North by Northwestern

About 75 students and members of the Northwestern community gathered at the arch at 5 pm on Friday for an event titled "Northwestern Stands with Israel." The attendees wore blue shirts and took a photo with the Israeli flag. 

"We wanted to bring everyone on campus together: The point is to remember all innocent lives lost in the Middle East, and inspire an open dialogue," said Weinberg sophomore Inbal Hirschmann, one of the event's co-organizers. 

The event was not tied to any specific student group.

"In light of a lot of scary and difficult things happening lately in the Middle East, we wanted to show our support for the families and victims of violence," said McCormick junior Charlie Tokowitz, the event's other co-organizer. "I deliberately didn't say which violence. We're showing support for Israel but our purpose is apolitical, and the language we've used is objective." 

Tokowitz said the event was not in response to any specific event on campus, but rather in response to the emotional distress he said students with ties to the Middle East have felt after recent violence. 

"A lot of my friends on campus with ties to Israel have been upset with what's happening in the Middle East, and it's frustrating because we're so far and can't do anything about it," Tokowitz said.

In the Facebook event, the organizers listed violence against Israeli citizens, including a 19-year-old female soldier run over by an automobile, two elderly men stabbed and a coordinated attack on a public bus that killed one man and wounded 10 others.

In a press release to NBN, Students for Justice in Palestine called the event "selective amnesia parading as a commemoration," noting that "in the past few months, the Israeli government has fired live ammunition on peaceful protestors killing many and maiming countless others, demolished hundreds of Palestinian homes, defended Israeli settler violence against powerless indigenous peoples, closed off the Al-Aqsa compound (the third holiest site in Islam) to the Palestinians while allowing Israeli settlers to torch and demolish its interior, and extrajudicially executed scores of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories."

They further argued that those who support Israel come from a place of privilege, and that "it must be evident from the silence of the organizers and the attendees up to this point, that to them, Palestinian deaths are only considered when accompanied by Israeli ones - that is if they are considered at all."