This is the second article in a two-part series about the effect that conflicts in Israel have had on college students. The first segment, which ran in Monday's issue, examined the effects of war on students who live in Israel. This installment will focus on how tensions in the Middle East affect students at Tufts.
Despite last week's cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, the land straddling Israel's Negev and Hamas-controlled Gaza has remained in a state of unrest. While the battle zone is over five thousand miles away from the Hill, the conflict has seeped its way into campus dialogue, and those who were recently abroad in the Middle East have certainly brought their new perspectives back to Tufts.
In spite of the tumultuous state of the nation, many Tufts students decided to travel to Israel over winter break for various reasons such as demonstrating solidarity, doing research and vacationing.
For the most part, students said life in northern Israel appears unchanged.
At the same time, though, Israel has been the target of Hamas' ever-evolving Qassam rockets and mortar shells, and while the attacks have mostly been concentrated in the southern Negev region, the tension is palpable — even in the north.
"When I used public transportation, I saw a lot of soldiers, because they were all getting recalled to serve in the army," said sophomore Royi Gavrielov, who spent his winter vacation visiting family in Tel Aviv. "Israel has a conscript army, so everyone knows someone in the army, and you definitely become more aware [of the conflict]."
This awareness, for some, presented extraordinary discontinuity between the way in which war is perceived in Israel and in the United States.
"Everyone knew about [the war], everyone would talk about it and everyone had an opinion about it," Gavrielov said. "You would hear about it a lot, and it was being covered on TV 24/7."
Perhaps most shocking for many students was the discrepancy between Israeli and foreign coverage of the violence.
Jacob Kreimer, a sophomore who toured Israel with Taglit-Birthright through Tufts, decided to extend his trip for a week and stay with his relatives in Israel.
According to Kreimer, the information that participants received during the Birthright tour was informative but removed, somewhat like the news they had received at home.
But as soon as he arrived at his relative's home, Kreimer noted the vast differences in coverage.
"We would watch the news and they were able to translate from Hebrew to English, and then we'd switch to CNN and see the difference between the Israeli news and what CNN was putting on," Kreimer said. "The [American] reporters were protesting that the [Israel Defense Forces (IDF)] was not letting them into Gaza. Their perspective was ... ‘We don't know why the IDF is doing this; they must be doing atrocious things,' whereas the Israeli channels were just extensively reporting on where the rockets were hitting, and on Hamas' tactics of human shields, which American channels were paying less attention to."
Gavrielov agreed. "I had heard that the American media kind of gives Israel a bad rap, and I wasn't really sure how true that was," he said. "I am shocked to say that I do think it's true."
Of course, opinions shaped overseas are not abandoned at the airport terminal but return home to butt heads on campus. This clash is one of the reasons behind university-sponsored open forums such as the one held last Wednesday by the New Initiative for Middle East Peace (NIMEP), a student-run organization under the umbrella of the Institute for Global
Leadership (IGL).
NIMEP had planned a trip to Israel over winter break, but because of security concerns it was pushed back until March.
Throughout the school year, the group holds weekly discussions that aim to formulate policy recommendations, according to sophomore and active NIMEP member Patricia Letayf. These forums, like the one held Wednesday, are open to all opinions.
"One of the goals of the dialogue was to alleviate any tensions, if there were any, because the students were all from different background[s] — Jewish, Muslim, Palestinian, Israeli, etc.," Letayf said.
Letayf does not feel as though biases pervade campus in a negative way, although she does think that some students show their allegiances more overtly than others.
"It's kind of superficial, but you can even see whom people are supporting by their Facebook statuses," Letayf said.
And while being engaged in politics is almost never a cause for rebuke, it can polarize the student body.
"People are apt to have stronger opinions when they are with people who agree with them ... I think it makes it more difficult for other opinions to be heard, because so many people are pro-Israel," Letayf said, "which is why it's important to have dialogues like the one NIMEP had
last week."
While there were certainly differences of opinion at the NIMEP forum, hostility was not an issue. But some students feel that in less formal settings, those who voice strong opinions are granted even less impunity.
One freshman, who requested to remain anonymous, was reproached from her peers at home and on campus after adding the "QassamCount" application — a tracker of the Qassam rockets fired into Israel from Gaza — to her Facebook.com profile.
Sophomore Maayan Simckes, a native Israeli, has also been confronted about her outward pro-Israel stance.
"I'm proud to be knowledgeable about Israel and this situation," Simckes said. "I just also know what kind of feedback I have to be prepared for ... and I've dealt with some bad stuff, so I'm ready."
Still, in differing opinions, Letayf sees an opportunity to conglomerate around tough issues.
"I think that this conflict is a unifying force on campus," she said.
