciously conflates those who oppose the PSC Resolution with those who oppose “teaching about slavery,” which it adds, “might make some white people in the CUNY community uncomfortable, can we imagine giving in to the rightwing, racist attacks.” The shameful history of slavery in the US has absolutely nothing to do with the situation in Israel/Palestine. RAFA denigrates CUNY members who oppose the PSC attack on Israel when it writes: “And the only people who really insist upon being comfortable all the time are people who are in the dominant position. And the only way they can be comfortable all the time is if everyone else is oppressed.” But all barriers are broken when it comes to Israel. RAFA’s email dovetails with the PSC Resolution, which “resolved that the PSC-CUNY condemns the massacre of Palestinians by the Israeli state.” Not to condemn or even mention Hamas, which fired over 4000 rockets into Israel in June, but to condemn Israel, says that, unlike all other peoples who defend themselves when attacked, Israel’s defense of its citizens is a crime against humanity. Hamas has pledged never to make peace with Israel and to drive the Jews of Israel into the sea. The PSC Resolution is thus tantamount to demanding that Israelis lie down and allow themselves to be exterminated. Our union must stop working to resuscitate the spirit of the infamous, now-revoked, “Zionism is Racism” UN Resolution and must revoke its anti-Israel resolution. Only in this way, can the PSC become an authentic voice for human rights around the world and advance the cause of peace in the Middle East.