The drama over Oct. 7 on campus should be a wake-up call for students who care about Israel/Palestine.
After months of tense back-and-forth, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace’s reservation of McKeldin Mall on the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s attack on Israel has been reinstated. The groups plan to hold teach-ins on Palestinian history and culture, and an interfaith vigil to commemorate one year of destruction in Gaza and mourn the deaths of over 40,000 Palestinians.
Jewish students have expressed outrage, sadness and fear at the decision. It seems to be difficult for non-Jews to see the significance of the Oct. 7 attack, to understand how it confirmed the horror stories and trauma that live in the Jewish psyche and lived experience. On a day when many of us will be filled with grief, an event dismissive of Jewish and Israeli lives feels cold and disturbing. In this divisive environment, simply acknowledging that Israeli lives are worthy of recognition gets interpreted as an unacceptable admission of “Zionist” sympathy, reminiscent of the antisemitic trope of dual loyalty.
While SJP’s reservation of McKeldin Mall on the anniversary of a deadly attack on Israel is hurtful to Jewish students and faculty, we can only condemn what is condemnable. These complaints come off as petty and self-victimizing given the history of UMD Jewish groups taking issue with any demonstration of solidarity with Palestinians, such as describing the planting of 15,000 flags on McKeldin Mall earlier this semester as “disturbing”. Why would SJP respect the requests to honor the hostages and Hamas’s victims when Jewish student groups fail to respect Palestinian heritage, culture, autonomy, rights and opinions? This endless spiral of slights, complaints and hurt feelings reminds me of a quarrel between siblings. Unable to apologize or even talk to each other, the two parties turn to the university to act as a mediating “parent.”
Selective empathy is not a Jewish value nor is it a progressive one. Just as understanding the history of Israel’s oppressive military rule over Palestinians doesn’t make Israelis subhuman, understanding the Holocaust, intifadas and Oct. 7 doesn’t justify the disturbing Israeli dehumanization of Palestinians.
The ability to craft political, emotional and moral identities for oneself is imperative for all members of the community. When pro-Palestinian organizers assume such extreme litmus tests and Jewish institutions slam propaganda and single-minded tribalism down our throats, students who should have the ability to learn, discover, change and grow are robbed of their agency. Using identity as a prism through which to interpret all information creates a false binary and discourages any concessions to the “other side.” In such an environment where any compromise labels you an “evil Zionist” or a “Hamas apologist,” positive dialogue is an indicator of ideological impurity. This view of the world is inhumane and antithetical to peace.
After a year of increasing polarization, it’s hard to imagine anything else. But we cannot continue like this. Students who claim to care about the future of Israel/Palestine must realize that this status quo hasn’t led to any progress, in the region itself and here at UMD. But what could Oct. 7 on campus look like? While the pro-Palestinian student groups seem to want it to be a day of solidarity and resilience, most of the Jewish students I’ve spoken to just want to be left alone. To grieve, to reflect and to see their families. Both of these perspectives are valid and need to have space. We can take a lesson from mixed Jewish and Palestinian schools in Israel, where Independence Day is commemorated separately to provide space for celebration and to grieve the Nakba. The University of Maryland is a mixed school too. We do not exist in bubbles that protect our own identities from the conflicting realities of other people. That doesn’t mean that we must agree on everything, or anything at all. It means creating an environment where dialogue and a shared mission of peace, security and autonomy are placed above dogmatic ideology. I was at Rosh Hashanah services this morning when a line from the prayer before the blowing of the Shofar struck me:
“May the cry of the Shofar destroy the idols we have placed at the forefront of our lives.” This year, my wish is that we open our hearts and destroy the idols preventing us from truly listening to one another. No ideology, event, concept or symbol contains more value than that of a single human life.
