To the Editor,
This past Friday, Friends of Israel held its second annual end of the year barbecue. This event had no educational goals, had no angle. The group of students who together form Friends of Israel decided to use the upcoming Israeli Independence Day as an excuse to celebrate the end of a successful year, and also to give back to the campus and community that first brought them together. FOI did the same last year, and we hope they will continue to do so next year.
But this act was simply too much for Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine to accept. They could not let this barbecue go "unanswered." And so while Friends of Israel prepared to serve food and play music for the campus and the visiting prospective students, SJP donned their keffiyehs, cut out pieces of red felt to symbolize blood and protested their peers as they grilled hamburgers and tie-dyed shirts.
Is this what it means to be acting in the pursuit of justice for Palestinians? Is the conflict between these two sides such a zero-sum war that one afternoon without confrontation is too much to ask for? Is this truly the face of conscious social action at Tufts?
No. Theirs is not the pursuit of justice, but of vilification. Theirs is not the face of the necessary and rightful agitation for a Palestinian state, but of continued conflict.
Tufts SJP has reduced this just cause to the protesting of hotdogs, and we at Tufts are all worse off for it.
Sincerely,
ItaiThaler and Matt Haimowitz
Class of 2014
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