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(05/01/13 11:26pm)
Jeannie Bartlett ’15
There were a number of things I wanted to add to my comments at the Student Divestment Panel that I didn’t get to, so I’ll add them here.
I’m surprised to feel the need for this first clarification: the shift off of reliance on fossil fuels is not just a nice goal to have, nor is it something society might forget about. I can see how here at Middlebury, where we feel fewer of the effects, it could be easy to feel that way. But climate change and fossil fuels extraction already impact the health, safety and prosperity of people around the world and their impacts will only increase with continued use. Seven years from now, when climate change has caused 75-250 million people in Africa alone to experience extreme water stress and halved yields for rain-fed agriculture, we’re not going to just forget about moving to renewable energy and reducing consumption. That water stress will make fossil fuels dramatically increase in price because of the intense water-needs of extraction and energy-generation. Climate change is going to become increasingly relevant, and renewable energy and efficiency are going to become increasingly logical and cost-effective.
Next, Ben Wiggins ’14 and Ryan Kim ’14 both expressed the need for undeniable proof that divestment will not hurt returns before they could support it. I agree that it would be unwise for the school to make rash investment decisions, but I don’t think that means we should wait for undeniable proof. If Germany had waited for undeniable proof of climate change, they wouldn’t have enacted climate legislation in 1995 and be generating 40 percent of their electricity from renewables today. No, they’d look more like we do in the U.S.: having refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, we continue to fail to pass climate legislation, we hand out $6.6 million per day in tax breaks to the five wealthiest fossil fuel companies and we generate two percent of our power from renewables. Sometimes waiting for undeniable proof means missing the boat.
Additionally, there is reasonable evidence that divestment will not carry a significant return penalty on the endowment. The Aperio study on the subject finds a 0.0101 percent increase in risk, with an associated 0.06 percent theoretical return penalty. But there’s also significant risk in staying invested in the fossil fuel industry. A study by HSBC shows that as much as 17 percent of the value of certain fossil fuel companies is at risk due to their valuation of reserves that will be “unburnable” when efficiency improvements and climate legislation are made. Studies by Mercer, the UN Environmental Program Financial Initiative and the Carbon Tracker Initiative among many others show a looming “carbon bubble.” I have seen no studies demonstrating that there would be a significant loss of returns associated with divestment, mostly just a sense of security in the status quo.
I went in and talked with Vice President for Finance and Treasurer Patrick Norton last week about what he would do if the College were to lose returns for any reason. As I expected, he was very clear about two things that would not be cut: financial aid and salaries and benefits for staff and faculty salaried less than $50,000 per year. Two places the College could cut back are in capital improvements, or in freezing salaries or reducing benefits very marginally for faculty and staff earning more than $50,000 a year. Obviously I hope and expect the school won’t need to make those cuts for any reason, divestment-related or otherwise. Nevertheless, those are cuts I find acceptable, and I take comfort in the dedicated protection of financial aid and lower-paid employees.
Finally, I want to highlight my hopes for the divestment movement. I hope Middlebury will announce its commitment to divestment, recognizing that the fulfillment of that commitment will take time, at the Board of Trustees meeting this May. I hope that schools and cities beyond the almost 18 already committed will be catalyzed by our decisiveness. The movement will spark conversations like the one Sunday night about our rights and responsibilities in this changing world. The media will continue to make that conversation national and global, reflecting mounting national pressure for climate change action. Individuals will become more aware of how their actions affect the global community. The media will stop citing the anti-clean energy, climate-denying messages of fossil fuel front groups, like the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation that received $1.6 and $2.5 million respectively from ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers over the last five years.
President Obama will reject the Keystone XL Pipeline. Congress will pass climate legislation because fossil fuels will no longer be allowed to spend more than $400,000 per day lobbying and they won’t be allowed to make large campaign contributions. Congress will redirect its subsidies from fossil fuels to renewable energies. Employment will expand as the growing renewables sector creates more jobs than the increasingly mechanized fossil fuels sector had been. Coal-fired power plants will close and asthma and cancer rates will stop climbing in their surrounding neighborhoods. We won’t raise the global temperature that second degree Celsius.
Obviously the divestment campaign is only one of many tactics in a many-sided approach to reaching those goals. Reducing personal consumption, educating yourself and others, protesting injustices, calling legislators, voting and so many other forms of engagement are crucial.
Of course climate change is only one of many critical issues. But it is a defining issue of our generation and our world, and I believe divestment is a novel and persuasive tactic that has the potential to catalyze a lot of the changes for good I want to see. Please be in touch to continue the conversation with me.
(05/01/13 11:23pm)
We wish to address serious factual inaccuracies in Zach Drennen ’13.5’s April 25 column “Middlebury Finds a New Pipeline to Protest.” First, a clarification of terms: Zach, you mislead readers by describing the product transported by this pipeline as “natural gas.” Conventionally drilled natural gas is not without its own problems, but fracked gas, which this pipeline will carry, poses even more serious concerns. There is a wealth of easily available scientific information about the especially destructive process of horizontal hydraulic fracturing, so we will dwell on it briefly here. You claim the “natural” gas that this pipeline will carry is safer and more environmentally friendly than oil. Fracked gas, however, is extracted by shooting 596 known chemicals — carcinogens included — into the ground. Companies that use fracking techniques are exempt from the Clean Air and Water Acts, meaning that the millions of gallons of toxic wastewater that they produce can flow back into water supplies unregulated. It is hypocritical for Vermont and for the College to support a pipeline that would enable an increase in fracking, since it contradicts both a statewide fracking moratorium and the College’s commitment to environmental sustainability.
Even setting aside the obvious short and long-term environmental impacts of the pipeline and concerns about the undemocratic nature of the Public Service Board process, your economic pro-pipeline argument is, plain and simply, false. According to the maps included in Vermont Gas’s petition to the Public Service Board, only two towns, Middlebury and Vergennes, are slated for gas distribution for home and business use. Even within these towns, Vermont Gas has not been forthcoming about how close residences and businesses must be to the pipeline in order to receive access and who would cover the considerable expense of connecting to it.
In addition, Vermont Gas’s purported cost savings for this limited number of potential customers is based on one report from November 2012 when gas prices were near historic post-2008 recession lows. A more recent copy of the same fuel price report indicated a 28 percent increase in gas prices since that time and a projected 40 percent increase within the next two years. Considering that residential distribution would not begin until at least 2017, it is difficult to believe that customers’ savings would be substantial, certainly not large enough to offset the $66.6 million that Vermont ratepayers will be responsible for contributing to the project. Indeed, some Vermonters are already experiencing undue economic burden because of the pipeline; residents of Monkton had to raise their property taxes in order to pay for legal representation, simply to get Vermont Gas to address basic safety concerns about installing the pipeline close to a high traffic road. If affected landowners want to petition for the pipeline not to pass through their farms, gardens and homes, they, too, will have to pay substantial legal fees in order advocate for themselves as stakeholders in the process.
The inaccuracies in your article make it clear that you have not spoken with community members, many of whom have done extensive research on this project. If you had attended even one hearing, town forum or community meeting, or if you had read the numerous op-eds in the Addison Independent, you would reconsider your claim that “the benefits of this project far and away exceed the costs.” As your opinion does not reflect those expressed by community members in public forums, we wonder which Vermont homeowners you think you are speaking for.
