SJP’s main tool in the exhibition was a series of billboards filled with information. This would have been a great way to educate students, if only all of the necessary information had been on the boards. While there were too many omissions and inaccuracies to list them all here, I will detail a few.
One board attempts to give a timeline of the crisis. Prior to the start of Israel’s offensive, the timeline marks Hamas’ decision not to end the truce Dec. 14, the end of the truce on Dec. 19, a comment by Tzipi Livni that her goal is to overthrow Hamas on the 21st and then on the 27th the start of Israel’s offensive that kills “225 Palestinians.” There are many things wrong with this timeline and the conclusions it is easy to draw from it. First, we see a major Israeli politician declaring her intent to topple Hamas, and then an attack six days later. Must be Israeli aggression in action, right? Well, actually missing was the fact that from Dec. 16 to Dec. 19 (during the truce) Hamas and affiliated groups fired nearly 40 rockets into Israel, then fired an addition 60 rockets and mortar shells into Israel on the 24th. As the attack escalated, Israel decided it needed to take action to defend its citizens, who, despite the relatively low number of casualties, were subjected to the constant psychological terror of living under rocket bombardment. Hamas rockets and mortars do not discriminate between men, women and children. Everyone is in danger of being killed at any time. Also, the 225 “Palestinians” killed in Israel’s initial attacks were almost entirely terrorists, not civilians as the term may suggest.
A Jan. 8 event on SJP’s timeline states that after an Israeli tank shelled a U.N. convoy, the U.N. suspended all aid deliveries. While it is true that the U.N. suspended deliveries temporarily, a subsequent investigation revealed that the convoy was not attacked by Israel, but by Hamas snipers. The two U.N. workers injured in the attack were transported to Israeli hospitals where they were treated for gunshot wounds, which is interesting if, as the board claims, they were attacked by a tank shell. The board ignores this investigation and its results completely.
The other main part of the exhibit was strings of hanging Kuffiyahs, scarves that are symbols of Palestinian nationalism, to represent the civilians killed in the conflict. The sign explaining this stated that each Kuffiyah represented 35 Palestinian civilians killed by the Israeli army. The problem: the total number of civilian casualties was placed at 895, but the source of this information was missing. Upon inquiring, I was told it came from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, a group located in Gaza that is well know for bias. The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) has done an investigation revealing these numbers’ inaccuracy, which can be viewed at its website. The casualty figures released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), after an exhaustive investigation and fully-documented list of Hamas casualties, reveals roughly 300 civilian casualties. This figure, despite its likelihood of being more accurate, as the press in Gaza is completely controlled by Hamas, was not mentioned.
The images used by SJP were also completely one sided. Despite the destruction caused by the 565 rockets and 200 mortar shells fired at Israel during the conflict (also not mentioned in the exhibit) and the 13 Israelis killed, the images used by SJP only show wounded or killed Palestinians and the destruction in Gaza.
In addition, the presentation does not mention Hamas’ crimes against the Palestinian people, such as the booby-trapping of schools and civilians’ homes with explosives without their knowledge, or the theft of a convoy of U.N. trucks carrying humanitarian aid that was subsequently sold to the highest bidder. Nor does the exhibit mention Hamas’ theft of 200 tons of food and supplies from a U.N. warehouse that caused the U.N. to cut off humanitarian assistance for days, Hamas’ use of ambulances to move its fighters and attack the Israeli army, or the fact that Hamas leadership moved its headquarters to Shifa hospital during the operation, in order to use the civilians as cover. The exhibit included no information as to how the IDF tried to help the Palestinian people by calling up to 90,000 people on their phones to warn of air strikes in their area beforehand or allowing in over 1,300 trucks of humanitarian aid during the conflict, despite continued rocket fire from Gaza. It would seem to me that if the purpose of SJP is to detail the suffering of the Palestinian people and not to solely condemn Israel, these facts should have been included in the presentation.
SJP also sponsored a panel discussion at 8 p.m., where a panel composed of three ardently pro-Palestinian activists accused Israel of not ever truly wanting peace (despite its complete withdrawal from Gaza and offer to give up 98 percent of the West Bank), trying to grab as much land as possible, not having a legitimate grievance against the Palestinians, and being the only antagonists in the conflict.
If SJP wants to fulfill its goal of educating students about the plight of the Palestinians, it must avoid exhibitions such as this one, which only serve to damage its own credibility. Hopefully next time SJP can present the whole truth and live up to its mission of detailing the injustices against the Palestinian people from all sides.