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Disclaimer: This article includes non-graphic descriptions of rape.
Palestine and the University’s entitlement: A dismissal of suffering
I knew I reeked of bonfire smoke, but that didn’t matter. A vigil for the recently departed Marcellus Williams, a Black Muslim man who had been executed by the state for a crime he did not commit, was being held. The street lights illuminated the path forward, and luckily I was only a few minutes late. I joined my community in mourning over the shimmering wet bricks of the Diag, weighed down by an air of frustration.
How did his execution pass, despite nation-wide objections, despite the shoddy evidence, despite all those who cried out that this may be an innocent man that is being sentenced to death? My eyes would traverse through the familiar faces in the crowd, while occasionally glancing down at the still shimmering floor.
The somber mood however, was sullied by two men sitting on the stairs of the Hatcher Graduate Library watching the vigil, laughing. As speakers went up to emphasize the degree of Islamophobia and racism required to allow Williams’ execution to pass, they gleefully chowed down on their two full boxes of pizza. They chatted throughout and remained until the vigil came to a close. The two men took delight in showing their complete disregard for the man’s life and our sentiments.
After the vigil, I waved my goodbyes and began heading home. As I was walking back, I happened to overhear a group of students. Their conversations were equally dismissive, as they mocked pro-Palestinian students who were doxxed for protesting. Lightly paraphrasing, one said, “How can you complain about doxxing? Just don’t show up!” Their codename for pro-Palestinian students was a bit comical: “The pro-P Crowd.”
That night lodged a question in my mind: How was it possible to so easily dismiss someone’s suffering, and their expression of that suffering? And how was it possible to not only dismiss it, but to mock it all as well?
I have a friend who has been absolutely obsessed with Fyodor Dostoevsky since high school. She started with “Crime and Punishment”and finished at “The Brothers Karamazov.” I had always been especially hesitant to read Dostoevsky’s books due to their intimidating length. But my friend offered me a solution. She suggested I read the excerpt “Rebellion” from “The Brothers Karamazov,” often regarded as his best work. I was surprised by her absolute confidence that this excerpt, which totaled no more than 12 pages, would convince me to read this 823-page book.
To set the stage for the excerpt, she provided me with some context. There are two brothers who have long been separated, one a devout Christian monk, Alyosha; and the other is an intellectual atheist, Ivan. The two, once reunited, wish to get reacquainted. Naturally, they begin discussing questions of the existence of God. One might expect Ivan to be a cynic, and although sometimes appearing disturbed, he is fully lucid. Ivan is unable to accept the world as it is, and although he would like to believe in God, is unable to due to the terms God had set for achieving “harmony.”
Before establishing his argument as to why he rejects God’s terms, Ivan haphazardly says to Alyosha, “But another man will never be able to know the degree of my suffering, because he is another and not me, and besides, a man is rarely willing to acknowledge someone else as a sufferer (as if it were a kind of distinction). And why won’t he acknowledge it, do you think? Because I, for example, have a bad smell, or a stupid face, or once stepped on his foot.”
I found myself returning to this line time and time again. The examples he provides as to why someone would dismiss his suffering, “a bad smell, or a stupid face,” are reminiscent of the idea: “Morals have an aesthetic criteria.”
But the choice of the example, “or once stepped on his foot”, resonated with me heavily. The act of stepping on one’s shoe is very often unintentional. It’s a true and honest mistake, but it could be a reason as to why someone would dismiss your intrinsic suffering. “Existence precedes essence;” the waiter that serves you the wrong order is at the end of the day a mother or father, or a son or a daughter, trying to provide for their family.
There’s also the possibility that “the stepping on one’s shoe” could very well be intentional. Though, I’d like to think this sin of intentionally “stepping on one’s shoe” is inconsequential compared to the sin of dismissing the assailant’s suffering. In the context of our campus, whose suffering is routinely dismissed? And who decides that they must reprehend those who suffer just for “stepping on their shoe?”
Now, more than 40,000 Palestinians, of which at least 16,000 children 11,000 women have been killed and 95,000 wounded in Israel’s genocide on Gaza. A recent study done by Lancet states that even if a ceasefire were to occur as of July 2024, the time of the study being written, Gaza’s death toll could exceed 186,000, which “would translate to 7.9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip.”
