And What's Doing on Canada's Campuses?

An insight.

Another: Middle East conference anything but academic, Na'ama Carmi (B'tslem and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Chairperson 2002)

And this:

The conference on “Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace” was, as is well known, extraordinarily controversial. The controversy raised the important question of academic freedom at universities. It also raised the question of the responsible use of academic freedom. Both of these questions are appropriate for the task force as it addresses how we at York use the unique autonomy of intellectual inquiry exercised by universities, how we handle differences among ourselves and how we relate to the broader community outside. The following comments on “Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace” are based on my experiences and observations. I presented a paper and attended the entire conference. The way in which many of the people attending responded to presentations with which they did not agree is a useful entree into the role of the conference in cultivating the “an atmosphere of civility and respect for differing opinions” at York.

At the session on refugees, about two-thirds of the way through the conference, an expert on immigration and citizenship from the Haifa University faculty of law was subjected to heckling and loud disruptive laughter. During the session’s Q&A, someone from the audience who introduced herself as a clinical psychologist asked, “I want you to look into yourself, into yourself, and tell me what is it about YOU that makes you corrupt law and history the way you did.” One of the conference organizers was present at the session, on the panel as discussant of the papers. She did not interrupt or intervene at all to characterize the question as inappropriate, suggesting by her silence that this personal attack was legitimate comment. I know a York graduate student who came out of this session upset and shaken by what she had seen, intending to leave, who had to be persuaded not to.

The personal attack at the refugee session may be taken as the “poster moment” of the conference. It was likely the conference’s low point, but it was not exceptional. By the morning of the first full day, it was clear that there were at play two rather different understandings of what the conference was about. One understanding was that the conference was held to examine the one-state proposal; the other understanding was that the conference was held to advocate the one-state proposal and marginalize its critics.

The first conference: For many of the presenters, the conference was an opportunity to examine the proposal of a single unitary state as an alternative to either two states or a continuation of the political status quo. As the discussion developed among these presenters, the either /or formulation of one vs two states became more complex, with considerations of federalism, national identity, communal rights, individual rights, international precedents, differing interpretations of international law, and functional relationships. Questions of addressing process as well as end point, of identifying the barriers within both Israeli and Palestinian to more desirable future political arrangements, and of the lack of substance in the one state proposal added to the complexity of the discussion. In the context of the high personal stakes for most of the presenters, this discussion was not easy, but it was often thoughtful, well informed and respectful.

The second conference: For many presenters and apparently most of the 150 attending who were not presenting, the conference was an opportunity for Palestinian advocacy and strategizing on how to carry that advocacy forward. Presentations were built around the following points: proposals for two states are fundamentally unjust, voices should speak out to demand a unitary state implementing the return of Palestinian refugees and their descendents, the BDS campaign (boycotts, divestments and sanctions) should be supported, meetings of academics and advocates on university campuses should be used to amplify the preceding points, and discussions of other topics are inappropriate diversions. These points were made by some presenters and also made repeatedly in response to any presentations that were not in line with this agenda (that is, in response to presentations by those who thought they were attending the “first” conference). The Q&A sections of plenary panels were thoroughly dominated by this advocacy agenda, as its adherents moved quickly to take the front spaces in the line-up at the microphones. Advocacy discourse similarly dominated the Q&A sections of most concurrent panels, with the behavior reported above the most extreme example. Among the presenters, a number of high profile one-state advocates presented and acted on this understanding of the conference and encouraged those attending to see it that way as well.

It is a reasonable inference that from the perspective of many of those attending, this conference was a repetition of one-state advocacy conferences that have recently been held in London, Madrid, Capetown and Boston. These were overtly advocacy conferences rather than academic ones...

A number of presenters at the York conference had been on the program of these previous conferences. The organizers of the York conference did not either on the website or at the conference itself acknowledge these previous conferences, nor did they explain how the one they organized was like and unlike them.

Consistent with this common perception of the conference, many of the presenters and almost all of the comments from the audience used the conference as platform to elaborate on the “injustices” they associated with the Israeli state instead of making the case for a unitary Palestinian-Israel state or engaging in discussion of what has to be done to make that case. Sammy Smooha from the University of Haifa, one of the conference participants who dissented from this use of a university platform, commented on this by referring to the “one-state” proposal as a “vision” rather than a proposal. He explained that he meant by this that “one-state” advocates speak of it as an ideal without clear, specific proposals for how it would be organized and how it could come into existence. As a vague ideal into which its advocates invite us to project our liberal, democratic values, the “one state” vision is useful for those who argue that human rights and social justice considerations make the status quo intolerable and a two-state outcome undesirable. They then call for a unitary state and promote the boycott, divestments and sanctions campaign using the “one state” vision as justifying rhetoric. Smooha’s point, which was noted by a few other speakers as well, was precisely right. The lack of specificity in the frequent calls at the conference for a “one state” solution was evident in presentation after presentation by its advocates. The advocates of a unitary state spoke a great deal about the injustice of the status quo and the limitations of a two-state solution, but they actually had little to say about what a unitary state would be like or how both Palestinian and Israeli national movements could be reconciled to sharing a single sovereign state. Even one of the strong advocates of a unitary state, Leila Faraskh from the University of Massachusetts Boston, commented at the concluding session (from the perspective of one-state advocates) on how much work there was to do.

The large number of non-academics attending added to this perception of the agenda of the conference as one of advocacy rather than analysis. It was not clear to me as a presenter how the ¾ of the people in the room who were not presenters had come to be there. The conference registration page noted that NGOs could register at a reduced rate. I presume that my conference registration – the highest registration fee I have ever been asked for at a scholarly conference – was used to subsidize NGO participants. There was no list of participating NGOs. During discussions, people attending identified themselves as organizers of Israel Apartheid Week and members of Independent Jewish Voices. The conference organizers have never explained what NGO constituencies were considered relevant and how they were encouraged to register. The organizers did require everyone who wanted to register to fill out a form explaining why they wanted to come, and turned some people away.

