The Pro-Palestine Coalition Must Not Excuse a Massacre

One year ago, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, horrifying the world and committing acts of unspeakable brutality. In the carnage, 1,200 perished, including hundreds of civilians.

In the 368 days since, the Israeli Defence Forces have killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, decimating Gaza and sparking one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time.

It should be easy to acknowledge that every single one of these losses is a tragedy. Such an acknowledgement should be simple. For the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and several co-signatories, it proved too difficult.

“One year ago today, Gaza broke through Israel’s blockade, showing the world that the ongoing Nakba and apartheid cannot stand” began the pro-Palestine groups’ statement on the one-year anniversary of the October 7th massacre.

It speaks for itself, but it’s still worth saying: These words are callous and insensitive. They disregard the immense pain of the many people who lost loved ones that day. And, regardless of the writers’ intentions, they appear plainly to justify Hamas’ brutal, unacceptable attack as legitimate resistance.

Protesting the horrors in Gaza is clearly reasonable. The scale of human tragedy there is immense and drawing attention to it is important. At a moment when the PSC could have brought together those concerned by that violence, it has instead chosen extreme and offensive rhetoric. For the many people sympathetic to the cause but put off by this conduct, there is nowhere else to go.

Harvard should be a place for serious academic discussion about the conflict, including which types of action Palestinians are justified in taking against the state of Israel. But you just can’t capture the nuances necessary for constructive discussion in the space of a few slides on Instagram.

When you try, you get a fiasco like this. These conversations require precision, compassion, and care. They shouldn’t be one-sided, and they certainly must not condone violence against civilians, no matter how their country came to be.

This has been a year of grief, in the world and at Harvard. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been irrevocably altered. Hundreds of our classmates carry with them sadnesses and fears that are in one sense new and in another quite old — the latest pangs in a long, complicated history of hurt.

Words can’t change that — only change in the conditions in the region can — but we can find a way to talk to each other about it that doesn’t compound the pain. The pro-Palestine coalition must find a way to engage over these issues with compassion. We all must.

The cause requires it. This campus requires it.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

Have a suggestion, question, or concern for The Crimson Editorial Board? Click here.