Two weeks ago, 1,300 black flags graced the Arts Quad to commemorate the recent deaths in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, standing alongside several dozen signs featuring statements about the recent deaths. This week, in response, the Cornell Israel Public Affairs Committee and Cornell Hillel sponsored a separate display featuring signs regarding Israel’s right to defend itself and Hamas’ affiliations with terrorism.

“Nazi porn?”

That’s a term writer Ron Rosenbaum used in his Slate critique of this year’s film The Reader — “Don’t give an Oscar to The Reader.” Guess Rosenbaum was less than pleased to see a glowing Kate Winslet carry away a gold statue last Sunday for her starring role in the film.

In his scathing column, Rosenbaum summarized the film. While in prison for participating in the murder of 300 Jews, the protagonist, Hanna, taught herself to read. “What a heartwarming fable about the wonders of literacy and its ability to improve the life of an Auschwitz mass murderer!” he pronounced. “Get a load of those pages turning! Reading is fun!”

To the Editor:

Re: “Rally Protests Hamas Rule, Calls For Peace,” Opinion, Feb. 24

Regarding the ongoing tumult over the recent vandalizing of the Gaza display on the Arts Quad, while this writer offers no view on the merits of the terrible situation in Gaza and Israel, one must ask why the Cornell University administration has elected to politicize the Arts Quad in the heart of the campus in contravention of its own rules and regulations that expressly prohibit outdoor displays and postings? (See: the Office of the Dean of Students’ website for the official posting policy guidelines at: http://sao.cornell.edu/SO/postering.php.)

The war being fought in the Middle East is a two-sided conflict that has cost over 1,300 people their lives. Over the past two weeks, we fear that the battle taking shape here at Cornell is mirroring that conflict all too well, pitting people against each other as groups go head to head in debate. The war in Gaza must stay in Gaza and Cornell must recognize it is not a battleground for partisan action but is rather an academic environment where multifaceted thought should prosper.

To the Editor:

Re: “Disproportionate Actions and Antics,” Opinion, Feb. 17

In Tuesday’s Sun, Carolyn Witte made many statements that were either poorly researched or very biased. The gravest of these inaccuracies, I feel, was the repeated failure to differentiate between being Jewish and being pro-Israel. Unfortunately, this has been a common occurrence lately. Navid Farnia claimed last Thursday that the infamous Resolution 29, condemning Iran’s sponsorship of terrorist organizations and its nuclear program, was sponsored by “Jewish students.” While many Jewish students supported the Resolution, its primary sponsors were S.A. President Tim Lin ’06 and President-elect Kwame Thomison ’07, neither of whom are Jewish.

This past Sunday evening I sat perched in Libe Café poring over Titus Andronicus and The War Between the Tates, and in the failing light I watched as half a dozen students lined the quad’s walkways with over a thousand black flags.

Witnessing these young people brave Ithaca’s brutal winter twilight warmed my heart, for in my naïveté I thought they were paying tribute to Black History Month.

Perhaps each black flag represented a fallen African American soldier in the Civil War or each African American imprisoned and murdered in the struggle for civil rights.

On Monday morning I found myself running breathlessly up to campus, on my way to Clark Library to finish a long overdue electrodynamics problem set. When I arrived on the Arts Quad, I was greeted by 1,300 black flags and a host of signs displaying statistics from the Battle of Gaza.

Later in the day, detractors would remove the signs from the Arts Quad. They would stow away statements made by the U.N., Amnesty International and the BBC. They would stamp out the statistics — houses destroyed, children murdered and war crimes committed. But they wouldn’t uproot the flags.

There were simply too many flags. In the 15 minutes between classes, who could uproot all 1,300 of them?

Three days after signs protesting the war in Gaza were vandalized and stolen from the Arts Quad, Cornell has seen a backlash of pro-Israel sentiment on campus. Flyers stating, “Would you want Hamas in your backyard?” were attached to the black flags in the Gaza display early Tuesday morning, but were removed by 5 a.m. Tuesday.

The original signs — which included facts from Amnesty International and the United Nations about the crisis in Gaza — have been replaced with new signs with the same statements. Police still have not apprehended any individuals involved with tearing down the original signs.

This week, 1,300 black flags — each one memorializing the death of an Israeli or a Palestinian in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East — grace the Arts Quad. On Monday, the first day they were displayed, the accompanying signs were ripped up and destroyed. While this action was both illegal and morally reprehensible, the display itself did little to foster dialogue, serving instead to further polarize each side of the debate. If peace — both on campus and in the Middle East — is to be achieved, actions must go beyond battles fought on the Arts Quad.

It’s been two weeks since The Column That Launched a Thousand Ships. And I want to preface this one by saying that it is no apology, but rather an addendum.

The chaos that my column spurred, while not completely unexpected, certainly reflects a reality: It hit a sore, sore spot for many. I originally wrote it because there had not been anything in The Sun about the Israel/Gaza situation. I felt that strong feelings must be festering on all fronts that would doubtlessly explode soon. Indeed, I learned that I was not the only one whose “fire had been ignited” over break — people from all political persuasions, from all religions, took my column and used it to explode all over the place.