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I attended the Jerusalem Peacemakers event at LSE, in which Sheikh Bukhari and Eliyahu Mclean, two peacemakers from the Holy Land spoke.
At the finale of their talk, the speakers did not seem to present their audience with anything tangible to act upon. Dialogue was heavily emphasised...yet no concrete action was given to the audience to act upon following the talk. For students who were frustrated with the negative role their government or institutions had played in the conflict, and with the silence that followed the atrocities committed in Gaza, they were left unsatisfied yet again. Both speakers were against the student occupations and any form of boycotting Israel, as well as most forms of activism that had taken place on UK campuses in response to the Gaza onslaught. They seemed to ask for no action, no condemnation...nothing at all.
The work Sheikh Bukhari and Eliyahu Mclean do in terms of getting Palestinians and Jews together to talk, share traditions and have fun is certainly impressive and proves what we all know, that Jews and Muslims can live together peacefully. So now let’s concentrate on what needs to be solved: a comprehensible constructive approach and program to peace that addresses injustice and calls for change.
So how can we act creatively to address injustices and call for change on our campuses?