TULSA — Three professors from the University of Oklahoma Schusterman Center for Judaic and Israel Studies held a webinar Wednesday to discuss the ongoing crisis in Israel, and to provide some perspective on the complex history and politics of the embattled country.
[Hear the KRMG In-Depth Report on the webinar regarding the terror attacks in Israel HERE]
Professor Alan Levenson is Director of the Schusterman Center at OU, and he pointed out some similarities between the recent terror attacks, and the Yom Kippur War of 1973, which he said “was also a surprise attack on Israel on a major holiday, and also a terrible failure of Israeli intelligence and security.”
That’s where the similarities end, he said.
“That was an actual war in 1973, with armies squaring off against each other,” Levenson explained. “The Hamas attack is an act of well-orchestrated terrorism.”
Professor Rhona Seidelman clarified that “these terrorists did not come to conquer territory, or to neutralize a military base. They came to massacre Jews. They came to rape Jews, to torture them, to terrorize them, to pillage their homes, to physically and psychologically devastate their communities.”
She believes it’s important to use correct terminology to describe what has happened.
“This was the brutal slaughter of a civilian population,” Seidelman said. “The words you need to use are massacre and pogrom - ‘an organized massacre of a helpless population.’”
Professor Hadas Cohen, a visiting fellow from the Israel Institute, gave an example of that psychological impact, recounting what she’s seeing on her social media.
“My son is not two years old, and I’m a member of several Facebook groups of mothers. So the question that mothers are posting is ‘how would I keep my baby quiet if this happened to us?’” Cohen said, audibly becoming upset as she spoke. “What mother in the world should be asking this kind of question?”
During the hour-long webinar, it was explained that Hamas does not represent all Palestinians, and is in fact at war with other factions, including the Palestinian Authority.
And while the webinar was essentially a one-sided affair, Levenson explained that all three participants actually oppose Israeli settlements in the occupied territories - which does not include Gaza, where Hamas is based and from where most of the attacks were launched on Saturday.
“All three of us on this panel oppose the Israeli occupation of the West Bank,” he said, “and support a Palestinian autonomy, a Palestinian state.”
But they also all know people who died in the recent attacks.