Like a few other Brandeisians, I attended a Jewish private high school. As part of my school's intensely Jewish-focused curriculum, my teachers spent a lot of time covering the Middle East conflict. They stressed the importance of Israel advocacy on college campuses, and we even went on a trip to Washington to lobby congressmen to support Israel. We were told that once we leave the Jewish bubble of our high school and go off to our respective universities, no one would be there to coddle us and reinforce our pro-Israel opinions. In fact, we were warned that we would all most likely encounter strong anti-Israel sentiment in college. However, having nearly completed my first year here, I feel my teachers' warning has proven to be, for the most part, incorrect. Instead I have found that the issue that I expected many would be talking about is largely ignored; for the most part, Brandeisians seem to be indifferent about the conflict. Take three weeks ago as an example: Many universities (including Boston University, University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University) marked Israel Apartheid Week, the first week of March, by setting up mock checkpoints and bringing in every imaginable anti-Israel speaker to their campuses. Brandeis, though, to my knowledge did not even have a poster. And, while groups that support Israel on other campuses (including the University of Rochester, Harvard University and Cal. State Northridge) attempted to implement Israel Peace Week (a week to showcase Israel's efforts to achieve peace) as a response to Israel Apartheid Week, the Brandeis Zionist Alliance and J Street U (Brandeis' Israel advocacy groups) felt no need to plan such a formal week at Brandeis because of the lack of Israel Apartheid Week activities.

So to what can we attribute the lack of energy on our campus about this issue? The fact is that while there is a large population of indifferent students, there is another large crowd of people who support the state of Israel in one form or another. The population of Brandeis students more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, though, is much smaller than at many other universities. The greatest proof for this is that some of the classic anti-Israel protests that occur on college campuses around the country are largely absent here; on a daily basis, there are very few signs of life-to my knowledge-from organizations that support the Palestinians at Brandeis (such as Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine). Thus, since there are many indifferent students, many students that support Israel in one form or another and far fewer students who advocate solely for the Palestinians, the latter group has a pretty hard time making their voices heard; they get lost in the shuffle. And when there isn't a great contingency of groups like BSJP, the students who support Israel have a much smaller agenda with which to deal.

What results is a relatively muted scene in which Brandeis students are not given the privilege of passing through a checkpoint on the way to class. Ultimately, no one really talks about the issue because no group of students provokes another; the students that tend to support Israel feel content and unthreatened, and the students that support the Palestinian cause don't really stand a chance in the numbers game.

But ultimately, there are far more than two opinions about the conflict. Within the pro-Israel camp alone there are myriad different thoughts and disagreements. It's a mistake for anyone who considers him or herself to be pro-Israel to think that everyone else who would associate with him or her would feel the same way about the conflict. The fact is that there is a tremendous spectrum of opinions. Most people, though, are indifferent or unaware of this because of the lack of energy generated on campus.

It was different last semester, when Justice Richard Goldstone and Ambassador Dore Gold gave their respective speeches. In the days before and after the event, the advantages of a healthy debate and dialogue were showcased: Many people could not stop talking about the Arab-Israeli conflict. The topic was on many people's minds. Those who normally did not engage in dialogue suddenly did. Students were able to give serious thought to their own opinions, questioning themselves and fine-tuning their positions. There was a major protest at the event and dozens of different students distributed pro- and anti-Israel fliers. But most importantly, there were many opportunities for students to find common ground. Since that one event, though, the debate has flatlined.

However, students should not succumb to the pervading indifference about the conflict. We need something to remind us that there are plenty of different opinions out there. The only way to do this, though, is to offer more chances for dialogue. The University and entities like the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies should up its efforts even more and create more Goldstone/Gold-like, politically charged events in order to get our juices going and resuscitate the issue.

But students need to do their part, too. Last week, the U.S.-Israel relationship took a turn for the worse when, during Joe Biden's visit to the country, it was announced that 1,600 new Jewish housing units would be built in East Jerusalem. The recent news of the deteriorating relationship between the two countries has brought the issue to the foreground. Now it's the responsibility of Brandeis students to find opportunities to enliven the debate and find common ground through discourse. Students need to be politically active. We need to engage in dialogue about serious, real-world issues.