As a diversity educator working on a college campus, I have often been frustrated at the narrative around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in American higher education. Undergraduate students at institutions of higher education in the United States are often challenged to understand the the ways in which certain groups are privileged and some are discriminated against. In this work, there is often not a nuanced understanding of oppression. Targeted groups are the “victims” who are oppressed and have no power; agents are those with power and are the oppressor.
Jews present an interesting, and complex, situation. Jews, as we all know, have been historically oppressed. The Zionist project was clearly a movement of oppressed people to be liberated. Unfortunately, few in diversity education see it is as such. In addition, Jews in the United States are relatively well off financially and are not being persecuted in the ways in which we have been historically, although many diversity educators do not talk about the ways in which Jews are seen in White supremacist thinking. Thus, many in the academy simply see Jews (and Israel) as the “oppressor” and not deserving of our understanding of the historic and contemporary forms of anti-Semitism that impact Jews. The models we use in diversity education do not allow a nuanced understanding of power and oppression. As recent surveys show, many Jewish college students are ambivalent about Israel. I believe it is due to the ways in which the conflict is discussed on campus.
Because Jews now have state power, many diversity educators do not know how to discuss the situation using an oppression lens that does not simply say one side is the privileged and one side is the victim. Often my colleagues see Israel as “the oppressor” and the Palestinians as the “oppressed.” We need an analysis that discusses how a traumatized people (European Jews) came into contact with a colonized people (Palestinian Arabs). Oppression is real; however, the world has become increasingly complex. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict forces us to move past simplistic ways of thinking. In this situation, both groups have a history of oppression and have a right to self-determination. There are no “good guys” and “bad guys.” Moreover, there are many actors others than the two groups that impact the conflict. In other words, this conflict forces my field to become more complex in its own theorizing. If not, we easily fall into anti-Semitic thinking and replicate the forms of oppression we are supposedly trying to eradicate.
