Israeli-Palestinian debate should rise above trite paradigm

By Gideon Baum

The university is, both by nature and design, a place where the
great issues of our time are debated and struggled over. Some
disputes, such as the Skinner-Chomsky language acquisition debate,
remain unanswered and esoteric. However, other university debates,
such as the United States’ involvement in Vietnam,
permanently altered the political arena in a tangible and concrete
way that can still be felt decades later. Today, it appears the
Israeli-Palestinian debate is one of the most crucial debates on
American college campuses, and it probably will remain as such into
the foreseeable future.

However, the Israel-Palestine debate has gone into territory
that few previous debates have ventured. In the struggle for the
hearts and the minds of the student body, advocates in both the
pro-Israel and pro-Palestine camps have chosen to use emotion over
reason, sound bites and pithy facts over reasoned and sensible
discussion.

In short, the debate becomes a struggle of black versus white,
where the side with the better public relations handlers can
triumphantly raise its fist in victory, but only until the next
week, when both sides again must struggle against another campaign
that has rolled out new devices ““ which put forward more new
and creative twists. The struggle between two very human groups has
warped into the struggle between the forces of good and evil.

This structure for the debate is simply wrong. While one can
assign one group more blame than another, this is not the same as
designating one group as evil and the other as good.

History has taught us this is a state of affairs that simply
does not and has not existed. Good and evil are overly simple
constructs that do not serve us well when looking at the complex
realities facing both the citizens and policy makers. If we look at
a similar conflict, such as the conflict between the British and
the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, few would feel free
to draw a strict line between good and evil. Those that did would
be foolhardy, indeed.

Although the IRA is guilty of heinous acts of terrorism that
fall far beyond the pale, one can hardly hold up the British Army
as an example of absolute moral purity. Moreover, as the Catholic
population in Northern Ireland continues to grow and approaches the
level of superceding the Protestant majority, one does not see
constructive movement coming from the left-wing Labor Party.
Neither has there been any attempt to use a constructive model from
the competing right-wing Conservative Party, or even a hint of
compromise from the IRA.

Yet both sides have very solid and very real reasons for their
behavior rooted in previous experiences. In short, the simplistic
paradigm of good and evil does not capture the true complexity of
the conflict, and serves, paradoxically, as an abstraction that
muddies, rather than clears, the water.

There is, however, a far worse result from creating a bogus
good-or-evil paradigm for the Israeli-Palestinian debate, in that
it allows the advocates of both the Palestinians and Israelis to
excuse themselves from any kind of meaningful dialogue or
discussion and instead adopt an ends-justify-the-means approach to
slapping down the opposing side. This approach permits advocates to
walk the low road and place cheap public relations victories over
meaningful discussion.

Instead of having dialogue, we have protests at celebrations and
destructive, undermining counter-programming. Instead of moderate
debates and efforts to cultivate the ability to agree to disagree,
we see flyers distributed with distortions and untruths designed to
mislead rather than educate.

This was exemplified when the most active UCLA pro-Israel group
decided to air an inflammatory film during Islamic Awareness Week.
The film was aired in order to highlight some of the factual
oversights of the week and factually was correct, but it was shown
at the wrong place and at the wrong time; and it reflected poorly
on the Jewish community.

The ease in which the advocates of the Israeli and Palestinian
perspectives rush down the low road is disheartening and
distressing. That path does not do justice to the complex realities
of the situation. It does not serve to create a forum of
intelligent debate to enrich the university community, and it does
not uplift the participants. Rather, it dirties all who partake in
the debate.

It is time for both sides to step up and begin the long and
painful process toward meaningful dialogue and debate. It is time
for both sides to recognize we have far more in common than we ever
have admitted. It is time for the university to return to a place
of moderate debate, rather than a battlefield for false and
distorted public relations victories. It is time for both sides to
take to heart the precepts of the holy books that lead them and to
walk the high road, no matter how painful it is.

The forces of division and hatred have reigned free for too
long, and it is time for both sides to realize that they only have
damned themselves.

Baum is a third-year political science student and the
president of the Jewish Student Union.