WSU Students Say No to racism!

On Monday, October 8th, Wayne State students sent a message to all those who seek to govern in the name of white supremacy and imperialism: We will not stand for it, and we will fight back. In the face of police with real guns and not taser guns, in the face of an administration that would prefer to remain neutral but is forced to take sides, in the face of no less than an advisor to presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, WSU students fought racism, and refused to back down. All students of conscience, all anti-racists, all those who oppose imperialism from Palestine to Afghanistan and back again, can be proud of themselves on this day.

We began our resistance with a brief rally in front of Wayne State's undergraduate library. There, students and faculty made clear that they would not stand for racist speakers at Wayne State. The purpose of the rally was to draw attention to an event that supporters of Israel had organized, and it was a tremendous success. The event was a lecture entitled, "The Threat to Israel's Existence: Why It's Back, What It Means" given by Zionist ideologue, Daniel Pipes. Many students who didn't know the event was happening decided to go when they found out who Pipes was and what he was going to say. After finding out, many decided to ditch class, so important was it to them to confront a racist and show that hate speech is not welcome on our campus.

ARA and others fired up the crowd with speeches describing the event, denouncing one onlooker for wearing an Israeli Defense Forces t-shirt, and explaining ARA's goal of one democratic Palestine where Jews, Arabs, Muslims, and Christians are equal citizens. The crowd was captivated. As the speakers spoke, ARA passed out fliers informing people of the event beginning shortly. In these personal conversations, people were stunned that the university would allow a racist on campus. Many were thankful that ARA had helped organize against it, and excited to fight back.

Around 12:45, we made our way into the Bernath auditorium to ensure that we got good seats and be ready to ask questions when the time came. The march of students heading toward the Bernath auditorium was truly an inspiration. At one point, almost 30 students marched determinedly toward the doors together. Some saw friends and relatives and encouraged and cajoled them to attend the event in order to show support for Palestine and make sure Pipes didn't get a free pass. Electricity was in the air, and the crowd was very excited.

At the door, we were forced to endure the humiliation of having our bags subjected to lengthy and extensive searches by uniformed police officers. Fitting, since Pipes himself advocates racial profiling of this sort. It was at this point that we found out that Pipes was actually scheduled to speak at 1:30. On the Stand with Us website, the time is listed as 1 p.m. In order to ensure that Pipes was successfully confronted, ARA took it upon itself to announce to the crowd that the event had been pushed back. We speculated that perhaps Pipes and company were intimidated by the vocal resistance we had already showed, and therefore had decided to start the event at 1:30 after all. ARA encouraged all those in attendance to have a little patience and practice sumud, or "steadfastness." In Palestine, holding onto one's home is itself a form of resistance. We encouraged those in attendance to hold onto their seats just as Palestinians hold onto their homes. Soon, our time would come.

Finally, the time came for Pipes to speak. He was introduced by Tova Schreiber, a vocal member of Students for Israel prone to falsely accusing ARA of everything from the mundane (that ARA tore down fliers for an event we were actively encouraging as many people as possible to attend) to the surreal (that ARA is an anti-American terrorist group, when in fact our resistance to racism and our insistence on self-government for all people is as American as apple pie and Chevrolets). Schreiber made a point to note that Pipes has a Ph.D. and is "an expert in his field." Pipes' standing as a "scholar" and "expert" would come up again and again during his talk, especially when students challenged his interpretations and assertions. At the end of the event, it was clear that his Ph.D. wasn't worth the paper it was printed on, as he supported US imperialism around the world and Israeli apartheid.

Pipes talk was short and to the point. He made two related arguments. First, he argued that since the Oslo peace talks, Israel had abandoned deterrence and begun pursuing appeasement with regard to Palestine. This had caused the threat to Israel's existence to re-emerge. Second, in order to once again ensure Israel's existence, Israel had to "crush the Palestinian will to resist." That is, in its pursuit of deterrence, it had to enact the harshest measures possible in order to make the cost of resistance unbearable to Palestinians. Such openly vicious recommendations are rare from policy makers, so, in a certain sense, Pipes candor was refreshing. However, no amount of forthrightness can excuse the fact that Pipes mercilessly sides with and advises for the barbarism of American empire.

