Antisemitism is being dressed up in “scholarly clothing” at universities and Zionists must go against tradition and “start making trouble” by insisting that it stop, said Richard Cravatts. “We have to demand that the universities take a moral stand and if they want to let all speakers come to campus and say these things, they have to let both sides come…. It’s a moral commitment to do that because the stakes are important. These are the new minds that are going to become our leaders, politicians, ambassadors, policy makers, citizens and we don’t want them coming out of college thinking that Israel is the main impediment to world peace.”
Cravatts gave his perspective as a teacher of marketing, advertising and consumer behaviour. He explained that branding can apply to countries as well as to products and that brand hijacking happens when consumers take over the promotion of a particular product or country.
“Israel’s brand has been hijacked but it has not been hijacked by its consumers and the people that love Israel. Israel’s brand image has been hijacked by the enemies of Israel, those who are pro-Palestinian, who are trying to reshape the narrative of what Israel is and represents, who are rewriting the history of the Bible and the Western Wall and the creation of Israel and the State of Israel today…. On campuses, this brand hijacking is aided and abetted by left-leaning professors, Muslim student groups and others who have bought into this repositioned image of Israel.”
He illustrated this with clips from the video, Crossing the Line: The Intifada Comes to Campus (reviewed by the Jewish Tribune on May 11, 2010), and images of anti-Israel posters and books.
The brand hijacking has been successful. In 2006, Simon Anholt conducted a survey of 26,000 people and asked them to judge 56 different countries based on a list of characteristics and impressions. Israel came in last, scoring behind countries such as Libya, Iran, Syria and Sudan. Respondents said Israel was militaristic and too religious.
Idealistic students who want to help people are being drawn in by a one-sided concept of social justice.
“The idea of social justice is coddled and shaped by the left on campuses and what it does is make them feel that they have a commitment to helping people, that the victims of the world have to be helped and the favoured victim on campus these days, since apartheid ended in South Africa, is the Palestinians. Anything that is done for their benefit is fine, even if it means dismantling Israel, even if it means insisting on the right of return of the Palestinian refugees into what is now Israel, so they would destroy, by demographics, the Jewish state.”
Richard Cravatts, Boston University, serves on the SPME Board of Directors and chairs the Greater Boston Chapter of SPME.
