Like their counterparts in Israel, the Israeli soldiers who came to MSU actively uphold apartheid policies and laws in Israel and Palestine that segregate public spaces, including Israeli settler busses, and demolish or evict Palestinians from their homes — almost 25,000 homes have been demolished by Israel since 1967. Palestinians are caged in their villages through the erecting of massive walls and fences and further restrict their movement by creating militarized checkpoints.

According to Americans for Peace Now, there currently are 172 Jewish-only Israeli settlements and 101 outposts and other Israeli buildings constructed on Palestinian land in violation of international law. In effect, these massive illegal settlements further shrink Palestinian land and add new challenges for Palestinian movement as militarized checkpoints and outposts now surround the areas where these settlements are built.

These settlements, coupled with checkpoints and militarized border crossing, artificially increase the Palestinian unemployment rate and maintain a near humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

Violence against civilians by any individual or group is wrong and should be condemned. But time and again, Israel has responded to small-scale attacks on Israeli civilians with massive campaigns of state-sponsored terror and the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

According to B’Tselem, The Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, since 2000, more than five times as many Palestinians have been killed by the IDF as have Israeli’s by Palestinian terrorism.

This demonstrates how often the actions of the IDF are not even in retaliation to violence from terrorism, but indiscriminate violence as a means to further terrorize and dehumanize Palestinians.

To further their attempts to collectively punish and intimidate Palestinians, Israeli soldiers routinely arrest Palestinian human rights activists, holding many without charge. According to The New York Times, there currently are more than 300 Palestinians being held in what is known as Israeli administrative detention, meaning without charge or trial for excessive periods of time.

Just this week, Israel announced it would release Khader Adnan, a Palestinian who had been held in an Israeli jail since December 2011 after international outrage against his detention grew. Adnan had launched a hunger strike in protest of his arrest without charge, and by all accounts was expected to die this month had Israel not agreed to end his detention.

In an attempt to head off growing protests against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians at American universities, Israel and its allies have stepped up their propaganda efforts through the promotion of Birthright Israel programs. American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, initiatives for students at historically black colleges and universities, or HBCU’s, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. There also are initiatives like the Israeli Soldiers Speak Out tour visiting MSU.

Birthright is a propaganda initiative to bring American Jews to Israel for a ten-day, all-expenses-paid vacation where they are treated to an intricately detailed pro-Israel script that neatly explains away criticisms of Israel.

This program mirrors a newer initiative of AIPAC, unearthed by Colorlines, which targets students of color from HBCU’s for all-expenses-paid trips to Washington, D.C., for AIPAC. This is all done in an attempt to discredit claims made by Palestinian human rights activists and others like Bishop Desmond Tutu who call Israeli policies towards Palestinians racist.

On its website, MSU Hillel says that Israelis Itzik and Jossie will represent the IDF delegation to MSU. On the StandWithUs website, both Itzik and Jossie have short videos where they talk about their time in the IDF.

In his video, Jossie would like to have us all know how welcoming and affirming the Israeli military is for gay Israelis like him. Jossie’s video reaffirms what Professor Sarah Schulman wrote in The New York Times late last year about the “pinkwashing” initiatives to use Israeli gays as the newest public relations tool in the United States. By appealing to American gays through the subtle promotion of Islamophobia, Israel hopes to undermine criticisms by American progressives, she writes.

As StandWithUs and others attempt to confuse and mislead students with their provocative Soldiers Stories tour, we must remember the atrocities committed by the Israeli Defense Forces against the Palestinians and reject their attempts to squash progressive student actions in the U.S. to support equality and human rights in Israel and Palestine.

Mitch Goldsmith is a State News guest columnist and social relations and policy, women’s and gender studies senior. Reach him at goldsm40@msu.edu.