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Friday, February 25, 2011

So what can you do for "Apartheid Week"? (updated)

Here are some resources so you can help battle the haters during "Israel Apartheid Week" on college campuses.

1) I put all of my relevant posters on their own page; please feel free to forward them to any college Hillels or Jewish/Zionist campus organizations to use as they wish.

2) StandWithUs is working very hard on this issue. Here's part of their press release:
"Israel Apartheid Week" (IAW) campaigners will be in for a surprise when they mount their seventh annual hate fest this spring. Pro-Israel students on campuses are ready for them.

Over the past year, StandWithUs campus coordinators have worked closely with students to brainstorm about the responses that would be most effective on their campuses.

"Each campus climate is different," explained StandWithUs co-founder and CEO Roz Rothstein. "A hard-hitting, aggressive response might work at one school but alienate students at another school. At some schools, students feel that materials highlighting Israel's democracy and remarkable achievements would most influence the student body. Our philosophy is that the students usually know best about their campus climate, and they have many great ideas. Our mission on campuses is to empower students to educate their campus communities. We help them develop strategies, programs, and slogans for flyers and signs that we then produce, and we help with funding for speakers and other events. If they request a certain custom flyer or booklet, our graphics team designs and produces it."

StandWithUs has a big arsenal of materials for students on any type of campus. There are hard-hitting educational flyers that cover topics ranging from terrorism to the life-saving purpose of the security fence, the facts about water, checkpoints, Hamas, and Israel's peace efforts. Other materials underscore, in detail, why equating Israel with apartheid makes no sense. From the StandWithUs Web site, students can download signs with slogans such as "Israel We Stand With You," "Israel Wants Peace," and "The Fence Saves Lives."

"We are especially proud of our three colorful booklets designed specifically for Apartheid Weeks. One graphically contrasts democratic Israel and apartheid South Africa. Another calls for ending the real apartheid that does exist in the Middle East: gender, religious, sexual, political, and racial apartheid. Anyone who reads this booklet would not be surprised by the eruptions occurring in the Middle East today," said Rothstein. All may be found on the right-hand side of the homepage at www.standwithus.com.
Their material is uniformly excellent. Here's their latest booklet, and here's their video showing what BDS is really about:


3) A Facebook page has posters that spoof IAW posters, meant to be posted next to the others. Here's one.

4) A 2006 resource guide.

5) The Israel on Campus Coalition has resources available to help campuses. Here is an interesting publication where they show specifically what some pro-Israel students did to combat the hate groups.

6) Check out the "Wall of Lies."