Hours after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed eight people in an attack on an Israeli bus, and Israeli tanks rolled into another town in the West Bank, University students gathered in Whig Hall to formally discuss the escalating violence. The panelists represented campus leaders on both sides of what is becoming an intense worldwide debate.
Taufiq Rahim '04 of the Princeton Committee for Palestine and Elliot Ratzman GS challenged four Jewish student leaders in an emotionally charged debate last night.
In an effort to unravel the causes and potential effects of both the recent Palestinian Intifada and the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza strip, the panelists expressed strong views on a number of divisive issues, including the breakdown of the Oslo peace process, the exact meaning of U.N. Resolution 242 — which mandated Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in the 1967 war in exchange for peace with its neighbors — and the ongoing conflict between Israel's need for security and Palestinian dreams of returning to homes lost half a century ago.
On one side, Rahim blamed the injustices of the Israeli occupation for the current bloodshed.
"Acquisition of territory by war is illegal according to International law established in Geneva," he said. "More than 100,000 Israeli settlers have been forcefully injected into the midst of Palestinian lands since '67. The settlement-building continued during the Oslo process. Palestinians still have no water rights or political power on their own land."
Sam Spector and Mathew Schonfield of the Princeton Israel Public Affairs Committee took the opposite view, saying that suicide bombings must stop immediately.
"At this point, Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip would set a dangerous precedent," Spector said. "Such an action would encourage violent radicals that will settle with nothing less than the total destruction of Israel."
"Real peace must be a precursor to any sort of withdrawal from the occupied territories," he added.
Neither side could agree on what should be done to stop the cycle of violence. Rahim claimed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to actively target the Palestinian Authority's security apparatus in the West Bank and Gaza was counterproductive.
"Sharon's action destroys the only police forces with the power to arrest terrorists from militant groups like Hamas," Rahim said in his opening remarks.
Daniel Mark, president of the Center for Jewish Life, had a different opinion. "Sharon's current action is a justified step in the fight for Israel's security. Withdrawal from the territories can only happen when the Israeli people are confident that such a step will lead to a prolonged peace."
As University students debated last night, American Secretary of State Colin Powell prepared to take on an immense challenge in the Middle East: ending the bloodshed.
In one of the debate's most cooperative moments, however, Elliot Ratzman suggested that peace could never come from Sharon or Arafat.
"Palestinians and Israeli's must reject the peace of the elites. Any lasting mutual reconciliation must come from a movement of the people," he said.
"The building blocks are there for a peace based on equality and understanding, but someone must step in and end the bloodshed. Otherwise, this recent violence will poison yet another generation," he said.
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