The moment everyone had waited for arrived when Pipes finished up his talk and opened the floor to questions from the audience. The first two came from active members of ARA. The following 20 came from outraged anti-racist students at Wayne State, with the exception of 2 questions from poorly informed supporters of the apartheid state.

The first question provided a short and to the point answer to the topic Pipes had come to address. Why is the threat to Israel re-emerging? Because Israel is an apartheid state, and apartheid is doomed. Further, the ARA member asked why Pipes was siding with colonialism and white supremacy. Since the battle in Palestine/Israel is being fought over whether or not Israel has the right to colonize and occupy Palestine, why is Pipes siding with an idea that has been discredited for over 40 years? Pipes had no answer. When he was challenged, he appealed to his handlers (SFI), "I thought we agreed - no interruptions." When he was again and again challenged, he again and again appealed to the police and the university administration. Finally, Pipes refused to continue speaking until the adamant pro-Palestine advocate was removed. So much for debate! With all those fancy degrees and books to his name, Pipes can't handle one-on-one debate with a humble bookstore clerk! What a joke!

The second question related to a blog entry on Pipes' website where he proudly recommends razing entire villages in response to rocket attacks. This is what deterrence means to Pipes: collective punishment, including mass arrests, evictions, and demolishing entire neighborhoods, sometime with only a moment's notice. When questioned about that in the Q&A session, he cleverly evaded his own words, too ashamed and too cowardly to admit to such a hostile crowd what he proudly boasts of on his website and, indeed, recommends to top policy makers in Washington every day.

As the Q&A session continued, Pipes was attacked again and again with hostile questions. Soon, his cool demeanor and detached academic facade gave way to condescending disdain and outright contempt for WSU students. He called one sister ignorant for referring to the historical details of the Palestine/Israel conflict as "mumbo-jumbo" and yet denied that such copiously-documented "historical details" as the massacre of Deir Yassin ever happened! Clearly Pipes only has time to master the details that support his bigoted agenda, while callously dismissing those that prove the barbarism of the Zionist project.

In addition, he insulted the audience's intelligence by asserting that Muslim folks are less morally repulsed by slavery than Christians or Jews. Pipes acted like slavery was a uniquely Muslim phenomenon, as if the 300-year history of slavery in the United States was not carried out by Christians! And yet Pipes doesn't try to say that all Christians are predisposed to sympathize with slavery. Thus his white supremacy and anti-Muslim fanaticism reveals itself!

Finally, Pipes controversially denied the slaughter of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura, shot down by IDF soldiers at the outbreak of the Second Intifada. While the controversy continues to rage over what truly happened, Pipes only further proves how little he cares for Palestinian life by insulting al-Dura's memory. The irrefutable fact remains that Israel is murdering thousands of civilians in the Occupied Territories, and that many of them are children. Whatever the fate of al-Dura, the fact that there have been thousands of al-Dura's since his death is irrefutable. Pipes only highlights his own cruelty by dwelling on and even denying the death of al-Dura.

In short, Daniel Pipes came to Wayne State University on October 8th, 2007, to speak about Israel and Wayne State University brought it to Pipes. At every turn, he was challenged, embarrassed, flustered, made a fool of, and exposed as a shameless defender of American imperialism in the Middle East and Israeli apartheid at any brutal cost. The greatest compliment we could have been paid comes from Pipes himself, who recently posted a "Spotlight" on his website called, "Wayne State Univ. v. Daniel Pipes." Truer words were never spoken: the vast majority of Wayne State students opposed Pipes and were not afraid to show it. Wayne State students can be proud of themselves on this day, because they stood up to white supremacy and empire. They showed that racism is doomed, apartheid is doomed, and freedom, liberty, and justice will one day reign in Palestine/Israel.

