It’s time we stop fearing pro-Palestinian student protests. Here’s how we can build together.

Jewish people, Palestinians
Not-so distant family, cousins
 
Abraham and Sarah
Abraham and Hagar
Isaac and Ishmael

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It’s clear that America’s pro-Isreal bias has been shutting down critical conversations for decades — it’s well past time for that to stop.

Through dispersions
History separated
Seen as the “other”
 
As the enemy
Whose God has bestowed the same land
 Onto which we drop the very blood we share

Was God’s intent, rather, for us to thrive
To live and prosper united
Together or side by side as neighbors
 
And yes, as Family?

For an almost incalculable number of years spanning centuries, and in more modern times, tensions between Arabs and Jews have spilled over into the streets and onto college and university campuses in the United States and throughout the world.

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In particular, this tension has been most profound since Hamas attacked and invaded southern Israel during a youth concert for peace on October 7, 2023, killing over 1,200 people of several nationalities, wounding many more, and kidnapping an estimated 250 hostages.

Since the incursion, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have killed a reported 38,000+ Palestinians within the Gaza Strip and on the occupied West Bank of the Jordan River territory, including mainly innocent civilians who were not involved in the initial concert attack. This has caused severe conditions related to the bombing of medical facilities, homes and other shelters, depletion of food, drinking water, and fuel, and rampant disease.

Because the Jewish people have never been truly safe in any nation for the long-term, I reluctantly accept and support the need for a Jewish homeland. I would have much preferred to have seen the creation of a Jewish state following World War II carved out from lands in eastern Germany through western Poland. However, that boat has since sailed on an ocean of fallen tears.

The fact is that both Palestinians and Jews are indigenous to what we call “The Middle East,” and Jews have existed there when the area was known as “the land of Canaan.” Palestinians and Jews are distant cousins. Yes, it is also true that most Jews who reside in what today is called “Israel” arrived during the late 19^th-20^th centuries C.E.
 
In demanding that Jews evacuate the area, or demand that Palestinians simply assimilate into other regional Arab nations is as unrealistic as it would be to demand that everyone without at least 50% indigenous heritage abandon “the Americas” and return to the land of their ancestral heritage(s).

The history of the Middle East, and especially between Palestinians and Jews, abounds with blame, recrimination, and retaliation, and an escalating perpetual cycle of mistrust and violence. And there is indeed plenty of justifiable blame to go around on multiple levels and sides.

But as we blame and blame and blame and then we expect different results, we are certainly left with insanity resulting in increasing tensions, violence, death, and the possibility of an ever-widening breakout of war and destruction.

Can we at least suspend blame for a while? By suspending blame, we are not forgetting the histories, but rather, we are engaging in an emotional ceasefire for a time.

If one views the conflict as a binary with either the Palestinians or the Israelis as either the victims only or the oppressors only, then one does not understand the histories or the issues. We must, instead, think in nuanced, complex, and non-binary ways.

As the summer is rapidly ending and students will soon be returning to their campuses, K-12 through college and university administrators throughout the nation are scrambling to come up with ways to avoid the tensions, conflicts, protests, and sometimes violence and arrests that they witnessed during the Spring. This often resulted in students’ diminished trust of the administrators on their respective campuses.

Students enter colleges and universities at a time of heightened identity development.

Young people have been and continue to be, as well, at the heart of progressive social change movements and as agents of change calling on their leaders to account for their actions and to bring about peaceful and equitable solutions in the name of social justice, for in the inimitable words of Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., “There can be no justice without peace. And there can be no peace without justice.”

Researcher Catherine Corrigall-Brown (2005), in her study of youth participation in social movements, found that activism is directly related with higher levels of self-esteem and self-efficacy, and also associated with verification and crystallization of identity development.

So, rather than viewing student social activism as threatening or challenging to administrators’ authority, in actuality, when linked with institutions’ mandates and mission statements to educate and help develop the whole person to take their freely chosen places in their societies, the connections become synergistic.

Rather than administrators enacting top-down policies with enumerated consequences for violating those policies, when administrators think outside the box, when administrators envision the campus as a community in which all stakeholders work together, when administrators listen to and truly hear the voices, the concerns, the visions of students, when campuses initiate restorative practices as opposed to punitive practices, that campus community has a better chance of literally forming.

One, however, is not born with a “social activist gene.” Like any other skill, social activism, and, in particular, non-violent protest, is a learned skill over a process of time and throughout an individual’s cognitive and emotional development.

An educational institution, such as a college or university campus, can assist and commit to aid students in developing and honing this skill for the better functioning of the individual, the institution, the community, and the planet.

Some possible ways to embrace Gaza protests on campus

While each campus has unique strengths and weaknesses, and regarding possible strategies, no one size will fit all, I list some short- and longer-term actions that can be considered:

• Connect the ways that education and discussions on Palestinian-Israeli topics link directly with your institution’s Mission Statement.

• Set up designated areas on campus for students’ peaceful protests and assemblies that protect students’ freedoms, while minimizing disruptions of campus life that do not restrict foot traffic, and with the clear message that the vandalization of property is outside the bounds of “peaceful.”

• Semester-long courses specifically focusing on Palestinian-Israeli/Jewish relations dually taught with a Jewish/Israeli and an Arab/Palestinian Professor/Instructor.

• Jewish/Muslim/Arab campus dialogues organized by Interfaith campus councils.

• Student-generated campus civility guidelines (e.g. Iowa State University, see below)

• Panels with speakers from, for example, Standing Together (Palestinians and Jews Working for Peace) or from J Street U campus chapters.

• Initiate forums like formal classroom and moderated campus panel discussions with well-vetted participants who are working for peaceful resolutions to conflict.

