October 7, 2024, marks one year since Hamas launched its terror attack against Israel. We asked scholars at Freie Universität Berlin who teach and conduct research on the region and the conflict in the Middle East for their perspectives. What is their professional view of the situation? How has their work and their discipline changed over the past year? This series will be a recurring feature in campus.leben for the foreseeable future.

A commentary by Islamic studies expert Professor Florian Zemmin

One could despair. An end to the violence is nowhere in sight. A solution to the conflict in the Middle East seems further away than ever before. After all, this would require important actors on both sides to recognize the right to safety and self-determination of the other when, in reality, some are even willing to go as far as deny the humanity of the “Other.”

But we have to stay hopeful. Israelis and Palestinians who acknowledge each other’s pain despite having suffered themselves deserve the utmost respect – especially those who participate in grassroots projects centered around reconciliation, who know that their own safety cannot exist without the safety of the other. Not only do they demonstrate their deep-seated humanity, they are also engaging in a kind of long-term political realism with a view to a shared future, or at least one in co-existence. 

Each person can try to make at least a small contribution to a better understanding. How can we expect people who are directly impacted by the violence on the ground to talk to each other when we can’t even manage that ourselves in Germany? When it comes to academic work, what this means for me specifically as a professor of Islamic studies with a focus on the modern and contemporary Arab world is to put the viewpoints that exist today in their historical context, question different perspectives, and bring people together to discuss these issues. Over the past few months we at the Institute of Islamic Studies have had very positive experiences with this in our classrooms. For example, in one of our seminars for bachelor’s students we have addressed different historical depictions of the conflict in the Middle East and asked which contemporary political stances were linked to each representation. In addition to acquiring knowledge on the history of the topic, participants learned to question and adapt their own opinions when faced with other perspectives or to better substantiate their existing viewpoints. However, it is political stakeholders who bear the responsibility for taking action on a wider scale.

About the author
Florian Zemmin is Professor of Islamic studies and Executive Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies at Freie Universität Berlin.