March 1, 2011

What would success look like for the network of campus Israel supporters?

The challenges are not new. Israel’s detractors on campus have long sought to drive a wedge between the United States and Israel starting with the intellectual elites on America’s campuses. Investment in academic chairs and Middle East studies departments with decided anti-Israel agendas; speakers and programs designed to demonize Israel; outside groups that sponsor student groups which, in turn, foment venom: the methods are well-known.

But how would we recognize success for our community? The components to consider are many.

Would it be in training a certain number of students to be eloquent public advocates for Israel? It is worthy and necessary to do so; and yet, four years later, those students have left, an entirely new generation of students has arrived, and the community must start over. On some campuses, indeed, we see the trend of student leadership ebb and flow, and pro- and anti-Israel activity on those campuses ebbs and flows accordingly.

Would it be in creating a certain number of dedicated Israel studies programs? The development of Israel studies and research has been, in many places, a tremendous vehicle for fostering positive and nuanced academic discourse regarding Israel. However, the penetration of those programs into the academic environment as a whole has yet to be measured, and change in the academic culture and discourse is slow and difficult to measure.

Would it be in enhancing the relationships with campus administrations and investing in connections between Israeli and American institutions?  Indeed, when campus administrators experience Israel first-hand, they almost inevitably come back with greater appreciation for Israel and its complexities. But building these long-term connections takes time and resources, and it is difficult to measure their impact before many have invested significantly in the model over years.

What begins to emerge—a theory, perhaps, but one that deserves further investigation—is that no single channel of campus Israel advocacy can stand on its own. The network of campus Israel supporters needs to work in each of these areas, on each campus, to determine which approaches will help create a lasting, positive environment regarding Israel.

These supporters must be honest and clear about their campuses’ strengths and weaknesses regarding Israel, and how their advocacy contributes to the big picture. It is not sufficient to decide to train more student advocates if no one has established relationships with the campus faculty and administration. One cannot rely upon an Israel studies department if there is not a base of student Israel supporters to enroll in the available courses. A campus administrator who supports Israel but does not receive thanks from the campus community will learn the wrong lesson, quickly, from Israel’s campus detractors.

At ICC’s consultation last June, this approach served as the subject of much discussion. Many of the organizations in attendance made it a special emphasis of their own objectives for the academic year to encourage their activists to build these types of strategic relationships on campus. At the Israel Intensive run by ICC at Hillel Institute this past summer, campus professionals learned from their peers, including those at some of the campuses receiving the brightest spotlights of attention nationally, about how building strategic relationships—or lacking them—had affected their campus communities’ efforts to build a positive environment regarding Israel. Many anecdotes continue to accumulate regarding effective relationship-building across the many campus spheres, and how that appreciation for the greater campus context can fuel greater success for the network of campus Israel supporters.

Success must involve a holistic approach that includes an awareness of all of these elements, and more. It must mean that the network of campus Israel supporters has established the support necessary to sustain its advances in each area of campus life. Whether our campus community achieves that type of success will depend on the degree to which the campus Israel network can support the efforts in these areas and build strategically toward change.