Commemorating the Human Reality

UPDATED: October 3, 2014, at 10:04 a.m.

On Monday, September 29, the Palestine Solidarity Committee led a “die-in” to memorialize victims of this summer’s violence in Gaza. During the event, a member of the PSC read aloud the names of roughly 900 of the 2,104 Palestinian dead as fellow participants assumed positions of death on the ground. The PSC was also joined by members of the Progressive Jewish Alliance and the Student Labor Action Movement in its effort to mourn lives lost during Operation Protective Edge.

We support the notion of calling attention to the human reality of lives lost in Gaza. We would also like to take this opportunity to condemn the actions of both Hamas and the Israeli government in the conflict, and to lament that all losses of human life in conflict are not given due condemnation and mourning in our Harvard community.

We think the actions of both Hamas and the Israeli Defense Forces deserve nothing but the strongest condemnation.  According to the United Nations, 69 percent of those killed in Gaza were civilians; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered an alternative figure of 52 percent. Irrespective of which number is most accurate, it is clear that an unacceptable proportion of non-combatants was killed. It should be equally clear that both sides share some of the blame, but this fact does not render the actions of the IDF any less objectionable.

In light of the staggering civilian death toll, we support the actions of the Palestine Solidarity Committee and of all student protesters who took part in Monday’s demonstration. The “die-in” simply aimed to do what its name suggests: to call attention to a human tragedy precipitated by the senseless violence of this past summer—violence, it we would like to stress, that was perpetrated by both Israel and Hamas. According to S. Allen Counter, director of the Harvard Foundation, the protest was “peaceful, civil, and informative;” we cannot but wholeheartedly support such non-violent efforts to draw attention to and spark discourse about the plight of victims of violence around the world.

At the same time, we are disappointed that more human rights abuses are not brought to the attention of the Harvard community by student activists. Israel and Hamas are hardly alone in perpetrating unconscionable acts of violence, and while this fact does not delegitimize Monday’s protest, it should serve as a call to action for students across the university. We hope that the Palestine Solidarity Committee’s example will pave the way for future peaceful activism at Harvard.

CORRECTION: October 3, 2014

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the PSC was joined by the Progressive Jewish Alliance and the Student Labor Action Movement for the die-in . In fact, "members of the Progressive Jewish Alliance and the Sutdent Labor Action Movement" joined in.