Columbia Goes the Dartmouth Route: UCLA Needs to Follow

As blog readers will know, when tensions arose on various campuses due to the current Israel-Gaza War, Dartmouth was an early pioneer in creating educational dialogues as an alternative to the kinds of disruptions that occurred elsewhere.

We also noted an example of that approach at the UCLA med school.* 

Columbia University has now followed the dialogue example. From the Daily Spectator:

The School of International and Public Affairs’s Institute for Global Politics hosted “What’s Next for the Middle East?” on Friday [Jan. 26], a conversation on the future of diplomacy and peace negotiations in the Israel-Hamas war.

The event was part of the Dialogue Across Difference series, an initiative announced on Dec. 20 as part of University President Minouche Shafik’s efforts to cultivate a “culture of civility and empathy” on campus amid the Israel-Hamas war. Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Secretary of State and professor of international and public affairs, delivered the event’s opening remarks.

“As a new Universitywide initiative, this series provides our community with a vital forum to come together, hold difficult yet meaningful conversations, and model civil discourse for our students and ourselves,” Clinton said.

Ghaith al-Omari, former executive director of the American Task Force on Palestine and senior fellow at the Washington Institute, and Dennis Ross, former U.S. director of policy planning and distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute, discussed possible avenues toward peace in the Middle East.

The event, which took place on the 15th floor of the International Affairs Building, was moderated by Laura Secor, an international editor at the Atlantic.

Both al-Omari and Ross have direct experience in peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiating parties. Al-Omari was a member of the Palestinian negotiating team during the 1999-2001 peace negotiations, including the 2000 Camp David Summit. During both the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations, Ross helped broker peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiating parties, and was appointed Clinton’s Middle East envoy in 1993.

...Following a 40-minute long discussion between the former diplomats and Secor, the conversation opened to the audience for a Q&A...

Full story at https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/01/28/sipas-institute-for-global-politics-hosts-conversation-on-diplomacy-amid-israel-hamas-war/.

You can see the dialogue at:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmNShwoWlA8. Alternative:

https://ia801406.us.archive.org/35/items/a-laugh-a-tear-a-mitzvah/What%27s%20Next%20for%20the%20Middle%20East_.mp4.

UCLA needs to get its own version of such dialogues on the road, and not just confined to the med school.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/12/uclas-med-school-has-dartmouth.html.