To Pro-Palestinian College Protesters,
I am speaking as one who was involved in encampment protests almost 13 years ago. I participated in Occupy Wall Street (OWS) at 3 different locations even though I stayed overnight at only one of the locations.
I remember OWS very fondly. It was a time when we gave the nation an opportunity to think about new ways of approaching our problems and life. A person from Virginia asked me what did we accomplish. I said we gave people an opportunity to change, and that is all anyone who supports democracy can do. I added, look at the Old Testament prophets. If we measured their success by how their audiences reacted, most, if not all, of them were failures. But if you measure their success by the messages they gave and the opportunities for people to change, the prophets were successful.
What I want to share is both where OWS failed and my reflections on your venture. We failed in two areas. First, we relied on provoking police responses in efforts to achieve positive visibility to the public. For the most part, we didn't respond to the police with violence. But by relying on provoking responses from them, we missed opportunities to win them over and have them as allies.
Second, our message was worded so that we put on ourselves the burden of proof for our claims about the 1%. The problem with our having the burden of proof is that much of our audience lived off the coattails of the 1% and that made the burden of proof for us much greater. But another problem is that in challenging how the 1% should function in this nation, we were asking the nation to change. And here is the $64 million dollar point, most people find changing to be a very difficult process especially for those who are past their mid-20s.
I myself found that changing my political beliefs, from conservative Republican to a Leftist who leans toward Marx to be a tearing process internally speaking. Part of the difficulty was because my political beliefs were so closely bound to my religious beliefs and so I was tasked with changing those political beliefs without changing my faith.
Thus when we ask many people to reconsider their positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we are asking them to start and finish a monumental task. And the more self-righteous, demanding and authoritarian we appear in how we ask people to change their minds, the fewer the people who will respond to our challenges. Changing one's established views takes time and effort and we have to be sympathetic to the inner conflict and respect the time they need to change.
Now for some reflection on OWS and how its life can shed light on your pro-Palestinian protests. First, please realize that, just as we did, yous guys have more than one audience. Yes, your fellow students make up part of your audience as do your colleges' professors, staff, and administrators--the best was not saved for last here. But perhaps the most influential of your audiences is the general public.The public's perception of your protests will have a greater long-term influence on how your college's administration will respond to your demands than any group including the college's donors. And so you should want, almost above all else, to avoid as much negative public perception as you can and strive to earn as much positive public perception you can without compromising your values.
Second, you should realize that to adequately protest for the Palestinian cause, your tactics and strategies must embrace long term approaches more than short term approaches. What do I mean by that? Encampments are a short term approach at convincing the public. That is because the duration of an encampment is strictly at the decision of local government officials. And so if you rely on encampments to achieve your goals, your success will depend on whether your goals are quick and easy to accomplish, whether the changes you want people to make shallow and easy. For once local officials have had enough of your presence in encampments, the party is over.
In addition, not all of the old ways of protesting pay off today. And so yous guys should try to discover new ways of getting your message across. Some of yous, like the students at Columbia, are already doing that.
Third, yous guys must realize your ultimate opponent in protesting for the Palestinian cause: Political Zionism. Political Zionism is to the Occupation and retaliatory wars against the Palestinian what white supremacy was to slavery in this nation, Jim Crow, and is to the surviving vestiges of systemic racism in this nation.
And yet, Political Zionism, unlike the belief in white supremacy, is an understandable and human reaction to 2 millenniums of persecution, much of which has been unbelievably horrific. Because it is an understandable reaction to their past, yous need to infuse your opposition to Political Zionism with empathy and compassion rather than impatience, resentment and hatred, remembering that the Jewish people have so often been forced into the role that they have been placing the Palestinians into today. And this is an illustration of one of the great continuous tragedies of human history: some victims become victimizers. Such has been seen in American history and we are all vulnerable to succumbing to it.
However, in rejecting Zionism, we must not reject a homeland for the Jews. It is that such a homeland doesn't have to privilege the Jews above all others to be a haven for them.
Fourth, yous guys need to expect to become victims of bigotry, prejudices, and hatred. As a group, yous guys need to expect to be falsely portrayed as a pathetic or monstrous monolithic group. The purpose of using monolithic portrayals of yous is to demonize yous. And the purpose of demonizing yous is to silence you by ensuring that your message will be automatically dismissed by the general public. And the best way to counter those portraits is to contradict those portrayals with as many acts and words of kindness and understanding as possible. This would include passionately embracing Martin Luther King's opposition to external and internal violence. The latter is exhibited by one's words and other forms of expressed attitudes.
Fifth, behind all bigotries and prejudices lie black-white worldviews. This leads many to cling to an us vs them approach to the world. Such thinking forms the worldview that is driving the violence being practiced by the Israeli government and its settlers on one hand, and by the various Palestinian terrorist groups on the other. And so while understanding why yous are being attacked is necessary, it is also important to avoid having black-white worldviews yourselves.
Sixth, you must become promoters of the Rule of Law more than being pro-Palestinian apologists. For the moment we support Palestinian terrorism because it is resisting Israeli violence, we are embracing a moral relativity that says right and wrong depends on who does what to whom. We are communicating that we don't mind the violence as much as it is our team that is is winning at practicing violence. And such damages the pro-Palestinian cause. When we support one group's terrorism and oppose that from the other group, we only show ourselves to be highly partisan and not worth listening to.
Finally, and this is related to the second part, yous need to continue your activism when yous return home for the summer. Why? Because you need to play the long game of activism. That is because most sane people will not decide to change their minds overnight. They need constant week to week, if not day to day, reminders of what is happening there. And those reminders must be free of as many negative associations as possible.
I very much appreciate all of the students speaking out in behalf of the Palestinians except for those who are anti-Semitic and want violence to be exercised against defenders of Zionism. I hope to participate in some of the protests this summer. I just need a better flow of information as to when and where the events are. Thank you so much for most of what you are doing.
Curt Day
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