OCAW rebuts letter

To the Editors:

As members of OCAW and Students for a Free Palestine, we write in response to Lilli Klotz’s letter in the April 4th Review. We take issue with the following statements:
-Klotz refers to the speech of an SFP member at the Day X rally as “a statement on a controversial and disconnected subject.” OCAW and SFP believe that the circumstances of the war on Iraq and the Occupation of Palestine are significantly related. The situations in both Palestine and Iraq are very much a result of U.S. foreign policy in the Mid-East region.
It’s clear that U.S. interest lies in access to oil and not the liberation of the people. If the U.S. had been interested in the liberation of people:
(1) The illegal occupation of Palestine would have ended long ago,
(2) The U.S. would never have armed Iraq with weapons of mass destruction,
(3) and the U.S. would have condemned the attacks on Kurdish people when they took place rather than years later. Furthermore, issues of peace and justice will always be “controversial” in that they speak out against a violent status-quo; we believe that it is exactly because these issues are “controversial” that so many people attended the rally to voice their support for peace with justice.

-Klotz writes that “having SFP speak [at the Day X rally] is to assume that the attitude along with being anti-war is to be anti-Israel.” A distinction needs to be made between acting against the Israeli occupation and acting against Israel. Klotz’s rhetoric — ‘you’re either with Israel (and its oppressive policies) or against Israel (and all its people)’ — is strikingly similar to George W. Bush’s statement, “You’re either with us or the terrorists.” Especially in an academic setting, we must distinguish criticism of government policy from criticism of a people.
Just as anti-war activists cannot remain silent about the twelve years of horrific sanctions against Iraq, and just as anti-war activists cannot remain silent about the human rights abuses happening in our own country under the guise of “fighting terrorism,” anti-war activists must also not forget the role of U.S. foreign policy in sustaining the illegal and violent occupation of Palestine. The movements against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the War on Iraq must continue to work together.

—Paul Gargagliano
SFP College senior
–Marta Berg
SFP College junior
–Josh Willis
OCAW College senior