By Galia Nurko

Ohio schools show their commitments to building strong coalitions with different students on campus and join together to discuss the challenges Israel advocacy leaders face! Keep up the good work!

October has come and gone and November is here. As the end of the first half of the year quickly approaches, it is important to take into account the how the face of the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict now stands. In general the Middle East has viciously changed, with events such as the death of Muammar Gadhafi, Assad’s continued onslaught of the Syrian people, a Egyptian-German mediated release of Gilad Shalit, UNESCO’s recognition of a Palestinian state, and the IAEA’s upcoming report on Iran’s nuclear program. Yet these larger general changes have deeply affected Israel’s security and caused students on different Ohio campuses to understand the vital importance of coalition building in a new light.

Last month, Ohio University’s, Bobcats for Israel, took the reigns, and invited Christians United for Israel Eastern Region Campus Field Organizer, David Walker to address the university.  Melissa Friedman, Bobcats for Israel’s president, invited a dozen Christian organizations on campus to attend the event and over 30 new faces came to see David Walker speak. The goal was to remind Ohio Univeristy students, that advocating for Israel is a diverse movement, one supported by people of various religions. Similarly, Bearcats for Israel, at University of Cincinnati, sponsored a fundraiser for Save a Child’s Heart (SACH), to remind the student body that the image that the media paints about Israel doesn’t tell the full story. By selling grilled cheese, Bearcats for Israel, attracted a diverse group of students and used the opportunity to educate them on the hundreds of children, from around the Middle East, including the West Bank and Gaza, that Israeli doctors have volunteered to give life saving surgeries to, on their own time.

These two different approaches to educating a wider audience of students are successful and important experiences for students to have and share with other campus leaders, if the opportunity presents it self. Of course, the opportunity presents itself on Hasbara Fellowships, but The Ohio State University’s Buckeyes for Israel, hosts an annual Israel advocacy conference so that Ohio students have the opportunity to discuss the challenges of Israel advocacy specifically in Ohio. Ohio Loves Israel begins this Friday November 11 and ends Sunday afternoon. The schedule is jam-packed with advocacy training sessions, an op-ed writing seminar, a campus leaders dinner with Ohio Commission Paula Brooks and other elected officials, and the screening of Iranium with a Q&A session with former CIA operations officer Clare Lopez. The campus leaders dinner and screening of Iranium is open to the entire campus community and student leaders from College Republicans, College Democrats, and Student Government have been invited! The goal of the event is to educate the campus community and other Ohio leaders that Israel is a bipartisan issue and helping Israel in stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is in the United States best interests. Hopefully, after the screening of Iranium, students will pay more close attention to the upcoming IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program and push their elected officials and the university to take a strong stance against Iran!

Yes, the process in building strong coalitions takes time and energy, but Ohio University, University of Cincinnati, and The Ohio State University have successfully begun to plant to seeds.