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Karen Henry, Big Rapids, Michigan, on Palestine, 1994, side 1.
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- speakerThis is Margaret Purchase speaking and I'm recording the talk by Karen Henry
- speakerat Big Rapids Michigan March 24th 1994. I am an Arab Amercian that was
- speakerborn and raised in Michigan. My grandparents come from Syria and Lebanon. I grew up in a household where you.
- speakerdidn't learn to speak Arabic. And, we're all really sorry, but we've heard enough that we
- speakerbegin to recognize some of the sounds as we study it. We certainly did grow up with very much of an Arab culture. And, with the Arab food, which
- speakerI maintain today is still the best food in the entire world. So, I did get a lot of growing up Arab. I made my first trip to the Middle East
- speaker10 years ago. And a little over ten years ago. And, have been to Lebanon once, and to Palestine and Israel three times, living and working in
- speakerPalestine in Jerusalem, for a Palestinian newspaper called El Hadja, which means The Dawn.
- speakerI'm not going to talk about the history of the region. I understand first of all that some of you are studying it and.
- speakersecondly, we don't have very much time. And, you want to engage some stuff
- speakertoday. I will simply say a couple of things.
- speakerOne is that Arabs have lived in Palestine for over two thousand years.
- speakerWhen Jews started going to Palestine due to a movement called Zionism and due to the atrocities committed by Hitler,
- speakerthat they were accepted by the Arabs living there until they
- speakerhad different designs on the area. The other thing I would like to
- speakersay about that is that the movement called Zionism, which is
- speakeroften referred to as a religious movement, I think we should look at as
- speakernot a religious movement, but actually a political, nationalist movement. That, in
- speakerfact, the Jews who went to Palestine, went there for a place
- speakerto live. They went for security.
- speakerThey went with a political ideology. They went believing they were going to a land without people and that they were the
- speakerpeople for that land. When they got there, they found out that wasn't the reality. And, Great Britain, which had a
- speakermandate for the area, made promises to them that they couldn't keep and
- speakerpromises to the Palestinians that they couldn't keep. So they were completing promises that created a lot of the strife that we have seen up till today.
- speakerNow in 1948 when Israel declared itself a state,
- speakerIt's important for us to realize that the United States was the
- speakerfirst country to recognize the new
- speakerstate of Israel. When you. If you have a flyer about my
- speakertalk. It says I am going to talk about Is peace and justice possible for 27 years of occupation to a massacre in
- speakera mosque. And, I will talk about that. But I want to focus also
- speakeron perceptions that we have in this country about arabs. I will talk about
- speakermedia coverage. First of all, occupation. Probably. The.
- speakerMost of us who live comfortably
- speakerin this country. So what does it mean to live under occupation. I will give you an example from
- speakerwhat I know, from how some of my friends have lived, and from what it was like for me to
- speakerlive in a country that was under Israeli cccupation. This occupation
- speakerhas gone on for almost twenty-seven years, which means that to the
- speakermajority of the population, people who are young like most of you in this room, that that is
- speakerall that they have ever known. They have only known life under occupation. Life under occupation
- speakermeans you do not have the right to
- speakervote. It means that schools can be closed by the military authority for
- speakerany reason whatsoever. And they can be closed for long periods of time.
- speakerA particularly insidious thing that has happened. A thing that has happened to students is that when the schools
- speakerare closed by military authority right before final exams.
- speakerImagine it, if you are a student. It is time for final exams, and military authority
- speakercloses your school.You cannot take your exam.
- speakerYou not only cannot take that, if the school opens in a month or too, you've got to go through that entire year of education again before you can take those exams.
- speakerOr at least wait for that entire year to elapse.
- speakerPalestinians are among the
- speakerhighest educated people in the entire world. And, they take education seriously. Another thing that happens when you
- speakerlive under occupation is you are subject to military curfew. You are subject to a phenomenon known as house demolition. Perhaps some of you have seen on the news
- speakerjust recently. What that means is if one member of a family living in a home is suspected. I use the word suspected. Of
- speakerillegal activity that the occupying authorities can come in with bulldozers and bulldoze the home, b
- speakerefore the individual suspected of illegal activity
- speakeris tried in a court of law. This goes against international
- speakerlaw, but it happens on a daily basis. I was there to view a family, who was given thirty minutes to get out of their home before the bulldozers came. And, a
- speakerfamily in the Middle East is often more than the three point five people that it
- speakeris in America. It can be as many as seventeen that suddenly find themselves homeless.
- speakerArrest, imprisonment, administrative detention are all part of
- speakeroccupation. House arrest is another item that is part of occupation. House
- speakerarrest meaning that you cannot leave your home between sunset and
- speakersunrise. If you've been watching CNN and
- speakersome of the other networks that have been talking about so-called peace accords and you've see some of
- speakerthose spokespeople on the news--Hanan Ashrawi, Feisal Hussein.
