Letter Regarding Government Panel

Dear Editors,  

The first time I wrote for Hill News was back in March 2004. It was an article on proposed cuts to the Higher Education Opportunity Program and the impact it would have on students on campus. I was encouraged to write about such issues by Government Professor Ansil Ramsey. Like generations of government majors, I, too, was enrolled in his “Introduction to Comparative Politics” course. In class, we would fiercely discuss and debate his co-authored book “The Good Society,” and it felt natural to critically engage with on-campus issues and concerns – not least in the interest of building a good society on campus.   

Yet, almost two decades later, I find myself once again writing to The Hill News, concerned about the tenor of the learning environment at St. Lawrence University, after the panel discussion titled “The International Relations of the Israel-Hamas War” organized by the government department on Dec. 4.   

As an Associate Professor at Roskilde University in Denmark, I often credit my education at St. Lawrence as being foundational to my teaching and research. The university’s insistence on a critical, interdisciplinary approach to the teaching and understanding of the most pressing issues and challenges in the world remains at the very core of my identity as an academic. Over the last few years, I have had the opportunity to revisit Canton and talk with current students about the value of the liberal arts education they are receiving in the North Country and how it prepares them to be changemakers in the real world. Yet, I was very disappointed to see that the above-mentioned panel doesn’t ostensibly reflect any of the academic, moral, or ethical values that make St. Lawrence a special place.   

Here, I am speaking as not just a concerned alum but also an experienced researcher on Israel-Palestine. I am the author of two books (one of which focuses on Hamas) and numerous journal articles on Israel-Palestine. I have conducted in-depth field research in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Israel. My research has also been featured, reviewed, and cited in major media outlets, including The Guardian, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, NPR and The London Review of Books. I’m currently a regular contributor to Al Jazeera English.    

On the basis of this experience and my commitments as a critical researcher, I view the framing of the Dec. 4 event as deeply problematic for several reasons. For one thing, the event seems to entirely erase Palestinians from the conversation. The term “Palestine” or “Palestinian” doesn’t even appear in any of the texts advertising the event. The panelists plan to speak about U.S.-Israel relations and about the role of regional powers as well as the European Union in the conflict. Yet, there is no mention of Palestine or the Palestinian perspective. Is the Palestinian perspective entirely unimportant to the St. Lawrence student body?    

In addition, the event is framed in a way that ignores fundamental contextual elements. Even the most elemental approach to the politics of Israel-Palestine requires a discussion of the 75-year history of the Palestinian national struggle, the nature and the structure of Israeli settler colonialism and occupation, the militancy of the settlement movement, and the 16-year Israeli siege of Gaza, a policy that, according to the UN, has rendered the coastal enclave unlivable.    

Then there is the conduct of the ongoing Israeli military campaign in Gaza that many experts have deemed to be genocidal. Surely, the issue of genocide deserves to be foregrounded in any discussion of the current violence. Additionally, we have witnessed a significant uptick in settler violence in the occupied West Bank that is all but tantamount to ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the area.    

Ignoring all of this only adds to the long history of anti-Palestinian racism and trivialization of violence, ethnic cleansing and genocide inflicted on racialized bodies. As a result, I worry the ‘good society’ is under stress on campus.   

I would like to end by adding that I still cherish St. Lawrence University as a place where I learned how to think critically about the tumultuous world in which we live. And I sincerely hope that the framing of the panel discussion is but a misstep in the university’s stellar record as an institution of higher learning. Nonetheless, I hope that in the future, the university will think more carefully about the framing of events like this forthcoming panel and the importance of providing students with a more comprehensive understanding of world events.   

Sincerely,   

Somdeep Sen ’07