The battle on campus

Editorial

In hindsight, last weekend's community-wide Israel @ 60 celebration lacked only one thing: protesters.

It's getting harder to draw a crowd of Israel-baiters in British Columbia these days. A few plucky opponents of pluralism stood out front of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre before the Yom Ha'atzmaut celebration last May, but, at Israel @ 60, there was not even a clutch of friends of the freedom-fighters.

The absence of malice may not represent any great Zionist awakening on the part of the usual suspects, so much as a changed strategy.

The attacks on Israel, primarily from the left (if it can still be called that), have become more, not less, malevolent. The anti-Israel mobs – it seems fatuous to call them "pro-Palestinian" anymore and unjust to derogate the term "peace activists," given the anti-Israel crowd's defence of violence against civilians – are putting their energies where they will have the greatest long-term impact: on the next generations.

As they have for a couple of years, anti-Israel activists will take to the campuses in this new academic year with a campaign against "Israeli apartheid." Adopted a couple of years ago, the apartheid motif is the anti-Israel movement's contribution to a complex, convoluted and distorted issue, dumbed down for an ahistorical public. An appropriation of the African experience, a situation to which it bears no legitimate rational or qualitative comparison, is the movement's contribution to the discourse.

Accusing Israel of apartheid is a libel no less atrocious than the blood libels of yore and, given such activists' penchant for genocidal imagery, it purveys an accusation even more monstrous. But it is a morsel of brilliantly simple political branding, ideal for a time when most people just don't have time to consider complex international issues.

Ironically, it is the campuses of universities where anti-Israel extremism is aiming its disinformation campaign, with some success. As incongruous as it may seem for such spurious distortions and asinine argumentation to find fertile soil in the gardens of academe, it should not be forgotten that it has been a strategy almost as old as prejudice itself to attack the Jews where it hurts most: right in the intellect.

But we can say from close observation that our case and our future are secure. The young people upon whom it has fallen to stand up to this generation's manifestation of an ancient intolerance have risen to the sad occasion. At Sunday's Israel @ 60 celebration, Hillel students showed off a new and comprehensive exhibit that forms the backbone of the Jewish group's Israel advocacy work on provincial campuses. The sprawling display, which illustrates Israel's astounding achievements in the face of regional assault and global condemnation, will reach tens of thousands of university students this year alone.

The battle for the future is being waged on the campuses of our universities because our adversaries know where future leaders are being nurtured. So do we. And our future is in good hands.

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