Yale Daily News

No, I think it's just that Yale students are too busy padding their resumes to be concerned with important global events with any sort of intensity.

You don't need to ignore Israeli apartheid in order to coexist peacefully. Those Jews who claim they are peaceful invited an Israeli army officer to teach them how to peacefully coexist with Palestinians (sic)! Simply force them in ghettos in Gaza and the West Bank like the Native Americans.

Then you don't know anything about most Yale students :)

I am not sure that being "relatively sedate" about things that are happening in Israel and Palestine is something I would brag about.

I think the point is not that Yale students are too lazy or busy to confront these issues, but that they confront global issues like this one with respect and maturity.

Saul, comments like yours reveal the knee-jerk response that ignorant people have about conflicts like these. The (retired) Israeli general in question happens to be one of the most left-wing people in terms of the conflict slotted to come to campus. But, people like you hear the word army and immediately imagine baby-killers and the like. You really need to learn about the issues before you make asinine comments like that one.

While the "calm" and "mature" attitude toward the situation would be comendable if the situation in Israel/Palenstine had begun yesterday, this situation has only gotten worse steadily over the last 60 years. There is little to be calm about — whomever you happen to sympathize with more. Yalies are simply too involved in their immediate circumstances, and all too happy to intellectualize a problem that is unlikely to affect them directly. Moreover, it seems that consdidered and reasonable debate have pretty much just enforced the status quo for years now. The facts are available for all -- again, on both sides — to see, and mostly people just see what they want to. Unless we actually want to start writing policy for senators or leading a revolution, we're nothing but spectators and arm-chair commentators.

I would actually argue that it is precisely the opposite. Fanaticism and violence on both sides is what propagates the conflict and forces a reliance on the status quo. The only progress made in the last 60 years has come when people came to the bargaining table with mature and unemotional attitudes like Sadaat in the 70s and Rabin in the 90s. It is exactly your anti-intellectual attitude (seeing talking as ineffective) that keeps the conflict alive. The writers of this article are absolutely right in pointing out what truly makes peace possible, and Yale's mature environment is clearly a place that fosters that mature attitude.

I do not think that any demonstration or talk that occurs on a college campus is of importance. The demonstrations and protests do nothing but perhaps make people feel as if they are important. There is no strong impetus to have dialouge on something that is not emminently relevant to our lives and that we can not truly affect as of now. College students shouldn't be concerned about a land dispute between two countries, which is all the conflict is about. The entire concept of being "intellectual" about the conflict is stupid. There is nothing to be intellectual about, except to learn from the conflict how to approach future methods of diplomacy, otherwise people are just wasting their time.

It is ridiculous to speak of co-existence between an occupier and the occupied. The Israelis should learn to respect the basic human rights of the Palestinians people and then we can speak of tolerance and co-existence and so on

One could just as easily argue that it ridiculous to speak of co-existence between people who target and indiscriminately kill civilians and those who are meticulous in attempting to navigate a difficult moral situation, even arresting their own citizens when they commit war crimes. What I just said is clearly just as one-sided as what you said, and just as false. The point is that the situation is incredibly nuanced and there is plenty of blame to go around. The second we place blame on only one side, we forego any possible future of coexistence.

While the Israelis lowered their flags to half-mast and declared a day of mourning on 9/11, the Palestinians danced in the streets of Jerusalem. They should have lost any global sympathy on that day, but somehow they are still being treated as innocent victims. Maybe if they practiced some Gandhi-like peaceful resistance and didn't elect terrorist groups to represent them, they would have their own country by now.

I think it's ludicrous to present Yale as a "model of coexistence" as if there are Israeli and Palestinian populations of relative equal size, and as if the Palestinian populated areas are manned by Israeli soldiers at all time of day. New Haven is not Jenin. There is no model to speak of. You are simply bragging bout the fact that it is quiet there. Let's hope this changes soon and we take the stand that must be taken to stop apartheid and promote real co-existence by tearing down the 'separation' barrier.