Statement from Elizabeth Kiss, Warden of Rhodes Trust

On October 26, 2023 this statement by the Warden of Rhodes House and CEO of the Rhodes Trust Elizabeth Kiss was sent out Rhodes Scholars in residence and nearly the entire Rhodes Alumni community consisting of thousands of individuals. The statement was also available on the Rhodes House website for about one month before it was quietly taken down.

The Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians and Israeli air strikes in Gaza have brought grief, loss, anxiety, and fear to many members of our community.

Our hearts go out to all our Scholars who are grieving the loss of family members, whose loved ones have had neighbourhoods bombed, and who are afraid for their own safety or the safety of their communities. We also acknowledge that these terrible events have triggered traumatic memories for members of our community who have experienced war and displacement in other parts of the world, and that there are ongoing crises in Sudan, Afghanistan and elsewhere that are personally impacting Scholars.

We often describe Rhodes Scholars as “unlikeminded yet likehearted.” That unlikemindedness is clear from the many divergent views Scholars have expressed on the causes of, and potential solutions to, this war, and their varied perspectives on the decades of violence, displacement, and occupation preceding it. As a community, we affirm the value of robust debate and dialogue, and we hope to create space, when the time is right, to come together for facilitated conversations about the region.

But whatever our disagreements, we affirm our likeheartedness: our shared humanity and vulnerability and our individual and collective desire to be a force for good. As members of a scholarship whose mission is to build a better and more peaceful world, we are all called to find ways, in a fractured and polarised world, to build a community of friendship, compassion and care and to seek common ground.

We have witnessed enormous sensitivity and compassion for one another’s grief, and beautiful offers of individual support. However, conversations on several unofficial Rhodes group chats and listserves have been heated, and both Palestinian and Israeli Scholars have felt hurt and unsupported in these online forums. There have also been personal attacks on individual Scholars, which are inappropriate and a violation of our community’s norms. We urge Scholars to show the same sensitivity in online conversation as you would show in person and as you would wish to be extended to you. Let us also remain mindful of misand disinformation and acknowledge individual biases and gaps in knowledge.

In the spirit of our shared humanity, we grieve for all the civilians who have been killed, taken hostage, or who remain in harm’s way. As an organisation grappling with our own difficult history rooted in colonialism, we acknowledge that this war comes on the heels of a history of violence and insecurity, genocide and occupation, terrorism and fear, and that it evokes wrenching intergenerational trauma on all sides. We unequivocally condemn both antisemitism and Islamophobia, and resolve to resist efforts, in ourselves or others, to dehumanise other human beings or to ignore their suffering.

Acknowledging that there are no easy answers to the current crisis, we hope that those in the region and in the wider international community will work to deescalate the conflict, protect civilians, and strive to ensure that these dark days lead, not to hopelessness and continued suffering, but to a renewed resolve to work toward a just peace.