It is thus no surprise to see Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) and TAHRIR Coalition’s mounting pressure on the University to divest from Israel. The most recent and significant example includes the “die-in” demonstration at Festifall. The University’s response to the protest was to sic U-M U-M Division of Public Safety and Security (DPSS) on protesters and arrest those who were technically “not students,” though the University’s statement failed to acknowledge that three out of the four arrested were strongly affiliated to the University, two being alumni, one the child of an employee.
The response serves as a clear discouragement of any pro-Palestinian action. It sets a precedent in the University, that if you are “impolitely” against the genocide of now at least 40,000 Palestinians, including 16,000 children, that you will be punished more severely than those who “politely” gloat over the genocide of Palestinians.
Returning to “The Brothers Karamazov’s” “Rebellion,” Ivan begins his argument. What does this intellectual atheist have to say to a Christian monk? In order to better make clear his argument, Ivan focuses not on the suffering of mankind as a whole, but the suffering of children. Children are innocent and are incapable of transgressing, and any suffering they endure is “incomprehensible.” What follows are tragic, tear-jerking, enraging accounts of abuse of children. “Indeed, people speak sometimes about the ‘beastly’ cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no beast could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel,” Ivan says.
Yet, nothing is artful about the torture Israel employs against its captives. Testimonies continue to be released of Palestinian prisoners being tortured and raped, and we are meant to remain indifferent. One released prisoner recounts, “(interrogators) made me sit on something like a hot metal stick and it felt like fire.” Meanwhile, Israeli officials contemplate if this is a justified method of torture. Pictures of IDF soldiers wearing or playing with Palestinian women’s underwear continue to surface. There are those who desecrate bodies, and those who are more time efficient and bulldoze cemeteries. All of these actions show a lack of care towards Palestinian civilian life, and such casualties seem to not matter.
To honor Ivan’s argument, we will also focus on the children, though it narrows our own argument as he had acknowledged. The name “Hind Rajab” falls on mourning ears. Hind was a 6-year old Palestinian girl girl who was killed by Israeli militants on Jan. 29, 2024 while attempting to relocate to a safe zone via car with her family. Likely believing they had the right over life and death, they fired 335 bullets into the car. The tank was 13-23 meters away, making it an impossibility for the militant to not be aware of the presence of two children in the car: Hind, and her departed cousin.
Some of her last moments were recorded, as she was on call with a member of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. Hind pleads with the woman to stay on the line. “When someone comes, you can hang up the phone, okay?” as if she felt she was a bother to the woman who could be heard barely containing her tears. “My darling, if it were in my power, I would come to you.”
There was no one else to turn to besides God, and so the woman urged her to recite verses from the Quran alongside her, “In the Name of Allah — the Most Compassionate, Most Merciful.” Hind recites it back.
“All praise is for Allah — Lord of all worlds,” Hind interrupts the recitation, pleading again, “Please get me out of here.”
While supporters of Israel routinely tout how the country remains the “only democracy in the Middle East,” Palestinian children have regularly faced violent interrogations by the IDF, some conducted in Hebrew (a language they do not understand), all without the presence of their guardians. While Israeli officials attempt to reassure us that the IDF “is the most moral army in the world,” we continue to see camps being razed to hell, with decapitated children being the net result.
“It’s precisely the defenselessness of these creatures (children) that tempts the torturers, the angelic truthfulness of the child, who has nowhere to turn and no one to turn to — that is what inflames the vile blood of the torturer,” Ivan says.
At the campus “die-in”, protesters held signs displaying pictures of martyrs, including those before Oct. 7th. Throughout the protest, organizers read the names of martyrs, no doubt also naming Hind Rajab. Though the way some passing students were laughing and jeering, you would think it was a comedy routine.
A couple months ago, University regent Sarah Hubbard was spotted at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). SAFE mobilized immediately to protest and to make her aware of their demands. Her response was to record, wave and laugh at the protesters. In retaliation to her mockery, SAFE protested at her residence. Her reaction was then even more egregious, complaining about how it was disrespectful and disruptive and taking to X (formerly known as twitter) to mock protesters’ efforts. She, of course, did not take the time to apologize for her unruly cackle, which was immeasurably more inconsiderate and disrespectful; a dismissal of real human suffering. Within the administration and some of the student body, there appears to be a belief that their lack of acknowledgment can somehow stifle our collective suffering. No better proof exists than the removal of the encampment under the guise of “safety concerns.”
