The Social Justice Alliance at Stony Brook University recently abandoned their commitment to “global justice and human rights” by hosting a screening of the film “Occupation 101.”
This propaganda film is about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict from the point of view of people living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, but it gives the viewer that little something extra by lying the entire time. Whether it’s lying outright or lying by omission of facts, this film has it all.
Out of all the fiction, there are certain points that seemed more blatantly false than others. For example, the speakers in the video said that when Israel was officially made the homeland of the Jews, the land chosen was very large and it was the best in the area. That is not even remotely true. If you look at maps for the UN’s partition plan to separate the area into Palestinian and Israeli states, the land is split into almost equal shares. And as far as the quality of land, in 1948 a lot of Israel was swamp and desert. The hard work of Israel’s residents made that swamp and desert into what it is now, and what people imagine when they think of Israel.
In other parts of the film, facts were thrown in without context so as to paint Israel in a bad light. For instance, there was footage of buildings in the Palestinian territories being demolished, and the only thing the viewer hears is that innocent people were killed or lost their homes for no reason. The speakers don’t explain that before the Israeli Defense Forces destroy anything, whether it be by explosives or wrecking equipment, they give a three hour warning in order to spare the lives of civilians, even if it means giving the terrorist targets time to escape. The speakers don’t mention that these Palestinian civilians are killed because they are being used as human shields. There is also nothing said about why the IDF chose the building to be demolished, such as it being a hiding place of weapons or retaliation for a strike against Israel.
Another huge problem with this film is that it is incredibly anti-Semitic. Alex Saiu, the treasurer of the SJA said after the screening that he didn’t think it was at all. Apparently he doesn’t think it’s anti-Semitic to say that Jews in Israel are trying to ethnically cleanse the area of all Palestinians, which is a complete fabrication. Apparently he doesn’t think it’s anti-Semitic to say that all Jews have great living accommodations while people in the Palestinian territories live in poverty. It’s statements like these that led to support for Hitler and the Holocaust. I thought the SJA was established to educate people, not to brainwash them.
After the film the floor was opened for discussion. While Rabbi Topek of Stony Brook Hillel was permitted to clear up some inaccuracies of the film before anyone else spoke, there was nothing stopping people from dispensing false facts during the student debate. One student said that the people in Gaza have no food, clean water or electricity, and that’s why they launch the Qassam rockets into Israel.
This is a ridiculous statement in two ways. First, although Israel no longer occupies Gaza, many international organizations insist that Israel must still provide food, water, electricity and emergency medical care to the people there. Why, if Gaza is now independent from Israel? There is no logical reason, but people in Gaza do actually have access to these things.
The second way that statement is absurd is that the student gave the falsehood as a justification for launching rockets into Israel and killing civilians. Let’s assume that people in Gaza don’t have water or food. Does that give them a license to kill? I don’t think so. If it did, the billions of people in the world living in poverty would be an extreme security threat. Poverty does not justify murder. The money spent on Qassam rockets could be used to buy a better quality of life for civilians. And at the end of the day, Israel does supply people who are not its own citizens with their basic survival needs. So what is the real excuse for the rockets?
The makers of “Occupation 101” call the film a documentary, but I refuse to do that. It is an incredible work of anti-Semitic fiction, and should not be thought of as anything other than that.
Saiu said that the SJA picked the film and just ran with it, despite objections from some students, because they wanted to dive right into this topic. As an organization that is meant to raise awareness, that was a terrible mistake. A group like that should be even more careful than others to present something balanced. I’d say they really messed up on this one, but I doubt the people brainwashed by this movie will agree.
Here's a picture of Tel Aviv before the legal inception of Israel as the Jewish homeland.
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