Here at @UNC, a campaign is being mounted to convince Jewish students not to go on a free trip to Israel over spring break that is being offered them via UNC Hillel (@unchillel). dailytarheel.com/article/2020/0…
@UNC @unchillel According to the article in our campus newspaper, students on a prior iteration of the trip reported that “75 percent of the trip was spent on the Israeli narrative and only 25 percent on the Palestinian narrative.”
@UNC @unchillel The boycott effort is grounded in the idea that “people really need to be more critical and understand the implications of their actions, how identities are politicized, how we are situated and positioned in larger global structures of oppression and to actively dissociate ...
@UNC @unchillel ... from that if it causes harm to others and arguably ourselves by feeding into these oppressive structures.”
@UNC @unchillel I find this effort misguided. I certainly agree that a student trip to Israel (unless it’s a highly specialized one, like a trip to a specific hospital solely to study a specific new medical procedure) ought to help students learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
@UNC @unchillel But the boycott effort seems to miss the possibility that the trip will raise a fellow student’s understanding of that conflict (including Palestinian perspectives) from zero to considerable.
@UNC @unchillel And the possibility that what the student learns will lead them to ask questions about Israel’s history and current politics they never would’ve thought to ask.
@UNC @unchillel It also seems to miss the possibility–no, certainty–that a UNC student will think & read independently. My students manage to have plenty of thoughts & ideas & perspectives other than the ones I directly expose them to. Why have so little confidence in students who do this trip?
@UNC @unchillel The boycott effort also seems to conflict with efforts our campus is making to help people feel they belong here. Some UNC students likely have relatives living in Israel. Some might have ancestors buried there.
@UNC @unchillel What message does it send to a UNC student when a desire to connect with family becomes a badge of shame?
@UNC @unchillel I don’t ignore the possibility that while one student’s sense of belonging is enhanced by going with other Jewish students to Israel, another's might be correspondingly undermined by knowing students are going to Israel & not getting enough exposure to Palestinian narratives.
@UNC @unchillel But I see no a priori reason for favoring either student’s sense of belonging over the other’s.
@UNC @unchillel And tho I won’t belabor it here, there's also the vexing issue of the selectivity of this boycott. UNC (Hillel but UNC itself) sponsors study-abroad in many countries with awful human rights records. I know of no similar boycott effort to deter students from those countries.
@UNC @unchillel Students on that program “have the opportunity to participate in numerous day trips in and around Thimphu, and may include visits to the National Textile Museum, Folk Heritage Museum, Weekend Market, Craft Bazaar, Tango Monastery, and the Takin Zoo.”
@UNC @unchillel I see nothing in the available materials that says students must confront Bhutan’s stripping of citizenship from about a sixth of its population and forcing them over the border into Nepal, where they live as refugees in camps. amnestyusa.org/countries/bhut…
@UNC @unchillel Our campus has no boycott effort directed against students contemplating a study-abroad program in Bhutan. It seems fair to wonder why not. (And, of course, to wonder about the inverse: why *do* we have a boycott effort directed against students contemplating a visit to Israel?)
@UNC @unchillel We could push this further. The General Alumni Association runs trips for UNC alumni all over the world. For example, alumni can travel to experience “Egypt & the Eternal Nile.”
@UNC @unchillel I’ve looked through the brochure. It looks like an *amazing* trip, but the trip doesn’t appear even to touch on the Egyptian government’s abominable human rights record. alumni.unc.edu/wp-content/upl…
@UNC @unchillel I hope this boycott will be reconsidered. No student in our campus community should be shamed out of learning, forging bonds with fellow students through shared experience, expanding their horizons, and having the chance to reach their own understanding of their world. /end
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