Depolarizing Durham, North Carolina: The Israel-Palestine Conflict Invades the United States

In Durham, North Carolina, the small Jewish community of roughly 10,000 was rent apart. The problem is now so severe, various factions of the community are stalking each other fishing for negative information to report to the media. This was because some community members led the lobbying effort for a city law with negligible actual impact. The law barred the local police department from participating in international exchange programs, specifically mentioning exchanges with Israel. The police had no intention of participating in any such exchange programs.

The leaders of the lobbying effort were part of a far-left group called Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). JVP focuses on supporting Jewish anti-Zionism and the larger Palestinian-led program promoting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) of Israel, a charged issue in Jewish communities. One of the group’s BDS initiatives, associated with the lobbying in Durham, is called Deadly Exchange. This initiative’s goal is to break the link between U.S. police departments and Israel. Deadly Exchange relies on tropes about Israel turned into slogans. If these came from a non-Jewish group and were about Jews, they would clearly be anti-Semitic. With the focus on Israel, they represent undue demonization, delegitimization, and double standards against Israel presented to a new audience — Americans concerned about police brutality. Here is a more detailed article about the relationship between the Deadly Exchange campaign and anti-Semitism.

In reality, the police exchange program is complex. Here is what I consider a much more balanced article about it. If I had clout in a local police department, I think I would want to participate in the program and learn from Israel. Israel is densely populated and ethnoculturally heterogeneous, but most parts of it manage to keep municipal crime low. Its army is high-tech and highly scrutinized by countless media and NGOs from within and without. Israel has developed many ways to respond with a minimum of force, such as using tear gas in lieu of bullets. Also, observing Israel of course does not mean copying Israel.

JVP’s strategy is not only to oversimplify but to sow division and discord. A former JVP executive director explicitly mentioned JVP works to “put that wedge in” to the Jewish community over Israel. At the local level, though, Durham’s JVP organizers are almost certainly very well-intentioned. Even the Anti-Defamation League, which is highly critical of the national organization, mentions that “many of JVP’s Jewish activists say they are motivated by the age-old Jewish ideals of supporting the oppressed and making the world a better place. In the vast majority of cases, there is no reason to doubt their sincerity.” Although Durham JVP organizer Sandra Korn stood her ground against all the hostility and remained highly active in the local Jewish community, I can only imagine how many other Jews Durham’s dynamic is scaring away.

The Jewish collective experience, with its ancient roots, history in many other civilizations, and strong traditions of scholarly debate, is a crucial element of cultural diversity. Durham’s Jewish community is dominated by liberal and centrist movements such as Reform and Conservative, with high attrition. A Jewish community as small and threatened by assimilation as this cannot afford such a wedge. Based on my experiences living in Durham for two years, from 2006 through 2008, and running Quora.com’s Israel-Palestine peace forum Unity is Strength more recently, I believe there is a win-win for Israel, for Palestinians, and especially for Durham. Paradigms we can think about include:

1. The BDS movement is representative of a significant group of Palestinians. Its stated demands include (1) ending Israeli military control of territories Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, (2) passing laws to equalize the rights of the 20–25% of Israel’s population that is non-Jewish, (3) promoting the return of Palestinians to the lands they were displaced from at the time of Israel’s founding. The BDS demands are similar to those of the earlier Arab Peace Initiative. Currently, Israel has expressed willingness to honor many aspects of the first two demands. However, the third demand, since it is believed to be incompatible with Israel’s guiding principles, has held up peace negotiations.
2. Israel is a state dedicated to protecting the world’s Jews, by giving Jews a liberal immigration policy and the democratic power to protect themselves. The international government is really the wild west about protecting ethnoreligious minorities. If a country fails its minorities, they need a place to go. Since the Holocaust, when the world failed the Jews, the State of Israel has been a safeguard for Jews against the rest of the world. Elsewhere in the Middle East and in other parts of the world, minorities are still facing intense persecution up to and including genocide. And they have no international safeguards against their country and no place to go. In Israel, Jews are the voting majority rather than a minority. And because of the State of Israel, Jews have a safeguard against other nations and a place to go. Many of its Jews are descendants of refugees from various countries that had to flee to Israel long after 1948. So Israel has worked for the Jews. And now it is able to extend a helping hand to others, which it needs to do. The people it has displaced, the Palestinians, are an obvious candidate. And there are others, such as other persecuted groups. Then the international government can, bit by bit, become just.

The spectrum of Israel-Palestine positions in Durham’s Jewish community is similar to the spectrum on Quora’s Israel-Palestine forum Unity is Strength. We are able to come together, our goal being unity and harmony. Here are some possibilities for the Durham community, which people all over the world can help with. Just comment on this piece or participate in the forum. Other members of the Quora community are already involved. Here is a tutorial about how to contribute to this kind of Quora forum. I’m listing some ideas for Durham, more or less in delivery and priority order.

1. De-escalate the hostility in the Jewish community by mediating multilateral agreements among the various factions.
2. Promote initiatives in areas the factions seem to agree, for example - a) Proactive Jewish outreach to the larger community, in the model of the late Rabbi Schulweis of the Los Angeles area’s Valley Beth Shalom (VBS) synagogue. b) Connecting the Jewish community to other local communities, especially minority communities. With such connections, Jewish communities like Durham’s can have a more meaningful social impact than the local Duke Blue Devils and UNC Tar Heels basketball teams put together, and yes, I know Michael Jordan played for the Tar Heels. This is because Judaism’s focus is not only on social impact but also on challenging discourse.
3. Lobby for laws focused on the real municipal priorities related to policing, not on Israel-Palestine.
4. Advocate for specific areas of cooperation between local Durham communities and Israel.
5. Present the Durham Jewish community with Palestinian narratives such as those of Hasan Z and Tarik Saba. The pro-Israel tune can quickly change when the Jewish community and its Israel engagement are strong and growing by attraction, and when the displaced are presented not as terrorists behind a wall or as pawns of Israel’s enemies but as valuable community members and human beings better than most of us. Palestinians need a happy home to come back to and be part of. Hasan Z (حسن زبيدي) is already moving the needle with his posts to Unity is Strength. And this approach is an important part of the toolkit — it is similar to Nicholas Kristof’s telling of personal stories to combat human trafficking and U.S. inequality, or to some of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s attacks on slavery.[*]
6. Look for the funding in all this. It exists. The U.S. House recently allocated $250 million over five years to advance Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. The Israel-Palestine issue not only divides the region but is also dividing this community in a U.S. swing state. So funding should be available for North Carolina as well.
7. As the lowest priority and possibly non-essential, lobby to pass the Durham Human Relations Commission (HRC) proposed revisions to the original City Council statement. However, the other listed items should more than compensate for the problems with the original law, to both the Israeli and Palestinian parties.

[*] One member of Durham’s Jewish community suggested I read a book called The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace. I plan to, but I have a feeling I’ll come down closer to JVP’s side of this one. As Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote about a senator who voted to pass the Fugitive Slave Law, “His idea of a fugitive was only an idea of the letters that spell the word, — or at the most, the image of a little newspaper picture of a man…He had never thought that a fugitive might be a hapless mother, a defenseless child, — like that one which was now wearing his lost boy’s little well-known cap.” The displaced are not merely statistics — they are people. And when they come knocking on our doors, and writing on our forums, and desiring to live with us in our homeland…it is our imperative to send a message of strength and of welcome. And let us hope, by this path, that the power of the “mighty woman with a torch” in Emma Lazarus’ poem becomes our power.