Stephen R. Nagy's May 15 op-ed in The Japan Times about protests over the war in Gaza on Japanese university campuses captures our shared horror at the tragedy faced by both Israelis and Palestinians. However, we disagree with his criticism of student protesters’ supposed “lack (of) cognitive empathy” and “critical thinking.”
We are a current and former student of International Christian University (ICU) and have both studied under Nagy, and we are also part of the protest movement. We are not against Israel’s right to defend itself within the boundaries of humanitarian law or the existence of a country for Jewish people to live in.
What we are opposed to is the indiscriminate violence of the last nine months, violations of international law on all sides and, ultimately, the failure of our and other governments to uphold the rights of the Palestinian people over the past 76 years.
In his op-ed, Nagy notes the sobering fact that Israel faced the proportional equivalent of 15 9/11 attacks on Oct. 7. Using this same comparison, Palestinians have suffered losses akin to two 9/11s a day for 283 days — a total loss equivalent to 746 9/11s as of the time of writing — with no end in sight as strikes on schools, aid workers and nominally protected refugee camps continue.
We share Nagy’s call for cognitive empathy for Israeli suffering and the need for defense measures against the existential threat that manifested itself on Oct. 7. But our empathy does not prevent us from protesting against the continuation of attacks on Palestinian territory.
Nagy describes the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as one characterized by “starvation, unspoken health issues and conditions that no human should endure” — conditions that since Oct. 10, when Israel regained control of its territory, have been seen almost exclusively on the Palestinian side of the border.
Peace based on hatred?
Nagy cites a poster on ICU’s campus calling for the “Abolishment of Israel” and later raises the question of whether the field of peace studies has transformed into “hate studies.”
To acquire a deeper understanding of this issue, and whether anti-Israeli and antisemitic statements such as the one on the ICU poster are an anomaly in the broader protest movement, it is necessary to engage with students in a fair dialogue.
As an alumnus and writer, I (Farrah) have conducted over 20 interviews with student protesters and organizers, including Palestinian, Jewish and Japanese ones. When asked if demonstrations are based on or incite antisemitism, students have emphasized that the purpose of these events is to create a space for empathy and dialogue open to all.
Palestinian organizers like Weam Numan, a Tokyo Institute of Technology PhD student, empathize with the pain caused by antisemitism, recognizing the shared experiences of intimidation, stigmatization of one’s identity and the inability to feel safe in one's environment. She says that “labeling a legitimate cause for liberation antisemitic waters down the danger and bigotry Jewish people face, and abuses the Jews who refuse to allow murder and war crimes to be committed in their names.”
Criticism of a state and its actions must be separated from criticism of a community. While opposition to an exclusive national home for the Jewish people on contested lands is inconvenient and uncomfortable — and we personally often find it unhelpful — equating it inherently with hate speech and antisemitism, as many critics of the protests often do, is overly simplistic.
It also ignores the national aspirations of around 5.9 million Palestinian refugees, many of whose ancestors were forced from their homes in modern-day Israel in 1948 and who lack any right to return.
In essence, peace studies, in our view, have not descended into “hate” studies, but are being put into practice by increasing people’s awareness of human suffering, calling for compliance with international human rights norms and cultivating a supportive community to assist Palestinians and all those impacted by the conflict.
A more pertinent question would be: Why is the outcry over the unjust killing of civilians in Palestinian territories characterized as an “enraged” overreaction, to quote Nagy, while silence is perceived as intellectually grounded?
Hypocrisy or rationality?
Nagy also describes the protesters as “awkward, if not contradictory” for not speaking out as loudly against other human rights abuses across the world. He cites “the persecuted Rohingya in Myanmar, Uyghurs in China, Muslims in India, oppressed women in Taliban-run Afghanistan and... the invasion of Ukraine.” Unlike these cases, direct support from Western governments is what enables the continuation of the Gaza conflict, which Nagy acknowledges has fairly “become the symbol of Western hypocrisy for many.”
If speaking out for the Palestinian cause demonstrates that “these same protesters have little to say” about the human rights abuses Nagy cites, the implication seems to be that protesters should mobilize in the name of all the world’s injustices simultaneously — or not at all.
Instead, demonstrators must choose causes based on factors such as egregiousness, their personal connections to them and awareness of the facts. And at the root of our actions is a commitment to uphold human rights universally, rather than a desire to denounce some abuses while ignoring others. A student demonstrator from Waseda University talks of her experience with civil rights organizing prior to living in Japan, through which she learned about the “interconnected nature of our struggles.”
Jewish student organizers who have been pivotal to the campus protests in Japan such as Waseda University’s Hannah Breslau have also been involved in student movements in the past, going as far as the Black Lives Matter protests 10 years ago. Breslau views wider society as frequently misunderstanding student movements, which, they say, “are often infantilized, with many claiming that ‘the youth have no idea what they’re talking about.'"
However, driving our seemingly one-sided protests is not a “lopsidedness of student indignation,” as Nagy states, or a lack of empathy for either Israeli or Palestinian casualties and hostages. Rather, the protests are driven by our objection to the ongoing one-sided violence perpetrated by the Israeli government, which the International Court of Justice has found creates a risk of irreparable harm to Palestinians' right to protection against genocide.
As a former U.S. Army officer, I (Nathan) have been dismayed by the possible violations of the laws of armed conflict that I was trained in. I believe the killing of civilians and hostage-taking by Hamas on and since Oct. 7 are clear violations, for which the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor has rightfully sought arrest warrants.
The Israeli Defense Forces have also appeared to violate this body of law through the intentional killing of noncombatants and the failure to provide warnings before attacking protected objects such as ambulances and hospitals. The ICC prosecutor’s simultaneous application for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, based on the alleged use of starvation as a method of war, among other serious violations, is a testament to the appalling reality that protesters are witnessing every day.
We demand that Japan, the United States and other countries use their influence to broker a ceasefire, facilitate the immediate distribution of aid, ensure that the war does not expand and help create the conditions for justice and a sustainable long-term solution.
Collective responsibility
When asked about how people around them have reacted to demonstrations on and off campus, the student protesters we spoke to said that they were met with a range of responses, from curiosity and a sense of empowerment to silence, physical aggression, hostility and, most frequently, indifference.
Undeterred, they continue in their activism, determined to challenge any form of discouragement and contempt. A student organizer at Sophia University emphasized that understanding global crises such as the Palestinian struggle for liberation reveals our collective responsibility. Their commitment to learning and advocating for international issues highlights the protester’s belief in the ripple effect of their efforts in inspiring broader societal change.
The student posits that some may view what the demonstrators are doing as pointless — “Why protest against a school (Sophia University) that is neither directly responsible for nor capable of putting an end to (the violence)?” The student believes, however, that the protests “have the potential of inspiring a host of changes beyond the school and beyond Japan.
“It’s the fuel needed to ignite the flame. Every person — every voice — has power.”
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