USU students learn about the Israel-Hamas conflict

Quiet filled the room as Austin Knuppe, a Utah State University political science professor specializing in Middle Eastern studies, called for a moment of silence to honor the thousands who have been killed in the last weeks.  

After a few minutes, discussion resumed as experts in history, politics and Middle Eastern studies unpacked the conflicts that have unfolded since Israel declared war on Hamas. 

On Oct. 16, the Heravi Peace Institute and Middle East studies minor at USU sponsored a conference that hosted guest speaker Dr. Matthew Buehler, a professor of political science at the University of Tennessee, alongside USU professors Knuppe, Mustafa Banister, Daniella Hirschfeld and Arthur Caplan, all to speak on the recent events between Hamas and Israel and to answer students’ questions. 

To provide as safe an atmosphere as possible during the conference, the panelists did not go on record for their statements during the panel; rather, they spoke individually with The Utah Statesman before or after the event.   

One of the most essential parts to understand the issue, Knuppe said, is to recognize the context for the tension between the Hamas political party and its armed supporters, the Palestinian’s request for self-determination and the Israeli government’s decisions.  

“This is a conflict that goes back 75 years, perhaps 100 years — it does not go back 5,000 years,” Knuppe said.  

In the past 100 years, there have been several disputes about territory and drawing lines on the map, Knuppe said. However, the conflict has especially escalated in the past 16-17 years since the Israeli military left the Gaza Strip in 2005, creating a blockade limiting food and water supplies, and then Hamas, a political party with an armed wing, getting elected the following year. 

Besides just learning the history, another way to ground oneself in the gravity of the conflict was seeing others’ personal connections and learning how they were affected, Knuppe said — personal connections both Hirschfeld and Caplan spoke to.  

Hirschfeld, a professor of environmental planning, had glassy eyes as she recounted her memories of visiting her grandparents in Israel and Tel Aviv, going to the beach, getting ice cream cones and rollerblading.  

Her loved ones, Hirschfeld said, have been telling her about the hours they were spending in bunkers.  

“There are several friends who have said, ‘Oh, we were in the in the safe rooms for four hours last night or, ‘We were in the safe room twice in the middle of the night,’ or, ‘We had to take our five year old into the safe room,” Hirschfeld said. “All these experiences create a feeling of terror, and so that’s been really sad.”  

To provide further context to the bombing, Knuppe described the scale of the Gaza Strip, a narrow strip of land between Israel and Egypt occupied by mostly Palestinians.  

Knuppe said it is about the size of Cache Valley. But instead of a few hundred thousand people occupying the space, the Gaza Strip is home to over two million people.  

Extended conflict in such a small space with such a dense population, he said, would create devastating impacts.  

“I have empathy for both sides of the conflict; it sickens me to think of the invasion in Gaza. I’m thinking about 1.1 million people trying to evacuate with nowhere to go. It’s a humanitarian crisis,” Hirschfeld said.  

Knuppe added that one of the most complicated parts to discussing the conflict was seeing the ways two facts could be true simultaneously: that each side is suffering devastation at the hands of the other.  

“What makes this extraordinarily difficult for a number of reasons is the ability of our minds to engage in lots of cognitive dissonance,” Knuppe said. “It is immoral; it’s illegal, according international humanitarian law; and it’s ineffective for armed groups to target civilians … It’s illegal when Hamas targets Israeli civilians. It’s illegal when the Israeli Defense Forces target Palestinian civilians in the West Bank in Gaza.”  

For Mayu Mecham, a USU junior majoring in international studies and sociology and minoring in French and studies in the Center for Anticipatory Intelligence, the conference was helpful to understand the context for the conflict. 

“I feel personally like I have been bombarded by media from like all sides and all kinds of levels of the spectrum with beliefs about it,” Mecham said. “I think that having the space to talk about difficult situations from both an academic point of view, as well as having a bit more of a personal dialogue conversation approach to it, was very helpful.” 

However, despite the event shedding perspective on the issue, Mecham mentioned how the discussion felt strange to her, especially in discussing the facts about thousands dying as she sat in a safe, academic setting.  

To deal with the privilege of being in that kind of setting, Mecham said some may ignore conflicts and numb themselves to the tragedies, but that wasn’t a suitable solution.  

“I think that we have a bit of a responsibility as humans to not ignore the great conflicts that are happening in our time,” Mecham said. “It is our responsibility to be educated about it.”  

Caplan, an economics professor, agreed, adding how reading, listening to others and even traveling to Israel and getting in touch with his heritage and history helped bring greater perspective to the issue.  

“The stronger you make your worldview, the better you’re going to be able to understand what’s happening,” Caplan said.  

For Will Wright, a USU political science student, the best way to discuss the conflict with those who have differing sides is to avoid misinformation. 

“I think the most important thing people can do — I don’t think it’s necessarily raising your voice and talking loudly about these issues, because that’s what a lot of people do — just staying educated and well-informed about it,” Wright said. “I know on social media and the internet, there’s a lot of misinformation going around about what’s happening in Israel and Gaza right now.”   

The media’s dehumanization of others and simplification of the issue often can create knee-jerk responses, Mecham said, but acknowledging one’s privilege and listening instead of talking can solve conflicts instead of create more.  

“I feel like that’s been one of the overwhelming things in my media is that there’s been lots of people who maybe don’t completely understand the context or the nuance of these issues, but they still feel like their voice needs to be loud,” Mecham said. “In our position of privilege of not being directly affected or involved, we need to be listeners and learners.”