Unless you’ve been living in a cave the past couple of years, you probably know Israel and Palestine have some conflicts, to say the least. In January of 2009 both countries were engaged in what is now being called the 22-day Gaza War.

According to medics, Palestine faced a loss of 1,205 people with an additional 5,300 wounded. Israel, on the other hand, faced a loss of 13 with almost a dozen wounded. I could easily go into a biased rant on how those numbers depict an uneven and poor media representation of the conflict, but that will be saved for another piece. The current debate and topic of choice revolves around what happened with Israel and how engaged students should be.

You’d think on a campus as large as Syracuse University students would know a little something about global affairs. If not that, they’d know at least a little something about the UN Goldstone report and how Israel could possibly face persecution at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes against Palestine.

Bing! Did that ring a bell? Let me catch you up to speed.

Israel is facing possible persecution for ‘reckless and indiscriminate’ shelling of Palestinian territory. Israel recently admitted its wrongdoing in the 22-day war, but it’s a little too late. If Israel is allowed to commit such war crimes without accountability, what do you think that says about the nation or the supportive U.S.

There needs to be a truce that allows for all views to be represented in a neutral and unforced setting. This is definitely not the U.N. With that said, the issue now boils down to what will happen next. Will the U.S. come to Israel’s aid, or will it let the sovereign nation tackle this on its own? I think we all know the answer to that.

As you can tell this political issue really struck a soft spot in my heart so I wanted to know who else was affected by this news. I knew many students in the international relations and corresponding departments would have much to say so I decided to step out of the political box and ask around elsewhere.

I decided to question a couple of students in non-political departments about what they thought about Israel. Not surprisingly, many didn’t have a clue as to what I was talking about. So I posed a new question: Are students aware of global affairs on SU campus?

‘A lot of people that come here don’t have any perspective on culture, so naturally they don’t care,’ said senior biochemistry and philosophy major Jay Wilson.

Lucia Schepps, a sophomore in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, felt that knowledge of global affairs ‘depends on the student’s program of studies, and a lot of people aren’t forced to know.’ Obviously I gathered more information, but these two quotes summed up what most of my interviewees thought.

Israel’s persecution and U.S. involvement aside, the real problem is the degree of student involvement in global affairs. If we are to truly care how this country operates, we must begin to care about other nations as well. We all live in a global society that is interconnected and intertwined in multiple affairs that affect all of us. Situations like Israel and Palestine’s only begin to scratch the surface of how other nations influence policies and bureaucratic institutions domestically. If we are to take charge and, as President Obama says, ‘create change’ we need to secure more engagement of the student body in global affairs.

John Sumpter is a junior international relations and Middle Eastern studies major. His column appears weekly and he can be reached at jfsumpte@syr.edu.

Published on February 2, 2010 at 12:00 pm