If you’re like a lot of U of T students, Middle East politics are extremely close to your heart. Maybe you’ve attended lectures, written letters, or attended protests. Maybe you have family in Israel or Gaza. Maybe it just concerns you as a human being. Either way, you’re sure which side you’re on, and a substantial part of your life is dedicated to making people understand your cause.
Then again, if you’re like a lot of other students, you’re a lot less sure whereyou stand. The distinction between perpetrators and victims is blurry. Both sides offer strong cases; yet you can’t agree with anybody who uses violence or repression for any purpose-be they terrorist or occupying army. You’re bewildered by the blinding cloud of rhetoric and anger that inevitably rises when the subject comes up in a lecture or even a conversation.
The recent debate with Norman Finkelstein, a noted critic of Israeli politics, is an excellent example-just look at those letters (there, to the right of this editorial). Likewise, the cover story in the last issue of the Varsity noted how the question period degenerated “…into a screaming match between pro-Israeli audience members and Finkelstein.”
Many people were offended by Finkelstein’s mere presence here, just as students at other universities have been offended by the presence of other speakers, such as Benjamin Netanyahu or Natan Sharansky.
So who is right? Who does history really favour? Maybe it’s not so important. All that any of us can know for sure is that people on both sides feel threatened and victimized and angry-and this is where the violence comes from.
Even Hillel’s “More Humus, Less Hamas” campaign is not immune to misunderstanding. Doubtless, others would have preferred a name like “More Humus, Less Occupation.” Still, at the core it’s a good idea. Maybe all it takes is for people to drop their weapons and work out their differences over food, not over the spilled blood of their kinsmen.
It seems so simple-but just then your mind spits out the gory image of your uncle or your sister or that nameless kid you saw on the news, brutally murdered by a suicide bomber or some IDF soldier’s bullet, and the illusion of peace disappears. Well, the effort to get people to break bread together is at least a step in the right direction.
With Holocaust Education Week (a lecture series about the Holocaust hosted by Hillel, Alpha Epsilon Pi, and SAC) starting today, and Remembrance Day fast approaching, all we can do is reflect on where violence, anger, and retribution have ever gotten us in the long run: nowhere but dead.
