Letter to the editor

PPC Wrong To Monopolize Union for Anti-Israel Exhibit

This week at the William Pitt… PPC Wrong To Monopolize Union for Anti-Israel Exhibit

This week at the William Pitt Union, Pitt Program Council sponsored an event featuring a drawing of an Israeli soldier killing a Palestinian baby in his mother’s arms. Have such events ever happened? Of course not. How did the PPC justify with displaying such works? By saying that the works were just children’s drawings. These are the easy questions. The difficult question is why the PPC sponsored an exhibit that prominently featured a map that effectively advocates the destruction of Israel by denying its right to exist and labeling cities like Haifa and Tel Aviv as “Palestinian Towns Occupied By Israel.”

This was not some simplistic display of children’s artwork – the pictures were supplemented by maps and fliers critical of Israel. It was designed by the Chicago based Al-Phan organization, an organization whose Web page prominently features Edward Said (known for throwing rocks across the safety of the Lebanese border at Israelis and for fudging facts about his past so he could claim that his childhood home was confiscated by Jews) and the violent Al-Aqsa Intifada.

What troubles me about this whole affair is not so much that the exhibit was misleading. Although I feel that it is absurd to blame Israel when it is the Palestinians that are dressing 5-year-olds up in suicide bomber costumes and sending 11-year-olds armed with M-16s to shoot at Israelis, I recognize that there is a debate to be had on the topic.

No, what troubles me is that the PPC came down firmly on the side of extremists. Identity groups can host events like this one, but organizations that are supposed to represent the interests of the whole student body have no business lending credibility to those who deny Israel’s to exist. Not only did they rent out the Union to showcase a biased, one-sided view of the conflict, but when a group of pro-Israel students showed up with educational fliers that opposed that view, the police were called and the students were thrown out!

Today, there are anti-Jewish riots sweeping the globe from Europe to Asia. On our very campus, people have rallied with swastikas. The last thing we need is for some outside organization to come in, take our money from our University, throw our students out of our Union and get the PPC to put its name on its divisive and inflammatory event.

Omri Ceren

External Vice President, University of Pittsburgh Hillel

CAS senior