JERUSALEM POST
by Anna Hiatt
August 9, 2014

NEW YORK – Tensions over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are increasingly playing out on college campuses across the US where student union leaders and activists on both sides act as local proxies in the global debate over war in the Middle East. The latest episode at the collegiate level unfolded at the end of July, when a Florida student-government rejected a last-minute resolution proposed by a pro-Palestinian group on campus – which demanded the university divest from Israel.

The resolution, which called for the Florida Atlantic University’s Board of Trustees to “divest from companies which profit from the perpetuation of the prison-industrial complex and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” was proposed by Students for Justice in Palestine, just before the 5 p.m. Wednesday deadline for that week’s vote calendar. The timing was intentional. The goal was to give the opposition as little time to read it as possible, said Didier Ortiz, who was SJP’s chapter president until his graduation last Tuesday.

Brett Cohen, the college liaison for the national pro-Israel advocacy group StandWithUs, noted that SJP seems to strike when pro-Israel students are least likely to be prepared. Their actions, Cohen said, often seem to coincide directly with Jewish holidays, when pro-Israel students are most likely to be away from campus – at home celebrating. “It’s a major tactic of SJP to try to catch the pro-Israel community off guard so there’s no opposition to what they want to do,” said Cohen. However, in the day-and-a-half between SJP filing the resolution and the vote, StandWithUs mobilized, preparing pro-Israel students to speak before the House during Friday’s meeting. “We were able to come in, work with the students, help them to prepare their arguments and practice their speeches,” Cohen said……

…..As a counter measure to SJP’s actions, StandWithUs provides pro-Israel campus groups with installations that rival the apartheid walls – covered with literature about Hamas, Jerusalem, refugees, diversity within Israel and more. Cohen asked: “If we can’t have peace on campus between an anti-Israel and pro-Israel group, then what hope is there in the Middle East?”……

http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective-Edge/College-campuses-debate-Middle-East-conflict-370571