Category: Academia

Palestinian Supporters Set Tents In Swarthmore

By Bob Small

(Update: We have been told that the tents have been pulled)

We’ve put off for a long time discussing the “third rail” of American Politics, which is the Middle East.

 As someone who maintains “we will always need an Israel, just not this one,” I’ll say that both sides have blood on their hands, going back to 1947.

Further back, we have the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

 Though not all Jews are Zionists, they hold sway, partly because neither Europe or North America were welcoming to the concept of a Jewish state.

Israel’s founding, unfortunately  is another case of “the oppressed becoming the oppressor”.

To move on to today, Swarthmore College has it’s own Pro-Palestinian Tent City courtesy of Swarthmore Students for Justice in Palestine.

There email is SwarthmoreSJPgmail.com.  

Among their demands, according to Spokesperson Ragad, are that Swarthmore College should divest from HP, Lockheed Martin, and Vanguard, because they support Israel.

Ragad compared this to the previous divestment campaign regarding South Africa.

The only outside group that had an easily visible tent was Jewish Voice For Peace (JVP) which describes itself as “ the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world”  and to which I subscribe, although I don’t always agree with their sentiments.

When we brought up Joe Biden, whom we said, could easily tell Israel, that “we’re only sending you bows and arrows after Tuesday, but won’t”, Ragad responded with the Leahy Law which the current president has consistently ignored.  This was last brought up concerning South Africa.

On the issue of what they wanted, they suggested a Palestinian state, where they thought Jews could also peacefully live, which I find to be a very naive answer.

Meanwhile, Gov. Josh Shapiro, who went to Georgetown and the University of Rochester, who said in Politico “If the universities in accordance with their policies can’t guarantee the safety and security and well-being of the students, then I think it is incumbent upon a local mayor or local governor or local town councilor, whoever is the local leadership there, to step in and enforce the law.”

Palestinian Supporters Set Tents In Swarthmore

Let Us Speak Of Penn And Its Skull Collection

By Bob Small

Our great University of Pennsylvania was founded in 1751 by Benjamin Franklin as America’s first university. Franklin’s last public act was to send to Congress a petition on behalf of the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society asking for the abolition of slavery and an end to the slave trade.

Over the years, Penn has been responsible for producing many famous people and has otherwise contributed to the betterment of our society. However, one of its darkest continuing chapters began in 1830 and may be continuing.

Samuel Morton (1799-1851) Samuel George Morton (1799-1851) variously described as an anatomist, natural historian and, most importantly, a craniologist began in 1830 the gathering of the world’s largest collection of skulls, some 1,000.

Morton believed in the now -discredited theory of polygenism which considered the Bible to be incomplete. According to this, God created numerous races, rather than one man, the commonly accepted Biblical interpretation.

His research — which declared that Europeans had bigger brains than Africans — was meant to prove that Blacks were an inferior race.

When Darwin’s Origin of Species came out in 1859 it helped to discredit Morton’s theories.

Now, what to do with a collection of 1,000 skulls, the majority of which were black and/or from the Blockley Almshouse,a Quaker sponsored poor house. This later became Philadelphia General Hospital .

In 1966, the collection was moved to The Penn Museum Morton Cranial Collection.

They were finally buried on Feb. 3.

The delay and way the remains were put to rest, however, has led to blistering criticism.

As per a scathing article in The Guardian:

 Outside researchers and activists have accused the museum of ignoring the wishes of the local Black community, which wanted a more thorough investigation into the identity of the 19 individuals, who remain unidentified before their bones were interred, and for the Penn Museum to loosen its control over the restitution process.

The interment was at Collingdale’s Eden Cemetery, which is in Delco and not West Philly, and the Finding Ceremony and were not included in the process.

None of the esteemed graduates of this “Poison Ivy League” school, such as Ed Rendell or Mary Gay Scanlon, ever thought to comment on this.

Morton, Pa. is named after Major Sketchley Morton, a Revolutionary War officer and the son of John Morton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence .

Let Us Speak Of Penn And Its Skull Collection

Swarthmore Protest Silences Israeli Speaker

By Bob Small

We went to the Peace and Conflict Studies Speaker Series on Oct. 24, at Lang Performing Arts Center at Swarthmore College. 

There was conflict, though, and it was not peaceful.

The topic was Israeli Security Policy.   The attempted speaker was Dr. Barak Mendelsohn from Haverford  College and the Israeli IDF

However at the beginning, members of various protest groups  left en masse chanting loudly. though not always in sync. Then continued chanting outside of the auditorium.

They did not have identification on their handouts.  It’s not like we did it in the sixties, eighties, or even this century. The chants were incomprehensible but they made speaker in comprehensible too.

We worried about Jewish students in the audience, who might of felt fearful.

We learned some background from the Swarthmore College Phoenix;

The three listed organizing groups for and Oct. 12 event, and we assume, the Oct. 24 event were Swarthmore Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP); The Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) which is the campus section of Democratic Socialists of America; and Swarthmore African-American Student Society (SASS)

 There were three other unlisted groups implied.

Dr Sa’ed Atshan, the chair of Peace and Conflict series responded by e-mail, to my query about the disruption.

“Thank you so much for being present and for this feedback. We’d love to have you with us again in the future,” he wrote.

He was not present during this event. Frankly, we didn’t see any Swarthmore Public Security either albeit we were later told that they were there.

Now, being nothing if not thorough, I emailed Visualizing Palestine, which was named on the sign expressing my concerns. Visualizing Palestine. The conversation led to a contact with Visualizing Impact.

The best way to explain Visualizing Impact is that they provide the signs for Visualizing Palestine and would equally provide signs for a visualizing Israel group.  They seem not to have any agenda except profit.  For one of many critiques of this kind of group, see Pros & Cons of Data Visualization: the Good, Bad, & Ugly 

Lastly, read  Our Protests Should Be More Thoughtful in The Phoenix.

This said everything that I felt.  Including “ But working to silence someone is never an avenue towards justice.”

I  wanted to hear the questions to Dr. Mendelsohnn from the  protesting group.

Swarthmore Protest Silences Israeli Speaker