Six months into the conflict in Gaza and Israel, I cannot help but feel that efforts from the College community to do good 5,500 miles away have primarily caused harm on our own campus. I have seen far too many of my peers at the College post antisemitic tropes and speech on social media. Emails I have sent to College administrators highlighting the troubling experiences of Jewish students on campus have gone unanswered. I was horrified, but not surprised, when posters in Paresky calling for the release of Israeli hostages were vandalized with messages justifying the mass murder, rape, and kidnapping of these civilians last December and when similar posters were torn down last week. 

Since the Oct. 7 attack on Israeli civilians, there has been a previously unprecedented amount of conversation at the College about Israel, Palestine, and the path towards peace in the Middle East. As someone who has long been critical of the lack of open dialogue about Israel at the College, I view this as a positive development. I am proud of the College for its attempts to foster these conversations by offering classes like PSCI 426: “The Arab-Israeli Conflict” and hosting roundtable discussions about the Israel-Hamas war. 

However, this wave of dialogue has been brought forth with a simultaneous and concerning student-driven ethos that this situation is not complex — such as Students for Justice in Palestine’s statement that this war is not a conflict; that there is not space for multiple perspectives on this crisis — and that students must know exactly where they stand. As students, what better action could we take than to admit where we lack knowledge and strive to learn more? Should we not support each other on this journey? 

I find it deeply alarming that my peers do not allow our community to learn together and respectfully challenge ideas we may disagree with, instead taking actions like shouting down speakers and forcing the closure of communal learning spaces. In an op-ed published in the Record last week, Hannah Bae ’24 justified these actions, claiming that to criticize this form of protest is to “neglect the necessity for disruption in order to overturn existing power differentials … in spaces of discourse.” I disagree. Each of the roundtables featured a lengthy question-and-answer section during which dissenters had the opportunity to respectfully register their disagreement in conversation with the speakers. This would have been sufficient and, I would argue, more effective. A Williams education encourages us to be critical thinkers and to take the opportunities provided to us to have actual conversations with  — not just shout over — those we disagree with. Using the heckler’s veto to protest the roundtable was a cowardly way to prevent other members of this community from forming their own opinions about what is happening in the Middle East.

I neither discredit the role of protest nor the power of our voices to advocate changemaking at the College and beyond. But I must ask: What productive action for the Palestinian cause is made from putting up posters that say “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” in spaces like Paresky  Center and Goodrich Hall? Will an encampment on Sawyer Quad actually address the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, or will it merely allow those participating to pat themselves on the back for doing something that garners attention? How can we better achieve our social justice goals without causing harm to the community that surrounds us? 

Though they may have started in good faith, my belief is that the encampments occurring on college campuses are not, in fact, actually helping Gazans. Think about the conversations and newspaper headlines we are seeing right now: Our focus has been redirected from Israel and Gaza in favor of coverage of encampments and arrests. 

What’s more, the encampment movement as a whole has rapidly entered a new, toxic dimension. There was the Columbia student who was recorded saying “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” There are students at colleges across the country currently calling to “globalize the Intifada,” which directly advocates for violence targeting Israeli civilians and Jews globally. The list goes on.

In the name of divestment, protests have transitioned into vandalism, violence, chaos, and complicity in, if not direct initiation of, antisemitic behavior and chants. I write this piece from my semester abroad at the University of Sydney, where encamping protestors have blocked access to academic spaces and vandalized the University’s most historic buildings. In order to reach my classes, I have to walk past recently-painted swastika graffiti. 

And then, there is the question: Is divestment really an effective financial strategy? It’s not clear. While divestment might be a moral victory for protesters, in practice, it has little impact on corporate behavior. What the ongoing movement is much more likely to do is further fracture our campus community — one that is already fragile from incidents like the papering of newspapers resembling bloody handprints at the Record office in the fall and roundtable speakers being shouted down. Over and over again, I have had conversations with friends at the College about how scared, isolated, and unsupported we have felt on campus. Violence and extremism has not reached our campus the way it has other colleges. Let us not follow their example in ways that will harm our College community.

Lastly, it seems nearsighted to focus so intensely on Williams’ divestment and not think about the financial impact of the individual. If you call for Williams to divest, first ask yourself: what about your personal financial investments? Have you asked your parents if they have money in their 401(k) and 403(b) plans that are invested into weapons manufacturing? Do you own US Treasury bonds, and are you willing to sell them, since the U.S. government sends aid to Israel?

There are a plethora of ways we can address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and advocate an end to this war that don’t involve fragmenting our campus community. Donate to relief programs for Gazans. Challenge yourself to learn more about the history of this conflict. 2024 is an election year: Use your vote to tell your congresspeople what changes you want to see. A supportive community is essential for successful activism; all of these actions become much more difficult when efforts like the current tactics further fracture the College community. In the Purple Valley and beyond, let us work to build an environment that better supports open and honest conversations to share and form opinions freely. We can all do more in our advocacy, and we can all do more for our community.

Rachel Schmidt ’25 is a math major and public health concentrator from Schenectady, N.Y.