Sarah Johnson, an undergraduate who studied at the American University of Beirut this summer, shared her experience of being in Lebanon when the war started and her evacuation as part of a panel Thursday that discussed the two conflicts Israel has been involved with since the summer.
Mary Ann Fay, a sociology professor, and Chris Toensing, executive director of the Middle East Research and Information Project, moderated the panel titled "Crisis in Lebanon, Israel and Gaza: Causes and Consequences."
Johnson was in Lebanon for three weeks before the war started and one week after. Johnson tried to travel as much as she could during the beginning of her trip, she said.
While in class on July 12, Johnson said she heard gunshots and honking in celebration. That day Hezbollah, a militant Shiite Muslim group, attacked Israel in a cross-border raid.
"We didn't expect [the war] to extend up to Beirut," Johnson said. "We didn't think it would happen to us."
Johnson said the Univeristy of Beirut continued to have classes as normal, but it was difficult to concentrate. Then the professors couldn't come to class because they were from southern Lebanon, and the program was cancelled.
During the week of the war while she was still in Beirut, Johnson said she was used to hearing explosions and the buildings shaking as missiles flew over. One bomb hit the university's soccer field, she said.
Evacuating was difficult because they kept hearing stories of roads being bombed and people being killed trying to leave the country, she said. The students were evacuated on a Norwegian freight ship and told they could only pack what they could carry on their backs. After a 13-hour trip, they arrived in the Cyprus airport and that ended their trip, Johnson said.
Other panelists spoke about the conflicts in both Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, concluding no party won.
When in disagreement with other countries, Israel is either in a phase of negotiation or unilateralism, which is where they currently stand, said Robert Blecher, a fellow in the Center for Human Rights of the University of Iowa.
"The war was a result of a strategy crisis in Israel," he said.
Concerning the conflict with Gaza, northern Israel was paralyzed and there was a "total military failure there," said School of International Service professor Mohammad Abu-Nimer.
The main victims of the conflicts were civilians, said Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Program for Human Rights Watch.
In the Gaza-Israel conflict, the infrastructure is the key to the conflict, Stork said, referring to Israel's bombing of Gaza's power plant. The plant supplies 45 percent of Gaza with electricity. In the Israel-Lebanon conflict both sides were guilty of war crimes, Stork said.
"I thought it was really interesting to hear about how both sides had possibly violated human rights laws," said Ashley Evans, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Blecher said he thinks Israel is trapped in a spiral of altering between unilateralism and negotiations and he fears they are going to be trapped for a long time.
"Israel had a failed agenda before the war started; now it is failing even more," he said.
The war brought further distrust and hatred to Israel and made the country less accepted in the region, Abu-Nimer said.
"All parties in this conflict lost this war," Abu-Nimer said.
Zach Faden, a sophomore in CAS, said he had mixed reactions to the panel, but found it informative overall.
"I thought it was an informative, analytical discussion, and I was appalled by the audience responses," said Zach Faden, a sophomore in CAS. "Few recognized that judgments were not being passed; information was merely being discussed. I was shocked that if one's own was not presented, they could not respect the analysis and perspective of the panel"
