Bi-Co Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) held a teach-in titled “COVID IN TIMES OF GENOCIDE,” which has been criticized the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia as antisemitic.
The event, which took place on March 27, was advertised as a “teach-in on how Israel uses COVID as a tool for settler colonialism in Palestine.” The purpose of the event, according to a post on SJP’s Instagram, was to teach Bi-Co students about how “the Israeli state intentionally debilitates Palestinians through the spread of COVID”. Within a week of it taking place, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia issued a press statement condemning the poster, calling it “new form of the antisemitic blood libel trope.”
The teach-in was part of a month-long series titled “Israeli Apartheid Month,” first popularized by the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement (BDS). BDS is a global movement advocating for Palestinian rights through a boycott of Israeli culture and goods.
The event was held in conjunction with Haverford Student’s for Peace (SFP), Disability Advocacy for Students at Haverford (DASH), and the Bi-Co Covid Co. According to a Bi-Co reporter who was present at the teach-in, the discussion was centered around various academic perspectives pertaining to Israeli policy since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Controversy around Israel’s COVID-19 policy is not new. In 2021, international discussion began regarding whether or not the Israeli state was responsible for vaccine roll-out in the occupied West-Bank and in Gaza. In January of 2021, Amnesty International issued a report titled “Denying COVID-19 Vaccines to Palestinians Exposes Israel’s Institutionalized Discrimination.”
The report, published on January 6, 2021, stated that “the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out plan so far covers only citizens of Israel, including Israeli settlers living inside the West Bank, and Palestinian residents of Jerusalem. It excludes the nearly 5 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, under Israeli military occupation.” It later went on to claim that the inequities in the vaccine roll-out was further evidence of Israel being an apartheid state.
Israel, which had administered vaccines to Palestinians living in East Jerusalem but at that point had failed to do so within any occupied territory, claimed that under the Oslo Accords of 1995 the Palestinian Authority was responsible for any vaccine roll-out. Human rights experts countered this argument, stating that Israel was as an occupying power and therefore, under international law, it was their role to ensure that access to COVID-19 vaccines was available in the West Bank. In June of 2021, Israel sent one million vaccines to the Palestinian Authority which were allegedly within weeks of their expiration date, according to the PA. The Israeli health ministry denied these allegations.
Within twenty-four hours of SJP’s Wednesday event, Jewish organizations began to criticize the poster for being antisemitic. The Jewish Federation League called it “a new form of the antisemitic blood libel trope” in a press release, and urged Haverford College administration to condemn the event. Other organizations, such as Jewish On Campus, had a similar message, claiming that the phrasing of the poster implied a dangerous conspiracy theory of the Jewish state using “health crises to assert global control.”
In a comment to the Bi-Co News regarding these accusations, Chris Mills, the Associate Communications Director of Haverford College, stated “…Antisemitism is pervasive and persistent globally, nationally, and locally. College and university campuses are not immune to antisemitism and the impact of antisemitism, and we provide contexts in which people can learn about the history, application, proliferation, and consequences of that form of oppression. Haverford encourages the open and free expression of opinion, while we also establish and maintain policies and procedures that enable and encourage a community to function and flourish across myriad registers, including speech…” (Read the full administrative response below.)
The Jewish Federation of Philadelphia’s Director of Relations Committee, Jason Holtzman, said in an interview with the Bi-Co News that “The event’s description alleges that Israel intentionally debialiates Palestinians by spreading COVID-19. We believe that’s a dangerous and conspiratorial claim… by making such an assertion, the organizers of the event are irresponsibly suggesting that Israel used the pandemic as a tool for colonization.”
Holtzman, who was not present at the SJP event, claimed it was further evidence of the growing antisemitism in both the Mainline and the nation as a whole. “The [event’s] argument is inherently antisemitic”, Holtzman stated, “…I don’t believe that making these sort of conspiratorial arguments and using these kinds of buzzwords like genocide and settler-colonialism [is] going to help bring Israelis and Palestinians closer together for justice, peace, and reconciliation.”
