By Carl Schrag, Editor-in-Chief, Israel Campus Beat 
A number of years ago, a senior at UC Berkeley told me about his first day on campus as a freshman. He was excited to have enrolled in his father's alma mater, and he was looking forward to playing an active role in campus Israel advocacy efforts, just like his dad had done a few decades earlier.
Walking across Sproul Plaza on the way to his first class on the very first day of his college career, he saw a man shouting to a small group of passersby. As he drew near, he realized the man was denouncing Israel. He joined the people who were listening and marveled at his good fortune: an opportunity to make a difference on his very first day of school!
He didn't just watch, he told me with pride. He spoke up. In fact, he got into it with the speaker, and pretty soon both of them raised their voices. The shouting attracted a larger crowd, and by the time the encounter was over, my acquaintance realized he had missed his class. Never mind, he thought, it was worthwhile, and there would be plenty more opportunities to sit in class.
Later that day, he excitedly recounted his advocacy efforts for his father on the phone. Expecting words of praise, he was shocked to hear dad say, "Next time, go to class. I didn't send you to Cal in order to miss your classes."
By the time I met him, the young man had learned a lot about advocacy. He had learned to navigate some of the most daunting challenges on a campus that has a reputation among supporters of Israel as a particularly challenging environment. And one of the key lessons he had learned was that it pays to be proactive rather than reactive.
By walking into a shouting match on the quad, and by trying to convince the speaker that he misunderstood the facts, the student had set himself up for failure. He had just about zero chance of changing the man's mind, and by attracting a crowd he inadvertently provided an enlarged audience for the man's hateful views.
Supporters of Israel on campus in 2012 often face this same dilemma. They want to respond, to set the record straight and refute inaccuracies, but it's always risky to let our adversaries frame the discussion.
Conventional wisdom tells us that it’s better to be proactive than reactive, and in most cases that's true. But rather than a blanket refusal to respond to realities created by other groups or individuals, the network of campus Israel supporters can opt to respond strategically to challenges that manifest themselves in the campus space -- often with impressive results.
That's what happened early this month when pro-Israel students at the University of Pennsylvania took the lead in responding to plans to hold a national BDS conference on their campus. They chose not to ignore the conference, but not to confront its participants either.
Instead, through a carefully planned series of programs, activities and outreach efforts (detailed by
ICB Reporter Tamar Shmaryahu
here and
here), they targeted members of the campus community with an education campaign designed to help them see the benefits of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship and the faulty logic embraced by BDS proponents.
They expended no energy trying to convince the conference participants to change their tune, and they didn't picket the building where the sessions were held. Rather, they built a robust program that offered enticing engagement opportunities and access to information for people who were ready to listen.
Strategic responses can yield outstanding results, as evidenced by the Israel Peace Week (IPW) activities that will take place later this month and into March on dozens of campuses nationwide.
ICB Reporter
Rachel Henderson writes that the idea for IPW emerged from a brainstorming session by a few students involved with the Hasbara Fellowships program who were looking for a smart response to Israel Apartheid Week activities.
They came up with the idea for a week of programming focused on Israel's pursuit of peace, and the rest, as they say, is history. As the third year of IPW activities gets set to launch, activists say more campuses than ever will participate, and many thousands of people on scores of campuses will learn about Israel. In many instances, IPW takes place on campuses that do not have IAW activities, as the effort has taken on a proactive life of its own.
We've come a long, long way from the days when Israel's supporters tried in vain to out-shout detractors. By making the strategic shift from reacting to setting our own agenda, we've unlocked a key to impacting the campus conversation. In the spirit of IPW and Penn's response to BDS, find your own way to share your views on Israel. Proactively, of course.
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