Students Debate Israel-Palestine Plan

Students discussed how an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan might become reality at a workshop organized by the Harvard College Progressive Jewish Alliance (PJA) last night.

The event, part of a larger, national “Day of Action” organized by the Union of Progressive Zionists (UPZ), focused on how to apportion control of Jerusalem’s Old City, a contested point in any future peace agreement.

The workshop was led by Daphne Lasky, a 2007 graduate of Middlebury College who spent the past summer in Israel examining the realities of the conflict and the possibilities for negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

“I think that in Israel, Jerusalem in particular, any peace proposal must also be physically solved; something that works on an urban planning level,” Lasky said.

In yesterday’s workshop, students came up with a variety of solutions for border control, ranging from proposals to eliminate all cars within the Old City to constructing an underground structure that would handle all exiting visitors.

“Something has to be found out about Jerusalem,” PJA Chair Jaclyn B. Granick ’08 said. Yesterday’s discussion “gave us a taste of what diplomats are going through. We didn’t even consider religion and it was hard enough, but it was good to go in-depth into the issue.”

The event was preceded earlier in the day by a game of “Final Status Taboo” held outside the Science Center. In the style of the popular quiz game Taboo, visitors were given cards with subjects such as Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, along with five taboo words underneath that could not be used to describe the subject.

The twist in the game, however, was that the subject words were taboo subjects themselves, in the context of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We wanted to challenge Jewish groups on campus to talk about final status issues,” UPZ Executive Director Tammy Shapiro said.

“When you have a word like Jerusalem and you’re not allowed to use normal things used to describe it, it makes a point on how difficult it is to have a discussion on something. We wanted to inspire people to talk and discuss these difficult issues.”

Yesterday’s “Day of Action”—which was held at several college campuses across the country—was called to support the Annapolis Conference, a summit of Middle Eastern leaders held Tuesday at the U.S. Naval Academy.