Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

COLUMN: Questioning the anti-war coalition
By Jonathan Seigel & Michael Nadler & Andrew Avorn
Columbia Daily Spectator (Columbia U.)
09/28/2006

(U-WIRE) NEW YORK — As liberals and members of the reality-based community, we are firmly opposed to the war in Iraq. It's awful; it's pointless; and it is a tragic waste of human life that flies in the face of every American ideal. That's why, two weeks ago, one of us went to a meeting of the Campus Anti-War Coalition to try to organize an active anti-Iraq movement on campus. It seemed like an easy enough task. Most Columbia students, like most Americans, oppose the war. Because the war is so baseless and infuriating, it should not have been hard to provide good reasons to convince other people to join the cause. But at this meeting, which was called to talk about ways to organize opposition to the war in Iraq, there was only one idea that people wanted to discuss: protesting Israel.

This sad fact leaves us and most other liberals on campus in a bit of a bind. We support Israel. Israel is a liberal democracy in a part of the world that is decidedly illiberal and pointedly undemocratic. The groups attacking Israel are usually armed religious fundamentalists. Just like our opposition to the war in Iraq, our support of Israel flows naturally from our progressive values. And what CAWC told us is, "To work with us on Iraq, you have to work with us against Israel."

This isn't just wrong on a moral level (and boy, is it wrong there). It's wrong on a pragmatic political level. In order to accomplish anything politically, people have to form coalitions. Since everyone can't agree on everything, strong majorities can only be formed if people look past some of their differences. For the sake of an irrational ideological purity test, CAWC turned away people eager to help with their main cause. There are thousands of students on campus who oppose the war in Iraq. But because of their stance on Israel, CAWC will never get support from more than a few dozen people.

Today, CAWC is having its first major event of the year: a commemoration (read: celebration) of the second Intifada. For those who don't know, the Intifada is an organized movement to stop the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and destroy Israel through terrorist attacks and the murder of innocent civilians. To join CAWC in opposition to the War in Iraq you now not only have to oppose Israel, you have to support terrorism.

When CAWC ties its fringe beliefs to important causes like Iraq, they discredit the whole left. By acting as if opposition to Israel and the war in Iraq are inseparable, they make the anti-war movement as a whole, and liberalism in general, look bad. Because they say Iraq and Israel are two sides of the same coin, they alienate many of us who would gladly join them in protesting American policy in Iraq. Because they say that opposing Israel is a liberal cause, we start to worry about what it means to call ourselves liberals. It's as if CAWC and Karl Rove are reading from the same script, purposefully dividing those on the left and driving millions of would-be liberals into the Republican fold every year.

People have a right to oppose Israel's policies. They have a right to voice their opinions and protest Israel when it does something wrong. But the fact is that Israel and Iraq are two completely different issues. Supporting Israel — with its exemplary voting rights for women, its universal health care, its legalization of civil unions for gay couples, and its diverse and tolerant society —is just as liberal and progressive as supporting Social Security. CAWC shouldn't let its ulterior motives drag our beliefs into the fringe and ruin being liberal for the rest of us.

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