Scholars
discuss conflict
By
Michelle Zenarosa
On-line Forty-Niner
The
Middle Eastern Studies Program along with
Faculty for Israeli and Palestinian Peace
presented "The Israeli/Palestinian
Conflict: Alternative Perspectives"
in an effort to educate and debate on current
world issues Tuesday.
"It's
very important that we hear alternative
voices," said Dr. Houri Berbarian,
history professor and director of the Middle
Eastern Studies Program at Cal State Long
Beach. "The mainstream media and the
majority voice that we hear is often misconstrued
and feeds into misconceptions and does nothing
to promote peace."
The
panel was a part of a week-long schedule
of activities and events for International
Education Week at CSULB.
"Students,
just like everybody else, are part of the
larger world and therefore must remained
informed because once they get out there,
they have to form opinions and act on them,"
Berbarian said. "Nobody lives in a
vacuum. We have to be part of the world.
Better to be a positive force than a negative
one."
The
two speakers were Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Ph.D.,
candidate at Tel Aviv University and visiting
lecturer at the University of Judaism and
Saleh Jawad, professor of history and political
science at Birzeit University.
Rosen-Zvi spoke of his experience in being
a "refusenik," or draft-resister,
who refused to serve for Israeli troops
in occupied territories in August 2001 and
why he believed the refusenik movement had
grown to more than 600 in the West Bank
and Gaza.
"One
of the answers is they are there,"
Rosen-Zvi said. "Whatever your ideology
is, if you're there, it's much more difficult
to buy this endless slogan and rhetoric
of security and of never ending victimhood...
From the roadblock in Gaza, it's much less
convincing. These people are not great humanistic
activists, they are just there and I think
we should listen to their voice."
He
encouraged peace while speaking of 27 pilots
who refused to attack civilian cities stating,
"Pilots from the best of the best --
the most patriotic [refused]. There has
to be something. Maybe something you can't
see from here; it's easier to see from the
cockpits of the airplanes and the roadblocks
in Gaza. That's what I'm talking about --
the power of being there. Sometimes it's
stronger than education and background."
Jawad
spoke of the United States' involvement
in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and
rated the conflict as being far worse than
apartheid in West Africa, referring to it
as a "sociocide" and "genocide"
because the Arabs want the land without
the Jews in it as opposed to the whites
in South Africa, wanting the land while
exploiting the blacks in it.
"The
most important is the unconditional American
support to Israel," Jawad said. "This
is the main reason why there is no peace
in the Middle East. The United States' policy
is the main obstacle. It's not settlements,
not the Israeli policy -- it's the policy
of the United States and the latest American
veto in the United Nations."
The
U.S. veto denounced a U.N. resolution to
condemn the Israeli building of security
barrier on Palestinian territory on the
West Bank, further encouraging Israel's
military escalation against the Palestinians.
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