Penn hosted a talk led by Middle East distinguished visiting scholar Dahlia Scheindlin on the role of data in understanding Israeli and Palestinian attitudes surrounding the Israel-Hamas war.
The Oct. 28 event — held at the Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics and hosted by the Penn Middle East Center, Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy, and Penn Global — focused on the Palestinian and Israeli public opinions. The presentation consisted of data collected by the Palestinian-Israeli Pulse Survey on both Palestinian and Israeli opinions on topics such as the Oct. 7 attack.
Scheindlin, who lives in Tel Aviv, said she was “very curious to see how the environment is on American campuses.”
“Academia is one of several hats that I have,” she said when asked about her decision to come to Penn for the semester. “It was a nice opportunity for me to teach, which is always an opportunity for thinking about broader academic themes that I work on in deeper ways which I don't always have time to do day to day.”
Scheindlin added that she didn’t find Penn to be a “very intensive politically active environment on any issue.”
“Sometimes I say to students, ‘you think that you have a choice about whether to pay attention to politics or not, but politics pays attention to you whether you choose it or not,’” she said. “So I want students to be engaged, and I'd like them to think that they have a role in doing something about the issues they care about.”
She also discussed her belief in a confederated two-state solution, a belief that has become “even more relevant” after Oct. 7th, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel — which she said “prove[d] the failure of extreme segregationist policies.”
“I think that anybody who advocates for the traditional two-state solution is probably secretly advocating for never solving the conflict,” she added.
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The lecture data’s largest takeaway was that “war brings belligerent, hardline attitudes, justifications for further war, and mutual extreme threat perception.”
Scheindlin shared that, in 2024, 64% of Jewish Israelis believed that the long-term aspirations of Palestinians on Oct. 7 and the current war were to conquer the State of Israel and destroy much of the Jewish population in Israel — representing a large uptick from 2017, in which 38% of Jewish Israelis believed this.
Attendees of the event interviewed by The Daily Pennsylvanian expressed support for Scheindlin and her work.
“I’ve been reading Dahlia Scheindlin's work for a while and thought it would be a great opportunity to hear from her in person,” 2024 Arts & Sciences graduate Ethan Kane said to the DP.
Penn community member Abe Baker-Butler said that he attended a presentation given by Scheindlin in Jerusalem last year.
“Because of recent developments coming out of the conflict, many of them hopeful, I wanted to see what updated data she has,” he said to the DP. "I think the numbers she presented on the dehumanization of the other side were quite disheartening, but I am very encouraged by the data that she showed about a regional peace plan being more appealing than a typical two-state solution.”
He added that he feels "encouraged" by the fact Scheindlin shared that "leadership can really change public opinion in substantial ways.”
"It shows how needed and important leadership that is peace driven and transformative in the region is right now," he said.