We wish also to dispel the notion that we are anti-pipeline just for the sake of being anti-something. We agree that inaction is not an option; Vermonters need access to cheaper energy, and we see the need for an energy transition as an opportunity to benefit the local economy. Instead of spending $66.6 million to fund a pipeline that will create an estimated 20 out-of-state jobs, we could demand that Vermont Gas — the leading provider of weatherization services in the state — invest a similar amount in weatherizing local homes and businesses, which would create hundreds of in-state jobs and provide guaranteed cost savings over the short and long terms.
Thank you for raising your concerns and giving us the opportunity to elaborate on our understanding of the situation, an understanding informed by our conversations with dozens of Addison County residents over the past six months. Their concern about the economy, the environment, their safety and their livelihoods has inspired us to urge the College to reverse its misguided position. For those who wish to learn more, we invite you to attend this Friday’s community pipeline opposition meeting at Ilsley Public Library at 7 p.m.
CAILEY CRON ’13.5 is from Franklin, Tenn. and ANNA SHIREMAN-GRABOWSKI ’15.5 is from Bear Lake, Michigan
(05/01/13 11:18pm)
1. It takes patience to live in Middlebury for four years. It’s also worth it.
2. The harder you try to get laid, the less you’ll get laid.
3. People who act like they’re better are afraid that they’re not.
4. Needing a big party to have a fun weekend will frequently disappoint.
5. Pretending to be someone you’re not prevents anyone from knowing the real you.
6. If you know a smart adult, ask questions. If you don’t, keep looking.
7. Different results require a different routine.
8. Spend time with the people you’ll remember.
9. Don’t forget to call home.
10. Learn as much as possible in and out of class.
GRANT NISHIOKA '13 is from Wayland, Mass.
(04/24/13 5:05pm)
We are a coalition of Middlebury College staff, faculty and students who stand in opposition to the Addison County Natural Gas project. The project will transport fracked gas from Alberta and continue Vermont and Middlebury College’s dependency on fossil fuels for the next half-century. We demand that Middlebury College meets our goals of carbon reduction through creating biomethane infrastructure separate from the Addison County Natural Gas project and by continuing to invest in conservation efforts.
Many Vermonters in communities along the route have been voicing their concerns about the impact of the construction on their property, their water supplies, the local ecology and the climate. We are in solidarity with these communities, as well as those affected by the damaging and irreversible effects of fracking at the point of extraction. This fossil fuel pipeline will impose on farmland, wetland and residential properties, and provide few economic benefits to those directly affected.
We believe that Middlebury College can stand together with Vermonters, united by a vision of an equitable and sustainable energy future achieved through a just transition that focuses on creating skilled long-term jobs through energy efficiency services and weatherization in order to reduce energy consumption overall.
As such, together we demand that Middlebury College publicly retract its statement of support from the Vermont Gas System’s filing to the Public Service Board and use its status as an intervener in the process to advocate for the interests of faculty, staff, students and administrators impacted by the short and long-term consequences of this project.
This letter was launched this week as a change.org petition and as of Tuesday morning had gathered almost 900 signatures from members of the campus community and beyond. If you want to know more about the process of fracking, there will be a screening of the movie “Gasland” in MBH 220 at 7:00 on the night of Thursday, April 25.
Middlebury staff, students and faculty against the fracked gas pipeline
(04/24/13 4:58pm)
Growing up in the 1990s, my understanding of evil was based mainly on Disney movies. The nemeses in those films all recognized that they were up to no good, yet pressed on anyway. It was as if they relished the opportunity to be wicked and would never consider turning back, and they kept this love for evil until the bitter end.
However, I now understand that this account of evil is largely fictional. This has been demonstrated by the abortion industry, specifically in the United States.
Abortion is indeed the single greatest evil that has ever occurred on American soil. It has produced over 50 million deaths since 1973. Yet those behind it do not see it as evil. Instead, they market abortion by calling it a health service, by employing the language of “choice” and “rights” and “women” and by taking offense at anyone who believes it should be abolished. Many of those participating in abortion or who otherwise support it, at the voting booth, for example, genuinely believe that they are doing something good for others.
Only when one examines what abortion actually is – only when one sees the pictures and videos of aborted children, of lives equal to yours and mine twisted, warped, sucked through a tube and lost – are they able to overcome the propaganda that acts as though those lives do not exist; the propaganda that calls this a “right.”
The circumstances surrounding abortion have given me insight into how evil grows and takes entire nations captive. Evil is at its most successful when its proponents passionately argue that such evil is actually good. Take the 20th century as an example. Leaders advocating for the worst atrocities of this period rose to power not because those who voted them in or supported them were necessarily evil, but because they came to believe that these atrocities were both appropriate and necessary, a fundamental good for their country and their people. They accepted the euphemisms that disguised the true nature of these mass killings. Likewise, those advancing abortion today whitewash the practice by calling it “healthcare” and a “choice.” And that is how over 50 million humans, voiceless and helpless to resist, have been killed in the United States since 1973. Once evil is legalized, it is difficult to stop.
Ultimately, the lies cannot continue forever, and evils reach their end. The terrors of the last century seem alien and distant to us, and we rightly wonder how anyone could have supported those actions. But given the history of abortion in the United States, we now know. The success of this particular evil and so many others is a matter of marketing. The worst evils succeed when they are called “rights” and “necessities,” and when the targets of those evils are dehumanized and seen as objects that can be slaughtered without guilt. Killing someone else becomes far easier when it is denied that they are a person.
My challenge to you, then, is to recognize the evil of abortion for what it is and to join me in speaking out against it. I can assure you that, soon enough, we as a country will indeed condemn abortion and our descendants will wonder how this evil could ever have happened. I want you to be on the right side of history. My plea is simple: support life.
KENNETH BURCHFIEL '13 is from McLean, Va.
(04/24/13 4:54pm)
The SGA campaign season is an exciting time for us as members of the current SGA Senate to reflect back on our year, engage with students on the issues that matter and offer competing solutions on how to make Middlebury a better place. We know first hand the power and importance of the SGA as a formal channel through which students can make their voices heard. Whether it is advocating for trainer access for non-varsity athletes or establishing a student liaison on endowment affairs, the SGA this year has been a body of robust debate and action, representing broad student interests and offering a forum of civil and healthy discussion on issues from the mundane to the most contentious.
In this year’s presidential campaign, three candidates from three different Middlebury classes offer a real choice to students for next year’s SGA leadership. Although all three are smart and articulate leaders with SGA experience, we believe that current Cook Commons Senator Rachel Liddell is the best candidate for the job.
What qualifies Rachel for the job of SGA President is a combination of her platform and vision for the school, her experience in and out of SGA and her personal qualities as a leader and as a listener.
This year, we’ve seen Rachel speak up thoughtfully in Senate meetings on issues ranging from Proctor cups and dishes to the Honor Code. She isn’t afraid to make her voice heard but she also isn’t afraid to ask questions on issues with which she is unfamiliar. On one issue in particular, the reform of rules for Junior and Feb Senator elections, Rachel helped to hash out a compromise after multiple heated discussions polarized the Senate. She is both a calming and assertive presence in the SGA, a voice of reason and insight with an open mind and a unique perspective.
Rachel’s platform is another reflection of her thoughtfulness and genuine desire to solve problems. Her website gives detailed accounts of 10 important issues that she hopes to tackle, ranging from academics to social life to health/wellness to the environment. She recognizes both the need to finish the job that the Senate has started this year and to involve the SGA in campus issues in which it has not previously been involved.
In addition, she has chosen issues that can be realistically addressed for the scope of the SGA’s power, demonstrating an awareness of the limitations of the Middlebury bureaucracy.
