Jewish professor condemns actions of Israel

  JONATHAN YOUNG History professor Gabi Piterberg,
outspoken about his opposition to the Israeli government, says he’s
ashamed to be an Israeli citizen.

By Kelly Rayburn
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

On the door of an office on the fifth floor of Bunche Hall is a
poster of four or five Israeli officials dragging a young
Palestinian through the streets with the caption “End the
Occupation.”

Behind that door works a man who was born into a Jewish family,
served more than four years in the Israeli army and now says he is
ashamed to call himself an Israeli citizen.

History professor Gabriel Piterberg is in the minority: he is a
Jewish man living in the United States who virulently opposes
Israel’s government. He is open with his message ““
going on the radio, appearing on local news and speaking out at
campus rallies ““ that if the suicide bomber is a terrorist,
then so is the Israeli pilot who attacks Palestinian civilians.

Piterberg challenges today’s American Jewish mainstream,
asking how they could have marched with Martin Luther King for
civil rights in the 1960s but today blindly support an Israeli
government which, he says, violently oppresses the civil rights of
Palestinians.

“It’s mind-boggling,” he said.

Piterberg’s notoriety with campus pro-Israeli groups
reached a high-point after he condemned Israel at a
“speak-out” at Meyerhoff Park on Apr. 4.

Guy Kochlani, a fourth-year political science student called
Piterberg a “traitor” and said “half the stuff he
said is not true.”

Second-year political science student Rachelle Braun recalls
being shocked that Piterberg would condemn Israel ““ the
country he was raised in and which Braun, as a Jew, feels an almost
religious attachment to.

Meanwhile, Rabbi Benzion Klatzko said Israel has nothing to be
ashamed about in defending itself and that it is a beacon of light
for all nations to follow. That someone who is Jewish would make
anti-Israeli remarks is especially hurtful, he said.

Piterberg receives “nasty” e-mails and phone
messages almost daily, though the number has dropped since peaking
in the days following the rally.

People call him a “traitor” and a “self-hating
Jew.” People tell him to do his research and check his facts
““ some even ask him to discuss his critical views only within
Jewish circles, not wanting him “to tell the gentiles,”
he said.

Though he is well aware that many on campus find his views
repugnant, Piterberg is unfettered.

“My self-image is not constructed by people of that
sort,” he said.

He insists he is not bothered in the least bit when he speaks of
condemning Israel, and pro-Israeli supporters ““ some of
whom are Israeli citizens, just like him ““ either boo or
stand silent, baffled that one of their own could speak such
outrage.

Piterberg says he cannot be hurt by pro-Israeli supporters who
promote their cause “at the expense of other people’s
blood.”

But the professor did not always hold anti-Israel views.

Born in Argentina before moving to Israel at age seven,
Piterberg fought for Israel in the Lebanon war, He considered
himself a member of the “Zionist left.”

But his experiences on the ground ““ witnessing bloodshed
in a war he said was not necessary for national defense ““
began to change his views.

After he finished serving in the army, Piterberg recalls taking
part in a demonstration in Jerusalem, demanding the Israeli
government inquire into a massacre of civilians in Lebanon during
the war. A right-wing attacker threw a grenade in the crowd of
demonstrators, killing one of the group’s leaders, he said.
The violence was almost too much to handle.

Piterberg left Israel soon after for Oxford, England, where he
earned a degree in the history of the Ottoman Empire.

The war experience, the domestic violence and his education in
England all led to a shift in his political views. In the
mid-1990s, a straw broke the camel’s back: Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin was killed.

What was particularly upsetting to Piterberg was that a man whom
he says was one of the chief agitators of anti-Rabin sentiment,
Benjamin Netanyahu, was elected prime minister soon after.

Israel was becoming “increasingly impossible to live
in.”

“I was looking for a way out,” Piterberg said.

That’s when he was hired by UCLA’s history
department, where he teaches and does research today.

And though he’ll “never say never,” he sees no
reason why he’ll ever return to Israel to live.

As for the future of the country he left:

“Arabs are not going away from the Middle East,” he
said, and Palestine will one day be a state.

For Piterberg, hopefully that day will come sooner rather than
later, so that more bloodshed can be avoided.