IU wins top AIPAC award for pro-Israel activism

Twelve IU student representatives spent their spring break this year traveling to the 2010 American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference in Washington, D.C. to receive the prestigious “Duke Rudman Annual Leadership Award.”

IU was presented the top award for the campus-wide collaboration of pro-Israel activism in front of 370 U.S. campuses and 7,500 pro-Israel advocates.

“I remember when they gave it out last year and I thought, that’s so cool how do you get that? And then we won it. It was surreal,” said senior Emily Berman, campus liaison of the Indiana Israel Public Affairs Committee. 

Berman, along with other IIPAC members, worked to build relationships, to inform and to empower student leaders about Israel public policy in the Middle East.

“This achievement is not solely IIPAC’s, but IU’s as a whole,” said sophomore Ben-Ari Boukai, incoming IIPAC campus liaison.

IIPAC and other student organizations published a one-page advertisement in the Indiana Daily Student in November, endorsing support for Israel with the signatures of the student presidents of IU College Republicans, IU College Democrats, IU Student Body, as well as IU Student Association congress members, 200 students and many other prominent faculty and community leaders. 

A framed version of the advertisement will hang in Ind. Rep. Baron Hill’s office. 

Along with campus political groups, IIPAC was involved in the 2012 election campaign by lobbying pro-Israel Democratic and Republican candidates.

Another main initiative of the group is supporting sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program. 

It is important to make sure that the reality of Iran achieving nuclear weapon does not happen, Boukai said. A petition supporting sanctions has been circulated among many students and campus leaders. 

“What we do truly has an effect on public policy made in D.C. on the Middle East,” Boukai said.

IIPAC is geared at strengthening U.S.-Israel relations and Israeli security by advocating to students, faculty and Congress. The group meets with student leaders as well as sponsors speakers on campus such as AIPAC President Lee Rosenberg.

The extent of ignorance about the Middle East is largely due to misunderstandings and misinformation, said Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld, IIPAC advisor and professor of Jewish Studies and English. For that reason, he said education of the facts of what is happening is necessary.

Yet IIPAC leaders have recognized the respect shown toward pro-Israel lobbying on campus and the lack of aggressive anti-Israel protests that are found on other campuses around the country.

“We’ve had the opportunity to do so much because we haven’t had challenges that set us back,” Berman said. 

Former IUSA president, junior Peter SerVaas was also present at the AIPAC Policy Conference and accepted the Duke Rudman Award with IIPAC. He presented issues and information gathered at the conference to the IUSA Congress. Conference attendees included 1,300 students and 213 student government presidents present as well as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuu and a vast array of Congressional representatives. 

Berman also attributed Rosenfeld as a “pillar” of the amount of pro-Israel support that has grown on campus.

“Over many years, a culture has been developed on campus that is conducive to political realities, including the Middle East,” Rosenfeld said.