Times of Israel Blogs
Melissa Harari
2/16/2019
My greatest disappointment with the U.S.-Israel relationship is the tone of debates about this issue on some college campuses, including mine. As an Emerson Fellow at Emory University for StandWithUs, a non-profit Israel education organization that believes education is the road to peace, I am speaking out against incorrect and unwarranted accusations made by a fellow student in an article on February 5, 2019.
The article hysterically attacks the organization I work with as “irresponsible” and “reductionist” based on a mistaken or disingenuous interpretation of one social media post. The StandWithUs Facebook page reported that the U.S. is cutting aid to the Palestinian Authority, without any statement of support or opposition. It included a link providing additional context and multiple perspectives from the BBC – a left-leaning source. StandWithUs often posts important stories as they break, because many people use the page as a news source. The article also takes issue with the emojis in the post, ignoring the fact that they were not celebratory and that many pages are using emojis in a similar way to drive engagement on social media.
Read the article here.
StandWithUs is an international, non-partisan education organization that supports Israel and fights antisemitism. StandWithUs empowers and energizes students and communities with leadership training and educational programs on hundreds of college campuses, high schools, and middle schools. StandWithUs informs through social media, print and digital materials, films, weekly newsletters, and missions to Israel. StandWithUs takes legal action through the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Los Angeles, the organization has chapters and offices throughout the U.S., Israel, the UK, Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Australia. More at www.standwithus.com.
