BY CIAN HAMELL-KELLHER
Photo Credit: Stonehill College
In the wake of the recent violence and unrest along the Israeli border, Stonehill College hopes the school will come together in a time divided.
“I call on each of us to support one another with kindness and compassion. Let us pray that Israel and Palestine heal the wounds of war and find a path forward toward peace,” Father John Denning said in a statement released to the school.
As the conflict between the nation-state of the Jewish people, Israel, and the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, continues to worsen, Gregory Shaw, a Jewish professor of religious studies and theology at Stonehill, believes a common morality has fallen by the wayside.
“We’re human beings first, and we have different ethnic and religious identities second,” Shaw said.
The unrest in that part of the world dates back millennia, predating the Abrahamic religions.
With a history as complex and rich as the land of Israel, Shaw said he fears emotions may play a larger role than facts in people’s opinions on the conflict.
“We need to realize that we are vulnerable human beings,” Shaw said. “We have to be slow about making judgments and understanding this conflict.”
A catalyst for the not-so-slow judgments has been the boom of social media, where according to a 2022 study by Pew Research Center, 70% of United States adults consume some form of news.
The danger in consuming news on social media is the lack of regulation for sensationalized news which often displays exaggerated headlines and claims with the goal of influencing public opinion, another troubling matter to Shaw.
“Most of us don’t really know what’s going on,” Shaw said. “I think the problem with people today is they don’t think for themselves.”
Campus Ministry held an interfaith prayer service on October 12 to pray the two sides “find a path towards peace.”
Shaw was upset with the “moral equivalence” displayed in both statements released by the school and was hoping that they would take a stronger stance against terrorism.
Comments