Gray Collins ’25
Domestically, institutions like the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and Cornell University have been epicenters of demonstrations related to the Israel-Hamas war and the United States’s involvement in the war. These protests have created tensions as dangerous anti-Muslim and antisemitic attacks increase in frequency around the country, complicated by the notion that some people perceive any condemnation of Israel to be anti-semitic.
At Penn, CNN writes that the “Israel-Gaza conflict has inflamed existing tensions that began with the Palestine Writes Literature Festival last month. The university acknowledged the event included speakers with a history of making antisemitic remarks . . . Penn President Liz Magill later conceded the statement on the festival was not sufficient.” Following this instance, billionaires, graduates, and big donors like Marc Rowan, Ronald Lauder, David Magerman, and Jon Huntsman threatened to stop donations if the administration did not take immediate action condemning Hamas and antisemitism. Furthermore, in recognition of the lasting legacy of the 1948 Nakba, the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups stated, “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” This letter, coupled with instances of antisemitism against Harvard students, led prominent alumni like hedge fund manager Bill Ackman to call for the blacklisting of pro-Palestine students from jobs.
Photo courtesy of CNBC
On October 7, Hamas, a militant organization based out of the Gaza Strip, launched thousands of rockets aimed at southern Israeli towns. Simultaneously, the Associated Press reported that “In an assault of startling breadth, Hamas gunmen rolled into as many as 22 locations outside the Gaza Strip, including towns and other communities as far as 15 miles from the Gaza border.” The terrorists murdered music festival goers, destroyed buildings, and took hundreds of hostages—including United States citizens, women, and children. Hamas’s coordinated, surprise attack caught Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, and the IDF, the Israeli military, completely off guard—even though, per a recent New York Times report, Israeli officials had been aware of Hamas’s plan for over a year. CNN reports that over 1,200 Israeli citizens were in the initial assault; meanwhile, Israel’s response to the October 7 attacks have killed more than 15,000 Palestinians, including more than 6,150 children. These events have become the most violent escalation in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a complex issue that has been at the forefront of geopolitics for over 75 years.
The idea for a Jewish state in the Holy Land of Jerusalem, called Zionism, was pioneered by Austro-Hungarian activist Theodor Herzl in the late 19th century. In his 1896 book The Jewish State, Herzl writes, “Palestine is [the Jewish people’s] unforgettable historic homeland.” Following World War II, the British seized control of the mandate between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River from the Ottoman Empire. The state of Israel was then designed by the United Nations in its 1947 Partition Plan as a national home for the Jewish people following the Holocaust. Ever since Israel’s independence on May 14, 1948—during which over 700,000 Palestinians were displaced and hundreds of villages destroyed in what Palestinians call the Nakba, or “catastrophe”—there has been conflict between Israelis, who feel it is their God-given right to live on the land, and Palestinians, who, even today, are continually forced from their homeland by Israeli settlement. Hamas, which, according to the State Department, is a terrorist organization, has been the de-facto ruling party since 2006. That year, through a combination of terror tactics and people’s discontent with the existing government, Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. Since then, the group has strengthened ties with the Islamist regime in Iran, serving as a proxy. Foreign Affairs describes, “Building on its success with Hezbollah, in the early 1990s, Iran began backing Hamas, the armed Palestinian organization that has controlled Gaza since 2007.” Iran, a Shiite theocracy, is staunchly opposed to Israel’s rise and alliance with the United States, which explains their development of a nuclear program and support for the attacks. Theo Engelman comments, “I think it is clear that Hamas is not a solo actor—it is being supported by Iran, a country who wants to eradicate the Jewish state through proxy wars.”
Israel’s response to this violent assault, which, according to The Economist, was the bloodiest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust, has been intense. Reporting from NBC indicates that the IDF has launched over 400 airstrikes in Gaza, largely focused on taking down Hamas’s command and control centers in Gaza City. Their tactics, however, have attracted criticism from the international community, and even people within Israel, especially when considered in tandem with Netanyahu’s recent attempts to overhaul the judiciary system in an attempt to consolidate his power within the country.
Civilians also play a huge part in this conflict. Because Gaza is home to over 2.2 million people, there is an abundance of non-combatants in the city streets and buildings. This problem is further exacerbated by what Israeli officials say is Hamas’s extensive use of human shields. Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, “Utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations,” was specifically declared a war crime. However, the population density of the Gaza Strip, and the notion that Israel has repeatedly bombed locations in Southern Gaza, where residents from the north were told to evacuate to, complicates the notion that Hamas uses civilians as “human shields.” Due to mass airstrikes on buildings like the Al-Shifa hospital, collateral damage, and misfired attacks, over 15,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed in the two months of the war.
Due to issues like innocent deaths, there have been numerous protests during this conflict, ranging from college campuses to the Knesset, Israel’s legislature. For example, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid declared, “We need change, Netanyahu cannot remain prime minister,” following the catastrophic attacks on October 7th.
Protests have also focused on the historic and current support Israel receives from the United States. Since 1948, the United States has sent over $130 billion dollars of military aid to Israel. This includes state-of-the-art military technology such as the 10 Iron Dome missile defense batteries and 5th generation stealth F-35 fighter jets. Along with the $3.8 billion in military aid the United States already sends to Israel each year, Congress is debating sending an additional $14.3 billion that has been requested by President Joe Biden. The United States has been involved in more ways than just military aid. For instance, the New York Times reported, “The United States has deployed two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean near Israel and dozens of additional warplanes to the Persian Gulf region to deter Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq from engaging in a regional war.” Also, after the U.S. destroyed targets in Syria, Secretary of Defense Llloyd Austin announced, “These precision self-defense strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups.”
A ceasefire from November 24-30 temporarily paused the conflict and allowed for hostage swaps and the humanitarian passage of food and medical supplies into war-torn Gaza. However, alleged violations of the agreement caused fighting to resume. With bodies piling up on both sides of the conflict, innocent civilians living in constant fear, and the UN recognizing that the situation in Gaza has become a humanitarian crisis, the war has no clear end in sight. Engelman concludes, “I really don’t know how this will end or if it will ever really reach a conclusion. However, it is apparent that the toll this war takes on the people of Israel and Palestine as well as the United States is severe.”