"I am writing today because I believe we need to keep the conversation going. I am writing today to say that the time for boycotting, divesting from and sanctioning Israel is now."
To the Editor,
A few months ago, a new conversation was brought to our campus and community. This topic is carefully monitored and many attempt to silence it. This topic has made a lot of people all over the nation and world feel angry for a number of reasons. Here in Athens, it was all we talked about for weeks, but now it seems the conversation has died down.
I am writing today because I believe we need to keep the conversation going. I am writing today to say that the time for boycotting, divesting from and sanctioning Israel is now. The time for the U.S. to stop economically and militarily supporting Israel is now. The time for the international community to put Israel on trial for crimes against humanity is now, and it simply cannot wait any longer. The time for this discussion to become an everyday occurrence is now, and it is necessary and the need is immediate. Israel continues to expand its illegal settlements in Jerusalem and in the West Bank; it continues to operate an apartheid regime, keeping Palestinian and non-Jewish people as secondary citizens with fewer rights and unequal access to basic human needs, such as water. It isolates an entire ethnicity, the indigenous people of the land, with a wall and fence as a physical barrier, with roads that only Jewish citizens can access and with violence and killing targeted at civilians in order to gain more and more land.
There cannot be peace as long as the Israeli occupation continues, as long as Israel continues to bulldoze Palestinian homes and farms and create illegal settlements to drive them off of their land. There cannot be peace as long as the Israeli Defense Force continues to attack Palestinian civilians, even children. There cannot be peace if we do not recognize that the Palestinian violence against Israel is violence born from oppression, from occupation, from years of being pushed off their ancestors’ land and having to flee in the face of systemic violence. There cannot be peace if we continue to turn a blind eye to these blatant human rights abuses if we do not hold the nation of Israel accountable for years of violence and apartheid.
This isn’t a matter of being anti-Semitic; it’s precisely a matter of being pro-life, pro-humanity, pro-equality. If we claim to value human life and basic rights, we cannot support Israel any longer. The time is now. Let’s keep the conversation going.
Autumn Setzler is a student at Ohio University.