Finally, besides having respect for her work and qualities as a Senator, we can’t help but love Rachel as a person. She is energetic. Her laugh is contagious. She is approachable. She is everything you’d want in someone who is supposed to represent the student body as a whole. These charismatic qualities, on top of her experience and her vision, made us fall for Liddell.
Trust us. You can’t go wrong by voting Rachel Liddell for SGA President.
Senators Danny Zhang '15, Hasher Nisar '16, Rana Abdelhamid '15, Evan Allis '14.5 and SCOCC Barrett Smith '13
(04/24/13 4:49pm)
As we near the end of the semester, when assignments abound and professors squeeze in those last 250 pages of reading, it is as important as ever to operate with your well-being in mind. Eating well, exercising, sleeping and even having some fun will go a long way in how you appreciate the end of the year and your performance academically. Here are a few tips to keep you grounded as we enter this stressful time.
To start off, use your bed only for sleeping. It’s a hard rule to follow, but your body will start to recognize the space as one for sleeping. You’ll go to sleep more quickly and spend less time thinking about how you can’t sleep. Another way to improve your sleeping habits is by exercising. If you exercise during the day, you’ll sleep better at night. You’ll also feel better in what is inevitably a gloomy time of year. In the timeless words of Elle Woods, “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t shoot their [computers].” Try and get outside — a walk through the organic garden can do wonders. Or, if you’re feeling more adventurous, head over to Snake Mountain for a hike! When the weather isn’t ideal, sneak in 30 minutes of cardio at the gym. It now opens at 10 a.m. on Saturdays!
Be sure to also take more frequent and shorter breaks when you’re studying. Know how long you can hardcore study effectively (usually around 30-45 minutes) and take a quick five-minute break. After a couple hours, take a longer one. Try to mix up your breaks as well; if you’re reading, take a walk around the library for a break instead of reading an article on Thought Catalog. If you’re editing a video, jumping to YouTube may not be the break your brain needs. Go bug your friends — always a win — or get some pretzel M&Ms at the vending machine.
When you’re in the dining hall, let yourself relax a little. Eating is important, of course, but it’s also delicious and fun. Include some vitamin D (it’s not so sunny out here) and some protein in your Proctor creation and take some time to enjoy the view from Ross. You’ll get more work done when you’re in a positive state of mind. And if you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t shy away from the resources available from your commons and the counseling center. It is a difficult time of year, and no one should go at it alone.
In a similar vein, we Middkids have to continue to support each other. We’re all in this bubble together, and we know what each of us is going through. Give that extra hug; save that piece of candy for your neighbor. And we all love the thesis and library fairies. When we’re all stressed out and at each other’s throats, we have to remember not to take ourselves too seriously.
With that in mind, I have some personal recommendations that always help me stay well. Miss Congeniality is great for any mood and any state. You know you looove it! Middkids would be remiss if they didn’t listen to Jim Dale read Harry Potter at least once. I mean, seriously, how perfect is Snape’s voice? Order Magic Wok to perfect a night in, and top it off with epic battle scenes from 300 or Two Towers. Clay therapy at the ceramics house is always called for, and, as an added bonus, you can make something for Mother’s Day! (May 12 is closer than it seems.)
And finally, remember what you love about Middlebury and lean forward into these next few weeks. Whether you’re graduating or just finishing your first semester, remember that we are and will always be a community that loves and supports one another.
Sierra Stites '14 is from Kansas City, Mo.
(04/24/13 4:41pm)
Environmentalists across North America have recently become infatuated with the XL Keystone Pipeline System. The current proposals will expand the pipeline system to provide oil from Alberta, Canada to Texas. What many environmental groups protesting this pipeline fail to comprehend is that the oil will come to market, pipeline or no pipeline.
The United States has consumed between 18 and 21 million barrels of oil a day for roughly five years, of which Canada was the largest provider last year at an estimated 2.7 million barrels per day. Canada will increase this number over the next decade. The expansion of the Keystone Pipeline system is a crucial part of those plans. And as an environmentalist, Canadian and student living in Vermont, I find it bizarre that so many people would be against its construction. The prevention of this pipeline’s construction will simply mean that more oil is delivered to U.S. refineries by rail. There is no technology currently on the horizon that will replace oil in North America.
“There are hidden costs people aren’t taking into account when you are considering wind, solar and hydro power,” says Glenn Dawson, a geologist and president of Williston Hunter Canada Inc. “Solar panels are made entirely from oil. Wind turbines from steal that require iron ore, coal and energy to produce, ship and install. And while hydro might provide efficient energy, you can never reclaim an enormous dam, but you can reclaim the land from a mine.”
So who gains from protesting and preventing the XL expansions?
Not environmentalists. The political capital being drained from otherwise productive initiatives is unbelievable. No one is applying the appropriate amount of pressure to Congress and the administration to institute proper oversight and double well drilling required in every other modern oil-producing country in the world, which could have prevented the BP Horizon catastrophe.
Consumers lose too, as the oil will come to American market by rail, an inefficient form of transportation. 590,000 barrels a day will travel the XL into U.S. markets. A “whale belly” car carries roughly 33,000 gallons or 1,050 barrels. That means that 560 rail cars will need to be loaded with oil, shipped from Alberta to Houston while stopping at customs and other cities and then unloaded constantly. Adding in track repair and maintenance, the financial costs are enormous.
“Most people believe they are paying WTI (West Texas Intermediate) prices at the pump, but they’re not. They are paying Brent, which is $10-20 more per barrel. The people making the money are the middlemen that can buy Albertan oil at the wellhead for $45 and sell to gulf refineries after shipping by rail for the $100 Brent price. The pipeline should help narrow that gap for American consumers,” explained Mr. Dawson.
The environment also loses. How many extra tons of fossil fuels will be burned in order to accomplish this? It takes approximately one gallon of oil energy to transport 1 rail car approximately 440 miles. With the route to Houston roughly 2,500 miles, each shipment of 560 rail cars will take roughly 3,180 gallons of oil energy to transfer that oil from Alberta to Houston. And let’s not forget the huge impact of extra super tankers docking, loading and shipping oil from Africa and the Persian Gulf.
“We have the toughest regulations in the world,” reasons Mr. Dawson. “Do people really think that Venezuela, Africa and Russia adhere to the same environmental standards that Canadians and Americans do? We are constantly increasing our efficiency with water use and this oil will protect American needs from embargo, war and any other unforeseeable diplomatic squabbles.”
The relationship between two of the closest allies in the history of the world also suffers. The debate over this pipeline is a thorn in the side of two countries that are quite literally family. I love both countries. I am Canadian, but I call Vermont home, whether I’m traveling in America or Europe. And by the way, Canada is part of America too — it’s North America. And if I could have it my way there wouldn’t be a border between us.
However, there is a bright spot. Norwegian light crude (Brent) and Persian oil will both be cheaper relative to Alberta synthetic crude and Bakken shale oil from North Dakota and Montana. Americans will purchase more from abroad without even realizing it. The pipeline proposed to cross the Rockies and deposit crude into super tankers in the Pacific Ocean for distribution in Chinese and Japanese markets will also gain steam.
Meanwhile, the U.S. economy has steadily recovered for the past two years following the recession, steadily expanding demand for synthetic crude. Refineries along the gulf coast have met this demand by importing larger quantities of crude from Venezuela, whose profits go directly into a regime that promotes distinctly anti-American sentiment.
