On university campuses, students wrestle with Israel-Hamas war

Hamas’ surprise attack on Israeli civilians over the weekend incited strong reactions on college campuses across the United States. As the conflict escalated to war and atrocities were coming to light, many students voiced often harsh judgments about responsibility and the conflict’s history. That ignited a firestorm and raised questions about the role of universities in addressing divisive issues and fostering critical thinking among students who are still working out moral and ethical views.

In statements that started to appear quickly after the deadly attack at a music festival and kibbutzim, in which more than 1,000 people were killed, several student groups did not mince words.

The Israeli “regime” is “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” declared a coalition of more than 30 student groups at Harvard University in an open letter on Saturday, Oct. 7. The next day, at the University of Virginia, Students for Justice in Palestine wrote that “the events ... are a step towards a free Palestine.”

The Harvard student letter in particular faced swift condemnation from inside and outside the university, including politicians who called on Harvard to condemn the attack and business leaders who demanded names so they could avoid hiring those students. Over the next few days, a coalition of school leaders responded with a statement that critics blasted as too weak, and Harvard President Claudine Gay followed up with an additional letter, and then a subsequent video, denouncing the “terrorist atrocities” and distancing the university from the student groups exercising their free expression.

Other universities extended statements of support to their school communities and offered education and dialogue on the complex, decadeslong hostilities between Israel and Hamas. Some decried the Hamas attack as terrorism, as has the United States. Ben Sasse, president of the University of Florida in Gainesville, was unequivocal: “I will not tiptoe around this simple fact: What Hamas did is evil and there is no defense for terrorism. This shouldn’t be hard,” he wrote, vowing to protect Jewish students on campus.

Since Saturday’s attack, Israel has cut off food, water, and fuel to Gaza, which has more than 2 million residents, and barraged the area with rocket attacks, killing more than 1,000 people. It has given 1.1 million civilians 24 hours to flee.

The firestorm of responses raises questions about the role of universities in tackling hard philosophical and ethical questions. It also comes at a time of rising antisemitism. In 2022, antisemitic incidents increased by 42% on campuses, the Anti-Defamation League reports, an even greater rate than the 36% increase in the U.S.

But for many years on college campuses “there has been great confusion on what is antisemitism and what is legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and the state of Israel,” says Atalia Omer, a professor of religion, conflict, and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame.

“There has been an increase in real antisemitism, but because of that conflation of Zionism and Judaism, it’s really hard to call it out when it’s real,” she adds.

A deep polarization around the Israel-Palestine conflict has existed on U.S. college campuses for some time, with Jewish student groups often feeling compelled – if not explicitly directed – to defend past Israeli military interventions against the Palestinians. Campus groups like Hillel International have been criticized for partnering with groups with ties to Israel’s government, and professors who have supported an academic boycott of Israel have been blacklisted.

But the violence of the past week has flipped that dynamic on its head somewhat, with Israeli civilians the victims of horrific attacks. Combined with a genuine increase in antisemitism, polarization on campuses seems to have deepened right at a moment when empathy could be most widespread.

“If we truly believe in bringing about some peaceful resolution to this crisis, we have to acknowledge that violence occurs on all sides,” says Barry Trachtenberg, a professor of Jewish history at Wake Forest University.

“Students should be allowed to disagree over politics,” he adds. “Israel can’t stand somehow apart from that, because if it does, then it puts us in this position of trying to regulate what can and cannot be said about a political entity.”

“Definitely getting polarized”

On Harvard’s campus, ongoing debate over the invasion has driven a deep wedge. “Campus is definitely getting polarized,” says freshman Sylvie Wurmser. “People are all trying to take a position, one way or the other.”

Law student Lea Kayali believes many media outlets and pro-Israel groups have seized on the Harvard student statement to launch “ad hominem attacks against Palestinians, and anyone who is within a 10-foot radius of supporting them.”

“What we’re seeing is the bad-faith interpretation of things that students have said, and of the statement in general,” says Ms. Kayali, who is Palestinian American, adding that sympathizers have credible concern for their safety on campus. Those students are only doing “what [students] are trained to do in academic settings: to point to structural systems of violence in order to make sense of the world around us,” she says.

Several students who spoke with the Monitor saw a van driving around campus displaying the faces and names of students expressing support for Palestine. A vigil organized by Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee was canceled on Tuesday, reportedly due to security threats.

“It’s really disturbing that students have been targeted and doxxed and harassed on social media for expressing their personal views,” says Shashank Vura, a third-year Harvard Law student.

Media coverage has “skewed” public perception of Harvard’s student body, he believes, especially since the attitudes on campus are far from black and white. “The media is reporting as if the vast majority of students are pro-Hamas or pro-violence,” Mr. Vura says. “But I don’t think there is a single student here that supports that kind of violence.”

Jewish students, too, say they feel threatened, with an Ipsos survey finding that 57% of Jewish college students say they’ve either witnessed or experienced antisemitism this year. Gali Polichuk is a sustainability major at the University of Florida in Gainesville, which has the largest Jewish student population in the U.S. The UF senior, who is Jewish, visited Israel earlier this year and has family and friends there. She says Jewish students on campus have been on edge, fearful of antisemitic language and possible attacks since the Hamas invasion. 

“It’s the collective feeling of knowing that the situation in Israel affects everyone here,” she says, adding that she empathizes with the Palestinian people. While she feels supported by her university administration in a way that Jewish students at other colleges do not, she says the pro-Palestinian activism on campus this week has created a climate of fear for Jews.

“I feel really sad about every single life that’s lost; I feel completely destroyed by it,” she says. “It doesn’t matter if it is Israeli or Palestinian – if it’s an innocent life, it’s an innocent life.”