When asked about his opinion of the anti-Zionist movement as a whole, Holtzman stated that “the discussion should be more about being critical of Israel versus being anti-Zionist. I think that there is a difference between criticizing Israeli policy and being completely anti-Zionist. So, to me, anti-Zionism is antisemitism, because it denies Jewish people the same right to self-determination.”
The Bi-Co News spoke to a student activist who presented the event and wished to remain anonymous. When asked for a response concerning the allegations of antisemitism, they said in a statement to the Bi-Co that “public health is shaped by existing institutional structures and social values, particularly during times of crisis like a pandemic. The policies and actions States take, or do not take, reflect said values. The Israeli state is not unique in how its mitigation policies have allowed COVID to spread and debilitate marginalized communities. The U.S. similarly intentionally debilitates Black, brown, Indigenous, Latinx, disabled, trans, and other marginalized communities through COVID spread.”
The student later clarified that SJP and the other organizing groups were “not referring to any antisemitic tropes or conspiracy theories in our flyer nor did we promote any antisemitism during any of our events.”
A student organizer for Bi-Co Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and DASH, who requested to remain anonymous, said they were pleased when they first saw the poster for the event, saying they already knew “how the vaccine roll-out was emblematic of the apartheid state,” and was “excited to learn more.”
The student went onto to state that the teach-in, which they attended, was “so clearly rooted in the power imbalance between Israelis and Palestinians and not in religion.”
The student also stated that the accusations of the poster being antisemitic were “absolutely ridiculous.”
Tensions in the Bi-Co
Tensions on the Bi-Co Campuses have continued to rise since Hamas breached the Gaza-Israeli border on October 7, killing 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and kidnapping around 150 others. Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza has killed an estimated 33,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and militants, but estimates around two-thirds of those killed by the Israeli military have been women and children.
On November 25, Haverford student Kinnan Abdelhamid, who is Palestinian, was shot in Burlington, Vermont in an apparent hate crime attack.
On April 9, President Wendy Raymond sent an email to the entire Haverford student body calling the community “into radical empathy and into building community,” specifying that this was coming in light of “growing concern about antisemitism on our [Haverford’s] campus.”
The email noted both the recent controversial SJP event as well as allegations that students had torn down Chabad posters advertising a teach-in on antisemitism.
In the conversation with the student organizer who attended event, the Bi-Co News asked if they believed that reconciliation could take place between anti-Zionist students and Zionist students. In response, the student told the Bi-Co that “it is about being pro or anti-genocide. And to me, if someone is not firmly anti-genocide, [then] that is not personally someone I want to engage with.”
Administrative Statement
We recognize that many people within and beyond Haverford College are suffering in relation to horrific bloodshed in Israel and Gaza. Antisemitism is pervasive and persistent globally, nationally, and locally. College and university campuses are not immune to antisemitism and the impact of antisemitism, and we provide contexts in which people can learn about the history, application, proliferation, and consequences of that form of oppression. Haverford encourages the open and free expression of opinion, while we also establish and maintain policies and procedures that enable and encourage a community to function and flourish across myriad registers, including speech. Such freedom is not without limits. The College has a policy framework in place for responding to allegations of discrimination, harassment, and bias. We also have an Honor Code to which all students commit upon matriculation, making the Honor Council process another avenue that a concerned campus community member can pursue to remedy perceived wrongs. And then there is the learning process itself: promulgated ideas, any of which may be offensive to any of us, can be questioned, challenged, refuted – and not just in the classroom, but in venues of community members’ own creation. Learning at Haverford can and should occur everywhere, all the time, directly and indirectly. In the Haverford tradition of learning in community, we will continue to encourage means and methods that ‘call-in’ rather than ‘call-out’. And so we encourage our students to listen; ask questions; promote tolerance and inclusivity; and choose to build bridges, dispel suspicion, and inspire the good in all of us.
Chris Mills