“The XL expansion is a win, win, win, for the environment, international political strength within America and the economy,” said Mr. Dawson, who feels that the facts are being ignored or skewed. “The pipeline provides a safe source of oil that allows Americans to pursue interests without the fear of an embargo. It will even help prevent Brent from controlling prices at the pump. Is oil ever going to be completely clean? No, probably not, but we are always trying to produce oil more and more efficiently.”
Donald Donaldson '13.5 is from Toronto, Canada
(04/17/13 10:53pm)
“I told you,” Columbia Professor Joseph Massad said at his lecture about Zionism, Palestinians and Israel last week, “I was not interested in building peace.” After a speech full of mischaracterizations, out-of-context quotations and utter lies, Dr. Massad finally explicitly asserted his true goals. “Peace will only come after justice is established,” he said.
Dr. Massad never explicitly articulated what such “justice” might look like, but it is not hard to understand what he meant. The problem, he claimed, was that seeking peace does not address what he considers the primary sin of Israel: its very existence. “Justice” therefore requires that the State of Israel be dismantled. For Dr. Massad, “justice” is retributive and biased in favor of the Palestinians. Dr. Massad argued throughout his lecture that Zionism is the ultimate injustice, even going so far as to call the claim that Jews are the descendants of the Ancient Hebrews “a myth.” As with much of his scholarship, this statement is refuted by the facts. Research published in the American Journal of Human Genetics concludes that 40 percent of Ashkenazi Jews are descended from just four mothers; virtually all of the rest share roughly 150 female matriarchs.
Dr. Massad’s denial of Jewish identity, in addition to being insulting, indicates a larger problem with his argument: it proposes no workable solution. Israel exists and is not going anywhere. Its existence was sanctioned by the United Nations in 1948. Dr. Massad may deny the Jewish claim for statehood, but history has already refuted him. The central question of politics remains: what is to be done? Dr. Massad’s answer is not only wrong and unrealizable; it is counterproductive.
Politics is about compromise. When the Zionist leaders were offered a state in the 1947 Partition Plan, they were unsatisfied with the borders but chose to accept the proposal nonetheless. The Palestinians rejected that proposal, as they did subsequent peace offers — most notably in 2000, when the Israelis offered 97 percent of the West Bank (with the remaining three percent to be given in the form of land swaps), $30 billion to facilitate the resettlement of refugees and full Palestinian sovereignty. In recent years, Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank has expanded despite Palestinian objections. On this issue, the Israelis have mostly refused to compromise. Yet that is not the whole story. On several occasions, both sides have shown a willingness to make concessions. In 1993, the Israelis gave the Palestinians partial sovereignty in exchange for official Palestinian recognition of the State of Israel and security arrangements. Recently, Palestinian police have cooperated with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to virtually eliminate terrorism. As a result, the Israelis have ceded further military control to the Palestinian leadership. Palestinians, although still subject to unacceptable treatment and occupation, live more peacefully as a result of the cooperation between the IDF and the Palestinian police. History demonstrates that when Palestinians and Israelis work together, progress can be made.
Former Ambassador to Israel Dennis Ross noted in his lecture on campus several weeks ago that those who think Israelis and Palestinians can simply live in one state are “not being realistic.” The only just solution to this problem remains what it was in 1947: two states for two peoples, living side-by-side in security and cooperation with each other. It is impractical to assume that two different peoples are capable of living peacefully in the same state amidst such deep hostilities and conflicting claims. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians have given up on their national aspirations. They will both continue laying claim to the same piece of land and thus will be condemned to unending conflict.
The Jewish desire for statehood is enshrined in the Amidah, the prayer Jews have been reciting every day for over 2000 years: “Bring us together from the four corners of the earth into our land. Blessed are You G-d, who gathers the dispersed of His people Israel.” Given the history of anti-Jewish persecution and the fact of their nationhood, Jews are not likely to give up their sovereign state anytime soon. Nor should they, as with all peoples they are entitled to determine their own future, particularly when the world repeatedly denies them such freedoms. Dr. Massad called Israel “colonialist.” The truth is that Israel is anti-colonialist, an example of self-determination in the face of centuries of oppression and deep-seated hatred. The Palestinian desire for statehood is also legitimate. The occupation is unsustainable and Israel must end it responsibly, without losing sight of its security concerns. Each people deserves the opportunity to determine its own future.
Dr. Massad appears to confuse justice with revenge. Of course, the Israelis have claims against the Palestinians as well. Days after Palestinian leaders rejected Israel’s peace offer in 2000, Palestinian terrorists began a multi-year campaign of blowing up cafés full of women and children in Jerusalem. According to Dr. Massad’s definition of “justice,” Israel might be justified in never offering the Palestinians a state again. Each side has grievances against the other. The only solution will require concessions on both sides. The Palestinians must stop seeing Israel as illegitimate and accept the fact of its existence, and the Israelis must recognize the very real injustices and unsustainability of the occupation.
Luckily, polls consistently demonstrate that most Israelis and Palestinians consider the two-state solution the best available solution. They recognize that compromise can itself be a form of idealism and, as President Obama said in Israel two weeks ago, “Peace is necessary. But peace is also just.” It might be easy for Dr. Massad to call for retributive justice against Israel, but the people on the ground know better. The most just solution is not that Israel gets some sort of comeuppance, but rather that Jews, Arabs and Christians live in security and freedom.
Written by HARRY ZIEVE COHEN '15 and RACHEL SIDER '14
(04/17/13 10:50pm)
Grant Nishioka '13 is from Wayland, Mass.
As liberal arts students, we’ve learned a lot. We’re able to contrast the behavior of international markets with that of individuals. We can use exponential functions to better comprehend musical scales. If we really wanted, we could even delineate Plato’s transcendental metaphysical theories from Nietzsche’s existential poetry in order to appreciate religious and atheistic perspectives simultaneously. Some can do it in multiple languages. It seems we’ve learned how to tackle just about any question, yet those without any “right” answers leave many of us stumped.
What do I want to do? What skills will I need? Am I ready for the “real world?” While the uncertainty surrounding these questions can frustrate even the most competent student, one program has a reputation for helping them navigate the unknown.
We have all heard about MiddCORE. The program prepares students by developing leadership and innovation skills. It connects participants to inspirational mentors who help them approach real life problems with no right answers, including every adult’s favorite conversation-starter,“What are your plans for after graduation?”
It’s a tempting opportunity for many students, yet the time commitment is quite intimidating. We’re so busy preparing ourselves for life after college by maximizing our GPAs and cramming as much knowledge as possible in between our ears that we seldom stop to think about bridging the gap between what we’re taught and what we want do with it. However, if there’s one point I want to make in this article, it is that MiddCORE is worth every minute of your time.
During my first week of MiddCORE at Monterey, I found myself surrounded by students who were exceptional in their ability to take initiative and search for more. They were willing to step outside their comfort zones and lead in the face of uncertainty. As we began the social challenge aspect of the course, each team quickly ran into the same roadblock. Our task was to generate ideas addressing the future land usage of a former army base called Fort Ord. For the first time in our educational careers, we encountered a problem whose solution couldn’t be taught or studied because there simply was no correct answer.
As one executive said in the New York Times, “we can teach new hires the content, and we will have to because it continues to change, but we can’t teach them how to think — to ask the right questions — and to take initiative.”
One day after class I approached our head instructor with a look of confusion and defeat. Before I said anything he addressed my question. “This is a real life problem, which means there are no right or wrong answers. Thousands of professionals haven’t found a solution in over 20 years. Use the workshops as your tools and do something.”
