Last Tuesday morning from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m., Israeli forces conducted a raid at the Abu Dis campus of Al-Quds University. Focusing on the Dean of Students office, the Faculty of Islamic Studies and the students activity center, soldiers destroyed property and seized Hamas propaganda, according to an April 5 Ma’an News Agency article. During the two-hour period, soldiers kept campus security guards locked in one room. Israeli forces explain the raid with claims that Al-Quds contributes to the incitement of terrorism through its links to Hamas and history of honoring martyrs who killed Israeli civilians. What do you think of the raid?

Iona Feldman ’17

Palestinians who live under Israeli military occupation experience many severe obstacles to living in freedom and dignity in their own homeland. The occupying army needs no serious justification to perform such violent raids whatever it wishes; in this case, the excuse of threatening political literature proved enough. Students from all across Palestine continue to experience numerous infringements on their right to education, ranging from prevention of access to technologies and chemicals for students of science and engineering to the ever-present checkpoints that prevent them from even getting to school. Brandeis students would be in uproar if they had such daily restrictions to their own education; why should Palestinian students deserve any less? Every people has a right to live in freedom and dignity, and I hope folks understand why people would organize against a regime that has denied this to the Palestinians for decades.

Iona Feldman ’17 is a member of Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine.

Noam Cohen ’16

Al-Quds University has a disturbing recent history of glorifying terrorists who have attacked Israelis and has active Hamas-affiliated student groups on campus. This is deeply troubling and surely illegal. To understand the serious nature of these grievances, try to imagine a terrorist-affiliated club operating freely at a university in an area under American rule. Unfortunately, the recent Israel Defense Forces raid also demonstrates that Israeli law is not applied equally in the West Bank. This, too, is troubling. I understand the motivation behind such raids, but I question their efficacy. I imagine that the alleged inappropriate behavior of the Israeli military will only strengthen public support for violent resistance among al-Quds student, thus making the raid counterproductive. If the IDF deems such missions to be of value beyond intimidation, I suggest they conduct them in a more discrete and less degrading manner in the future.

Noam Cohen ’16 is a board member of Brandeis Visions for Israel in an Evolving World. He is also a Near Eastern and Judaic Studies major and Undergraduate Departmental Representative.

Barry Sasson ’16

When trying to understand the raid that took place, one must realize that Hamas is a globally recognized terrorist organization whose stated goal is the destruction of the State of Israel. With countless suicide bombings and thousands of rockets fired by Hamas, which have caused destruction and casualties all over Israel, the Israeli security establishment has every right to protect its citizens and ensure that Hamas is unsuccessful in its attempts to carry out terrorist attacks against Israelis. The raid occurred because Al-Quds University, which has a history of incitement — including the anti-Semitic, fascist-style rallies that disrupted the Brandeis-al-Quds partnership — witnessed a number of its students affiliated with Hamas incite others to commit terrorism. While it was unfortunate that students unconnected to this Hamas network experienced the raid, Israel had to intervene. Failing to do so would have facilitated terrorism and subsequently increased the violence endured by both sides.

Barry Sasson ’16 was a campus engagement coordinator for the Brandeis Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Ron Gadot ’18

The events that took place at the Abu Dis campus of Al-Quds University last week are upsetting. It is upsetting to me as a student who attends university that soldiers must go into campus grounds, leaving collateral damage in their wake. It becomes less upsetting, however, when I realize the purpose of these operations. Recent Jewish Telegraphic Agency statistics show that Palestinian terrorist attacks dropped 26 percent in the month of March and are at their lowest levels since July of 2015. The recent plummet in violent and indiscriminate attacks against Israeli citizens coincides with targeted operations such as this one carried out within Palestinian society — a society where student wings of terrorist groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad seek to indoctrinate the minds and passions of young Palestinian men and women. By seizing materials of terror incitement, the Israel Defense Forces are effectively aiming to free the minds of Palestinian university students from terrorist ideology and propaganda while, ideally, preventing future attacks against innocents. Unfortunately, for the time being, this is a necessary step towards creating a just and peaceful society for all.

Ron Gadot ’18 is the president of Judges for Israel and a member of Common Ground.

Jonas Singer ’17

While it is unfortunate that military activity on a campus was required, Hamas' operations and recruitment activities in civilian areas as a policy often leaves Israel little choice. The raid on the Abu Dis campus of al-Quds University last Tuesday was an attempt by Israel to curb continuing Palestinian incitement to violence through removing Hamas-inspired propaganda that was stored in the campus' student union and the Department for Islamic Studies. This is not the first raid of al-Quds University in the past year -- there was a raid on January 29 in which Israeli forces confiscated equipment and documents that were provoking Palestinians to violence against Israeli civilians. Raids on academic institutions should not have to become common practice, yet Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization, has made this an unfortunate reality. The raid was part of recent IDF operations to capture terrorist leaders and confiscate terrorist propaganda in East Jerusalem to curb the number of stabbings perpetrated by residents of the Abu Dis campus, such as 19-year-old law student Muhannad Shafiq Halabis, who stabbed two Israelis to death in early October, and the attempted stabbing last month by two women at the HaZeitim crossing in eastern Jerusalem. The only way to bring peace to this troubled neighborhood of Jerusalem is to start by removing Hamas' terrorist recruitment efforts in civilian institutions.

Jonas Singer ’17 is the president of Brandeis Israel Public Affairs Committee.