On a dreary winter evening in a university building basement in March 2015, I stood before some 100 students for a dialogue on the conflict in the Middle East. University of British Columbia (UBC) undergraduates were voting in a referendum to decide whether their student union should boycott products and divest from companies that support Israel’s occupation of Palestine — part of the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement. Many students present were visibly Muslim or Jewish, or had ties to the region.