Some have recently expressed, in the pages of this newspaper, a feeling of marginalization. Specifically, I, and the group that I represent, the Cornell Israel Public Affairs Committee, have been accused of acting to marginalize a Palestinian point of view. However, I firmly believe that this is not the case; instead, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be engaged — both in the microcosm of Cornell and on the world stage — by each party listening to the perspectives, needs and interests of each other.

As we, college seniors, begin the process of alternately facing and cowering from the world after Cornell, the one question looming over me more than others is this: Do we have responsibilities to that world?

If there are other Americans who would accuse Cornell and its students of elitism and privilege, then questions of obligation become increasingly important. In large part, this is because most Americans need a lot of things that we as future leaders can provide. Yet, what we need to change, I think, is the way we talk about these needs.

“If only the Palestinians had better leadership.” I often hear this point from well-intentioned, but in this case at least misguided, pro-Israeli friends and colleagues. They continue to bemoan, “If only they had a Ghandi or an MLK.”

And one can surely make a logical case about previous and current Palestinian (and other Arab) leadership missing the mark. But there are a few more interesting points here. First of all, a Ghandi or an MLK prototype a priori requires the background of either an oppressive colonizing regime or a brutally racist one. Either scenario is not quite ideal, and is fascinating to me that folks, in trying to highlight flawed Palestinian resistance, inadvertently draw this moral parallel to today’s Israel.