This week, the Middle East conflict played out on Low Plaza. Israeli-Palestinian Peace Week and Israeli Apartheid week ran simultaneously.

"Israeli Apartheid Week is part of an international movement to recognize the system of apartheid that currently exists in Israel."

Students erected a wall on Low Plaza to represent the barrier that exists between Israel and the West Bank. They passed out literature to raise awareness of what they say are inequalities in the region.

"Within Israel itself, there is a completely different legal system that exists for Palestinian Israelis and for non-Palestinian Israelis who are citizens of the same country and face wide-ranged forms of discrimination because of their ethnicity."

However, students participating in Israeli-Palestinian Peace Week disagreed.

"One of the biggest issues that’s being highlighted this week is obviously the security wall that is up. That is what is being chosen to equate Israel with apartheid, and that is a big issue within the Jewish community and hopefully the larger campus community at large, just because the terminology is inaccurate."

Despite their differences, both groups agreed on one thing. More free dialogue is needed in order to reach a solution.

"There’s also been this week of programming, under the banner of Peace Week for Israelis and Palestinians, that has provided programs for all the different Hillel groups and the Israel groups in Hillel to basically provoke dialogue: to ask tough questions, and to say what is going on in Israel is not perfect, there are issues. Let’s talk about it."

"We’re here to, specifically at Columbia but also in the city at large, to talk about the situation; to talk about it, to promote this sort of discourse, to be able to actually just talk about it."

As the wall on Low Plaza comes down, students are left thinking about how issues nearly 6000 miles away affect them.