While highlighting how sometimes legitimate criticism of Israel can be rejected by some circles, Mr. Abboud fails to explore the actual meaning of apartheid and the factual evidence that shows how it does not apply to Israel.

Is society wrong for interpreting the word “apartheid” as inflammatory, or are Israeli Apartheid Week organizers just turning away more heads from their cause?

If we allow the passion of Columbia students to shine through in a constructive and positive manner, I have faith that our community will be strengthened, anger will dissipate, and the social justice that all of us strive for will be made just a little more possible.

Perhaps the most critical and least acknowledged impediment to the negotiation of a conflict is the manipulation of language. No peace process can come to fruition when representatives from conflicting parties are embroiled in debates on semantics, yet individuals in both government and media inevitably employ strategic language at various stages in the process.

It has long since become cliché to wax poetic about the momentous changes that are now sweeping the Middle East.

This week, the long captured soldier Gilad Shalit will be released in exchange for nearly 1,000 Palestinian prisoners convicted – in Israeli courts – for list of crimes of varying degrees of violence.

My grandfather’s voice over the phone was quiet, but I could picture his mise-en-scène clearly. Sitting on his favorite chair in the veranda, he would be sipping his tea, occasionally pressing his glasses back up over the bridge of his nose to better watch the sun set over his small West Bank town of Nablus. He waited patiently as I fumbled through our tried-and-true conversation topics: family, the weather, regional politics. Finally, in a desperate attempt to revive our conversation, I asked for his thoughts on Barack Obama’s proposed freeze of Israeli settlements.