• Students can also apply for permits from their community city administrators to conduct legal community protests. This allows students to take their protest off campus where their actions might reach a larger media presence.

• Often, the media primarily interview the most extreme actions and actors when covering campus protests. This silences the vast majority of student protesters who respond peacefully in a legal fashion. Liaise between the media and leaders of peaceful protests to ensure these students are given voice to get across their messages.  

• Negotiate in good faith with students’ requests for changes in your institution’s policies and procedures. For example, administrators may wish to consider requesting from overseeing boards or commissions divestment from companies selling or manufacturing arms to a particular country (or countries) but may also consider that divesting from educational institutions or educational efforts within that particular country (or countries) goes against your institution’s stated policies or mandates. Negotiation with students on each of their specific demands in turn.

• Engage in what has come to be known as “Dialogues across Differences” or “Dialogues on Diversity” courses. These dialogues provide a bone fide educational experience based on strong theoretical foundations and empirical evidence of effectiveness. They involve extensive training of facilitators in methodologies and practices.

• Engage whenever possible in actions that can defuse or resolve a tense or hostile situation or event. Deploy trained conflict resolution specialists whenever and wherever possible. Request assistance from local community, state, or national law enforcement agencies to come onto your campus only as a last resort, when an actual threat to life or severe destruction of property is imminent. While police officers may be able rather quickly to end a tense situation, the lasting effects of students’ mistrust of the campus administration and law enforcement agencies can and often does have lasting negative effects.  

• Initiate faculty development training on concepts of Emotional Intelligence, Trauma Informed Pedagogy, Conflict Resolution, Restorative Practices, and others.  

• Encourage everyone on your campus to go to the ballot box to help initiate the change they desire.

• None of the rights the people of the United States are constitutionally guaranteed are unlimited. This includes our freedoms of speech, assembly, and redress of grievances. Clearly identify the parameters of what “free speech” v. “hate speech” at your institution means and outline the consequences for any transgressions from those parameters and make this widely available in multiple postings and in other written materials.

• Look over Pen America: Campus Free Speech Guide:

• Hear concerns by making a point to meet with student activists to fully understand their concerns and goals.

• Consider, because students are on campus for only a limited amount of time, they often have different expectations and conceptions of progress than administrators. Keep this perspective in mind during your discussions with them.

• Explain that students may view administrators as having ultimate authority rather than as part of a complex, often decentralized structure. Explain how colleges and universities are organized, how decisions get made, and how this design benefits them. Make clear the best avenues for them to follow in pursuit of their goals.

• Communicate, if, in conversations with student protesters, it becomes apparent that the university has already addressed their issues, be sure to share this information. Such misunderstandings might signal the need for more regular communication between the administration and the student body. 

• Be transparent. If the proposed changes are not immediately possible, be open about which aspects of the problem can be addressed and which cannot, and whether alternative or longer-term actions might work.

• Support students when they have identified problems that you agree need to be solved, see this as an opportunity to work together. Lend your support and resources to their cause.

• Help students know their rights. Administrators must remember that they have an obligation to balance students’ free speech rights against other aspects of college operations. 

• Provide hotlines. Harvard student, Shira Hoffer, offered her skills as a court mediator to facilitate dialogue and research for other students who had questions about the ongoing war or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She turned this into a hotline run by a multiethnic, multi-religious group of volunteers from around the world. When someone texts the hotline, all volunteers receive the question and can answer in a private chat, which can later be reassigned to another volunteer who can offer more or a different perspective.

Iowa State University’s “Principles of Community” provide a good starting framework for handling protests & blowback

Following the July 4^th weekend in 2005 when an individual or group scribbled hate-filled graffiti throughout the campus and the surrounding area of Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, a committed and concerned group of student leaders organized a committee to confront the hate.

They gave me the honor of serving as their faculty advisor. At one of the initial meetings, they agreed by consensus to create a group statement, which they ultimately titled their “Principles of Community” listing their vision for a safe and inclusive campus community. They arrived at these principles by engaging in a sizable number of one-on-one interviews with their student peers throughout the campus.

Diversity is a journey that is continually evolving where different challenges are faced and solutions are sought. At Iowa State University, our journey is mapped by six Principles of Community. By using the Principles of Community as the compass, we show how we have begun our journey.   

Respect                                                                         

We seek to foster an open-minded understanding among individuals, organizations, and groups. We support this understanding through outreach, increasing opportunities for collaboration, formal education programs, and strategies for resolving disagreement.

Purpose

We are encouraged to be engaged in the university community. Thus, we strive to build a genuine community that promotes leadership, the advancement of knowledge, cooperation, and leadership.

Cooperation

We recognize that the mission of the university is enhanced when we work together to achieve the goals of the university. Therefore, we value each member of the Iowa State University community for their insights and efforts, collective and individual, to enhance the quality of campus life.

Freedom from Discrimination

We acknowledge that we must strive to overcome historical and divisive biases in our society. Therefore, we must commit ourselves to create and maintain a community in which all students, staff, faculty, and administrators can work together in an atmosphere free from discrimination, and to respond appropriately to all acts of discrimination.

Honest and Respectful Expression of Ideas

We affirm the right to and the importance of a free exchange of ideas at Iowa State University within the bounds of courtesy, sensitivity, and respect. We work together to promote awareness of various ideas through education and constructive strategies to consider and engage in honest disagreements.

Richness of Diversity

We recognize and cherish the richness of diversity that contributes to our university experience. Furthermore, we strive to increase the diversity of ideas, cultures and experiences throughout the university community.

Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld is available to consult with your campus.

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