In which I try and talk about something important

Yesterday, an Israeli Defense Soldier came to my school to share his story and then take questions from students, faculty, and others in attendance. The shit hit the fan, and even though I didn't go to the talk, I still feel pretty affected by what happened. So I'll take my opinion here, because I tried to do it on Twitter and found that 140 characters wasn't enough.

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a very big issue at my school, and the vast majority of the student body has sided with Palestine. It seems that I can't go anywhere on campus without seeing evidence of this. Guys with moustaches and Buddy Holly glasses type away in the library on Macbooks adorned with stickers reading "Stop US Aid to Israel," banners hang on buildings advertising marches in solidarity with Palestine, bumper stickers on beat up Volvo station wagons in the parking lot tell us all that Israel is made up of terrorists. Last year I went to the Bridge cafe on campus for a turkey sandwich and found it was decorated with chains of small green paper ovals. Upon further investigation, I found that each oval represented an olive tree in Palestine that had been uprooted by Israeli Forces.

This would all be fine, if I saw anything at all on campus that showed the other side. There was nothing at all of that sort, until yesterday. An Israeli Defense Soldier was coming to speak at our Main Lecture Hall. Mind you, I didn't know about this until late last night when Facebook was flooded with responses to the shit that hit the fan upon his arrival. To make a long story short, The Students for Justice in Palestine came to the talk with signs bearing slogans such as "Stop the Show," whistles, and their opinions that wouldn't wait for the Q&A session. No one let this man share his story, which he has told as countless other colleges without much of a hitch. They treated him with complete disrespect, when he was not there looking for pity or even sympathy. I applaud my administrators (for the first time in a while) for inviting him to come and give us all a much-needed glimpse at the other side of this issue. My fellow students acted like stubborn, privileged, liberal brats.

Maybe I'm not the best person to be talking about this, because I didn't even go. What I'm writing about now is all based on other peoples' accounts. I didn't even find out about this event until later because I generally try to avoid the SJP group, for they have a history of acting like stubborn, liberal, privileged brats. I am wondering now if I would have gone had I known this talk were happening. I am also realizing that this issue has more of an effect on me than I've previously realized. I was raised Jewish, my mother's religion, after a few confusing years of not knowing what the hell I was. I had a bat mitzvah, and the synagogue my family attended was always in favor of supporting Israel, as were my friends at school. I never heard the other side of the story until I came to Hampshire, at which point I decided that neither side was right or wrong. All we can do, I said to myself, was do everything we can to hear both sides speak and try not to vilify one side or the other.

But I'm dancing around the question I posed earlier, and plan to answer. Do I wish I had gone to this? On one hand, I would have really liked to hear this soldier's story. I believe that supporting our troops is a moral, not a political issue and that honoring someone's testimony is one of the best ways to support them. But obviously none of this happened. Still, I would have liked to witness the events of the protest that erupted, just so I could better understand the ways that this conflict in the Middle East has reached Amherst, MA. I think that this refusal to listen to the other side is what was exhibited at the lecture, and it is one of the roots of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Which brings me to why I might not have wanted to go. I can see myself sitting in the Main Lecture Hall, on the brink of an anxiety attack as everything went to chaos around me, feeling sorry for the Israeli Solder onstage not for what he has been through in the army, but because he was given a platform to speak and a bunch of college kids who think they know everything took it away from him.