Drizzly deliberation, and a need to learn

Under a blanket of gray clouds and a steady drizzle at the University of Texas at Austin, freshman Michael Lahti admits he doesn’t know very much about the conflict, but “it seems like a sad situation overall,” he adds. “Any war is sad.” 

Eating lunch between classes, Alexis, a senior who didn’t want to give her last name, was surprised there hasn’t been more activity. Most of the conversations she’s had about it have been with her family. “To me, it was a terrorist attack,” she says.

But like many students on campus, she acknowledges there is a broader history to the conflict – a history with which she is unfamiliar.

The war has multiple defensible positions, says Laura Schwartz at American University. 

“It’s an easy answer that terrorism is never OK,” says Professor Schwartz. “But ... there are people who arrive at college or arrive at work or in their lives and communities this week with a very limited understanding of this. And so you have to meet people where they are and find out, what more do we need to know? What do you need to learn about all of the people involved in this?” This type of respectful dialogue makes space for nuance and fosters greater understanding of complicated histories and ideas, she says.

Saws, a graduate student from the Middle East at the University of Texas, says she feels a responsibility to educate her peers about the conflict. On this drizzly Wednesday afternoon, she has been talking with her friend about it.

“No one wants war, but it didn’t start five days ago – it started 75 years ago,” she tells her friend. “Gaza has been under attack for decades,” adds Saws, who is Muslim and didn’t want to give her last name. “I don’t support killing innocents,” she adds, “but if you look at the numbers ... already hundreds of [Palestinians] have been killed” in retaliation.

Context and empathy 

At the University of Colorado Denver, Andrew scrutinizes both Israel and Hamas. “I think they’re both wrong. They should stop attacking each other,” he says, walking through the downtown campus. 

The first-year music student, who asked not to publish his last name for privacy reasons, has followed news of the atrocities via social media and livestreams by Fox News and CNN. He hopes the U.S. won’t further involve itself. 

“I think we just need to focus on fixing our country before we go fixing the world,” he adds on the way to his dorm. 

Later on campus, beneath an overcast sky that began to spit rain, several dozen people convene for a pro-Palestinian rally outside a building named for Israel’s only female prime minister, Golda Meir. “Resistance is justified when people are occupied!” the crowd chants in a call-and-response. 

Nour Nsirat, a senior with Palestinian family ties, stands in solidarity. “This is genocide. It’s colonization,” says the student of human development and family relations about the Israeli blockade of and attack on Gaza.

She is matter-of-fact about the consequences of war: death. “I say that we can have empathy, but understand the need for Palestinians fighting back,” she says, adding that Israelis “started” the conflict.

The years of polarization have baked in the dehumanizing reactions of recent days, says Dr. Omer, and they’ve made collective, unifying grief almost impossible. “There’s an inability to recognize the suffering and the loss and the pain of Israeli civilians,” she adds, “and on the other hand any contextualizing of Hamas and the attack [last weekend] as an outcry about the crimes against humanity happening right now in Gaza.”

Brett Riggs, a senior at UT Austin, has been following the conflict and talking about it with friends and co-workers, but he says he doesn’t know enough to declare who is right and who is wrong, who is an aggressor and who is a victim. Social media makes it even more confusing, he says.

“We used to not know everything that’s going on, but now we see everything,” he adds. But seeing isn’t understanding, he continues. “You don’t know the full story unless you’re there.”

A principle of dialogue, says Professor Schwartz, is to achieve understanding.

“Understanding and excusing are different. Empathy and agreement are different,” she says. “You can empathize with human beings and disagree with them. You can see your fellow discussant that you disagree with as a human being, having real feelings and disagree with him. And you can respect people without respecting every idea they hold.”

Common ground

On Boston College’s campus, there was one thing students agreed on: Celebrating death, as they had seen on social media, is appalling.

“Cheering on the deaths of real people, it’s just gross,” says Anna Pompa, a freshman.

“I’ve seen a lot of that,” said Molly, who is Jewish and didn’t want to give her last name.

“I do not condone what’s happening to Palestinians at all with the Israeli government, but I also don’t think it’s justifiable ... to kind of say that the killing of Israeli civilians and Jewish people is OK,” adds Molly, who says her family escaped the Holocaust.

At Brandeis – a university with deep Jewish roots – freshman Elise Legler is taking the time to prioritize her friends as they process the attacks, “just supporting [them], consoling them, making sure they’re OK.” She isn’t taking a side but recognizes the complexity of the issue at hand. “It’s important to prioritize human life,” she says. “That’s my stance.”

Students also point out the opportunity for bridge-building between Israeli and Palestinian supporters. “I have friends on both sides of the conflict,” says freshman Aodhan Kawakyu. “I also shouldn’t be saying ‘the two sides’ because it’s more than just two sides. ... It’s not just the military groups; it’s the civilians as well, and we can’t put blame on the civilians for living where they’re living.”

Fellow student Sree Dharmarha believes nobody should cheer about death, no matter how complex a region’s history. “The common ground here is that it’s both human lives. ... Civilian lives are being lost, and innocent people’s lives are being lost.”

In Boston, Kobe Cragg, a fourth-year student at Northeastern University, spent hours on the phone with his mom, trying to make sense of it all, and checking in on his Palestinian and Israeli friends to see how they are doing. He describes the violence in Israel and Gaza as an “absolute tragedy.”

The pyschology major believes empathy is achievable, even if it may be more difficult for people with close ties to the conflict. “I believe it’s possible to have empathy for anybody,” he says, adding that watching President Joe Biden’s live address moved him to tears. “I think with what’s happening right now, I understand the challenge of having empathy for one another’s sides.”