“I asked the girl putting up the sign whether there would be any sorrow expressed for the Israelis who were killed during the war.”
She said “no.”
“I saw that the sign mentioned genocide, so I asked the person posting the sign if she knew what genocide meant. No answer.
“I told her genocide means the systematic elimination of a certain racial or ethnic group, but that is not what happened. It’s a misuse of the word.”
The Oberlin student recounting this episode, she was quick to make clear, opposes the “occupation,” and is in favor of the ‘two state solution.’ She said that anyplace but at Oberlin she would be seen as on the left.
But it made her angry that there was absolutely no consideration of why there had been a conflict, no acknowledgement that the Gazans had shot rockets at Israel, no understanding that part of the reason there was a huge disparity in numbers of Gazans versus Israelis killed was because Israel made huge financial commitments towards the the Iron Dome missile defense system and for building life shelters to protect their citizens.
This student was angry because the term genocide was cheapened by its misuse and she was bothered by the lack of concern about using and spreading misinformation, as if facts and truth didn’t matter. Not when it came to criticizing Israel.
This Obie mindset which had a wholesale disregard for truth and lack of knowledge about Israel and its enemies was repeated by all of the current students.
For example, as far as the official record regarding Israel, at least at Oberlin, all Israelis are white Europeans who came to the Middle East to dispossess the indigenous brown people, the Palestinians. There is no understanding that not all Arabs are brown, not all Israelis are white, not even that not all Arabs are Muslim or that not all Muslims are Arabs. And the list goes on.
What matters is that Jews who consider a connection to Israel as being part of their identity as Jews are shamed, blacklisted, ridiculed or worse. No voice about Israel is permitted at Oberlin unless it is a “voice denouncing the Jewish state as colonialist, as the embodiment of white supremacism, as the source of state-sponsored terrorism.”
This sophomore said that in another place she might be talking about the Gazan Arabs killed, it isn’t as if she doesn’t care that people died, but it was not a genocide and information was being misrepresented. And so many Obies and others just blindly buy into it. Zionism is a taboo subject. The only thing that matters is what fits or what is crammed into the idealized liberation movement of black and brown people strait jacketed view.
THE WORD ZIONISM OR MENTION OF SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL IS NOT ACCEPTED AT OBERLIN
An Oberlin Jewish professional told the anecdote of the freshman he saw at the beginning of this school year. She was wearing a t-shirt that had the word “Israel” on it. It was not an Israel Defense Forces shirt, just a regular t-shirt. He remarked to the student, “good for you for wearing that shirt.” The student responded: “I never would have had I known what I would have to endure because of it.” It is doubtful she ever wore that shirt again, not while on campus.
This staff person said that about five years ago there was some level of Israel advocacy on campus. That’s gone now, it’s been “squashed.”
“The ‘culture makers’ set the tone at Oberlin, and the tone includes being anti-Israel as part of its core beliefs,” he said.
Nearly every Oberlin insider with whom we spoke said that there is absolutely no room for, because there is no interest in, dialogue about Israel. Either you meet the anti-Israel standard or you have no place to express your beliefs.