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Jewish Voice for Peace participates in protest of Erick Stakelbeck at Portland State University
Submitted by Liz Ingenthron on Fri, 09/14/2012 - 1:36pm

"At This College, Being 'Against Racism' is Unacceptable"
by Robyn Gottlieb, newvoices, September 13, 2012

It was shocking enough to read that a protest against Islamophobia was being organized at Portland State University. When I found out that a pro-Israel group had invited the speaker being protested, my jaw dropped.

I’m on a Middle East Studies listserv at school. During May, I received an e-mail inviting me to attend the protest of an appearance by ultra-right-wing Christian Broadcast Network pundit Erick Stakelbeck. Stakelbeck’s blog and articles are overwhelmingly anti-Islamic. He once called Dearborn, Michigan “Dearbornistan” because of its large Muslim minority. It was also disturbing that Stakelbeck’s appearance was sponsored by a pro-Israel group, Christians United for Israel. CUFI is an evangelical Christian Zionist group; Stakelbeck holds similar views. Stakelbeck uses the Jewish people and our home, Israel, as a platform for his discriminatory, vitriolic position.

I thought that joining this protest would be a great opportunity for a new kind of hasbara—one where we challenge the associations between pro-Israel and the far right. We could show the other liberal groups on campus and in the community that there are pro-Israel activists and Jews who, like them, are left-wing and favor a two-state solution. I did not want to let CUFI and the views of their ultra-conservative speaker define pro-Israel activism on campus.

I contacted officers from Hillel and the Jewish Student Union at PSU, as well as the Young Adult Supporters of Israel (YASI) group in Portland about this hasbara opportunity. I also posted about the protest on the Facebook pages of each of the groups. Since With Israel, another pro-Israel student group at PSU, was putting up signs for the event, I assumed they did not want to be involved in the protest.

http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/blog/jewish-voice-for-peace-participates-in-protest-of-erick-stakelbeck-at-