Imagine you have family in Gaza, and they are dying by the tens to hundreds, and you are a student at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor fighting for divestment, the only tangible difference you can make in saving their lives. And then, not only do students on your campus mock you and your efforts, but the administration itself does as well. All while being aware of the millions of dollars being invested into companies that profit off the genocide of Palestinians.
The voices of our suffering cannot be stifled. Israel can complete its mission of ethnic cleansing, whatever the cost may be, in order to attain its version of “harmony;” Ivan would ask, “But what of the children?” A ceasefire will occur, Gaza will rebuild, Palestinians will return to their homeland and those complicit in genocide will be punished. Ivan would still ask, “But what of the children?” He would then continue, “What do I care if they are avenged?”
It was not too long ago when the University revoked the MLK Spirit Award from Palestinian American student Salma Hamamy, former president of SAFE. The reason speculated was a statement on her Instagram story: “Until my last breath I will utter death to every single individual who supports the Zionist state. Death and more. Death and worse.” But what the University intentionally disregards, as Salma Hamamy mentions in her open letter to the University, is that the statement captioned undeniable video evidence of civilian targeting by IDF soldiers. The University is more outraged by a statement of death to those who support the targeted extermination of innocent civilians than the immoral crime itself.
Hamamy and other Palestinian and now Lebanese students on campus who have lost ten to hundreds of family members over the course of this “war” have the right to hate the entity responsible. And what else is expected? For them to be indifferent to the mass murder of their family and their people? For them to harbor tolerance to the perpetrators and their sympathizers, as well as those who remain indifferent? In an ideal world, we may expect the victim to forgive the perpetrator’s dismissal of humanity. But then, “Where is the harmony?” Ivan would ask. The answer is clear: No one has the right to forgive the torment a child has been subjected to.
“I do not, finally, want the mother to embrace the tormentor who let his dogs tear her son to pieces! She dare not forgive him! Let her forgive him for herself, if she wants to, let her forgive the tormentor her immeasurable maternal suffering; but she has no right to forgive the suffering of her child who was torn to pieces, she dare not forgive the tormentor, even if the child himself were to forgive him! And if that is so, if they dare not forgive, then where is the harmony? Is there in the whole world a being who could and would have the right to forgive?” Ivan proclaims. The dismissal of the value of human life is an unforgivable transgression; a crime that more than warrants the efforts of student protestors, and all protesters worldwide.
However “harmony” will look, the price will have been too high. For, as Ivan had then later perfectly cried, “It’s not worth one little tear of even that one tormented child who beat her chest with her little fist and prayed to ‘dear God’ in a stinking outhouse with her unredeemed tears!” Here, we reach the crux of Ivan’s argument.
“Unredeemed tears” leads to Ivan, despite not denying God, to “most respectfully return him the ticket.” The suffering of humanity, and more specifically of our innocent children, is too large of a price for eternal “harmony.” Ivan, in other words, rejects God’s terms for our existence. Alyosha is visibly distraught, and he himself admits he could not have accepted a world built on the “unjustified blood of a tortured child,” if not for Christ’s crucifixion.
Why do the same unredeemed tears, which lead to profound ruminations, mean absolutely nothing for some of our peers on campus? Why does it not lead to any hesitation on the administration’s part to abruptly shut down student protests? Why is it so difficult to acknowledge the unredeemed tears of that one tormented girl, and the thousands like her. Still, how is it so easy to dismiss it all?
It’s all absurd. University President Santa Ono and the regents, as well as our student body, may be able to accept this “harmony.” It will be years from now before they will attempt to absolve their crimes. That’s fine, for her tears will remain unredeemed. We too, despite our hesitation, will keep hold of our tickets; but at the very least, we will not look away from her forever unredeemable tears.
MiC Columnist Ahmed Elkhatib can be reached at aelkhat@umich.edu.
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