As students, we often feel the need to make a statement or take a stance on world events. While being vocal in our communities is a central part of what makes our role as students so vital, there is a certain arrogance that sometimes accompanies these statements — an arrogance that reveals itself when students hold themselves out as the arbitrators of good and evil, even when they may not fully understand the situation they are commenting on. I believe that was the case when a number of Harvard student organizations released a joint statement following the attacks by Hamas that killed over a thousand people, stating that responsibility for these attacks lay solely with the Israeli government.
These attacks occurred on the final day of a seven day long Jewish festival of Sukkot (a pillar Jewish holiday that represents the harvest) and Shabbat (the weekly day of rest where many Jewish people refrain from their daily activities or do not use electricity), holidays that I celebrate as well. According to several reputable news sources such as ABC News in an article titled “Israel-Hamas conflict: Timeline and key developments,” Hamas terrorists sent missiles from Gaza, randomly fired into civilians homes, and breached a music festival where young people from around the world were celebrating, opened fire, along with taking hostages who they threatened to kill one by one on broadcast. Children attending the festival hid under bodies to avoid being taken, as evidenced by footage I cannot bring myself to watch. This attack was not an act of liberation, but rather a series of terrorist acts directed specifically towards killing Jewish people: the biggest mass killing of Jewish people since the Holocaust. In my opinion, the Harvard students had every right to criticize the Israeli government’s policy towards the Palestinian people. But in this context, their comments came across as justifying the brutal, indiscriminate, mass murder of Jewish people.
The statement that Harvard students issued was premature, as they did not step back and attempt to understand the situation or wait for the events to unfold. Instead, they immediately seized on a tragedy to broadcast their opinion on the matter, which was frankly, uninformed, as it fails to acknowledge the anti semitic goals of Hamas’ attack. In the context of the slaughter that occurred, Palestinian citizens and the Israeli government would not care about their poorly thought out statement, and potentially hurt the Palestinian people’s cause by further polarizing public opinion. According to an article by CNN, these students are being blacklisted by a number of CEOs and teachers, as their view was not rooted in fact and it was incredibly hurtful and insensitive to the Jewish community who are still recovering from generational trauma from the Holocaust.
This is not to say that student activism is not effective; it can often be the most influential route to change. However, in order to be impactful it requires a sufficient amount of introspection and research. For these students at Harvard, there may have been more powerful ways to address what they believe to be the shortcomings of the Israeli government. However, this attempt was completely undermined by the nature of their statement due to the misinformation it spread. In trying to address one social justice issue, they completely invalidated another, demonstrating a lack of care and arrogance of opinion.
On our own campus, expressions of student activism through social media platforms have a similar effect to the statement the Harvard students released. When I checked Instagram, looking for support and prayers for lives lost, I was struck. So many of the posts stated that Israel “had it coming” or that these attacks were warranted. These posts suggest that the attacks were directed towards the government or the Israeli Defense Force, not towards innocent citizens and tourists. Saying that the mass murder of over a thousand civilians is warranted and justified is short-sighted, and I would say the same regardless of who provoked the attacks. Once again, this form of student activism is rendered ineffective as social media spreads misinformation and minimizes loss of life.
As a member of the Jewish community, it hurts me to see victims’ lost lives forgotten in political arguments and invalidated through thoughtless posts and statements. Not only does this take honor away from innocent people’s memory, but it also serves as a false justification for increased antisemitism all over the globe. I hope that members of our community will consider this before releasing potentially harmful statements.
At the end of the day, we can be most powerful in our role as changemakers by fostering important conversations between people, taking a step back to reflect and observe, and most importantly, by never making attempts to justify the murder of innocent people, regardless of which side (or no side) you align with. I hope that in our powerful role as Andover students, we can share our opinions in a way that maximizes our role as young activists without wrongly estimating the impact of our actions. Finally, my prayers go out to everyone: Palestinians, Israelis, and everyone else whose lives have been impacted by recent attacks.
