By Sarah Sakha (MIA ’21) and Tariq Kenney-Shawa (MIA ’22)

SIPA’s 2022 graduation ceremony was about as euphoric as one could hope after the pandemic prevented the last two graduating classes from celebrating their achievements in person. Amid the heightened excitement, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Interim Dean Thomas Christensen took the opportunity to share a sobering message with us: as future leaders and policymakers, we have a duty and responsibility to not only succeed in achieving our own, but more importantly, to strive to “do good.” 

As graduates of one of the leading policy schools in the world, people who will one day hold and wield great power sat among us in class and walked across the stage this May, without a doubt. However, while we students spent the better part of two years learning and acquiring the tools to change policies and policymaking institutions, whether we use them for good is another question.

On Sunday, May 29, thousands of far-right Israeli settlers clad in white stormed the Old City of Jerusalem, marking their annual so-called “Flag March” in celebration of Israel’s occupation of the city in 1967. Under the protection of heavily armed Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), hordes of extremist settlers marched through the Muslim Quarter and the predominantly Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem chanting “Death to Arabs,” attacking Palestinian men, women, and children who happened to cross their path and burning Palestinian flags. (IOF is the term used by many Palestinians and pro-Palestine allies and entities in lieu of the Israel Defense Forces, which normalizes a military force that occupies Palestinian land and communities.) Palestinians who dared defend themselves were quickly arrested by Israeli soldiers, only to face continued beatings. During the weeks leading up to the event, dozens of Palestinians were arrested and shops were forced to close to make way for the rampaging religious fanatics. 

The annual Flag March is viewed by many as dangerously “provocative.” Last year, after Israeli soldiers stormed the grounds of Al-Aqsa Mosque and fired live ammunition, rubber bullets, and tear gas at Palestinian prayergoers, Hamas responded by launching rockets at Israel. In the 11-day period that followed, Israeli air strikes in Gaza killed over 260 people, at least 192 of whom were civilians.

This year, despite efforts by the United States to convince Israeli authorities to prevent a devastating relapse, ultra-nationalist Israeli settlers turned up the heat. Just before the march officially began — in which upwards of 25,000 Israelis would participate — over 1,000 settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, among them the notoriously far-right lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir. Ben-Gvir is known for his ties to the Kahanists, a group that was previously designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States, and for calling for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and non-Jews. 

Many of us opened up social media in the early hours of that Sunday morning to find footage of unbridled brutality and impunity of the IOF: children and elderly Palestinians being assaulted as settlers — under the auspices of the IOF — invaded the grounds of Al-Aqsa and marched through the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City. But then one of the posts on Eye on Palestine’s Instagram page included a selfie, taken by a young woman with a huge grin on her face. Her backdrop depicts the grounds of Al-Aqsa, with Israeli settlers holding up a large Israeli flag and yelling, while at least six armed IOF soldiers stand guard in the back.

And then the two of us realize: this is one of our former classmates at SIPA. This is someone who led the Zionist organization Students Supporting Israel (SSI) as an undergraduate at Columbia. This is someone who then took over 150 SIPA students on itrek this past spring, a trip that serves to whitewash Israeli occupation, apartheid, and human rights violations by presenting an Israel-first perspective carefully curated by Israeli military and political leadership. This is someone who sat next to so many of us in our classes — our classes on Arabic language and the Middle East, U.S. foreign policy, and international human rights law — and spoke innocuously about growing up in a small community. 

That “small community” was Ma’ale Shomron, an illegal Israeli settlement built in violation of international law in the occupied West Bank, about 20 miles northeast of Tel Aviv. And that photo captures someone proud of indefensible violence being wreaked on innocent Palestinians on one of the holiest sites in Islam. On May 29, our classmate Ofir Dayan stood shoulder to shoulder with some of the most far-right, fundamentalist parts of Israeli society, many of whom stormed the Al-Aqsa compound and marauded through Jerusalem chanting “Death to Arabs.”

The Dayan family is one of the most powerful families in Israel. Dani Dayan, the former Consul General of Israel in New York from 2016 to 2021, made headlines in 2019 when a myriad of Harvard Law students walked out of an auditorium where he was speaking in support of the illegal annexation of Palestinian land and the illegal expansion of Israeli settlements. He himself is a settler — a settler leader, in fact. For years, he led the Yesha Council, which represents Isreali settlers in the occupied West Bank. During his tenure, there was a sharp rise in settler violence. As one writer poignantly discusses in an opinion article in Haaretz, Dayan has made “an entire career spent in the violent disinheritance of millions of Palestinians in the territories.” He has normalized settlements, state violence against Palestinians, and the delegitimization of organizations like Breaking the Silence because they dare to criticize the actions of a government that can continue to act with impunity.

This is not just about any one individual or family. We are calling out a classmate and alumna because we seek, expect, and demand accountability for anyone who graduates from a leading policy school and who has a duty and responsibility to “do good.” How does it reflect on SIPA when one can go through a program that purportedly prepares students to not only be leaders, but also to actually “do good” — and come out actively supporting state-sanctioned violence and intolerance? 

By providing a platform for itrek and those who choose not to use their resources to “do good,” SIPA continues to condone systemic violence, including but not limited to Israeli occupation and its apartheid state. It is as much on us, as students and recent graduates, to seek out tools and dismantle the oppressive systems we operate in, as it is on SIPA to create an environment that does not reward complicity, let alone the active violation of human rights. 

Sarah Sakha (MIA ’21) studied humanitarian policy and technology at SIPA. She was the former president of the Palestine Working Group and now works for an international NGO and continues Palestinian solidarity organizing.

Tariq Kenney-Shawa (MIA ’22) studied international security policy and conflict resolution at SIPA. He served as the former president of the Palestine Working Group and is currently a Research Fellow at the Middle East Institute.