The scene was a familiar one to activists on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Sproul Plaza on the U.C. Berkeley campus was awash April 9 in the red, green, black, and white of the Palestinian flag, and the blue and white of the Israeli flag. Students wearing kaffiyehs milled about, as did students in kippot.
But there was a new element at this demonstration: A few Jewish students with fake red explosives tied around their waists were posing as suicide bombers.
''This was special for this demonstration,'' said Lee Kaplan, an East Bay-based activist with the national group Dafka, who outfitted a few students with the fake explosives as he spoke, calling out, ''I need a few more suicide bombers!''
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Enter Lee Kaplan, an investigative journalist and contributor for FrontPage Magazine and head organizer of DAFKA or "In Your Face", less a pro-Isreal support group than an anti-Palestine smear machine.
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Kaplan's credentials extend to his appearances on Faux's Dayside with Linda Vester and The O'Reily Factor with Pappa Bear, and his message is consistantly clear:
''I think there are some supposed peace groups which purport to be Jewish that get money from Arabs, and they get into Hillel under the guise of being for a two-state solution when what they really want is the dismantling of Israel.''
That's right, Lee Kaplan is a firm supporter and proponent of an end to Isreali molly-coddling of the non-violence movements. Pulling straight from the Limbaugh playbook, Kaplan places the blame squarely where it is deserved. With the Peace Activists.
In his quest to prove peace activists are actually dangerous terrorists in their own right, he goes undercover to a meeting of the International Solidarity Movement, "a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles."
Strangely sincere, Kaplan often remains puzzled at how college-aged pro-Palestinian protestors can fall into the Peace Activist trap. From Kaplan's own piece, "Solidarity With Terror", in which he encounters Christina Cruz an Argentine national who was a student in the U.S., he remains perplexed:
She expressed concern that she would have to go into to debt to join "Freedom Summer." She wanted to "help" people and further the cause of human rights. It was still hard for me to understand the equation - helping terrorists and human rights.
The piece goes on (he details each of the group's new initiates and coordinators as well as their training habits), but feels free to drop the traditional conservative stereotype fearmongerings and prejudices.
Liberal Colleges Are Brainwashing our Youth:
I was especially interested in the next volunteer. Scott identified himself as Jewish and even claimed to have family in Israel. He said he was a supporter of Israel until he attended classes in Middle East Studies at Stanford University. "I used to support Israel until I took some classes with Joel Beinin who set me straight," he volunteered. Beinin is a former president of the Middle East Studies Association and a self-proclaimed Marxist and supporter of the Palestinian struggle to liberate Israel by dismantling the Jewish state.
Many Peace Activists Are Psychotic:
Ken, a semi-retired consultant for the Food and Drug Administration who introduced himself as someone who was sick and tired of what the "Zionists" had been doing and wasn't afraid to do something about it "even if the CIA is after me."
Look! Teh Gayz! And They're Hypocrites To Boot:
Next came Meredith, who said she was going to Palestine to assert herself as "a queer Jewish woman." She quickly explained that she was really only half-Jewish, and that by helping the Palestinians she was asserting her identity. She was evidently oblivious to the fate of gays living in the Moslem world.
Extra points for spelling there, Lee.
So why all the fuss? What's one more Peace Organization that may or may not be for peace, and one more conservative anti-Activist pundit trashing them?
To answer that, you'd have to revist 2003 and the death of Rachel Corrie, herself an ISM activist visiting Palestine. She threw herself in front of a bulldozer set to demolish a Palestinian home and was crushed to death for her trouble. The full accounting of whether said home was a front for terrorists or not remains somewhat clouded. Lee, however, harbors no misconceptions about Ms. Corrie.
The ISM made international headlines when one of its activists, Rachel Corrie, a college radical from Olympia, Washington, was killed while attempting to block an Israeli bulldozer. The bulldozer was attempting to destroy tunnels from the Gaza strip through which the terrorists imported weapons and explosives. Corrie became a martyr to the cause, and inspiration to other radicals to follow.
Returning to Berkley and Kaplan's own Activism:
Dafka's mock suicide bombers were there to show ''why the checkpoints and wall are necessary,'' said Kaplan.
SJP had numerous props to get its points across. In one scene of guerrilla theater, a person wearing a tank made of cardboard over the top half of his body trampled on foam bricks and a pile of dirt to represent the demolition of a Palestinian home.
Meanwhile, several counter-demonstrators dressed as suicide bombers walked around with signs pinned to their backs saying ''$25,000 for my family! Thanks Saddam and Saudi Arabia!'' and ''I fight for justice by killing Jews.''
So why is Kaplan a giant douche? Simple. In the man's fervent quest to defend Isreal's right to exist, he has "gone on the offensive" as it were, and taken the fight to anyone who would challenge Isreali authority. Sound familiar? If so, that's probably because it is the same rationale used in the continued bombing and invasion of Isreal's northern neighbor, Lebanon. Kaplan and Olmert use much of the same logic - everyone for Arabs is against Isreal, associating with a foreign entity is tantamount to becoming a terrorist, sympathy for non-Isrealites in the Middle East is sympathy of terrorism, only unbridled strength will crush the rebel threat.
Once again it is worth noting that Palestine and Hezbollah have no less blood on their hands than the nation of Isreal. But Kaplan is a giant douche because his policy vision, much like the Iraq policy of President Bush and the retaliation policy of Prime Minister Olmert, fails to look beyond that brief euphoric glee of watching one's "enemies" blown away by another laser guided bomb. Never do they ask the consequences of their reckless warfare or how the monstrocity of war they've unleashed will win the peace save by paralyzing their foes with the horror of it all. Such small men, so cowed by the military might of their own nations, cannot envision the revolutionary spirit of those - misguided or not - who would throw their lives away for the freedom of their nation. Peace through strength is only for the rich, the fat, and the lazy it seems. To the rest who would demand their fair share - Palestinians, Lebonese, poor Jews caught in the crossfire, peace activists, liberals, and the rest - break the peace and no mercy will be had, no quarter given. You shouldn't have crossed the lords of the land when you had the chance.