Realizing that we weren’t going to solve the social problem in its entirety, we began to brainstorm ways to help push the stalemate between stakeholders in a direction. We proposed a campground and welcome center to boost ecotourism and give visitors and locals the opportunity to experience the natural beauty of Fort Ord firsthand.
MiddCORE enables students to generate innovative solutions to complex problems and made me confident in my ability to add value to America’s largest grocery wholesaler after college. When I reflect on my four years here the most important thing I’ve discovered is my love for learning, and relying on that in order to approach uncertainty made it all worthwhile. Thanks, Midd(CORE).
Curious? Check out middcore.middlebury.edu
(04/17/13 10:41pm)
Stu Fram '13 is from Waterbury, Vt.
Middlebury is on track to achieve carbon neutrality by 2016, an accomplishment whose imminent realization can be ascribed to the administration’s commitment to environmental leadership, to the tireless work of the Sustainability Integration Office and most importantly, to the vision of students.
When it comes to food, however, the College sorely lacks any such explicit policy or goal. This is why Real Food Week, organized by EatReal, was so vital. Middlebury does purchase some food locally; in fact, 20 percent of the food on our plates comes from within 250 miles of campus, a pretty impressive figure compared to our peer institutions. But when you consider that of the 98,000 pounds of chicken purchased last year, virtually all (read: 99.99 percent) was sourced from non-local and industrial factory farms — facilities with extremely high environmental, health and social costs — it casts a more sobering light on the situation. If such were true only of poultry, I would be less inclined to call “fowl,” but the unfortunate truth is that all of the meat served in the dining halls comes from such facilities. Even a bad pun cannot amend that.
Twenty percent local food, 0 percent local meat.
This is by no means a categorical appeal for vegetarianism, but instead a call for more institutional consistency. Middlebury has come to be recognized as a forward-thinking institution for espousing values such as global citizenship and community engagement. Given its reputation for social consciousness, many assume that the College sources its food in an equally responsible way. Indeed, a campus-wide survey distributed by Dining Services in 2011 suggests that 40 percent of students believe that a majority of the meat served in the dining halls is sourced from local or organic farms or grass-fed cooperatives. As I have indicated above, nothing could be further from the truth.
I am not suggesting that Middlebury is conspiratorially withholding purchasing information from students. On the contrary, I am well aware that the College has a budget to balance and that local and sustainably raised food is generally more expensive. With just 1.3 percent of the College’s total budget allotted to Dining Services, even a 0.5 percent increase in their slice of the total budget would be anything but an exercise in budgetary squandering. Given the economic downturn, I can fully appreciate the need to spend responsibly — I maintain that purchasing more local food would be the perfect way to do just that.
To that end, I would like to emphasize that Real Food Week, and EatReal’s implicit advocacy for a larger dining budget, should not be interpreted as an attempt at fiscal reappropriation by a disgruntled minority. With 75 percent of respondents to the recent SGA survey indicating support for “Middlebury spending more on dining in order to provide locally sourced food,” demand for change is already widespread. It is likely that the administration has hitherto failed to explicitly acknowledge or address this demand at least in part because of the fact that food issues do not fit neatly into any one environmental, health or social category. As such, it is our responsibility as students to continue articulating why food issues merit inclusion in broader environmental and social conversations to the point that they can no longer be ignored. My hope is that Real Food Week was a step in this direction.
Although in some ways this issue’s prospective success relies upon overcoming administrative inertia, as students we already possess agency to effect change on our own. We are incredibly privileged to have a unique meal plan (or lack thereof, really) that allows us to enter the dining halls as many times as we want and eat as much as we want. Yet such a permissive system has occasioned a tragedy of the commons: a culture of taking and not returning dishes and of wasting perfectly good food. Instead of spending money on the local food that we so demand, Dining Services is forced to use much of its present budget on replacing dishes and on food that never gets eaten. Even minor behavioral adjustments could go far in ensuring a more efficient use of resources.
I would like to reiterate that the costs associated with food purchasing are more than merely economic: although factory farmed meat is inexpensive, it bears undeniable environmental and social costs. In promising carbon neutrality and its associated commitment to environmental and social responsibility, the College is failing to address this institutional inconsistency — Middlebury is patently contradicting its own mission.
Not only would the reallocation of funds for the purpose of more responsible food purchasing correct this incongruity, but it would also benefit the planet, the vitality of local communities and farmers and us — the daily beneficiaries of Dining Services’ hard work. By virtue of our universal use of the dining halls, we all stand to benefit from demanding and effecting such positive change. Moving forward after Real Food Week, let us continue to do just that.
(04/10/13 1:44pm)
From the conversations I have had with students on campus, STI testing services seem to be underutilized, underappreciated and misunderstood. After seeing the results of the Student Government Association’s all-campus survey and the shockingly low proportion of the student body that has utilized Parton’s testing services, it is time for Middlebury to have frank conversations about sexual health.
Thinking back on the last four years of conversations I have had about the testing services on campus, the morale to get tested is — to put it lightly — low.
Perhaps testing services were mentioned during your new student orientation. During my first year, the director of health and wellness seemed to focus more attention on the free condoms all around campus than on the sound recommendation that students get tested with every new partner. Given the fact that there hasn’t been a director of health and wellness for the past two years, all sexual health discussions and activities have taken a steep decline — a shame since it doesn’t seem that sex on campus has taken a similar dip.
Perhaps testing services were mentioned in casual conversations with friends about sexual norms and healthy communication in the bedroom. During my sophomore year, a conversation with friends turned to the way that they talk about sexual health before hooking up with a new partner. Their answers varied from consistent communication before any kind of sexual contact to outright lying to a partner about having been tested to avoid further discussion on the subject. The range in responses, coming from a group of people that I knew to be well informed and responsible in their daily lives, was a shocking revelation.
Perhaps testing services were mentioned when a friend had questions about the accessibility of what is offered on campus. During my junior year, more than a few friends who wanted to be tested were turned away from doing so after finding out that, without insurance, they would have to pay a hefty fee for the services. When I went to Parton to be tested, the nurse was kind and thoughtful but failed to mention that I could submit the information to my insurance provider rather than paying out-of-pocket. Given the variety of insurance providers students have, coverage will vary significantly. However, paying out-of-pocket or foregoing being tested are not a student’s only two options.
All of these conversations have left me feeling frustrated with the campus culture around getting tested and the lack of accurate public information available about testing options on campus. Let me take one moment to clarify the latter: STI testing is available at Parton. You may submit your insurance information. If you are under a guardian’s insurance, it is possible that they may see a statement showing you received testing services. If you choose to pay out-of-pocket, tests range greatly in price. If you cannot pay out-of-pocket and cannot submit your insurance information, an open line of communication with the Parton staff is encouraged. They are there to support you in exploring your options.
Fostering an open campus culture about getting tested may take some time. However, it is imperative that we take active steps in this direction. Many campuses do a fantastic job of promoting their testing services and destigmatizing what can be a frightening and vulnerable process for some students. Williams College, for instance, provides chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis and HIV testing for students free of charge. Bowdoin and Colby have similar services. Other campuses, like Wesleyan, are beginning strong student campaigns demanding free testing services. There is no reason for Middlebury to lag behind when our peer institutions are leading the charge toward greater equity and accessibility of testing services. However, we must address the complex concerns of sexual health with our friends, peers and the College to make it happen. We must be willing to speak openly and honestly about the barriers to testing services, and we must support all students in this process. If you wish to join a group of dedicated students in this process, please reach out to me at acunniff@middlebury.edu to get involved.
Written by ADDIE CUNNIFF '13 of Tucson, Ariz.
