By: Chelsea Kauffman, University of Wisconsin-Madison, '12

On Thursday, Oct 21, Ret. Co. Ann Wright, a known anti-Israel figure, spoke at the University of Wisconsin-Madison about her experience on the Gaza flotilla in June 2010. Hasbara Fellow and UW-Madison sophomore Chelsea Kauffman attended the event, as a board member of the Madison-Israel Public Affairs Committee (MadPAC). Following the event, Chelsea shared her thoughts on what she heard.

For the first time in my life, I sat in a room with other pro-Israel activists as the minority. The lecture hall consisted mostly of people who came to hear Ann Wright - an anti-Israel public speaker - speak about how Israelis “brutally killed” “passengers” on the Gaza “Freedom” Flotilla this past summer.

I and fellow members of the Madison-Israel Public Affairs Committee (MadPAC), as well as other students who support Israel, attended the lecture to combat her promotion with our own questions that we planned to ask at the end of her lecture.

For most of the lecture, Wright talked about how she was a former colonel in the U.S. army. In doing so, she quickly gathered energy from the audience about how unjust the American government is today.

Wright only brought up the Flotilla during the last ten minutes of her speech. Since she was on one of the boats behind the Flotilla that was approaching the Israeli border, she claimed that she witnessed Israeli Defense Forces soldiers jumping onto the boats and “slicing peoples' heads and legs off.” Wright said she believes this "attack" by the IDF was premeditated, and that the Israeli forces knew the Flotilla was approaching and had a book of pictures with a face for each person they planned to murder on the boat.

Wright further claimed that there were no weapons on the Flotilla, only kitchen knives, although hard evidence clearly shows that these long and sharp knives were for killing, not for cutting vegetables. She repeatedly stated that the Israeli soldiers were out to murder those on the boat, using over the top adjectives. The audience reacted in horror as a result - just what the provocative speaker wanted.

It only continued, with Wright arguing that Israeli soldiers are murdering thousands of innocent people in Gaza each year, who “live in fear every day for their lives.” She ended the lecture by promoting a second flotilla - this time an American Flotilla - that would go straight to Gaza next March. Wright asked the audience for money to help support her project and to help “end the siege of Gaza.” Riled up at this point, many in the audience eagerly donated to her "cause."

In response, us Israel supporters in the audience challenged Wright with several such as why Hamas had responded to Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza with 7,000 rockets toward Israeli civilians, and if that maybe had set back Israelis’ willingness to give up land.

Wright responded by simply saying we had a valid point, and then went off to say that she somehow forgot what she was going to say, but that it would that had she remembered, it would have debunked our comment. She then quickly moved on to the next person. It was obvious Wright had no response because she knew our statements were facts based on truth, and there is no disagreeing with them.

Witnessing many of these Americans around me, many of them much older than me, roar in applause over Wright's promotion of a U.S. Flotilla to Gaza was a strange feeling for me. I have always been surrounded by a tight Jewish community and have never experienced hearing direct anti-Israel propaganda before.

Last year, as a sophomore student at UW-Madison, one of the school’s daily newspapers, The Badger Herald, allowed a known Holocaust denier to take out an advertisement on the newspapers Website. This was emotionally traumatic for the Jewish students at UW, and our community reacted by organizing a Holocaust Awareness Rally. At the rally, which had some 400 in attendance, the university chancellor talked and demonstrated her support for the active remembrance of the Holocaust. Many other speakers discussed their trips to visit the death camps in Poland and their development of a strong Jewish identity in Israel. Although it was very hard for me to realize there are people in our world that could deny something like the Holocaust, the support of other Jewish people at the rally made me feel undefeated.

On the other hand, Wright's lecture last week made me feel different. Here, I was the minority in a room of people swayed by the ignorance and biases often portrayed in the mainstream media. Unlike at the Holocaust awareness rally, at the lecture, I didn't feel the support of my Jewish community. I felt small, and felt worried for the safety of Israel.

Although I was angry at Wright’s talk, I now realize that anger will get me nowhere. Instead I feel even more motivated to unfold the truth about Israel to others. Although we will all encounter those who unfairly attack and single out Israel - even other Jews - we need to become aware that certain vocal individuals, supported often by the media, can greatly twist facts into lies, and that citizens who know nothing about Israel will easily believe the worst that they hear. Understanding this will provide us with the ability to tackle these biases in ways that are actually effective and ensure the safety of Israel. Please join me in an effort to show others how beautiful and humanitarian of a place Israel really is.

For more information on MadPAC and pro-Israel programs happening at UW-Madison, visit the MadPAC Facebook Page.