It’s happened every year since 2005. Anti-Israel activists on college campuses around the world hold a weeklong series of events, usually in March, that demonize Israel as an “apartheid state.”
Speakers at these events falsely allege that Israeli policy toward Palestinians is analogous to the repression experienced by the Black majority during the racist years of South African Apartheid.
Often, anti-Israel activists organize street theater and construct “apartheid walls” on campus in order to gain student attention to their outrageous allegations against the Jewish state.
But CAMERA on Campus plans to disrupt this year’s “Israel Apartheid Week” with a new campaign that rebuts the lies and informs students with facts about Israel.
The #ApartheidWeekExposed campaign will include a website that features a virtual “apartheid wall” scrawled with common falsehoods told by anti-Israel activists such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). When a viewer hovers his or her mouse over these falsehoods, a text box will appear with facts that refute SJP’s allegations.
“Because we only have so much room on the ‘wall,’ the website will also feature a section with refutations to other common falsehoods,” said Aviva Rosenschein, international director of CAMERA on Campus. “We’ll also be releasing a mobile-friendly version of the site, so that students can quickly find facts when confronted by lies around campus.”
Rosenschein also said that her organization will be equipping students with concise and effective arguments, new educational graphics, links to relevant articles, and educational videos that can be shared around campus.
“During this week, anti-Israel activists slur Jews as colonialists,” said Ben Stone, a CAMERA fellow at Duke University. “This isn’t just factually wrong, but an antisemitic attempt to paint Jews as alien invaders in their indigenous homeland. I’m glad CAMERA is creating new resources for students to counter such slurs.”
“The groups behind the so-called Israeli Apartheid Week actually stand for a one-state solution and that one state is Palestine, leaving no room for Jewish self-determination in their ancestral homeland,” said Sara Goel, a CAMERA fellow at Sapir College. “Israeli Apartheid Week is therefore antisemitic, whether or not its organizers claim they ‘stand against’ antisemitism.”
Israel Apartheid Week also exploits and offends Blacks who suffered under actual apartheid. “The comparison between the brutal apartheid regime and a democratic state like Israel is non-existent,” said Klaas Mokgomole, head coordinator for Africans for Peace. “All it does is fuel animosity and hatred and devalues the history and the legacy of apartheid that permeates our society to this day. In reality, what we learn from the South African example is that eventually if you want peace then there has to be dialogue and engagement for any kind of resolution.”
“Our goal is to provide students with the tools needed for honest dialogue,” said CAMERA on Campus’s Zac Schildcrout. “Our campaign and website will provide students with just that – an organized database of resources to counter the misinformation and distortions endemic to Israel Apartheid Week.”
For more information on CAMERA’s new campus campaign, visit www.apartheidweekexposed.org.
