Debate Over Middle East Panel Heats Up At UMD
Former Israeli politician Einat Wilf and Egyptian writer Dalia Ziada are scheduled to speak at a discussion hosted by the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business this Sunday, but there’s a large part of this university’s community that is anything but thrilled.
950 community members are urging the business school to cancel this panel discussion, which is set to dive into the history of political negotiations in the Middle East as well as highlight business applications for disputing negotiations in the Middle East.
‘RACIST AND DEHUMANISING’
Students for Justice in Palestine are leading this pushback with a written campaign, arguing the panel would “spew racist ideologies” and harm students supporting Palestine, as well as the Muslim and Arab communities on campus.
In an Instagram post on February 26th, the students in this group stated “Although the two invited speakers have different faith and ethnic backgrounds, they share the same pro-Israel sentiments which are racist and dehumanizing especially towards Palestinian and Muslim students.”
The discussion is organized by professor Rellie Derfler-Rozin and Jacqueline Manger, the Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets’ managing director,.
Derfler-Rozin and Manger mentioned to The Diamondback, “We want all viewpoints to be heard. We anticipate that [attendees] will bring challenging questions that open opportunities for an empathetic but fact-based discussion.”
SOME WANT DIALOGUE, SOME DON’T
Palestinian-American student Bilal Odeh finds future speaker Wilf’s ideas to be “very racist” and offensive to his family. He commented, “The fact the [business school] even allowed such people to be invited to the campus to speak is honestly shameful. There’s no room for racism like that.”
Meanwhile, the Jewish Student Union thinks this type of “healthy dialogue” should happen on campus.
Event organizers Derfler-Rozin and Manger assured that Sunday’s panel would not promote “the extremes” and encouraged respectful questions during the Q&A. The discussion promises to be lively.
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