Palestine is still the issiue

Review of film shown at R.I.T. by RCAN on 2/19/04 and question and answer session that followed.

When I arrived at the room where the film was being shown the first thing I noticed was the presence of a young man wearing a yarmulke with both the American and Israeli flags emblazoned on them. I was later to find out that this young person was the president of the campus chapter of Hillel. Throughout the audience were quite a few Israelis and students who carried the book " The case for Israel".

The film that had originally been filmed 20 years ago by John and updated recently, showed some of what the Palestinian people have been enduring for the years since the creation of the State of Israel.

The true feelings of the majority of the crowd came out during the Q and A period that followed. The majority of the time was spent with pro-israel comments coming from the students who were Israeli and/or jewish. The Israeli/Jewish students stated that Arafat was corrupt and that his wife maintained an apartment in Paris. I did hear one man comment on this who identified himself as Palestinian. This young mans comments about why the Palestinians support Arafat despite the "corruption" is because Arafat is the best they have right now and that no one should tell these people who should be their representative.

Some of those in the audience brought up the comparison between this ghetto that is made by the Israeli Government and the ghetto that was made by hitler for the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. The film showed people who are being unable to pass freely in their own land because the main road available is used by the Israeli settlers who occupy a settlement nearby.

A Palestinian woman in the film told of losing her child because she was not able to cross over the Israeli checkpoint with her husband and gave birth before she could get to the hospital. By the time they could reach the hospital the child had died.

There were people in the room of varying ages who were able to speak up,state their beliefs and their interest in peace in the Middle East.

The Israeli/Jewish students stated that the Palestinians (according to a U.N. study) train their children to be suicide bombers in school by using this example : You have a suicide bomber who gets on a bus and their are 8 Israelis on the bus and 5 are killed. How many Israelis are left?"( paraphrased). Another speaker commented that all Israelis are also trained to be soldiers and are required by the Israeli law to serve in the army. In the film there were some interviews with Israeli soldiers who chose to be Conscientious Objectors.

I did look for proof of this and as yet have not found this U.N. study but in doing my search on the internet using these words " United Nations study Palestinian Children trained in schools to kill terrorism Israel" instead found a study by the U.N. that stated that Palestinian children were targets for murder in Israel.

Cut and paste this url into window to reach link to article:

http://domino.un.org/unispalselect.nsf/0/46762ccc39f84a43852561120067c84...

I also found another interesting website that discussed what terrorism with high school students

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/sept11/16_02/whos162.shtml

excerpt for this webpage: Underlying this curricular demand for consistency is the basic democratic, indeed human, premise that the lives of people from one nation are not worth more than the lives of people from another. A Pakistani university student, Nabil Ahmed, expressed this sentiment to the Christian Science Monitor: "There is only one way for America to be a friend of Islam. And that is if they consider our lives to be as precious as their own."

Another good website I found gave another point of view of the situation "The use of Palestinian children in the Al-Aqsa Intifada http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp441.htm
I added this website because it gave a different perspective on the situation but must state that this website is maintained by a group called The Jerusalem Center which is an independent, non-profit institute for policy research and education serving Israel, the Middle East, and the Jewish people since 1976 and is headed by Israel's former UN Ambassador Dr. Dore Gold who was featured in the film presented and whose interpretation of the events may be subject to bias.

I believe that the dialogue at this film was meaningful and hopefully an opportunity for those on both sides who have limited view points to expand their knowledge of the situation and that these people will work for Peace rather than war.