This piece was featured in the Columbia Political Review on Friday, March 15, 2013. It was written by Ben Lewinter, LionPAC Deputy of Public Relations.

The apartheid analogy is in no way apt.

Students for Justice in Palestine have set up a protest this week on College Walk as part of their annual Israel Apartheid Week. Conversely, Omar Abboud lamented in a CPR column that the word “apartheid” has been universally rejected as a basis for criticizing Israel. While legitimately highlighting how criticism of Israel can be rejected by some circles, Mr. Abboud fails to explore the actual meaning of apartheid and the factual evidence that shows how it does not apply to Israel. Attempts to describe the situation in Israel as “apartheid” adversely oversimplifies and cheapens what is a significantly complicated conflict that demands honest intellectual discourse, not name-calling and rejection.

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It is a rare thing to enjoy being just a number. This weekend, I was just that, one of 13,000 Pro-Israel activists attending AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington D.C., one of 2,000 students from all over the country and one of 10 students from Columbia. Sometimes it is important to be just a number, and in this case, I was representing those three groups. AIPAC Policy Conference was an incredible, eye-opening experience, where I got to see how what I did on campus matters.

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Hey everyone!

Just a friendly reminder that LionPAC, along with the other Israel groups at Hillel, is putting together the first ever Intra-Hillel Israel Debate! There will be five panelists spanning the political spectrum speaking about their views on Israel. Given that there are so many different opinions surrounding many topics related to Israel, we want to present a wide-ranging panel so that you can find others to engage in conversations about Israel afterwards, with the goal that the volume of discourse about Israel on campus rises! It’s a wonderful opportunity for our community to come together to discuss issues dear to our heart, so we hope you all come!

The event will be taking place tomorrow at 7:45pm in Rennert Hall (the basement of Hillel) – here’s the Facebook event. We hope to see you there!

Israel Sends Warning Shots into Syria

Sunday, November 11

Israel fired warning shots into Syria – the first Israel has fired against Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur War – after an errant Syrian mortar shell struck an Israeli military post in the Golan Heights. Syria’s firings follow another round that hit Israel the past few weeks.

These firings have intensified Israel’s fear of the possibility that Syria’s internal war would cross borders into the Golan Heights, thus dragging Israel into war. Further, that Syria’s stockpile of nuclear weapons – the largest in the world – would fall into the hands of militant groups.

In addition to the cautionary shots, Israel issued a complaint through the United Nations fighters working in the area to further emphasize that such firings into Israeli territory “will not be tolerated.” (Israel won and subsequently occupied the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 War). The Syrian shells caused no injuries.

Read More: http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=290414

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/12/world/middleeast/israel-fires-into-syria-after-mortar-hits-military-post.html?ref=world

Palestinians in Gaza Hit Israel with 47 Rockets

Saturday-Sunday Nov. 10^th & 11

Palestinians in Gaza have sent 47 rockets into Israel since midnight Saturday night. The rockets come in response to Israeli Air Force’s firings on three military sites: a weapons manufacturing, a weapons storage, and a rocket launching station in Gaza. The three individuals who suffered injuries were taken to hospitals for treatment.

These 47 rockets bring the total number of Palestinian firings to 75. According to the Israel Radio, Hamas has indicated he will also involve himself in the attacks.

Rocket sirens in response to these hits have sounded in Beersheba, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Gan Yavne, and other small communities.

Read More: http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=291300

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Congratulations to Eric Schorr, 2011-2012 LionPAC President, for winning AIPAC’s Campus Advocate of the Year Award at Policy Conference 2012!  Eric has been an integral piece of the LionPAC board for many years, serving as Director of Public Relations, Director of Political Affairs, Vice President, and now President. We thank him for his hard work during his four years at Columbia in both advocating for Israel and fostering new leaders within LionPAC.

Sincerely,

The LionPAC Board

In preparation for Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine’s ‘Israeli Apartheid Week,’ below is the text for the Columbia/Barnard Hillel Israel Va’ad fact sheet. Click here for the flyer image file.

Sustained Security

• Since construction of the security barrier began in 2003, the number of terrorist attacks in Israel has declined by 97%.
• The purpose of the barrier is to establish security, not to create a social divide. It is not the permanent solution.

