Students for Justice in Palestine at University of Maryland

By William Matchin Two weeks ago, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, gave a lecture at the Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at this university. His fundamental point was that we shouldn’t hold Israel to normal standards of international law because Israel has unique security concerns. The take-home message was that when Israel kills Palestinians and maintains an illegal occupation, we shouldn’t complain too much. Dermer pointed to Israel’s small size as evidence of this position. “Tactical threats” become “strategic threats,” because Israel’s small size means that military operations and rocket fire threaten its existence. Because of this, Israel is...

Last week, dozens of students and community members walked out of a lecture by the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer. Stories Beneath the Shell reporter Sierra Kelley-Chung reports on the action. http://umdsbs.com/events/566-students-protest-at-israeli-ambassador-lecture "A lecture by Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer sparked opposition among students, who walked out and held signs in protest last night at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Dermer gave a lecture about the Israel-U.S. relationship and the role of Israel in the Middle East. The event was held at Gildenhorn Recital Hall in the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, broadcasted live on UMTV and open to students and public. During his lecture Dermer began to speak about the Israel Palestine conflict, stating that there was rocket fire in Israel, and one third of Israel was in bomb shelters for the first 50 days. A Palestinian student present at the lecture stood up and left, and a gr...

Sign the petition here *Updated 1/29/15* Racism has been allowed to cozy up to our student paper. The Diamondback has published a series of advertisements paid for by a far-right think tank called FLAME (“Facts and Logic About the Middle East”) that whitewashes the documented human rights violations of Israel. These ads are anti-Arab, Islamophobic propaganda. One ad, published in the September 30 th , 2013 edition of the paper, begins by denying the existence of the Palestinian people—it characterizes all Arabs as a monolithic group of people with no cultural, historical, or linguistic distinctions. So, it follows, the Palestinian people don’t exist —therefore Israel really is a land without a people for a people without land. Except that, inconveniently for the FLAME’s narrative, Palestinians have lived on that land for centuries, and are in fact a distinct people with a rich culture.   The ads continue by denying that the West Bank or the Gaza Strip have ever bee...

Screening of "Harvest of Empire", a documentary film about US imperialism and Latino immigration Co-sponsored with El Sol, PLUMAS, and Community Roots!  

Join us for our Palestinian Solidarity Week  April 28th-May 2nd