Andrew Cheng | Phoenix Staff

Hanna King recently filmed a protest at the Israeli prime minister's speech in New Orleans.

BY JACQUELINE SMALL

In print | Published November 18, 2010

The auditorium was packed with nearly 4,000 people listening intently to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, when a voice from the audience called out, “The loyalty oath delegitimizes Israel!” The voice belonged to an American protestor, and so did the voices that soon said, “The settlements delegitimize Israel!” and “The occupation delegitimizes Israel!” As the protestors were removed from the crowd, who chanted in Hebrew, “The nation of Israel lives!” a Swarthmore first-year, Hanna King, stood by filming the action. She and other college-age students went to New Orleans to attend and demonstrate against Netanyahu’s speech to the Jewish Federations General Assembly on Nov. 8th.

King is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, an organization that, according to its online mission statement, “opposes anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, and anti-Arab bigotry and oppression.” It wants to end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, and ensure that both Israelis and Palestinians are treated fairly. It decries attacks on civilians and seeks peace and justice for all people living in of the Middle East.

Stefanie Fox ’04, another member of Jewish Voice for Peace, has acted as a mentor to King, and was active in the planning of the protest. Part of the demonstration’s goal was to show that young Jews are not apathetic about Israeli-Palestinian relations. “Given the current obsession within the institutional Jewish community about where young Jews are, we thought it would be a perfect time to give young, proudly Jewish activists the opportunity to speak for themselves about where they ‘are’ and why Israel right-or-wrong politics are driving them away,” Fox said in an e-mail.

Originally, the group planned to have a silent protest, where they would only hold up signs with their messages, but they feared that their signs would be taken away or destroyed and they would be removed from the audience without communicating their message. “We unanimously agreed with the decision to shout what was on our signs, though many were also sad to lose the solemnity of a silent protest. We were not there to ‘heckle’ but to speak out in an environment that silences dissent and refuses us the opportunity to make this point in another way,” Fox said.

“We wanted to bring attention to Palestinians who are being oppressed,” King said. She and other members of Jewish Voice for Peace also interviewed people at the assembly for the Jewish Voice for Peace website and for the website for young adult members of JVP, youngjewishproud.org. “There are many more nuanced opinions than the Jewish establishment wants to think,” she said.

Josh Sokol ’11, for one, said that his opinion is more balanced. Though he considers himself a “liberal Zionist,” he is troubled by the settlements and the loyalty oath. However, “The broader insistence that accepting Israel’s legitimacy is a prerequisite to finding tenable solutions to the Israel-Palestine conflict is not unexpected, nor is it difficult to understand and justify,” he said in an e-mail.

King could not personally partake in the protesting because, as a 17-year-old minor, she could have been detained until her parents came to get her, so she videotaped the reaction of the crowd instead. King said that her parents and synagogue are not critical of Israel, but that her family is beginning to reconsider its view.

She stressed that like other young Jews who support Palestine, she “honors the memory of the Holocaust and the terrible experiences of our ancestors” but does not think that the past justifies Israel’s actions. “A long history of conflict blinds people to the conflict they’re perpetuating,” King said. “Perpetuating oppression onto others is unacceptable.”

The protests were reported by the Associated Press and Haaretz (a Hebrew word meaning, “the land”), the oldest daily newspaper in Israel, where some commenters expressed support and admiration. Other commenters, though, criticized the students as being immature, pro-Palestine and undeserving of being called Jewish.

King, a prospective Peace and Conflict Studies major, is committed to working for peace, and says that Israel’s actions toward Palestine contradict Jewish values, such as Tikkun Olam, the repairing of the world’s injustices. “[The oppression of Palestinians] is not something I can live with,” she said.

Sokol, however, was less willing to rely on religion to form political opinions. “I do not agree with the idea that Jewish values dictate a certain political stance on this issue — I think that there’s room for conscientious people to acknowledge the complex political realities standing in the way of peace, and to advocate for different, but still realistic solutions,” he said.

King, who is opposed to violence, said, “Nonviolent action is the only way to end conflict.” She thinks that economic divestment is the best method to end Israel’s objectionable policies. The tactic of divestment, or boycotting a country or company’s products, was used by Ghandi, Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. “It helped end apartheid, so it’s a really very effective peace tactic,” King said.

Going forward, King intends to continue to raise awareness for Palestinians as much as she can. “But my main focus right now is on being a college student,” she said. “Ultimately, it’s not my voice that needs to be heard. I just want to be a conduit of attention to those who need it.”

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