{"id":361,"date":"2025-03-19T17:49:01","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T17:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/03\/19\/sit-down-to-discuss-israel-palestine-conflict-at-rackham\/"},"modified":"2025-03-19T17:49:04","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T17:49:04","slug":"sit-down-to-discuss-israel-palestine-conflict-at-rackham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/03\/19\/sit-down-to-discuss-israel-palestine-conflict-at-rackham\/","title":{"rendered":"Sit down to discuss Israel-Palestine conflict\u00a0at Rackham"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>About 400 people <a href=\"https:\/\/events.umich.edu\/event\/133265\">gathered<\/a> in Rackham Auditorium Monday evening to listen to CNN host <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanjones.net\/\">Van Jones<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fdd.org\/team\/hussain-abdul-hussain\/\">Hussain Abdul-Hussain<\/a>, research fellow at the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fdd.org\/\"> Foundation for Defense of Democracies<\/a>, discuss the historical conflict between Israel and Palestine. The talk was presented by University of Michigan student organization<a href=\"https:\/\/maizepages.umich.edu\/organization\/fog\"> Facts on the Ground<\/a>, a group dedicated to creating dialogue on campus surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict. The group was specifically formed in opposition to the language in <a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1-OSRsWhCc1lt6_hEnaNHN7LFpebf-37I\/view\">AR 13-025<\/a>, a CSG ballot proposal that was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/news\/umich-cancels-voting-on-ballot-proposals-about-israel-hamas-war\/\">canceled<\/a> by University administration.<\/p>\n<p>Jones began the conversation by asking Abdul-Hussain about recent attempts to settle the conflict through policy at Washington, D.C.. Abdul-Hussain said he believes the U.S. government is no longer non-partisan on issues of foreign policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been in D.C. for 22 years now; until 10 years ago foreign policy was non-partisan,\u201d Abdul-Hussain said. \u201cBoth parties agreed on foreign policy. Recently, it has become very partisan and sometimes I think they do things for spite, regardless of what\u2019s right and what\u2019s wrong. People like me who focus on foreign policy try to always say what\u2019s right and what\u2019s wrong, regardless of party.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Abdul-Hussain told Jones he believes both sides need to start from scratch in order to implement a solution that is beneficial for both sides of the conflict, emphasizing the Palestinian\u2019s role in this effort.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201dIt starts with hitting the reset button on both sides, but mainly on the Palestinian side,\u201d Abdul-Hussain said. \u201cWe have a set of people over here, and another bunch of people over there \u2014 what can we do for these two sets of people to live in dignity and peace for everyone?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In reference to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-middle-east-54116567\">historically shifting borders<\/a> between Israel and Palestine over time, Jones added that borders are constantly changing throughout history.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll borders are the result of politics and war,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like God drew all of these countries and everybody has sort of always been all of these countries \u2026 In fact, here in the United States, California \u2014 where I am raising a family \u2014\u00a0 used to be Mexico. Texas used to be Mexico; all of that used to be Mexico and now as a result of politics and war it\u2019s now not.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Jones said social media algorithms can negatively contribute to political polarization and disinformation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnytime you\u2019re getting a narrative that has one side being all completely good and one side being all completely evil, you are getting disinformation,\u201d Jones said. \u201cAnd yet so many of the social media algorithms, once they figure out a student has a slight lean in one direction or the other, starts just pumping one-sided narratives into the heads of those students, and we have to be very careful of that.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Jones spoke to the crowd about student protests, which <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/israel-palestinian-campus-student-protests-war-19ed919ff6ff9573a8add4ec67e26181\">swept<\/a> the country last spring, including at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/news\/administration\/24-hours-at-the-umich-gaza-solidarity-encampment\/\">University<\/a>. He discussed a protest he witnessed at the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ucla.edu\/\"> University of California, Los Angeles<\/a>, where he was disappointed by some of the protesters\u2019 language.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou could not get them to say one bad word about Hamas, you could not get them to say one kind word about the victims of Oct. 7,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThey had a script that they were using. Once they figured out that you were sophisticated they would not talk to you. They would send over a couple people, especially Jewish students who would just parrot the (same) line.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In response to this statement, Abdul-Hussain said he believed there is a distinction between criticizing a country\u2019s government and denying its existence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can be opposed to the politics and the state and the government of Israel all you want and no one will come after you,\u201d Hussain said. \u201cYou cannot be opposed to the existence of the state of Israel, and that is the difference.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with The Daily, Jones said he believed student protests are important, but the end goal should be to engage in constructive dialogue.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cEveryone wants to fight; nobody wants to talk,\u201d Jones said. \u201cA part of making change is the fight, but a part of change is also diplomatic dialogue. Student protest is important, but it should be designed to lead to a constructive outcome \u2014 not to delegitimize and demolish the other side. That doesn\u2019t make democracy stronger, it makes society weaker.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>LSA senior Daniella Ludmir, director of events for FOG, concluded the event by speaking about the importance of continuing to engage in education and conversation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe real impact comes from what we do next, whether it\u2019s continuing to educate ourselves, engaging in thoughtful conversations or challenging narratives that divide rather than unite us,\u201d Jones said. \u201cWe all have a role to play. We cannot let hate, division and disinformation drive out respect, peace and truth. True peace isn\u2019t just about avoiding conflict. It\u2019s about having open conversations and working towards a shared vision for a better future. Let tonight be the start of that journey.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>Daily Staff Reporter Caroline Wroldsen can be reached at cwrold@umich.edu<\/em><\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About 400 people gathered in Rackham Auditorium Monday evening to listen to CNN host Van Jones and Hussain Abdul-Hussain, research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, discuss the historical conflict between Israel and Palestine. The talk was presented by University of Michigan student organization Facts on the Ground, a group dedicated to creating [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[302,283,301,303,300],"class_list":["post-361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-conflictat","tag-discuss","tag-israelpalestine","tag-rackham","tag-sit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":363,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions\/363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}