FREE PALESTINE!

Divestment or Unemployment: Irvin Reid Resigns

President Irvin Reid has announced his resignation from Wayne State University. Much has been made of his record at the university in the last ten years. He has dramatically increased undergraduate enrollment. He has broken ground on several new buildings. But whatever dubious benefit such changes have brought, the fact remains that Wayne State University under Reid's tenure has unleashed a vicious assault on working people and people of color, especially black folks in the city of Detroit.

To begin, Reid and his partners in crime on the board of governors shut the doors on the College of Lifelong Learning in 2002. CLL was committed to providing educational opportunities to non-traditional students, especially working people with families. More recently, that same board dismantled the College of Urban, Labor and Metropolitan Affairs (CULMA) in 2005. According to Stuart Henry, former head of the Interdisciplinary Studies department at WSU, CULMA was the "only other college explicitly serving adult urban students." By shutting these programs down, WSU has effectively abandoned the urban mission that had been a proud legacy of the rebellious movement for community control of schools during the 1960s.

Just recently, Reid and the Board of Governors voted to dismantle the Interdisciplinary Studies program at the University. This program served non-traditional students from the community, including working people and single parents. Eliminating this program cuts the university off even further from the community it is supposed to serve, as it gets rid of the program's unique open enrollment policy. This policy allowed anyone with a high school diploma access to the university. Although the board of governors hoped to spin this and similar moves as the necessities of budget cuts, others astutely recognized that it was an attack on working people. Ron Aronson, for example, recently noted in the Metrotimes that, "Those who envision a more selective Wayne State University demand the elimination of [Interdisciplinary Studies]."

President Reid's vision for WSU has been demonstrated by his actions. He seeks to transform a largely working class institution into yet another bastion of middle-class professionalism.

As with all career bureaucrats, Reid has no imagination. Thus when it comes to Palestine, he is every bit as reactionary. Last October, in an infamous editorial to the Detroit Free Press, Reid refused to divest from the racist state of Israel. ARA had proposed divestment from apartheid Israel as a unique opportunity for the university to be the first in the nation to take such a step. Doing so would have affirmed the university's commitment to basic human dignity. Reid's refusal to divest, his insistence on supporting apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and the colonial history of Israel, infuriated the surrounding community. The Arab American Forum and Link of October 19 th, 2006, for example, asked the question, "Divestment: It worked in South Africa. Why not in Israel?"

And this was not the first time Reid had made this decision. In 2002, he overturned and ignored the historic resolution by the Student Council to divest from Israel. The students at Wayne State University had the courage to stand against apartheid and white supremacy when they passed their resolution, the first of its kind in the United States. Irvin Reid and the board of governors ignored their decision, demonstrating that all claims to "student representation" or "student power" are rhetorical nonsense. Real power, Reid showed, lies with himself and his board of governors, and they have no interest in commitment of any kind to working people, people of color, or simple principles such as democracy and anti-racism.

To summarize, Irvin Reid has bolstered middle class access to Wayne State University while attacking working people and people of color in the city of Detroit and in the surrounding suburbs. He has also supported white supremacy and imperialism at two different times in his career! ARA says good riddance, and we can only affirm our previous slogan: divestment or unemployment. ARA welcomes the next president of the university with the very same challenge: divest from apartheid, divest from white supremacy and refuse to support imperialism. Otherwise, save yourself time and effort by preparing your goodbyes at the same time that you are preparing your introductory speeches.

Read a Banned Book with ARA!