Nevertheless, since a number of academics did come to participate in the “first” conference, over 2 ½ days in some of the presentations questions were raised, complexities were introduced, and the need for clearing thinking was acknowledged. All of these challenged the agenda of those who came to participate in the “second” conference. Their responses to these challenging presentations were dismissals along the lines of the comments in the refugee session and what appeared to be well rehearsed talking points rather than engagement with the ideas presented.

The only indication I have so far about how the Palestinian solidarity advocates understood what happened at the conference comes from Mazin Qumsiyeh, one of the presenters with an advocacy agenda, who the day after the conference distributed the following comments to list-serve:

In this my first week back in North America, I was reminded that there are two Americas: a decent caring one and one of delusion. This is as if there are two trains heading to different destinations. The hypocrisy train has big PR budgets, has a huge lobby that managed to get most of the politicians in its pocket and speaks of constant threats to poor Israel (and "democracy"). … That is the train that has many starry-eyed passengers, a train that uses double standards and contorted logic to justify ethnic cleansing and distracts attention from other realities with lies and new conflicts. This is the train whose willing and unwilling soldier passengers marshal on on the path of destruction thinking they have no choice.

Subservient/obedient academics on panels in Toronto in the last three days at the conference on mapping models for the future in Israel/Palestine provided excellent examples. Many stated things like this (some with blinking eyes, others apparently sincerely believing this stuff): that refugees have no right to return to their homes and lands, that religion makes a nationality, that Jews are unique and special, that the victims need to assure those who robbed them of their lands that they are safe and guilt free, that if you advocate for equality and justice then you are an anti-semite (or anti-peace at best), that if you are for a one-state solution then you are advocating endless conflicts, that if you speak for boycotts and won't collaborate with apartheid elites then you are hateful, and much more. What is bizarre is that some of those folks are considered the moderates (there were protestors passing out flyers with even worse attitudes). These people recline onto their train chairs ignoring mountains of evidence and mountains of experiences of failure in the past. They lack self-introspection and are unable or unwilling to question where their train is heading even as the warning signs of the approaching cliff are everywhere.

The other train is finally beginning to get its engine revved up and voices of conductors are beginning to speak truth to the powers to be. They invite deluded passengers from the other train to find out what is going on and some do switch trains but others hurl insults. In the conference at York, voices were heard from both trains. On the subject of Palestine, it cannot be any clearer despite the valiant attempts by defenders of Zionism to hide it: you are either with morality and justice or you are with apartheid, ethnic cleansing and oppression. In the conference at York, the best speech I heard was by George Bisharat which I hope I can share with you soon (and which should be translated into Arabic). In the meantime, perhaps a taste of the thinking is George's article "Maximizing Rights: The One State Solution to the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict".

The comments above about those who were attending the “first” conference are not only nasty, they are also distortions of what was actually said (I apologize for feeling I have to point that out explicitly).

The content of many of the presentations at the conference and the behavior during discussions does indicate that apprehensions about the conference were well grounded. They highlight that what is at issue at York is not only, and not primarily, academic freedom to explore controversial issues, but the responsible use of that freedom.

There are many things the conference organizers might have done differently. Perhaps the most important would have been for the conference committee to have taken a strong public stand against the campaign for an academic boycott. Many (all?) of the one-state advocates who spoke at the conference are also leading boycott advocates, who promote the boycott at “Israel Apartheid Week” and promoted it in their presentations to the conference by talking, among other things, about “punishing Israel” and “isolating Israel.” An explicit rejection of the boycott would have disarmed much of the criticism of the conference since critics of the conference saw it granting an academic platform to BDS and Israel Apartheid Week activists rather than as a conference to “to explore which state models offer promising paths to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, respecting the rights to self-determination of both Israelis/Jews and Palestinians.” The organizers felt it appropriate to say something about anti-Semitism on the conference website, to endorse “civil dialogue and debate” and to state that the region’s “political future can be decided only by the peoples of Israel/Palestine in future negotiations.” It would have been easy for them to have noted as well that combining a call to plan a binational state while boycotting Israeli academic and civil society means that important stakeholders are not invited to the planning process, that academic freedom to discuss how to move towards Middle East peace implies allowing Israeli academic and civil society to participate, and that boycott advocacy poisons rational discussion of the one-state proposal.

And I found this comment on the makeup of the conference:

The organizers emphasize the fact that one of them is a "Jewish Canadian" while another is a "Palestinian Israeli". Besides the historical reflections that such an excuse brings to mind it is worth nothing that what qualified the latter to serve on the organizing committee was the fact that "as a Palestinian citizen of Israel, Mr. Masri [that's Mr. Mazen Masri (Doctoral Candidate, Osgoode Hall Law School)] has been living with the impasse in the Middle East since his birth and has been preoccupied with the political challenges that face his homeland for his entire life". Another factor, which qualified him for the task – although he holds merely a Masters degree – was the fact that "Mr. Masri went on to become a legal adviser for Negotiations Affairs Department of the Palestine Liberation Organization". This is no doubt a solid academic background for putting together an academic conference.

[we are told] that "it is more dangerous to silence a bad conference than to conduct it". I agree...although he insists on calling a biased political conference "a bad conference" with "incompetent speakers". I wonder however what would have been his reaction if the conference was to deal with the idea of expelling the Palestinians from Israel and the legal adviser of Yisrael Beytenu was a member of the organizing committee.