In last Thursday’s McGill Daily, Sana Saeed wrote a General Assembly follow-up column in which she boiled down the cause of passions over the Middle East conflict to identity politics, and claimed that clampdowns on campus debate amount to a second front of the conflict here at McGill. I’m really happy she wants to talk about identity politics and divisions on campus. Let’s talk about it, but this time, let’s be honest. (Full disclosure: I am the president of Hillel McGill.)

Let’s talk about bringing the conflict to school. About how Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights would not have included those references to the Palestinian Territories in their Winter GA motion “The Defence of Human Rights, Social Justice, and Environmental Protection” if their true intention was to create a Corporate Social Responsibility committee. Because if they knew so much about identity politics, they should have known the effect those clauses would have.

Let’s talk about honesty. About how the preamble of that resolution was incendiary and part fabrication: The UN Charter and Covenants don’t take positions on current events, and the resolutions they listed may have declared certain Israeli policies illegal but didn’t mention “illegal occupation.”

Let’s talk about the atmosphere on campus. About the student who wanted to ask a professor who had opened his classroom to SPHR canvassers how he felt about the motion, but was interrupted by three people from SPHR who intervened in the conversation to defend the motion. About how the student took off his yarmulke before approaching, because he thought his Judaism would be an obstacle to being taken seriously on this subject.

Or maybe we can talk about how many phone calls I received the day of the GA because swarms of walking billboards had made campus an unwelcome place for supporters of Israel. Or how passing, unsupported allegations of genocide and insinuations that every opponent of the motion was somehow linked to the deletion of a Facebook group merely stigmatize differences of opinion.

Let’s talk about bringing peoples together. About how writing an article that completely demeans one side – supposing that all supporters of Israel are passive victims of cultural determinism rather than people with legitimate opinions – is not the way to promote dialogue. How, in one hypocritical breath, a writer can ask us to close the “second front” of the conflict and engage in non-militarized politics beyond identity, and follow up by calling for struggle against the black-and-white evil that is supposedly Israel.

And finally, let’s talk about the GA. Let’s talk about how when people upset with the Israel references tried to amend the whereas clauses – because we thought it was better to deal directly with our grievance instead of bringing the whole motion down – pro-CSR students voted against the amendment. Let’s talk about how that moment shattered any illusions that the motion was about anything other than Israel. And let’s talk about how the ensuing 45 minutes of procedural wrangling and personal attacks on the speaker made us understand exactly why we didn’t want this in the GA and why we voted the way we did.

The reason we organized against this motion is also one of the reasons students like myself organize against Israeli Apartheid Week. It’s because we’re concerned about the students on this campus. My heart breaks for people suffering all across the world, but it also shatters when I see students on this campus emotionally destroyed because they feel targeted. Let’s talk about politics, but not at a GA where the stakes are too high for anybody to be frank and genuine. Let’s talk to each other, not at each other. First, let’s try seeing each other as human beings. Let’s try making our first priorities a tolerable atmosphere on campus and achieving understanding.

The problem with debate in high-stakes situations, with propaganda that takes the conflict out of a comparative perspective, and with mean-spirited op-eds is that they achieve exactly the opposite of what they intend. All they do is reinforce fear and animosity. All they do is strengthen the very thing that Saeed is trying to move past – identity politics.