Recently, the book Overcoming Zionism by Joel Kovel was added to the illustrious list of banned books alongside George Orwell's 1984, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five and Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Why has Kovel's book been challenged? It calls for “a single democratic state in Israel/Palestine,” where Jews and Arabs live side by side together. By doing so, Kovel’s book is a threat to all Zionists who equate Judaism with support for the state of Israel, and justify the colonialism of Palestine on racist grounds. Local Zionists have therefore attempted to pressure the University of Michigan Press to cease distribution of Kovel's book. All those that consider themselves anti-racists simply cannot let this happen!

THIS INCIDENT IS AN ATTACK ON ARAB AND MUSLIM PEOPLE AS WELL AS ON BASIC DEMOCRATIC FREEDOMS! It is an extension of Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and elsewhere. It is aimed at denying the self-governing capacities of people of color everywhere.

Similar incidents abound: Norman Finkelstein was recently denied tenure at DePaul University after a lengthy campaign by Zionists; at Barnard College, Zionists seek to reverse the recent decision to grant Nadia Abu El Haj tenure; finally, at Wayne State University just last year, Wadie Said, son of the late Palestinian academic Edward Said, was denied a position at the law school after Zionists once again raised questions about his academic credentials. These cases represent a concerted attack on Arabs, Muslims, anti-Zionist Jews and other Palestine solidarity activists by racist Zionists. Anti-Racist Action stands in solidarity with these academics as well as with people around the world seeking to live free from colonial domination.

As usual, Zionists of all stripes consider an attack on their racist ideology an attack on Jewish people, although Judaism and Zionism have nothing in common! The reason Zionists have such a problem with Kovel's book is because it refuses to equate Jewish identity with support for Israel. Doing so calls into question and in fact completely undermines the Zionist project. To challenge Zionism as the only Jewish identity is to strike at the very foundations of Zionism.

But not only is the book a challenge to Zionism. Because Zionists seek to ban it, it is a challenge to those of us fighting for Palestine in the United States. Are we going to continue to let Zionists ban our books, discredit our scholars, disrupt our events, spy on us at work, at school, and at home, and intimidate us into silence? We cannot, for our fight for freedom for Palestine is just as much a fight for our own freedom. Our freedom to worship, our freedom to live, our freedom to challenge colonialism, imperialism, and apartheid!

Why do Zionists have a problem with that? The answer is obvious. They are racists. They are against democracy. They want to maintain Israel's colonial domination over the Palestinian people. They want Palestinian land, Palestinian resources, Palestinian villages. They want Palestinian people under their control, without control over their lives, their fates, or even when they can cook, eat, turn on a light or flush the toilet. It is this vision Zionists defend and Joel Kovel attacks. For this reason, Anti-Racist Action stands in solidarity with Joel Kovel and the fight for the distribution of his book.

Overcoming Zionism is an important book with an explosive message. Anti-Racist Action proposes an equally explosive plan of action: Let us read this important book. Let us then discuss how we can begin to achieve freedom for ourselves and freedom for Palestine.

JOIN ARA EVERY THURSDAY THROUGHOUT THE SEMESTER AT 3 P.M. IN THE STUDENT CENTER BUILDING IN FRONT OF McDONALDS TO BEGIN THIS IMPORTANT PROJECT!

(Thanks to an anonymous Palestine solidarity advocate who saw an earlier draft of this post for pointing out that Starbucks is owned by a major Zionist businessperson who donates tons of money to Israel, otherwise we'd be meeting there!)

Free Palestine! Contribute to the hottest topic on campus!

Last year, a vigorous debate arose on campus over the struggle for Palestine and what we can do in the US to support it. This year will be no different. Anti-Racist Action invites you to join the debate about this, the most pressing issue of our time.

Last year, ARA demanded that the university divest all holdings from companies doing business with the state of Israel. We provided the university a unique and powerful opportunity to become the first institution of its kind in the United States to take such a stand. The university unfortunately refused.

In order to promote dialogue regarding this crucial current event, ARA is once again raising the issue of divestment from Israel. Palestine must be free! Our case is simple and includes the following points.

1) What is Zionism? Who are Zionists?

