No Ivory Towers Here

Of late the news here has been dominated by the escalating violence in and around Gaza – the daily barrages of rockets that Hamas rains down on southern Israel (which are largely ignored by the international community) and the recent Israeli military strikes (denounced by the U.N. as excessive and disproportionate) that are intended to incapacitate, deter, or punish Hamas (it’s not altogether clear which it is). The Israeli military strikes have resulted in a high death toll among the Palestinians, mainly combatants but also many civilians and even children. No reasonable and humane person could feel anything but deep sorrow for the loss of innocent life. But does it mean that the Israeli military operation involved an excessive use of force? Regrettably, civilian deaths are an unavoidable aspect of warfare, particularly when the enemy operates in densely populated areas like the Gaza Strip. To recognize Israel’s right to self-defense is to accept, however reluctantly, the inevitable loss of civilian life that comes with the use of military means. In contrast to Hamas, the Israeli army does not target the civilian population, but is it doing enough to minimize civilian casualties? It’s hard for me to tell. What could the army do differently, short of refraining from military action, to reduce civilian casualties? This is not a rhetorical question. It seems to me that when someone criticizes the Israeli army (or any other) for using excessive force, then it is incumbent on the critic to suggest answers to this question.

Being an educator and not a soldier, I have been most struck by how the fighting in and around Gaza has impacted Israel's universities. It is simply not true that universities are “ivory towers,” least of all in Israel. At the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where I am a visiting scholar, students staged a protest on Monday against the Israeli military operation in Gaza while other students held a counter-demonstration to support it. And at the Max Stern Academic College of Emek Yezreel (a regional branch of the Hebrew University until 1994), a lecturer stirred up controversy on the same day when she agreed to an Arab student’s request for a minute of silence on behalf of the Palestinians killed in Gaza. (Despite the criticism the lecturer received from the Student Union, I thought she handled the situation reasonably well: While granting the student’s request, she also reminded her that Israelis in Sderot and Ashkelon are also suffering, and she encouraged a discussion of the Israeli military operation afterwards. Had I been in her shoes, I might have handled the situation the same way.) But the violence has affected higher education in Israel most directly and most poignantly at Sapir College in Sderot: Last Wednesday, a rocket fired from Gaza hit Sapir College and killed a student. (Sderot is a town just 40 minutes from Tel Aviv inside Israel proper – not in the occupied territories – which has borne the brunt of the rocket attacks from Gaza.) The day after the attack, Yedioth Ahronoth published this moving statement by another student at Sapir College:

What you will find if you come to Sapir is reinforced police presence, red signs that include instructions for cases of emergency, and loudspeakers that on occasion sound a hair-raising alarm that gives us less than 10 seconds to seek cover in the face of incoming rockets.

At Sapir College you will not find students sitting on the grass. They are scared to be left without shelter should rockets land. But you will find great fear here.

It happens almost every day: A “Color Red” alert, Qassam rockets landing, and all this followed by tears, mass panic, and concerned phone calls from home. It happens to us during classes, it happens during breaks, and it happens during difficult exams.

We have already sustained property damage to the college before, but this time we are dealing with the worst possible scenario – the death of a student. To my regret, despite our army and the reinforced security deployment at school, I do not have the confidence to say that tomorrow’s Qassam rocket will not hit me or any one of my friends at the college.

Can you comprehend that this is how students in Israel go about their studies?