(04/10/13 1:37pm)
Amitai Ben-Abba’s op-ed of March 20 "Occupation — the Censored Word" labels Ambassador Dennis Ross’s recent lecture on the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “an astonishing feat of deception.” Not only did Ross clearly, and fairly, criticize both Israelis and Palestinians while articulating steps that both sides must take in order to achieve peace, but Ben-Abba’s response is not without its own deceptive remarks.
Contrary to what Ben-Abba claims, Jews did not simply move into Israel in 1948 and expel its native inhabitants. Over half a century prior, Jews, escaping European anti-Semitism, began purchasing land legally from absentee land owners in what would become Israel, cultivating it and developing cities. At the time of the UN Partition in 1947, Jews had a clear majority of 538,000 to 397,000 Arabs in the land given to them. In a greater context, this partition divided only 20 percent of Mandate Palestine; the other 80 percent was allocated to what would become Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Since its independence in 1948, Israel has actively pursued peace, but the Palestinians have rejected every offer Israel has ever made. While Israel’s gaining independence was certainly complicated, with injustices done to both Israelis and Palestinians alike, the history is far more nuanced than the one-sided story Ben-Abba tells.
Ben-Abba continues by quoting Martin Luther King Jr., attempting unsuccessfully to present the American civil rights hero as anti-Israel and to portray Israel as a racist state. Contrary to Ben-Abba’s claim, Dr. King stood with Israel, stating, “Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world.” To align Dr. King’s supportive remarks with Ben-Abba’s misconstrued attack on Israel ‘s committing a “systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestine” is inappropriate.
Moreover, Ben-Abba’s use of the “apartheid” label on Israel is both offensive and inaccurate. Although Israel faces racial struggles like any other western democracy, it often surpasses the human rights records of any other first world country. “Apartheid” has no obvious correlation whatsoever to the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians. “Apartheid” refers to a system of extreme racial segregation enforced by legislation in South Africa, in which the country’s white minority exercised complete political and social control over the black majority, stripping them of fundamental rights. Palestinian citizens of Israel face none of these injustices. Israeli-Arab men and women have a guaranteed right to vote in regular, stable, democratic elections. In Israel, an Arab man, Salim Joubran, sits on the Supreme Court. In Israel, Arabs sit in the Israeli parliament. In Israel, Arab students, including those from the West Bank, attend prestigious Israeli universities, which also employ many Arab professors. In Israel, Arabs serve as generals in the army. Finally, as Ross pointed out in his speech, Israel regularly treats both citizen and non-citizen Palestinian Arabs in its hospitals – for free.
What part of this resembles anything that comes remotely close to apartheid? Arab citizens of Israel do have to deal with racism and hate, but to call this “apartheid” is utterly inaccurate. The truth is that Arabs in Israel have more rights than Arabs in any Arab country. They can speak critically of Israel without fear of retribution and they enjoy civil liberties far greater than exist anywhere else in the Middle East. Arab women, in particular, are safer and better protected in Israel than anywhere else in the region. The term “apartheid” is merely a provocative buzz word ignoring the complexities of the situation, and is used only to incite unwarranted criticism of Israel.
As for Arab non-citizens of Israel, those living in Gaza or the West Bank, Ben-Abba is correct; these people do face oppression. It’s a sad reality, but this oppression, requires context. People living in these areas do not face oppression because of their Arab ethnicity, but rather because some groups of Palestinians represent a security threat to Israel. Since 2005, when Israel unilaterally withdrew from the territory, over 8,000 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel. Gaza’s leadership, Hamas, which the UN considers a terrorist organization, encourages and partakes in these attacks which are nearly always first strikes on Israel. During the Second Intifada, the West Bank leadership, Fatah, sat, watched and applauded as terrorists murdered close to 1,000 Israeli civilians in cold blood. Despite this, Israel regularly brings aid to these communities including more than one million tons of humanitarian supplies in the past 18 months to Gaza. The security barrier running along the West Bank, which was built after the Second Intifada, has put a halt to terrorism arising in the West Bank, while Israel’s siege on Gaza lessens the flow of rockets into the strip. Israel has every right to protect the lives of its citizens, and the blame for lost civil liberties for Palestinians must be shared between both Israel and the Palestinian leadership – or lack thereof – which has done too little to stop acts of terror against Israel.
Israel should not be free of criticism; Israel deserves criticism just like every other country in the world. However, Ben-Abba’s article criticizes Israel entirely unfairly, and in doing so, ignores many other, far worse, atrocities in the region. Take Syria, for example.
When Ben-Abba calls for Middlebury to divest from Israel, it must be made clear that to divest from Israel is to divest from values like democracy, self determination and liberal progress. The Israeli Defense Force has the lowest civilian-combatant ratio in the history of the world. I question Ben-Abba’s motive for selectively calling out Israel, rather than China or Russia – countries with truly atrocious human rights records. As Middlebury students who care deeply about such values, we must critically assess Ben-Abba’s proposition and recognize that introducing Israel into the divestment conversation will result in the destruction of our divestment movement as a whole.
WILLIE GOODMAN '16 is from Highland Park, Ill.
(04/10/13 1:35pm)
I have a sister. I have a best friend. I have parents.
I also watched a film called Five Broken Cameras today. A documentary by Emad Burnat, the movie shows us the scenes of his life. The man happens to be Palestinian, and by that I mean his life sometimes seems inaccessible to me until I think: I have a sister. I have a best friend. I have parents.
I have a sister. She’s two years older than me. We’ve shaped each other, grown up together, and she knows more about my life than anyone else alive. In Five Broken Cameras, I watched a man see his older brother shot by Israeli soldiers. What was the brother’s crime? He was at a protest saying that he didn’t want a wall built through his family’s land. If my older sister was shot my world would be a little broken inside. I love to smile, but like that younger brother in Palestine, I don’t know if my smile could survive losing Hannah. Especially not after seeing her fight to keep our town whole and then seeing that hope lost down the barrel of a gun.
I have a best friend. I’ve known her since we were both in fourth grade. She’s my lovely, my heart, my favorite narcissist and my home. I’ve been to demonstrations with her before. We’ve marched together, chanting about how we should let people who love each other get married, even if they happen to be of the same gender. I don’t want to even imagine how I would feel to see her ripped away from me by soldiers. To see her lifted bodily and dragged away, fear on her face. I can’t imagine not talking to her for a year, let alone spending that whole year wondering if she would be all right in prison. Just thinking about that happening to China terrifies me but I just watched this exact scene play out over and over as Emad saw his brothers taken from him and arrested.
Finally, I have parents. We have a house, one I’ve lived in for 18 years. My senior year of high school someone broke into our house and robbed us. I was the first one home, and I still remember the feeling of invasion, like my person had somehow been violated. Imagine if I were Palestinian, living in a place called the West Bank. Instead of being robbed, my family would deal with Israeli soldiers coming in the middle of the night and banging on our door. My parents are quiet people; they’re people who like plans and science. Imagining them standing by helplessly while armed men search our house and shake me and Hannah from our beds, pointing their weapons at us as they yell at us to get out of our own home, breaks my heart a little. I think of my quiet, respectable parents walking back into the home that has Hannah’s and my childhood artwork on the walls and seeing their faces as they see everything torn down, overturned and ransacked, and then seeing them swallowing that pain for long enough to begin to be able to put our life back together. I have a lot of love in my heart, but I think that could teach me hate.
This scene happens. This memory belongs to a professor who teaches here, who is a real person you will have to look in the eyes if you want to deny his experience.
