Palestinian protesters disrupted an event organised by the Oxford Israeli Culture Society in Broad Street on Monday. The event, dubbed ‘camels in Oxford’ was part of iFest, a two-week long culture festival, celebrating the foundation of Israel 60 years ago.
Despite the pleas of organisers that Israeli culture can be separate from politics, a group of protesters chanting, “free, free Palestine, occupation is a crime” picketed the entrance to the festival. The group remained at one entrance to the street all afternoon, holding placards and chalking slogans onto the pavement.
At the other end of the festival, a line of black-clad women from the Network of Oxford Women for Justice and Peace (NOW), held a silent vigil around midday, to “honour the dead.”
The event featured musical performances, shisha pipes and belly dancers. Stalls included Israeli wine tasting, fair trade olive oil and a copy of Jerusalem’s Western Wall for passers-by to write their wishes on.
Organisers were keen to emphasise the non-political nature of the event and claimed that the protest was misguided. Jacob Turner, a Worcester first year and member of the organising committee, said the purpose was to present the “dynamic, interesting, diverse country… [that people] don’t tend to hear about.”
He added that the polarised debate “tends to make people turn off,” and said he thought the protest didn’t help in a search for peace.
However, Sara Ababneh, a protester and member of the Oxford Palestinian Society, disagreed. She argued that iFest was political, as it was “celebrating something that’s illegitimate.”
Ababneh said that dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians was futile as this was not simply a case of “people who don’t get along” but rather, “There is an occupier and an occupied.” She opposed the festival as something that was aiming at “normalising the occupation.”
However, organisers of Monday’s event said that the event aimed to avoid such arguments. A statement from the Oxford Israeli Cultural Society rejected the “typical dogmatic and rancorous type of argument which provides so little by way of reconciliation.”
They said, in future “We would be keen to celebrate all of the cultures that exist throughout the region with a joint Israeli and Arab literary festival.”
Ian Sternberg, a member of the Zionist Federation’s committee and the Western Wall stallholder, emphasised this message, saying, that iFest was “not connected to conflict” but rather was to “highlight the experiences of Israelis.” He condemned the actions of the protesters saying that they had no interest in engaging, but “have just been here with an agenda.”
Omar Shweiki, secretary of the Oxford University Arab Cultural Society, refuted this. He said, “60 years of Israeli apartheid should certainly not be celebrated, but boycotted and condemned.”
The apolitical stance of the organisers, was, he claimed, “a luxury that the Palestinians can’t afford.” The event’s slogan, “beyond the politics” is, according to Shweiki, “a joke in bad taste.” He dubbed iFest a “PR festival attempting to paint Israel as a peace-loving, liberal state”.
Kate Halls, a Wadham student who spent some of her gap year in Palestine, agreed. She said that Israel’s adoption of cultural features like falafel, shisha and humus are, “part of a constant campaign to erase the Palestinian nation from the world’s consciousness” by taking over aspects of Palestinian culture.
She added that the Palestinian cause is one, “anyone with a conscience should be involved in.”
Nikki Marriott, a member of NOW taking part in the ‘Women in Black’ protest, interrupted her silent vigil to explain why she had taken part in the demonstration. About the foundation of the Israeli state, she said, “for one country it was an inception, for the other it was a disaster.”
She thought that Women in Black was valuable in correcting a media slant “towards the Israeli side of the debate.”
