VIEWPOINT Continuing Dialogue Essential to Solving Conflict Campus Community Has Responsibility To Move Beyond Partisan Advocacy By Rabbi Mark Robbins
The Middle East is in the midst of a morass right now, and those of us who care deeply about the region find ourselves in the same morass. The anger, frustration, pain and anguish so evident in Israel and the Palestinian territories today have weighed down our campus as well.
This reality is understandable. We feel helpless, unable to do anything to cure the diseased situation in the Middle East. We flail in our emotions, displaying their ferocity in the press, in demonstrations and in conversations with others. Those of us who are Arab, Muslim and Jewish passionately show our tribal colors, proudly identifying with either Israel or Palestine and coming into conflict with the other side.
Considering the degree of unrest concerning the Middle East on campuses nationwide, Georgetown’s problems are not nearly as bad as they could be. No one has painted a swastika on the Jewish Student Association house, as happened at Berkeley – although a Hoya columnist compared Israelis to Nazis. No one has vandalized the Muslim prayer room, as happened last year – although someone defaced the bulletin board of the Middle East Law Society. And Georgetown certainly has not had the torrent of anti-Semitic acts – burnings of synagogues and other Jewish institutions – that has terrorized Europe’s Jewish community in the past month.
What we have at Georgetown – on each of our campuses – that many other campuses and countries do not have, is communication between supporters of Israel and supporters of the Palestinian cause. The lines of communication are still open at Georgetown between supporters of both sides of the conflict, and they must remain open. There is no more important time for Muslims and Jews, Arabs, Israelis and other invested parties on campus to continue talking – because they certainly aren’t in Israel and the territories, where feelings are too harsh and war too present for talk to win the day.
Communication is the reason that the Young Arab Leadership Alliance admirably postponed its demonstration from Holocaust Remembrance Day, as it was scheduled nationwide, to the day after. It is the reason that, in the pages of the Georgetown Law Weekly, advocates of both sides vigorously defend the right of those holding opposite views to publish their pieces and focus their debate rather on how best to express these views. Communication is the reason that Students for Middle East Peace, a grassroots student effort bringing together supporters on both sides of the conflict, can thrive at Georgetown. It is the reason that I can still engage in conversation on the Middle East with Muslim students in a comparative religions course. And finally, communication is the reason the Georgetown Israel Alliance invited supporters of the Palestinian cause to join in viewing a film depicting the experiences of children on both sides of the conflict.
In the spirit of communication, I want to pose a challenge to Georgetown supporters of both sides of the Middle East conflict – pointing toward a time when words can once again carry the day in the region. This challenge, I believe, must be overcome if there is eventually to be peace in the region.
Israelis and Palestinians both feel like victims of oppression, but do not accept the feelings of victimization of the other. Yet they must. Israelis and their Jewish brethren must recognize the devastating power dynamics of occupation and the effect that has on Palestinian lives and psyches. Palestinians must recognize that, as part of the Arab world, they are part of a world that threatens and oppresses Israelis – and that, in the terror of militant Palestinians and otherwise, Palestinians contribute heavily to this reality. Israelis and Palestinians, along with their Arab brethren, need to understand the self-perceptions of the other before there will be enough empathy for there for there to be peace in the region.
If we are to be anything more than another campus playing out the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Georgetown community has a responsibility beyond partisan advocacy and civil discourse. Supporters of Israel, supporters of the Palestinians and everyone in between must work to soften the rigid mindsets that keep Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians from understanding each other’s feelings of victimization.
Rabbi Mark Robbins is a Jewish Chaplain with Campus inistry.