How the Israel-Palestine Conflict is Affecting Kean University

By Tyra Watts | Published November 18, 2023

The current Israel-Palestine conflict dates back decades, and it is still ongoing today. Thousands of people have died, and it is unknown when it is going to end. The Israeli’s aggressive military campaign has led to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza that the world is condemning.

Kean President Lamont O. Repollet, Ed.D., in an email to the Kean community, expressed his prayers and support. He suggested that the community become educated and show support to anyone who is affected by what is going on.

“When we are inclusive of those from different backgrounds or religions, we build understanding instead of hate. We can start doing that here at home,” Repollet said in the email. “Please reach out to your friends or colleagues who have ties to Israel, Gaza, or the region and check on them. Don’t just let them talk; truly listen. You will almost certainly learn something that informs your own perspective.”

Shaquille Thomas, president of Kean’s Muslim Student Association, said that Dr. Repollet was smart not to choose a side.

“He was neutral. Not to name any particular university, but opposition to other schools who directly or automatically supported Israel, that kind of displaced a lot of Palestinian students on campus,” Thomas said. “He was very strategic…I think it was good what he said.”

Kean Political Science Professor Gilbert Kahn, Ph.D., who has researched the Israeli conflict and Gaza, called the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 barbaric.

“If Hamas has a problem, you don’t come into a country and slaughter men, women, children, elderly, babies…” Kahn said of the attack.

Meanwhile, Thomas said that the Israel-Palestine conflict is affecting the Muslim community in the area, especially the Muslims who have a basic knowledge of what has been happening in the past hundred years in Palestine.

Thomas said he knows people who are Palestinian and whose families are directly affected.

“Me, I don’t have any family in Palestine, but I know friends, but knowing what’s been happening on social media and seeing how the media, the Western media, skewed the narrative of what’s happening, it’s kind of hurtful,” Thomas said.

Thomas says seeing the conflict on social media has been pretty hard, so it has been very difficult for him to cope with what is happening. Despite this, Thomas says that his religion gives him hope and hopes that God will change the situation and that things get better.

Thomas said he was not surprised when he first heard the news about the conflict because he felt as though it had been happening throughout history, not just for Palestinians, and that when people are oppressed, they are going to lash out eventually.

According to Al Jazeera, the Israel and Palestine conflict goes back to November 2, 1917, when Britain’s then-foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, wrote a letter addressed to Lionel Walter Rothschild, a figurehead of the British Jewish community, that committed the British government to “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” and to facilitating “the achievement of this object.” 

Fast-forward to 1948, Zionist paramilitaries started a military operation to destroy Palestinian towns and villages to expand the borders of the Zionist state that was to be born, also known as Israel. Many Palestinian men, women, and children were killed during this operation, and on May 15, 1948, Israel announced its establishment.

By 1967, Israel occupied the rest of the Palestinian land, and since then, the land that was once Palestinian was taken over by Israel. 

In December 1987, the first Palestinian Intifada erupted in the Gaza Strip, and protests began with young Palestinians throwing stones at Israeli army tanks and soldiers. This incident led to the creation of the Hamas movement against the Israeli occupation. The Intifada ended with the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Despite the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the violence did not end there. Al Jazeera states that Israel has launched four military assaults on Gaza: 2008-09, 2012, 2014, and 2021.

On Oct. 7, Hamas attacked Israel by surprise and killed an estimated 1,200 men, women and children. Israel struck back with bombs and now a ground war that together so far has killed an estimated 10,000 Palestinians.

However, what surprised Thomas was that the Muslims were labeled as terrorists by the Western media immediately without looking into what had been happening, which he felt was not right.

“Every Muslim in their right mind would not support the killing of any innocent person, whether it be a Jew, Muslim, or Christian,” Thomas said. “ Our religion doesn’t teach us that, but we do believe that everyone has a right to defend themselves, Israel or Palestine; it doesn’t matter, and I think that the media kind of took that right away from the Palestinians because this conflict didn’t start October the 7th; this conflict has been going on for the past 75 years.”

What Thomas wants people to do about the conflict is to educate themselves on what’s happening so that people will not be biased, and from there, people can choose who they want to support.

When it comes to whether this conflict will end, Thomas states it probably will not end, but it could be suppressed.

“To say that it would end, I don’t know if it’s going to end because looking at things now, it’s a power struggle,” Thomas said. “The only way I could say it can end is if the Palestinians get their rights, they get the land they were supposed to get. It’s probably how it can end.”

Thomas’s overall thoughts on the conflict are that he just wants people to stop dying.

“By international law, it’s a crime. Everyone knows it, all the countries are seeing it,” Thomas said. 

Whether you support Israel or Palestine, thousands of innocent civilians are getting killed each day as this conflict goes on, and it is something that no person should ever go through.

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