We were disappointed that Nabill Idrisi, Melissa Morales a--nd Lisa Llanos (Op-Ed, April 24) insulted the intelligence of the student senators and Daily readers by questioning the student senators who voted to defeat the divestment bill last week. Those who voted “no” probably have a deeper understanding of the Middle East than others, and knew that the bill represents flawed thinking that would not lead to the stated aims. Perhaps those who abstained simply understood enough to know that the bill contained some half-truths, and excluded much relevant context relating to the situation, and we applaud their abstention votes on that basis.

What is even more shocking, and disturbing, however, is the authors’ reference to the 25-year long struggle to secure divestment from South Africa. There are two disturbing problems with this:

First, Israel is not South Africa. The Apartheid South African regime had no desire or motivation to change its political structure before international pressure was applied. By stark contrast, Israelis themselves recently expressed their willingness to make painful concessions for peace with the Palestinians. In the last election, current Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was voted into office on a platform of withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank. Sadly, the Gaza withdrawal was met by rockets that were launched from Gaza into civilian areas in Israel, and the Palestinians elected a government that does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and is led by an organization that is internationally recognized as a terrorist organization. We hope that moderate Palestinians will receive the support they need to chart a different course for the future.

Second, and more importantly, we are hopeful that 25 years from now this conversation will be a distant memory as it is our hope that newly restarted negotiation efforts will result in a thriving and secure Palestinian state alongside a thriving and secure state of Israel long before then. And, what a disgrace it would be if we as a campus community were to squander our precious time and energy for 25 more years talking about a one-sided divestment campaign, rather than use that time and energy to support productive efforts for peace in the region!

This past October, the Jewish Students Association and the Stanford Israel Alliance were pleased that the Coalition for Justice in the Middle East joined with them to cosponsor an event that brought representatives from OneVoice, a group that unites Palestinians and Israelis who are working together towards peace in the region. We are thrilled that this on-campus partnership was successful and that these groups came together for this program, but we were disappointed with the low turnout from the segment of the campus community that talks about wanting peace for the Palestinians, but spends most of their energy solely attacking Israel.

Did you know that this September, hundreds of thousands of youth activists in Palestine and Israel will be mobilizing their communities to support a two state solution? Did you know that there exist organizations such as Ishmael and Isaac that promote collaborative productive projects between the American Arab and American Jewish community to help promote peace between Palestinians and Israelis?

How might the Stanford community model itself after these efforts, and contribute to these efforts? How can we turn down the volume on unproductive efforts that one-sidedly vilify Israel and consume so much of the precious time and energy of Stanford students? How can we redirect that time and energy towards mutual projects that actually might make a positive difference? Perhaps we can have a Town Hall on that?

Carrie Mlynarczyk ‘09 and Mark Donig ‘09 are Stanford Israel Alliance Co-Presidents.