Junior World Affairs Council (JWAC) members had a unique experience Tuesday night when they attended an event at the Crescent Hotel where former Ambassador Dennis Ross spoke on U.S.-Israel relationships from President Carter to President Obama.

“It was wonderful to hear Ambassador Ross speak,” senior Stu Mair said. “He was clearly extremely knowledgeable about the subject and it was amazing to get an expert’s input on issues that are affecting American foreign policy today and for the future.”

This event was hosted by World Affairs Council, and invited JWAC members to attend. As JWAC’s mission is to promote global citizenship on campus, this event helped students gain important insight on the controversial topic.

“Though this speaker was somewhat biased about the state of Israel, for the most part he only talked about the facts,” senior Jost Luebbe said. “He gave us very specific occurrences and examples of [our relationship] with Israel, and told us he exactly what he wanted the U.S. to do in these situations. When I am able to hear something like that, I can take what I already know, combine it with what he has told me, and have a more informed opinion of what is going on in that region.”

Many JWAC members concurred that it is important to hear from a well-qualified speaker.

“He was very knowledgeable in the subject since he served for as the Israel-US relations ambassador,” sophomore Mikey Franks said. “He served four presidential administrations as the Israel-US relations ambassador.”

Luebbe said he wants other students to join JWAC and earn new perspective through events like this.

“I like JWAC because I am a very big proponent of people knowing more about than just their local going ons,” Luebbe said. “When you expose people to worldwide issues it makes them think more. JWAC is a place where you send people to speakers that may not always agree with them and you can show them different sides of an argument and get them to consider those options. Most of the time the speaker is extremely qualified, so when you put students in front of those sorts of people, it allows them to get a sense of a very intelligent opinion on that subject, and then allow them to form their own opinions on what they heard.”