Last Tuesday, Hillel, the Brandeis Zionist Alliance and the Brandeis Israel Public Affairs Committee co-sponsored an event titled "Israel 101: Understanding the Middle East with Iftah Burman," which aimed to provide an informed historical perspective of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

During the event, Burman, founder of the Middle East Learning Academy, explained the history of Israel from 1917 to today.

Burman chronologically described events, including various wars and attempts at peace, from the point of view of Palestinians, Israelis and members of neighboring Arab countries.
Burman said his intent was to be as neutral as possible because the story of the Middle East is consistently told from biased perspectives. "You don't get the whole picture that way," Burman said. "The goal is to get as much information into this as possible."

For example, Burman explained that while Israel's 1948 war is called the "War of Independence" by Israelis, it is called "Nakba," an Arabic word describing the worst possible thing that can happen, by Palestinians. Also, while Israel's 1967 war is called "The Six Day War" by Israelis, it is called "Naksah," a word that means failure in Arabic, by Palestinians.

For every event that Burman described, he discussed the intentions and reactions of both sides. For example, every party involved in Israel's 1973 war had a different goal. "[Israel's] was to keep its territories and prevent loss of lives, Syria's goal was to liberate territory by force that was taken by force and Egypt's objective was to get the Sinai Desert by any means to prove it had the upper hand," Burman said.

He ended his talk with a discussion of the Arab Spring. He said it brought a new mindset to the Middle East. "People of the Middle East realize that their priority is to provide for themselves and live peacefully with neighbors," he said. "Maybe they're not going to be singing 'Kumbaya' by [the] campfire, but at least they might hate each other a little less."

Hillel Israel Programs Coordinator Hannah Leeman '16, who spearheaded the event's organization, said in an interview with the Justice that one of the reasons for the event is that since Brandeis's conversation about Israel has elevated to such a high level, Israel is not always accessible to the everyday student. "This event ... was the first of a series of events coming this year to try and open the conversation to everyone on campus, not just those who are already experts in what is going on, and to get more people involved and talking about Israel."

First-year Representative for the Brandeis University Conservative Organization Allison Marill '17 said in an interview with the Justice that the event provided a good background on Israel. "I found that in high school, they didn't talk much about Israel. Because of that, a lot of people only know about what's in the news right now," she said. "It's good to look at the history to see why things are the way they are. [Burman] did a good job explaining how Israelis feel and how Palestinians feel, which provides for a good understanding of the conflict."