I went to PAC last Thursday to learn something new about the Palestine-Israel conflict. Where I come from, harsh critics of Israel are few and far between, and since I am not knowledgeable on Israel human rights offenses I went to Allison Weir’s lecture. While some of her points were valuable (such as the absence of balanced American reporting on the conflict), and though I appreciated her humanization of the Palestinian people (who are, after all, victims of incredible oppression and certainly are not all terrorists as the media tends to imply), I found her presentation incredibly distorted and not at all, as she claimed, “objective”. Her callous comparisons between the individuals killed on both sides, tallying deaths as “points,” her veiled anti-Semitism, and the painful letter that she wrote to the entire Palestinian people from America in general all seemed over the top and truly gut-wrenching in the damage they were wreaking.

Yet Allison Weir is entitled to her opinions and even her distortions. It was during the question-and-answer session when she blatantly attacked and disrespected me that I felt confused and hurt. She accused me of preparing a “speech” in advance and compared my Israeli family to an uncle who is a hardened criminal—according to her, I may not want to see the truth, but his crimes must be punished. She was so rude and condescending to me that many members of the audience approached me after her lecture and apologized to me for her. In fact, many of these apologies ended in an hour-long conversation about the conflict (almost all agreed that she, herself, was offensive and not worth discussing).

To be honest, what confused me most was her Bush-ist approach to the Q&A. If she was confronted with a question she did not like, or did not want to answer, she would personally attack the asker (not just myself, but at least one other student had this experience as well). I don’t expect Allison Weir to refrain from sensationalizing this conflict—sensation sells. I don’t expect Allison Weir to tread delicately upon pain and violence—she is not paid for that. I don’t expect Allison Weir to admit that any of her numbers or historical “facts” are wrong—she has the right to stick to her guns. I do, however, expect Allison Weir (as I would expect any human being) to treat me with respect.

The Wesleyan that is a place of open discourse and challenging debate is the Wesleyan I know and love, and while this individual is from outside the community, my biggest question is what she brought to our community. I know that for me, she took a lot away from my hopes for reasonable and peaceful debate – this is a heated issue and an undeniably important one. If we can’t learn and talk together here at Wesleyan, how do we ever expect to see peace?