Israel’s war against Hamas is not over yet, but Tel Aviv University is now offering the first academic course on it for international students.
It will be launched at the beginning of the current academic year. The English-language course is meant to present an accurate, fact-based, and complex perspective on the conflict and dispel the distorted, simplistic picture of the war currently presented on many campuses worldwide, TAU said.
Thousands of students from North and South America, Europe, India, China, Australia, Africa, and elsewhere study at TAU’s Lowy International School. The new course, taught by leading experts, will cover the October 7 incursion, massacre, and air and ground war, TAU said. It will review the conflict’s background, as well as its immediate implications for both Israel and the world at large, relevant for multiple different areas, including conflict management, Middle East studies, economics, international law, security studies, national resilience, and trauma studies.
This will boost the international students’ awareness of the war’s causes and impact in the hope that they will portray a more complex and accurate picture of it in their own countries.
“The horrendous statements heard on many campuses around the world, especially in North America and Western Europe, are often a byproduct of blatant ignorance, coupled with the consumption of information from dubious sources on social media,” said Prof. Milette Shamir, TAU’s vice president of the International School. “As a countermeasure, we offer students from all over the world an opportunity to learn about the war through exposure to well-founded facts, responsible research, and complex ways of thinking. This is the appropriate response of academia to the venom propagated on campuses and over the social networks.”
Dr. Nimrod Rosler, director of the International Program in Conflict Resolution and Mediation, said: “The horrors we experienced on October 7 and afterwards underline the need for a deep understanding of the dynamics of violent conflicts. Such an understanding can be obtained from the academic knowledge and experience of the prominent lecturers who will teach in the course, providing participants with tools for dealing constructively with the war now and with its consequences in the future. Positive ways for coping with the horrors are the key to resilience and for the hope for a better future.”
The new academic course follows another initiative of the Lowy International School – a task force initiated by international students to help Israel’s effort to tell the war’s true and tragic story to the world. Participating students conduct dialogues on social networks with people in other places in the world, providing them with materials and information that present Israel’s narrative from the perspective of the international students in Israel.
Prof. Ronen Avraham, head of the Lowy School’s Parasol Foundation International LL.M. Program, said the task force is a “moving initiative by students, and I am proud that TAU provides it with logistical backing. We have already reached 1.3 million people and have thousands of followers worldwide. The horrific events will be recorded in the history books, not only of Israel and the Palestinians, but also of the entire world. We will not give up our efforts to spread the truth, for the benefit of both our contemporaries and of future generations.”