Speaker, Duncan Kirkwood

Tonight at Ohio State's Hillel, the group Buckeyes for Israel hosted Duncan Kirkwood, who is a very strong student leader from Alabama State University.  As a recent graduate and current graduate student, he is a nationally recognized advocate for Israel, and he spoke to students as well as community members about his connection to Israel as a Christian and an African American.

A brief explanation of how Kirkwood became so passionate about Israel is through his active participation in leadership and in his fraternity.  As an undergrad, he had the privilege of going to Washington DC and participating in different dialogues about Israel with leaders in the government and with AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee).

After his trip to DC, he was given the chance to actually travel to Israel himself.  He explained his experience there as the Bible coming alive to him.  The conflict that exists there does not exist to him, because to him he sees Israel as this holy place.  In regards to talking about the conflict, he gave us some advice.  He said to be proactive instead of reactive.  When operating in a proactive manor, we are all able to accomplish something and move forward.

How do you be proactive instead of reactive?  His advice was to be involved and be a student leader.  He said this because the student leaders now are the ones that become the leaders outside of college.  All of the people that are going to be in those high up government positions such as senators or representatives in two or three election terms are currently college students.

Towards the end of his speech, he also spoke a lot about the idea of justice.  To start off, he told a story about a mouse that finds a trap in the farmer's house.  The mouse goes to the chicken, but the mousetrap does not concern the chicken and the chicken does nothing.  Then the mouse goes to the pig, and the pig does nothing as well because it does not affect his life.  Later, the farmer's wife hears the trap close and goes down to find a snake caught in the mouse trap.  The snake bites her and the wife falls ill.  Because she is ill, the farmer goes out to the yard, kills the chicken, and makes chicken noodle soup.  Then, the family comes over to visit his sick wife, so he kills the pig to feed the guests.  The wife passes away.  The farmer then kills the cow to feed all of the people that attend the funeral. 

This story is a metaphor for how we sometimes operate in life.  We sometimes do not realize the we are all connected, and that one act of justice can disrupt this chain.  This also encompasses the idea of being proactive.  One can be pro-Palestinian and not be anti-Israel.  It is not black and white.  As Martin Luther  King said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."  It is up to us to break the chain.

interesting article ---> http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=215811