A few weeks ago, Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P) protestors walked into the Radcliffe Camera just after it opened at 9 am. Giving those inside a minute to leave, they barricaded themselves inside and sat outside the windows on the lowermost floor of the Upper Reading room, occasionally shouting slogans and engaging with nearby supporters. By the end of the day, after a few encounters with the police, they were arrested and removed. Cherwell later discovered that only one of these protestors was an Oxford student.
Enough ink has already been shed on student reactions to the protest. There was an air of bemusement amongst many, particularly as the news came shortly after the announcement of the now-strained ceasefire deal in Gaza. Jokes about needing books from the RadCam, hoping they weren’t the ones placed on sills, were more common than the sounds of protest. It was the subject of curious interest, not emotional condemnation or support. The vibe was similar to that of a balloon with the air let out of it – there was something there, but it wasn’t doing much, limping along till it finally deflated in the evening.
By the next day, you could be forgiven for not knowing a protest had occurred at all. The Square was open, the RadCam (despite a few services being temporarily offline) was reopened, and life went on much as before. The ceasefire (with jumps and starts) continued, as did the suffering of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The University made no concessions to the protest’s demands, and their discontent went unanswered.
The online reaction, as it always is, was more bitter and vitriolic. You had supporters of Palestine vituperatively condemning anyone who expressed upset at the protests, whilst at the same time staunch supporters of Israel fired off barrages of bitter abuse to anyone marginally sympathetic to the protestors’ sentiments, or the plight of the Palestinian people. The “middle ground”, that broad range of acceptable opinion, has been hollowed out. I’m aware I’ll sound like an old fart arguing this, but strident rhetoric means nothing if it can’t accomplish results – and results are only brought about through conciliation and compromise. Not the total abdication of principles, but the creation of genuinely effective choices that endure. Ripping random idiots to bits online, while gratifying, serves no real purpose.
I want the ceasefire in Gaza to hold – that’s unquestionable. However ravenous your hatred for one side or the other, it facilitates the reunification of families on both sides of the border, either held hostage by Hamas or imprisoned by the Israeli government. Vitally, it provides a brief reprieve to the horrendous and inhumane violence meted out against the population of Gaza, who’ve endured the most appalling and barbarous suffering. The ceasefire should hold, and the latter stages set out by the former US administration followed – progress toward a permanent peace deal and reconstruction in Gaza. The West Bank ought to be respected as the rightful territory of the Palestinian Authority, free of illegal settlements, and the people of Israel must feel secure against international threats. I doubt a peaceful future can exist where Palestinians are denied a state of their own, whilst either party is led by the forces of terror or narrow-minded hate.
But the conduct of both forces in this conflict has been widely recognised as deplorable, provoking and elongating the war. For a government that was able to cross half a continent in the 1970s to rescue hostages in Operation Entebbe without harming civilians, retribution against civilians for the actions of one group’s evil exceeds the proportional response Israel was entitled to under international law after October 7th. The Israeli government’s agreement with Trump’s plans to commit ethnic cleansing in the territory has been criticised as simply wrong – the Sinai is a desert. To push the Gazan population into it, it is argued, is to condemn them to even greater suffering. No other Arab nation wants to take these people who have long suffered under the rule of Hamas, and the recurrent threat of war.
As students, we don’t have the powers of policymakers, presidents, or prime ministers in this scenario. We cannot force the return of all the hostages, the dissolution of Hamas and similar groups, the end to the bombardment of civilians in Gaza, or illegal settlement in the West Bank. But we can ensure that individuals from both communities and similar backgrounds feel safe in Oxford, not persecuted for the inalienable fact of who they are, or where they happen to come from. As a student body, we can try, despite the emotions the horrors of this war provoke, to uphold decency towards our fellows, not out of some bland centrist appeal to ‘norms’ or ‘standards’. It should be out of a common acceptance of each student’s right to hold an opinion, regardless of how correct that might be. I don’t want to hector students into accepting and approving of views they find antithetical, but the debate on campus would be a great deal less toxic and repugnant if the right to hold a view could be recognised and appreciated.
Banging someone over the head with the righteousness and justice of your cause is unlikely to win converts – prolonged persuasion will.