During this week of activism on campus, students representing many perspectives on the Gaza conflict came together for a discussion on humanitarian issues.
On Wednesday night, three speakers addressed a packed room in Hamilton Hall during a discussion sponsored by the Columbia International Relations Council and Association and Amnesty International, and co-sponsored by the Columbia University College Democrats.
On Monday, organizers of the Columbia Community in Standing with Gaza launched the Columbia Palestine Forum, a pro-Palestine campaign in which members demand divestment from companies profiting from the Gaza conflict. The group will deliver a list of demands—in which it will appeal to Columbia to defend Palestinian students and to support Palestinian rights to education—to the administration on Thursday, In opposition, LionPAC, a pro-Israel campus group, and the Hillel Israel Committee, both of which are sub-groups of the Columbia/Barnard Hillel, began a campaign of their own on Tuesday. In addition to campus-wide fliers, Hillel released a statement in opposition to calling Israel an apartheid state and calls for divestment.
Wednesday's panelists, on the other hand, stressed the importance of neutrality when dealing with humanitarian issues. The speakers on Wednesday evening included Donatella Rovera, Curt Goering, and Chris Cobb-Smith. Rovera is the Amnesty International researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories who recently documented human rights violations in Gaza and Southern Israel during her most recent trip to Gaza on January 17. Goering is Senior Deputy Executive Director for Policy and Programs of Amnesty International USA. Cobb-Smith, a former serviceman in the Royal Artillery, now works on humanitarian and human rights issues in the Israeli Occupied Territories and Palestinian Authority-controlled areas.
Goering began by describing the changing framework of international humanitarian law throughout Gaza and the surrounding areas. Rovera outlined a number of cases she investigated concerning civilian casualties in homes and deaths of pedestrians, as well as destroyed humanitarian-aid warehouses due to imprecise high-artillery firing in densely-populated areas.
“I think it is very important to look at the issue from an impartial perspective, to look at how military artillery is used against civilians from that civilian perspective,” Anna Garofano, board member of Amnesty International and Associate Events Coordinator for CIRCA, said. “You have to put the issues in context.”
Cobb-Smith said that white Phosphorous is often used illegally to hit position points, yet the United States continues to produce the shell encasements. “The sheer scale of devastation is unimaginable. … You wish you could get the message back to the international community,” he said.
The speakers continued to outline forms of humanitarian crises across the area. “Discussions like this bring us back to looking at the issues from a humanitarian perspective,” attendee Jeremy April said.
In closing, Rovera stressed that investigation into Israeli and Palestinian conduct must remain independent, impartial, and international. She said information needs to be made public, and education is necessary to counter the radicalization of people harmed by the widespread humanitarian crimes.
“It’s refreshing to hear a perspective with consideration of both sides, and one that’s not nearly as polarized,” Dan Weinstein, CC ’12, said. “In terms of divestment, it’s important to consider the differences between our own academic freedom and that in Gaza for a lot of people, and the speakers handled that well. They were ready to criticize both sides.”
“These are very sensitive issues, and the speakers seemed genuinely concerned with the humanitarian affairs of both sides. They focused on educating listeners, rather than establishing blame,” said Sudeep Moniz, CIRCA Vice President of Academic Affairs and SEAS ’10, said.
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