We make snap judgments about others on a day-to-day basis whether we realize it or not. We do this partially because of our wiring for survival reasons, but our habit of presumptions based on what little we know of someone is a human folly. Forcing ourselves to reckon with another person’s multidimensionality is something that takes honest effort.

When the United States first ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1955, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations categorized the agreements as ‘‘a landmark in the struggle to obtain for military and civilian victims of war, a humane treatment in accordance with the most approved international usage. The United States has a proud tradition of support for individual rights, human freedom, and the welfare and dignity of man.

As 2014 came to a close, the Palestinian Authority made two controversial moves in the international political arena that have sparked many legal questions. Under pressure from a civil society frustrated with its political toothlessness and still suffering from the traumatic effects of this summer’s massacre in Gaza, the PA pushed forward a hasty vote on a statehood resolution submitted to the United Nations Security Council demanding an end to the occupation by 2017.