The “Complex” Moral Urgency of Advocacy for Palestine: A Response to Dr. Mark Smith's Fall 2024 Convocation Address

Dr. Smith argues admirably for complex, non-binary thinking. In analyzing current attacks on Gaza, though, he fails to exhibit that complexity. He caricatures US pro-Palestinian movements and masks Israel's wildly disproportionate retaliation to Hamas's October 7 attack. Smith oversimplifies, first, with his own binary: “Israel, the United States and their supporters” versus “Hamas and its Palestinian allies” (including “Hezbollah and the Houthis”). Palestinian allies are rendered indistinct from those waging “terrible violence.” This misrepresents Palestinian allies as simply pro-Hamas, not as resisters to US-backed Israeli genocide. Smith's binary also forecloses seeing positive roles played by Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. In a second oversimplification, Smith pleas for remembering “the suffering of all parties,” but fails to see that doing so requires our giving an asymmetrical preference to Gazans suffering genocidal assault. Third, Smith sees “some of the animus” leading to encampments for Palestine as being antisemitic. Without acknowledging any virtue to the encampments, Smith's mention here of antisemitism reinforces reactive attacks on them as “antisemitic.” Fourth, Smith's concluding questions chastise encampments for neglecting other struggles, for Syria, the Sudan, Blacks, and LGBTQ + persons. This neglects the ways these struggles have been, in fact, vital to Palestinian activism.