I don’t care about your politics. I don’t care what your ideology is. I don’t even care what you think, because this isn’t a matter for your intellect or your mind. I ask instead that as someone’s sibling, as someone’s friend or as someone’s child you let your heart get rubbed a little raw by hearing these stories. Because then I know that you are at least as human as a Palestinian.
I can’t know where your raw heart will lead you; that’s for you to decide. Mine has led me to a club that meets on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. called “Justice for Palestine.”
Written by CELESTE ALLEN '16 of Scottsdale, Ariz.
(03/20/13 11:16pm)
I got back from Alexandria, Egypt almost three months ago.
“Wow, you were in Egypt? How was it?”
“Incredible.”
“Did you see the pyramids?”
“Yeah, can’t miss ‘em.”
“Were you ever in danger?”
“No, the violence is pretty isolated.”
“Was it crazy?”
“Yeah, man. Really crazy.”
That’s usually about it. As you can probably guess, my experience goes a bit deeper than any small-talk conversation will reveal. So, where to begin? I like to think I took in Egypt with my ears, so I’ll tell a few things that I heard.
I heard the call to prayer echoing through the streets, broadcasted from loudspeakers affixed to mosque minarets. Five times a day, the enchanting song would ring out: “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great.” Around 3:30 every morning, at least for the first month until I grew accustomed, I lay awake listening to the pre-sunrise prayer. I thought of the most devout of my friends rolling out of bed to pray on the floor in their rooms and I thought of the rest who, like me, pulled a pillow over their heads and tried to fall back asleep.
The incessant honking sometimes kept me awake too. Alexandria has no stop signs, so cars approaching an intersection simply honk their horns rather than slowing down. I picked up on the nuances of lawless driving after countless taxi rides. Cheap and convenient — like just about everything in Egypt — taxis provided my transportation to and from class every day. Fourteen weeks of class makes for 140 taxi rides, not to mention weekends. At 15 to 30 minutes a ride, depending on traffic, I spent at least a day and a half cruising through Alexandria in an old, Russian-made, yellow-and-black taxi cab.
I heard a lot of things on those taxi rides, each short conversation serving as an assessment of my language development. These abrupt introductions were characterized by polite but aggressive curiosity. The first question was almost always “Are you Muslim?” For girls, it was “Are you married?” Few topics are inappropriate for casual conversation. “I’m Christian,” I would always reply. The truth is I’m agnostic, but it wasn’t until I learned the words for “doubt” and “spiritual” that I was finally able to tell the truth to my new, taxi-driving friend. This driver, like many others, refused to accept payment from an honored guest in his country.
Abiding by my language pledge, I spent a lot of time listening. The more I listened, the more I understood. My greatest triumph came one night while sitting in the dorm common room and watching television. I was quietly doing homework and hoping that the ambient newscast would seep into my brain through some sort of knowledge osmosis when a crowd joined me to watch a popular program. Modeled after Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” this program presents topical political satire.
Students travel to study at the University of Alexandria from Cairo and rural towns in the Nile delta, representing every political opinion out there, from indifference to membership in the Muslim Brotherhood. On this night, they all watched as the show’s host insulted Morsi. To say I understood half of what I heard would be an exaggeration, but the video clips he showed made his point fairly clear. The crowd’s reaction varied; some laughed and others booed. An argument about the media and Islam unfolded before my eyes and I jotted down one evocative comment that, quite to my pleasure, I was able to understand: “This episode will bring him to his knees.”
One night, with the country engulfed in protests over Morsi’s declaration and escalation in Palestine, I listened as a small rally formed outside my window. In the dorm courtyard below, a crowd had formed in front of the mosque to hear someone speak in support of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. When I leaned out of the window to get a better look, I saw hundreds of others doing the same. Soon, people began chanting insults and throwing trash at the crowd below. I turned to my Egyptian friend and asked, “Why are they so angry?”
His response speaks to the nature of the current political and social turmoil in Egypt. “I don’t know … This conflict is dividing our country,” he replied with a look of deep sadness. “We are all Egyptians,” he said, echoing the nationalist slogans festooned around the courtyard below. Indeed, Egyptians have great pride in their “homeland,” a term distinct from “country” or “nation” in the Arabic language, endowed with a sense of identity and personal stake. Some would portray today’s Egypt as a nation crumbling under the weight of an irresolvable conflict of religious and political ideals. My experience suggests a different metaphor, one of more optimism: Egypt is bursting at the seams, unable to contain its citizens’ desire for a better homeland. The popular revolution granted the people a voice, and I was lucky enough to hear it for myself.
JEREMY KALLAN '14 is from Washington, D.C.
(03/20/13 11:13pm)
In last week’s Campus article, “Arrested Students Protest ‘Environmental Racism,” Middlebury alum Jay Saper ’12.5 is quoted as saying, “We’ve talked more about environmental racism today — just today — than we have at a place where there is the longest-standing environmental studies program in history in America.” What a curious comment. As the incoming Director of Environmental Studies, I met with Saper, Sam Koplinka-Loehr ’13 and several other students in spring 2011, interested in their views on environmental justice and inviting them to follow up in ways they might find interesting and helpful for our community. I never heard back from them. And readers should know that Saper was not an ES major and, since that one meeting, never tried to engage the ES program in any formal way. It would not be surprising then if he were unaware of recent changes in our program, including — just for starters — the launching of a new ES class, “Social Class and the Environment,” taught by Hector Vila. With his recent comments in the Campus, Saper displays — yet again, I am afraid — his fondness for public, unsupported and simplistic claims. As a recent alum, he could learn from current Middlebury students who roll up their sleeves and lead social change by communicating with and listening to others, finding common cause and solidarity and thereby creating solutions.
Submitted by JON ISHAM, Director of Environmental Studies
(03/20/13 11:11pm)
Two years ago when we received the fat acceptance package from Middlebury, we were pleasantly surprised to find a letter encouraging newly admitted students to take a gap year. Yes, we individually thought, some reassurance for this wild, scary thing I’m about to do after high school. Unlike many students in our high schools, we sent our deposit with a letter saying that we would defer admissions to college for one year.
Like every other first-year student, we highly anticipated our arrival at Middlebury. We were surprised to find that there was no way to connect with the gap year students in our own class. Unfortunately, because there is no targeted resource base for gap year students at Middlebury, there was no support or community. In fact, the only way we knew if someone else took a gap year was by word of mouth or if it came up in conversation. Though we each had this shared experience, we were lost in the crowd and unable to identify each other. While we arrive on campus in September like any other first-year, we also carry with us the unique challenges of reacquainting ourselves with academic and social life.
None of this is to say that we are better than our peers or that we deserve special recognition, rather, that we as a community can do a better job at welcoming gap year students. That’s why we are forming an organization that will help gap year students transition to Middlebury. In the same ways that our campus has many organizations for people who share commonalities, our aim is to provide a similar space for those who have taken time “off.”
We envision an arrival process in which gap year students feel like they have a community to connect with and branch out from. We see our organization as a resource base for all students to learn about taking time away before or during their Middlebury career. We imagine that one day, taking a bridge year between high school and college becomes the norm and not the exception.
Whether you took a gap year or not, help us build this organization. Come to our constitutional meeting today, Mar. 21 at 8 p.m. in Axinn 109.
REBECCA GEIGER '15+1 is from Atlanta, Ga., MARIAM KHAN '15+1 is from Waterville, Maine, and WINSON LAW '15+1 is from Seattle, Wash.
