The Georgetown chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine refused to participate in a joint film screening of The Other Son with the Georgetown Israel Alliance and the Jewish group J Street U last week. The day before the event, the board members of SJP decided that the organization could not attend, claiming that they could not engage in an initiative that would normalize Palestinians with Israelis. Normalization refers to treating Iraelis and Palestinians as equals rather than oppressor and oppresed, respectively.
SJP primarily advocates for the rights of Palestinians, the return of the diaspora, and condemns the occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel with the sanction of its government and armed forces. According to SJP president Albert Doumar (SFS ‘15), the two neighboring cultures don’t need understanding as much as they need to address deep, underlying differences.
The Georgetown chapter of SJP also decided to withdraw from the screening due to pressure from other SJP chapters urging it to reconsider its participation in the event. One post on Georgetown’s SJP’s Facebook Wall features a comment from a Cornell student saying that “the SJP should not normalize with Zionist groups on campus”.
This attitude contradicts Georgetown’s ethos, which encourages cordial and active discussion about controversial topics such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. University chaplains Rabbi Gartner and Imam Hendi expressed their support of the event’s intentions, saying that it was a initiative not found at any other university and attempts to bring both parties together should only keep on going forward.
Despite the last-minute cancellations, the majority of the members of the 3 organizations chose to attend the screening as non-aligned students, reflecting that individually they are far more progressive than their organizations’ doctrine.
Cooperation between these organizations should not necessarily imply normalization, but it is indeed rather difficult to create an event that would not affect the sensibilities of any of the parties involved. The groups should come together and confront their differences to present a dialogue that would cordially educate the general public about the complexity of Israeli-Palestinian relations.
SJP’s decision not to participate denied the campus community of an opportunity for meaningful dialogue and demonstrated the need for more efforts between student groups on issues surrounding the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. However, until Israel changes its treatment of Palestinians, the SJP’s stance may not change anytime soon.