Economic Progress

• The Palestine Investment Conference is actively working on new and innovative ideas to advance the Palestinian economy. One project is the planned city of Rawabi, which is in its early stages, and once it is fully built, it will be the first planned Palestinian city.¹
• Ramallah, the largest city in the West Bank, has been undergoing a construction boom, and the large increases in property development are indicators of strong economic growth.²
• There have also been positive joint economic ventures, such as the burgeoning relationship between the Palestinian city of Jenin and the Israeli area of Gilboa. The two cities have worked to create joint business enterprises and are planning an industrial zone to connect the two cities.³

Working Towards Democracy

• Since the Oslo Peace Accords, 96% of Palestinians live under full Palestinian civil administration, of which 55% live under Palestinian security control as well.
• The Palestinian Authority has instituted its own criminal justice system and court structure to try Palestinian people according to their own legal system.
• The prospect of a viable Palestinian state is moving towards becoming a reality. This state will govern its own people by passing and enforcing its own laws. Israel, judged by its repeated offers to the Palestinians to create a Palestinian state, wants such a state to be created; Israel does not want Palestinians to continue to live under its authority.

Civil Equality

• All Israelis, including Arabs, have equal rights.
• Arabs have been elected to every Knesset (Israeli Parliament) since Israel’s founding. At present Arabs hold 14 of 120 seats.
• Palestinians living in the West Bank can bring cases to the Israeli Supreme Court if they feel that the security barrier causes them excessive harm. In the past, the Court has ruled in favor of Palestinians and ordered the route of the barrier to be moved.⁴

¹http://huff.to/89gSkd

²http://reut.rs/g1j213

³http://www.jpost.com/LocalIsrael/Article.aspx?id=157631

⁴http://www.jpost.com/topic/Alfei_Menashe

This letter, written by Hanna Flesh – Director of Political Affairs, Shira Poliak – Director of Public Relations, and Eric Schorr – President, was sent to the University of Pennsylvania before last weekend as the PennBDS conference was about to begin.

As pro-Israel, pro-peace campus and community leaders from across the Ivy League, we join together to condemn the BDS movement and its conference at the University of Pennsylvania the weekend of February 3, 2012. We salute the pro-Israel organizations and the many Penn students who are spreading awareness about Israel’s religious, political and cultural diversity. Boycotts are an obstacle to peace.  They constrain dialogue by placing all the blame on one side. The BDS Movement fails to recognize Israel’s prior offerings of peace that have been categorically rejected by Palestinian leadership and therefore seeks to vilify Israel.

If the PennBDS organizers were truly interested in a lasting peace, they would have chosen a different path. Boycotting Israel does nothing to help Palestinians improve their own lives, or to help build democratic institutions where few exist.  The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only be resolved through bilateral negotiations and mutual recognition. To create a strong foundation for peace we must support both economies by buying Israeli and Palestinian products alike. We should be supporting organizations like Hand in Hand, which builds integrated schools for Israeli and Arab children so that they can grow and learn together in the same classroom. If those behind the BDS movement truly believe in a two-state solution, they will support measures to bring the two sides together, not draw them further apart.

We, the undersigned, therefore reaffirm our solidarity with the students of University of Pennsylvania and the greater Philadelphia community. We applaud their efforts to tackle the challenges presented by the BDS movement and other anti-Israel campaigns. Finally, we pledge our continued support in defense of the State of Israel, a democratic state and stalwart ally of the United States, on our college campuses and in our communities across the country.

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This piece was featured in the Columbia Spectator on Tuesday, December 6, 2011. It was written by the Eric Schorr, 2011-2012 LionPAC President.

This week Columbia students will once again be subjected to the uninvited—yet ever-present and monotonous—propaganda of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This week, the Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine will promote its Right to Education Week, the focus of which will not be education, but the distortion and mischaracterization of Israeli security against terrorism as a system of oppression against Palestinians. Those of you familiar with the back-and-forth swinging of the pendulum between the two sides on campus may be surprised to find that, this time, one of the sides will be taking a different approach to the debate.

The discussion on campus has fundamentally shifted in the last two years—in that it simply no longer exists. The two sides cannot be aptly described as pro-Israel vis-à-vis pro-Palestine. Rather, the dichotomy has become pro-Israel versus anti-Israel. When one side promotes dialogue, conversation, and mutual recognition, and the other side preaches occupation, oppression, and apartheid, there is a clear disparity of issues and a break in the direction of the discussion. The two sides are no longer parallel in path. I could bore you with a lengthy diatribe of facts and figures, but I propose a different way of determining this new dichotomy: Ask members of C-SJP a series of questions.

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Next Friday night, we are honored to have Dr. Daniel Gordis return to his alma mater once again and spend Shabbat with the Hillel community. Please join us at dinner Friday night (catered by Carlos and Gabby’s!), followed by a keynote address delivered by Dr. Gordis. Saturday afternoon Dr. Gordis will be leading a shiur (study session) before afternoon services at Hillel.

To sign up for dinner on Friday night, find any LionPAC board member or pay on PayPal. The $5 is definitely worth it for this amazing dinner!

If you have any questions about the weekend, please email lionpac@hillel.columbia.edu

On Sunday, October 16th, Alan Dershowitz came to the Kraft Center for Jewish Life at Columbia University to speak: