The following piece was written by Ari Hoffman and published in the Times of Israel on June 9th 2014. Ari is a senior at the University of Central Florida and was the CAMERA liaison in his CCAP group, Knights for Israel. He helped to organize and plan the Declare Your Freedom Rally on his campus.
What is the solution to the Israeli/Palestinian issue? How is it that we can procure peace with the Palestinians? The current tide has rendered the dream of peace between the two sides virtually impossible. But the lack of peace is not the sole threat to Israel; a conflict less bloody but just as critical spreads across the world on Universities. Society blames Israel for the lack of progress in the peace process. Faulting her has promulgated hate towards the state, regardless of Palestinian culpability in its failure. This hatred perpetuated on college campuses, like a cancer spreading through the body, is direct result of the failure of this process.
Thus far, some of the most elite scholars and statesmen since political Zionism started have failed to solve this issue. Israel has offered peace to the Palestinians at every turn, and has made her fair share of concession since this issue commenced. Unfortunately, this has meant nothing to foreign bodies, and the international community as a whole.
As exhausting as the disregard of such peace offerings have been, it is equally exhausting to witness the inundation of said ignorance by our community (due to the lack of any effect it has). Countless individuals show direct representation of this in their continued hate against Israel. Thus, it is time we shift our focus from the reactionary defense of Israel with stated facts to pro-active measures aimed at garnering support for her.
It is apparent that nobody cares about what we have done to promote peace. No matter the scenario, Palestinians always seem to be absolved of wrongdoings when a conflict arises. Said scenarios are continuously followed by blame being disproportionately placed on Israel. This begs to question the effectiveness of current pro-Israel advocacy techniques.
Read more: The Evolution of Pro-Israel Activism | Ari Hoffman | Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel