The specter of the people armed in self-defense has always haunted aspiring managers of society. The lurking violence of the “mob” elicits self-righteous panic or patronizing condemnation from its otherwise charitable benefactors. Meanwhile, the state mowing down hundreds or even thousands of people merits a strongly worded petition or a Saturday afternoon at the local protest rally. And folks say we live in a democratic age. The ebb and flow of debate about violence and Palestine among solidarity activists in the U.S. reflects a wider context concerning the state, race, class and democracy, and goes beyond the difficulties of organizing in the shadow of suicide bombings.

Frederick Douglass in a famous address asked, "What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?" He answered, "a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a constant victim." Shouts of liberty and equality, denunciations of tyrants, prayers and thanksgivings by overlords are to the slave and the colonized nothing but fraud, bombast, deception, impiety and hypocrisy. Douglass believed such "a thin veil covers up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages." [1]

During Professor Joel Beinin’s visit to the Urbana campus of the University of Illinois in March of 2000, I was introduced to the seemingly esoteric topic of the plight of Jews in Arab societies subsequent to the establishment of Israel--specifically regarding his research specialty, the Jews of Egypt. In Beinin’s outstanding book on this subject, The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry, he explores the ultimately unsuccessful attempt of 75,000 Egyptian Jews to “maintain their multiple identities and to resist the monism of increasingly obdurate Zionist and Egyptian national discourses.”

The Israel on Campus Coalition’s (ICC) document “Countering Divestment and Encouraging Investment in Israel” is a Zionist effort to justify the existence of the state of Israel and its actions at a time when student activists all over the U.S. are taking up divestment campaigns as a result of the situation in Israel/Palestine.

The toddler divestment campaign, desperately trying to take its first steps, has found itself unable to muster the motor skills needed to make mom and dad proud. In its despair the divestment campaign has thrown a costly temper-tantrum over the last six months. Some reflection is required into why this movement has had such difficulties over the years. This paper only covers a sliver of the problems, specifically the ones that I have experienced, and the ones that seem the most important to address at this time in history.

Palestine solidarity activists face intimidation. If we are talented at what we do, organizing and educating about the nature of Israel’s white supremacy and colonialism, it is a real risk that we may lose our jobs or get thrown out of school. That the media, the twin managers of corporate capital and trade union bureaucracy, and even so-called defenders of intellectual freedom are liable to turn against us is an occupational hazard. John Watson, member of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and student editor of the South End, the campus newspaper of Wayne State University in Detroit, confronted these obstacles in 1968.The paper published an article/editorial favorable toward Palestinian guerrilla operations against Israel. The reaction far outstripped anything before thrown at the South End and set off a series of events that would lead to Watson being pushed out as editor.

Jonathan Elsberg is a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. The school has around 23,000 students (18,000 undergrad and 5,000 graduate). He is in the group Western Massachusetts Palestine Action Coalition, centered in Amherst, which is located north of Springfield, Massachusetts. www.westmasspac.org

A collection of precious articles written between 1948 and 1967 from long out of print magazines such as Labor Action, New International, and the first series of New Politics, Hal Draper's Zionism, Israel and the Arabs offers an "independent socialist" perspective. Loyal not to Stalinism, social democracy, or any existing state and ruling class, he broadcasts many admirable and still contemporary stances on questions facing the Palestine solidarity movement.

For those out there who think most Palestinians are terrorists, then this book is a must read. For those who believe Palestinian women are oppressed because they wear hijabs, then I encourage you to read these insightful pages. As the name suggest, this text chronicles the lives of three mothers and three daughters, one pair from East Jerusalem, one pair from a refugee camp in the West Bank near Bethlehem, and another from an Arab village within the state of Israel. Their actual names are not used for their protection. All of these women have different personalities that allow for an interesting read, from free spirits to religious conservatives.

Dear Editors,

I take extremely strong exception to Veronica Ouma's distorted and inaccurate review of my book Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel. Rather than provide a careful and honest critique of my work, Ms. Ouma uses it as a springboard for her own polemics - she has failed to understand the central arguments of the book and she has misrepresented many of the clearly stated facts.

Susan M. Kahn argues that I did not provide a careful and honest critique of her book, Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel. In the review I argue that Israel’s reproductive freedom policies for women are marked by racism towards Palestinians, not only because of unequal access, but because of its role in a type of “positive eugenics” movement which aspires to combat Palestinian birthrates.