Zionism is support for the creation and continued existence of the state of Israel. Its basic premises were spelled out by Theodor Herzl in his 1896 pamphlet, "The Jewish State." Zionism was both a reaction to anti-Semitism throughout Europe (though by no means the only reaction) as well as a justification for the colonization of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from the land. In this it is no different from the white supremacist argument about the "superiority" of European culture that justified the colonization and destruction of indigenous populations in North, Central and South America, or the colonization, enslavement and genocide of Africans since the discovery of the "dark continent." Make no mistake about it: Zionism is White Supremacy.

A Zionist is anyone who supports the state of Israel. Anyone can be a Zionist. Not all Jews are Zionists, just as not all Zionists are Jews. There are many instances of anti-Zionist Jews, and there are likewise many instances of non-Jewish Zionists. Jerry Falwell is a Christian Zionist. So is Glenn Plummer, a Detroit-area preacher who pimps the state of Israel's agenda around town. In the past, perhaps the most notable anti-Zionist Jews were members of the Bund, an all-Jewish labor union, in Russia and Poland around the turn of the twentieth century. Recently the Israeli Socialist Organization, better known as Matzpen, carried on the anti-Zionist Jewish tradition from within Israel itself! Today, anti-Zionist Jews include those that call themselves the True Torah Jews, as well as many others.

2) Why oppose Israel?

Far from an "outpost of civilization against barbarism" as Zionist ideologue Theodor Herzl once called it, Israel is an outpost of colonialism, an outmoded form of European barbarism, at a time when all other colonial regimes have been overthrown. In 1947, Israel was founded by UN decree, and historic Palestine was partitioned into an Arab territory and Israeli state. The next year, Zionists began to, "abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine," as first Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion once declared. When this expansion, popularly known as “the catastrophe” among Palestinians,was over, around 700,000 Palestinians had been driven from historic Palestine. The origins of Israel show: Israel is a colonial-settler state.

3) Israel's Relationship with Imperialism

Israel has throughout its existence sought alliances with any imperialist it could persuade to support it. Around the turn of the century and following World War I, Great Britain was Israel's chief imperialist supporter. Great Britain supported Israel in order to check rising nationalist sentiments in Egypt. These sentiments threatened Britain's hold on the Suez Canal, an important trade route to India, which was itself firmly in the grips of the British Empire. At the end of World War II, British power waned, and the US replaced Britain as supporter of Israel in the Middle East. This relationship proved crucial during the Cold War, as Israel and the US developed an important mutual relationship, both assisting each other in opposing nationalist movements, Communist-inspired and otherwise. Last summer's war on Lebanon was an extension of this policy: its aim was to destroy the militant anti-colonial Hezbollah movement, which threatened both Israeli and US interests in the Middle East.

In addition, Zionism claims that it is a national liberation movement of the Jewish people. However, unlike nationalist movements throughout the world, which have fought colonialism and imperialism to achieve self-government, Israel has allied itself with imperialism at every turn in order to suppress and destroy nationalist movements throughout the Middle East. Zionist claims about "national liberation" would be laughable if the consequences were not so dire.

4) Israel is an apartheid state

From its inception, Israel has ruled by military checkpoints, racial segregation (Jewish-only neighborhoods), environmental racism (denying Palestinians access to water resources and proper sewage facilities), expropriation of land, and ethnic cleansing. These practices are not simply responses to suicide bombings in recent years, but have been a consistent set of tactics used to manage the lives of everyday Palestinians.

Although Palestinians can vote and even hold office within Israel, they are considered second-class citizens in the “Jewish state.” They are barred from jobs, they are kept out of Jewish-only neighborhoods, and if they demand that Israel be a nation of all its people, they are exiled.

If we do not act now to free Palestine, the Palestinian people will be entirely ethnically cleansed from their land or reduced to the same fate as Native Americans in the United States in our lifetimes! We cannot allow this to happen. Palestine must be free!