(03/20/13 11:07pm)
It is not surprising that the word “occupation,” was not mentioned in Dennis Ross's lecture on Tuesday night. The word does not exist in the discourse of the Israeli government, it wasn’t mentioned during the farcical elections for the Israeli Parliament recently nor does it exist in the language of American policy makers.
As Noam Sheizaf showed with his article on 972mag.com, Ross’s agenda for the peace process accepted the Israeli leadership’s conditions “before negotiations even began.” There can be no peace process without acknowledgement of the reality of occupation and apartheid. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice.”
Ross operates under a false assumption that Israel and Palestine are equal sides of a symmetrical conflict. In the same way that there has been no symmetry between white people and African-Americans during Jim Crow, between white Afrikaners and natives during South African apartheid or between colonialists and indigenous Americans during the past 500 years of European colonialism, thus there is no symmetry between Israeli occupiers and occupied Palestinians.
The everyday reality of racism, systemic inequality and brutal apartheid is purposefully ignored, clouded by statements about policies and the region’s complexity. Perhaps after years of yielding so much power and influence, Dennis Ross is incapable of understanding life within a Palestinian refugee camp. What was particularly astonishing, however, was his misinformation about the reasons for which a refugee camp exists.
In an astonishing feat of deception, Ross blamed the Palestinians for maintaining refugee camps. He suggested that the Palestinians end the refugee situation and build houses in the “vast” spaces south of Bethlehem to house the refugees. He did not acknowledge that it is virtually impossible for a Palestinian to get a building permit from the Israeli Occupation Administration. He did not acknowledge that almost 1,100 Palestinians, most of them children, were displaced by housing demolitions in 2011 alone.
Most significantly, he ignores or is not aware of Israel’s responsibility for Palestinian refugees. In the systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, over a million Palestinians were forced out of what Ross considers Israel. This continues today to be one of the most neglected acts of ethnic cleansing in the 20th century, and its aftermath of human devastation still bears effect on the lives of millions in the Middle East and across the world.
In his version of the two-state option, Ross envisions a Palestinian state that is butchered and divided by gigantic, oppressive walls, with no control over resources (the separation barrier annexes the water aquifer to Israel) and no freedom of movement, very similar to the South African Bantustans during the Apartheid regime. He ignored the fact that the occupation of Gaza has never ended, despite the disengagement in 2005, and that IDF control over sea, land and air turns Gaza into the largest open-air prison in the world, still recovering from the deaths and injuries of thousands, and without a nonviolent avenue to transgress its pain. Having Ross share his agenda on campus is like having a speaker endorse South African Apartheid during the 80’s.
But now, as Middlebury’s environmental leanings lead it in Gulliver’s steps to divestment from fossil fuels and arms manufacturing, we recall that we have divested from Apartheid, and that no pro-Apartheid speaker would receive a microphone in our halls in the same way that no white supremacist or eugenicist would. As we embrace the values of environmental justice, it is imperative we recognize that divestment from fossil fuels and arms manufacturing is the first step towards divestment from Israeli Apartheid.
The 15th article of the Principles of Environmental Justice asserts that “Environmental Justice opposes military occupation, repression and exploitation of lands, peoples and cultures, and other life forms.” By claiming the principles of Environmental Justice as we move forward on divestment, we therefore take a step towards Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) on Israeli occupation. BDS is a nonviolent tactic and a global call, drawing from the struggle against South African Apartheid, to end the occupation. To engage in these efforts, join Justice for Palestine, the new student club, by sending an email to jfp@middlebury.edu. Continue the discussion at 4:30 p.m. in Dana Auditorium today with the screening of the Academy Award nominee Five Broken Cameras and the following discussion with Instructor in Arabic Ahmad Almallah.
Some define education as the ability of making connections between concepts. Middlebury students have made the connection between war on people and war on the climate. The same economic forces benefit from both. It is time to heed the call, listen to the voices of those oppressed by our endowment and by the figures of authority we somehow continue to welcome and take a step for justice. Coming back to Martin Luther King, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
AMITAI BEN-ABBA '15.5 is from Jerusalem
(03/20/13 11:00pm)
As student organizers within the divestment campaign on this campus, we would like to make clear that groups that have been working towards divestment at Middlebury, including the Socially Responsible Investing Club, Divest for Our Future and Sunday Night Group, disapprove of the recent appearance of graffiti on the Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest. We do not know who the perpetrators are, nor do we understand why it was done.
We hope that productive discourse around divestment will continue to center on the issues themselves and will not be diverted by a small action taken by an unknown individual or group of individuals. Middlebury still has approximately 3.6 percent of our endowment invested in fossil fuels and approximately 0.6 percent invested in arms industries, and divesting is urgent.
We stand by our original goals of divesting our endowment from the fossil fuel and arms industries and are continuing our campaign while working closely with the administration and other campuses around the country.
Thank you,
Student Organizers for Divest Middlebury
(03/13/13 5:21pm)
To whom it may concern,
As Delta alumni, we are writing to express our collective concern over the potential disbandment of the Delta student organization at Middlebury College. To a significant portion of campus, Delta represents a welcoming and inclusive environment where students may gather to enjoy themselves and decompress after a stressful week of rigorous academic and extracurricular pursuits. To us, Delta represents home.
Delta is a manifestation of all that we hold so dear about our time at Middlebury. It is an organization that we have been involved in since we first set foot on campus. For many of us, it was the first place where we truly felt welcome. It is no secret that the initial adjustment to college life can be stressful and plagued by growing pains. We soon came to know and love Delta because it provided a convivial environment that greatly eased this transition for us.
When we finally had the opportunity to become official members of Delta, and reside in the house, we did not hesitate. We were eager to repay all that Delta had done for us and excited to deepen and expand Delta’s role on campus. We strove to make our home an inviting place where every Middlebury student, resident or otherwise, would be genuinely welcomed and embraced in friendship. Our prerogative was to instill our own feelings of school spirit and camaraderie into a Middlebury community that, to this day, remains desperate for social unity and direction.
Admittedly, it quickly became apparent that overseeing the daily function of a social house was not as simple as our predecessors had made it appear. We had difficulty finding willing party hosts and vastly underestimated the amount of physical damage the house would incur. At times, this became a source of internal frustration. We acknowledge that our relationship with the administration was tenuous and that current members of Delta have had a similar experience.
But like any relationship, the relationship between Delta and the administration requires constant adjustment. A positive, healthy relationship calls for tireless effort and compromise from both sides. For the sake of productivity, it is imperative that both sides take a myriad of viewpoints into account and maintain a high degree of mutual respect.
It is from this shared respect that we hope to convey our genuine concern for the long-term welfare of Delta, and for our alma mater as a whole. We believe that the disbandment of Delta will have an irreversibly detrimental effect on the well-being of current students, and alienate a considerable number of proud and loyal alumni. The signees below cherish their memories of Middlebury fondly and hope that the impending action will not tarnish these feelings.
Sincerely,
Kathryn Bostwick, Matthew Cawley, Phil Cutler, Emma Gardner, Michael Bilodeau, Hannah Clarke, Sarah DeCamp, Elissa Goeke, Maria Bourdeau, Caroline Cordle, Patrick Downey, Steve Hardin, Paul Carroll, Alyssa Crews, Jeff Everson, Jane Handel, Jamie Harisiades, Ken LeStrange, Caroline Regan, Karina Van Houten, Eric Kamback, Donnie McKillop, Julianne Seo, Tyler Wark, Peter Kinchley, Maddie Moreau, Becca Shaw, Grace Water, Roy Langley, Josh O’Neill, Taylor Shepard, Silas Wong