At a university that prizes humanitarianism and the just recognition of all voices in conflict, events like tomorrow's Tufts Sderot Awareness Day present a serious imbalance. Tufts' chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine urges the Tufts community to review contending narratives and hear the Palestinian voice. It is our hope to initiate a campus−wide, inclusive discussion that respectively incorporates all voices on behalf of Israel and Palestine.
Sderot Awareness Day recognizes the daily trauma inflicted upon residents of Sderot, a town located in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip. Since 2001, thousands of rockets have landed upon the Israeli town, psychologically afflicting thousands of residents and encouraging the rise of post−traumatic stress disorder symptoms, especially among Sderot's children. From 2001 to late 2008, 13 Israeli citizens were killed by rockets fired from Gaza.
However, the information advertised to the Tufts community provides no mention of who is firing these rockets or why. The Gaza Strip is occupied Palestinian territory, home to 1.5 million Palestinians. The simple label of "terrorists" cannot account for the highly diversified views and politics of Gaza, nor can it explain the 62 years of history that have produced the frustrations, hopelessness and alienation that launch rockets in the first place.
Gaza's borders remain largely sealed beneath a heavy blockade, and its residents face severe difficulties exiting the Strip. The blockade, in place since 2007, continues to prevent the entry of much desperately needed cement and other building materials, as well as medical equipment, textiles and dozens of other items; it has rendered the Gaza Strip economically destitute. The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem records 70 percent of Palestinians in Gaza living at or below the poverty line, with over 40 percent unemployed. Food is tightly controlled and has left 60 percent "food insecure." A full 80 percent of Palestinians in Gaza, Oxfam International reports, are dependent upon some form of foreign aid for survival.
Tomorrow's event also fails to mention the Israeli Operation Cast Lead in 2008 to 2009, which in three weeks ransacked the remaining infrastructure and economy of Gaza. With the death of nine Israelis, the conflict killed 1,400 Palestinians. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch document breaches in the international laws of warfare on behalf of both Israeli and Palestinian forces, though especially on the part of Israeli forces. Amid deployments of white phosphorous and the use of human shields, B'Tselem reports that more than half of Palestinians killed were unarmed civilians.
There is no dispute that life in Sderot is psychologically difficult and physically dangerous. But Sderot Awareness Day's exclusion of any consideration of life in the Gaza Strip blindsides Tufts students to the cause of the conflict, reducing the issue to simplistic, strongly prejudiced sound bites that offer nothing but a perpetuation of an undesirable quality of life in both Sderot and Gaza. Without embracing the narratives of both Israelis in Sderot and Palestinians in Gaza, the misunderstandings at the root of this conflict are only entrenched.
If Tufts is serious about securing a peaceful livelihood for residents of Sderot, its future events and discussions must seek the voices of all concerned in this conflict. Instead of deepening divides, we have an opportunity to foster commonality between Israel and Palestine as communities of human beings first, and as nations in conflict second. It is the ardent belief of Students for Justic in Palestine that without positive, inclusive discussion, even enforced peace is an illusion.
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