http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/15654/in-support-of-swarthmore-hillel

[The following open letter is from The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN)]

This past weekend, something incredibly important happened at a small college in Pennsylvania.

In response to Harvard Hillel barring an Israeli speaker because the university's Palestine Solidarity Committee had cosponsored the event at which he was to present, the Hillel at Swarthmore College issued a sweeping declaration -that it would allow multiple points of view on Zionism and Palestine within its chapter. In their words,Swarthmore Hillel would be "a religious and cultural group whose purpose is not to advocate for one single political view." It would "host and partner with any speaker at the discretion of itstudent board, regardless of Hillel International's Israel guidelines," and would do so in the full knowledge that "Hillel International's Israel guidelines privilege only one perspective on Zionism, and make others unwelcome."

We are appalledby the concerted effort, led by Israeli officials, Zionist organizations andapologists, to derail the Durban Review Conference. We condemn the use of the memoryof the Nazi genocide, as Jewish organizations did during the Durban Reviewweek, in the defense of Israel'ssystematic domination and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. We areshocked by the cynical pretense of defending human rights, for example in Darfurand Rwanda, by organizations and groups that are only interested in silencing Palestiniandemands for accountability and redress and have no serious commitment to humanrights. The brazen exploitation of genocides and racialized violence inAfrica for the purpose of protecting and extending colonial domination in Palestine is itself aninstance of colonial racism. It is only tolerated due to the strength of racisminside the institutions of global governance.

Racismis one of the legacies of colonialism and a fundamental injustice insocietiesall over the world. The World Conference Against Racism in Durban 2001took abelated small step toward recognizing the impact of colonialism andracism on Africa and initiating a global discussion about the crimeof slavery and the need for restitution; it also addressed manyother instances of racism that must be addressed. It is beyond obvious to us thata conference about racism, and especially a conference that seeks to addressthe legacy of colonial oppression, must discuss Israel,since Israelis a settler-colonial state that systematically oppresses and deniesbasic human rights to millions of Palestinians. Israel's attempt to derail thisimportant conference in order to avoid being examined and called to account isan affront against all the victims of racism all over the world, including the sixmillion Jews who perished in the Nazi genocide.