by Joel Lev-Tov

550 feet separated students celebrating Israel and students protesting for Palestine.

The emotional gulf between the two was even bigger. 

“They’re continuing to advocate for the colonization of my people,” said Ahlam, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine who declined to give her last name. “They’re fully entitled to a homeland. They’re just not entitled to a homeland built on the homeland on another people.”

Emma Steinhause, a member of Terps for Israel, said a homeland with a Jewish majority is important for Jews.

“It’s important that we appreciate Israel and take situations like Israel Fest to show beyond just what is shown in the news of the negative aspects of what’s going on in Israel and the conflict, but also what beauty Israel has to offer,” the freshman letters and sciences major said.

At the Israel Fest, students celebrated Israel’s 75th birthday in the drizzling weather. Students could paint succulent pots, eat falafel, get dunked in a dunk tank, experience Israel in VR, and climb a climbing wall. Meanwhile at the Boycott Israel Fest, the Palestinian counter-demonstration, a banner demanded the end of “ethnic cleansing” and a poster board wall emulated the so-called apartheid wall that separates Israel from much of the West Bank.

Many at the Israel Fest didn’t want to talk politics.

“In regards to all the issues Israel does have, I think they’re really complex topics. I don’t even think I can fully have an opinion on them yet because they’re so complex,” Steinhause said. “I just hope everyone enjoys their day and has some fun, and that’s kind of what I’m going for.”

Even the Zionist Organization of America, represented by Mid-Atlantic Coordinator Lily Dillon, said the organization doesn’t take a stance on political issues.

But is it possible to separate the two? Yes, Steinhause said: Just like Americans separate the country from its politics when celebrating its independence, it’s possible to separate Israel from its politics.

Paul Scham, the director of the Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at this university and an associate research professor, agreed.

“I take these politics very seriously,” he said, “but I don’t think I have to be the ghost at the feast. I wouldn’t walk up to people and say, ‘Well what about the occupation?’”

Shay Hazkani, an associate professor of history and Jewish studies at this university, spent years as a reporter in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said Americans, including American Jews, often try to separate the two, but it’s more complex than that.

“The Israel of their imagination and the one that actually exists on the ground are often very, very different,” he said. “There’s certainly more and more people coming to the conclusion that the State of Israel of their dreams is not the actual state of Israel, and they have a crisis as a result, but that’s something that exists.”

Students walked through Israel Fest on their way to class, and some paused to take a look at the festival. About 50 people attended the festival at its peak, while about 40 people attended the Boycott Israel Fest. Scham said that’s far less than in previous years and said that declining interest in Israel could be the cause.

The festival and counter-protest, he said, reflect common narratives around the conflict, and are nothing unusual.

“I think it absolutely is par for the course,” the professor said. 

The two sides stayed far away from each other. Ahlam said the distance is intentional.

“It’s a hard line that we hold that we don’t have dialogue with Zionists, especially groups like Terps for Israel,” she said, “because they’re explicitly supporting our occupier. To have conversation and discussion with them is to normalize that stance.”

Scham said that’s a common stance, but a harmful one.

“Who will force the pro-Israel students to engage?” he asked.

This year, both parties running for the Student Government Association, Aspire Maryland and United Maryland, condemned the movement to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel, often shortened to BDS. 

“BDS is an anti-semitic organization that has no place on our campus and any movement to boycott Israel will never be heard under our administration,” read a statement from United Maryland on Instagram. 

“Aspiring for a better UMD means ensuring that anti-semitism and anti-Zionism have no place on our campus, and certainly not in SGA,” Aspire student body president candidate Scott Cronin said in a statement on Instragram. “Furthermore, SGA is a place for students to make a positive impact on campus, not express foreign policy beliefs.”

Alexandra DeBus, United Maryland’s candidate for student body president, did not respond to a question asking why the party put the statement out, and Cronin did not respond to a request for comment.

“The statements that they released were not in response to anything that has been publicly put out in the last four years,” Ahlam, the Students for Justice in Palestine member, said. “It’s not even an issue yet. And you’re already shutting down something that hasn’t really come up.”

The last time a bill calling on the university to divest its holdings from companies involved in violating Palestinian human rights came up in the Student Government Association, it failed 25-9. 

Both Scham and Hazkani said the movement’s demands are not anti-semitic. The movement covers a wide spectrum of views, Scham said, from those against Israel entirely who use some anti-semitic tropes all the way to Jews who oppose the occupation.

Asked for comment on the boycott, divest, and sanction movement, the university pointed to President Darryll Pines and Executive Director of Marland Hillel Ari Israel’s op-ed in the Washington Post this January. 

“College campuses should be places where Judaism and Jewish identity can be celebrated. Places that recruit, welcome and support students of all backgrounds — and shout from the top of academic buildings, residence halls and student unions: ‘All are welcome here, and we are stronger together,’” the editorial reads, adding that opportunities to eradicate hate arise through education.

Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan signed an executive order that bans parts of the state, including its universities, from doing business with any company that supports the boycott, divest, and sanction movement in January 2017.

Maxine Grossman, the Meyerhoff Program and Center for Jewish Studies’s director and associate professor at this university, said what history people look at defines their point of view.

“Everyone has a right and an obligation to bring their understanding to the table. And there are going to be some understandings that simply clash and then the question is, what steps do people take next?”

At the end of the day though, both sides made their points peacefully.

“This is a free country,” a member of Students for Justice for Palestine who declined to give his name said while waving Palestinian flag. “They can have their fest over there and we can have our fest over there.”

Featured image: A student waves a Palestinian flag as Students for Justice in Palestine member Ahlam steps up to speak to the crowd, Tuesday, May 2, 2023. Photo by Joel Lev-Tov

Editor’s note: This article has been updated.