To the Editor:
This is a letter to everyone comparing the protest against Brown/RISD Hillel hosting an invite-only talk with Israel Defense Forces Sgt. Benjamin Anthony to the incident with Ray Kelly. This is a letter for anyone whose reaction upon hearing of the protest was: “We’re at an Ivy League institution, guys. Get with the free speech and intellectual dialogue already.” This is a letter for you.
This is not a letter to tell you about the war crimes committed by Anthony or the relatives of mine who have been killed by the IDF’s tactics, but a letter to paint you a picture of intellectual dialogue and spell out propaganda and hope that you understand the difference.
Here’s what ‘intellectual’ dialogue looks like: inviting a speaker who possibly theoretically believes in the use of white phosphorous against Palestinian civilians to engage with a group of people who may or may not agree. Real intellectual dialogue could perhaps be inviting a former Israeli solider who left the army after having trouble sleeping at night to ask about what he or she saw. Or even asking Amira Hass, an Israeli journalist for Haaretz who wrote a compelling letter to the soldier who killed a 14-year-old boy last month, what her take on the IDF is. Intellectual dialogue stimulates all to think about what they believe in and, more importantly, why they believe in something. Intellectual dialogue does not encompass a stage for a war criminal to tell you — or not even you, but only ‘political leaders who will be the future’ — why he kills children. Intellectual dialogue involves talking with another person, not being talked at.
Which leads me to the definition of propaganda: inviting a former Israeli sergeant and oppressor to speak to — almost secretly and definitely selectively — a group of ‘impressionable’ leaders in an attempt to influence their attitudes on why and how oppressing and ethnically cleansing a people is justifiable. Propaganda is free speech, correct, but you, reader, need to understand that this dinner was a political agenda that is trying, and succeeding, to be fulfilled. It is another method of persuading the world that the ethnic cleansing that is occurring is right and for a cause.
I, and many other students, did not attend the protest to revolt against free speech. I did not attend it because I am half-Palestinian and patriotic and biased. I did not attend it to show Brown University that controversy should not be allowed onto campus. I protested because I want the campus to discuss who and what the IDF is and why Hillel thought to bring him of all speakers. I protested not to hear many dismiss it as Brown kids taking liberalism the wrong way, but to see students feel a little bit out of place when some angry Palestinian student explains to them what birthright really is and what it means. I protested because I want Brown students to wake up from this cowardly coma that inhibits them from discussing what is really going on when “that Palestine-Israel thing” is mentioned.
I protested because I do not believe in giving the power of a platform for oppression to explain itself.
Sara Al-Salem ’17
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