On Nov. 8, Smith College hosted a faculty panel in Wright Auditorium that aimed to offer the Smith community context for understanding the ongoing Israel-Hamas War.
Panelists included Susanna Ferguson, Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies; Steven Heydemann, Janet Wright Ketcham 1953 Professor in Middle East Studies and the Director of the Middle East Studies Program; Suleiman Mourad, Myra M. Sampson Professor of Religion; Bozena Welborne, Associate Professor of Government and was moderated by Mlada Bukovansky, Professor of Government and the current chair of the government department.
The panelists stressed that they were only discussing certain elements of a complex and multi-dimensional issue, and that the panel’s chief purpose was to educate the community and offer academic analysis on the decades-long conflict.
The panelists discussed the history of Palestine, the war’s regional implications, Hamas’s political objectives and how the war is specifically affecting women. The panelists also answered written audience questions about a potential cease-fire, US involvement in the war, where to get accurate sources and relevant terminology.
The event was popular and Wright Auditorium quickly filled to capacity, so organizers created a separate “overflow room” in the Campus Center, which livestreamed the panel for event-goers who were not able to find a seat.
Students who attended the panel had varying opinions about its success, with some saying that it was productive and others expressing frustration with the event’s format.
“I very much enjoyed the range of approaches they took to analyzing the conflict,” Margot Audero ’26 said. “It wasn’t just current events; we looked at the historical context and we looked at how the U.S. relates to the conflict.”
Audero also said that she found the format of the event productive. “I specifically enjoyed the framework of this panel that was not that we are going to have a debate from two sides or a debate from multiple sides but rather we are going to bring in a range of experts to try and learn about this as much as possible,” she said.
“I’m glad that they had this panel, and I’m surprised that Smith did it, ” Laila Al Ghamdi ’24J said. However, she expressed that she would have liked there to be more time focused on the panelists’ perspectives. “I would’ve liked it if there were less questions and more general learning and involvement,” she said.
Other students found the format to be ineffective. One junior, who declined to be named, said “I would’ve liked to hear opinions from people that aren’t academics. I think it could have been valuable but obviously it’s a very sensitive topic.”
For the Q&A section of the panel, attendees were handed note cards in which they could write down questions which were later collected by event organizers and handed to the moderator, who looked through the notecards and chose which questions to ask the panelists.
“I wish that the format of the event was different because students couldn’t actually speak into a microphone,” said the anonymous junior. “It would’ve been much more powerful for the panelists to hear questions as they were coming to them rather than having someone sift through all of the note cards because I think in a way, that’s censorship.”
Al Ghamdi echoed this sentiment. “I was at first upset, because I think that is a very easy way for the moderator to decide what gets to be said and kind of censor people,” she said. She also recognized the reasoning behind the decision. “At the same time, I do think that it would’ve been a lot more heated if it hadn’t been done that way, so I think it was smart for time’s sake and for productivity’s sake,” she said.
Al Ghamdi said that as a whole, she thought the event was both productive and unproductive. “Most people came in with set beliefs or ideologies, so because of that I’m not really sure if it changed anyone’s mind or really served to educate,” she said. However, she added that students have been asking Smith to address the conflict, so “maybe it was more of a place for people to realize that Smith was responding to current events and that individual professors do care.”
