Palestine Tet – 139 – Three Gaza Encampments Spring Up on Colorado Campuses – 1

Colorado House Representative Elizabeth Epps supporting the D.U. encampment

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Nearly all Gaza campus protests in the US have been peaceful, study finds

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1.

Yesterday, along with two friends, Palestinian Community organizer, Linda Badwan and Colorado House Representative Elizabeth Epps, I visited three college encampments to protest U.S. support for Israel’s ongoing genocidal attack on Gaza that has up until now failed to achieve its stated goals of eliminating Hamas while slaughtering 40,000 plus civilians, most of them women and children and thus shartering Israelis carefully projected image as “the Middle East’s only democracy” or as a refugee for the world’s Jews. Instead Israel has emerged as one of the world’s pariah states, with genocide charges being brought against it by the Internatinal Court of Justice, its leadership possibly soon to be indicted by the International Criminal Court.

On what developed into a whirlwind tour, we three encampment musketeers visited the University of Denver, University of Colorado Colorado Springs and Colorado College, the latter two in Colorado Springs. All three encampments were small, peaceful affairs of anywhere from thirty to fifty students. We were received with wamrth and appreciation. While drawn to their encampments for different reasons, the common theme of all three was an utter horror at the Biden Adminsitration’s continued support for Israeli genocidal attacks on Gaza. Support for an immediate ceasefire, for an end to Israel’s Gaza military offensive, to open access to Gaza Palestinians to return to there homes and for an absolute opposition to Israel’s plans being put into motion as I write, to attach Rafah where 1.2 million Palestinian civilians forced by bombing and Israeli ground troups to leave their shattered homes. to return northward.

Although we  just dropped in to show our support both Rep. Epps and I were asked to address the D.U. encampment which had just begun an hour previous. This we both did. Epps’ sympathy for the Palestinian cause is somewhat unique in the Colorado Legislature where the Israeli flags were placed on the desks of all the members. No American, nor Colorado flags, but Israeli flags … as if the Colorado House of Representatives is little more than an annex of the Israeli Knesset. I spoke about my sense of the changing priorities at the University’s Korbel School of International Studies where I taught for nearly a quarter of a century. Earlier in my teaching career Korbel’s program had emphasized diplomacy and internationa human rights; today it is “security studies” – a pretext for unending military intervention, either by the U.S. itself or its proxies (like Israel) seems to have won the day. The students at the encampment were receptive to both our remarks.

Concerning Chabab House and Hillel at D.U.

Neither of them have any formal status on the campus, a reality which makes their disruption activities against the encampment – should they intensify – problematic and could result in their expulsion from their finger in campus life at risk, given University of Denver rules and regulations. They should consider this if they intend to escalate their disruptions.

Hillel does occupy a university facility – an arrangement that was worked when an organization, the Insititute for the Study of Israel in the Middle East, or ISIME as it was called, was kicked off campus, its relationship with the Korbel School severed,  its director Shaul Gabbay removed after a faculty investigation – the document of which was never made public – which determined that the “institute”, funded by prospoerous donors in Denver’s Jewish Community as a kind of plaything for his wife, was academically unsound and little more than an Israeli propaganda organ. Some arrangement was reached between the University and ISIME’s sponsors which permitted Gabbay to retain office space on campus (and a salary) in exchange for prohibiting him from declaring any association with the Korbel School of International Studies, which, according to some well placed sources, he violated anyway. His relationship with DU was finally severed when details of his sexual harassment of female students reached the Chancellor’s office. Larry Mizel, influential poltical player in Colorado and prosperous contractor, lobbied DU to keep Shaul affiliated with Korbel but could not save him.

The crisis which triggered ISIME’s demise came to a head after a group of students and community members disrupted an ISIME event on campus in which an Israeli Defense Force officer tried to give a presentationi on the moral scruples of the Israeli army. As I recall it was just after an IDF “mowing of the lawn” in Gaza, a fact that did not endear an IDF officer to either D.U. students or the broader community.

I am not aware if the school’a administration has been willing to sit down with the encampment students and hear their grievances. Besides the national/international demands the Univerity of Denver has not been a particularly warm and inviting place for students critical of Israel, despite its long term commitment to “celebrate diversity.”

Yesterday (May 9) at the University of Denver.
Looks like such a civil conversation but  the photo is deceptive.The women on the left are actually doing security keeping out and effectively neutralizing the two male Zionist disrupters on the right, the latter a part of a broader effort to disrupt the event, “blessed” by a Chabab rabbi egging the students on.

The event itself was harassed by a group of pro-Israeli students, I would venture to speculate, Jewish students associated with the local Hillel chapter, egged on by a local Chabab rabbi. On both occasions where Epps and I began to speak the volume on loud sound systems was turned up to try to drown out our remarks while young women blanketed in Israeli flags skipped and danced around the edges of the encampment, formlessly dancing the hora and singing Israeli songs. Both of us continued and finished our remarks in spite of this. At the same time  young male pro-Zionists among them kept approaching the encirclment violating traditional social space distances, trying to provoke an overreaction from the encampment participants. But then Katie and Co. – my knickname for the group insuring the encampment’s security effectivelty neutralized these efforts.

On a personal note. As I was heading to the campus encampment I happened to waiting at a red light to cross University Ave near the campus. Standing next to me was a paunchy man in a black suit and white shirt, a yamulka on his head. He was carrying a container of food covered with aluminum foil. There is a “Chabab House” right near by on Josephine St. Perhaps he was coming from there. As I usually do, simply to acknowledge the presence of anyone I am standing next too, I nodded.

My mistake. He started his schpeel. Usual greeting of hello, how are you and then an unsoliticited commentary on how he was carrying food to Jewish students on campus who “feel unsafe” on campus. He went on how sometimes it is better to block out the danger and they (the Jewish students) were facing and just enjoy life. I responded simply that “I hope that all students feel safe on this campus, including the Jewish students” and then went on my way. Turns out we were headed for the same place, myself  in support of  the student campment and he in opposition, to feed, egg on and essentially “bless” the disrupters.

Let us see if such antics – these Hillel kids really looked foolish, silly – turn into something nastier in the days to come. I hope not but that seems to be the pattern, nationally… And eventually what starts in California makes its way to Colorado.

2.

I’ll write up our visits to the UCCS and CC encampments in the next few days.