- speakerWhen I was living in Jerusalem, I was part of a committee with Feisal Hussein
- speakerand other Palestinian and some Israeli Jews who were looking for
- speakerways to work together and to work against the occupation. But Feisal Hussein
- speakerwas under house arrest. So he couldn't leave his home. So we had no choice but to have our meetings at his home, which was often a great inconvenience. So he was under house arrest for
- speakersix months of the year that I was there.
- speakerPart of occupation means that
- speakermembers can be exiled, Palestinians can be exiled from their land.
- speakerAnd that's all done illegal. It breaks up families. Another part of
- speakeroccupation is that women are often subject to
- speakersexual assault by Israeli soldiers and this is something that is not talked about, but it is something that does happen.
- speakerLand. Is stolen stolen. Settlements are built on the land. And another art of
- speakerdaily life in the area for example like Gaza, which according
- speakerto some studies, is the most highly populated
- speakerarea per capita in the world. If it is not the most highly populated, it
- speakeris extremely highly populated. It also happens
- speakerto be one of the poorest areas in the world. And, it is
- speakerone of the areas that the Israelis have intentionally neglected.
- speakerAnd, I think that they have neglected Gaza more than they have neglected any other area. Now, in
- speakerGaza people live in what are called refugee camps. Now they are not tents. They
- speakerare actual buildings and they abut each other. And, the families that live in
- speakerthose houses keep those houses spotless. They are spotlessly clean..
- speakerAnd, they do this without electricity. And, they do this without running
- speakerwater in many cases. And, the people are spotlessly clean. Their clothes are clean.
- speakerThe children are clean, but they
- speakerdon't have, as I said, running water. They don't have sewage. What they have instead is the gullies, the open gullies in
- speakersome of the camps, where the sewage runs open. I was there one
- speakersummer during an especially hot day, a hundred and fifteen degrees.
- speakerAnd, the children are outside playing. And, it is really hot, and there is no running water, and the only
- speakerwater running anywhere through the camp is running through the gullies and it is sewage. And, the children find it
- speakerirresistible to taste the water, and so they do occasionally. And, they get diseased. And, Israel, which is the occupying power, turns its back on them. So, these are examples of what life under occupation is like for the i
- speakerndigenous population.
- speakerDuring the 27 years of occupation and during the Intifada, the
- speakerpopulation hasn't just sat there and waited to be
- speakerarrested. What has been done during this period is build the infrastructure
- speakerof a society. There is a sliding legitimate
- speakersociety. Palestinian society.
- speakerEducation. There is kindergarten.Women especially deal with illiteracy. There are health services. Production.
- speakerThey organized demonstrations. They do things like job training and I'm talking
- speakerabout this in Gaza about one thing. Aside from the political organization
- speakerand the Palestine Liberation Organization. That this is the infrastructure of society that
- speakerhas been worked up over twenty-seven years.
- speakerSo with this backdrop, with that brief backdrop, we've got to the point where something
- speakerhistoric happened. And, it was
- speakercalled the "Signing of the Declaration of Principles."
- speakerStory. And, what I like to call the historic handshake between Yassir Arafat and Izaak Rabin.
- speakerSo. People, it seems, were so euphoric about the handshake. Two enemies actually shaking hands that
- speakerthere wasn't very much analysis about what kind of a deal was this.
- speakerWhat exactly were they shaking hands on? Well in my personal opinion it was a very b
- speakerad deal. Because it was an unequal deal and the Palestinians were coming
- speakerout low. But I also believe that bad deals can
- speakerturn out OK because, if your intention is good, and if the parties involved really care and work on it, things can turn out,
- speakerturn out for the best. Why was it a bad deal? It was a bad deal because at no point did
- speakerthey talk about self-determination for the Palestinians. At no point, in other words, did
- speakerthey talk about real freedom for the Palestinians. A Palestinian state was not mentioned. It was a bad deal because a lot of people were left out of the deal, particularly those who were living under armed occupation. It was a bad deal because
- speakerprisoners were not
- speakerpart of the deal. The exiles were not part of the deal. Jerusalem was not part of the deal. Neither were the Palestinians in the diaspora. The economic issue the water issue, none of them was really dealt with. On the other hand, t
- speakerhere was something good about the deal.
- speakerIsrael recognized the P.L.O. for the first time ever.
- speakerJews and Palestinians in that land are talking to each other. They've always been talking to each other, but our media's never
- speakerreally talked about it.
- speakerBut now, they're talking to each other, and we are talking about them talking to each other.
- speakerAnother good thing is that the P.L.O. is actually examining itself and realizing that perhaps it has got to make some changes. One of
- speakerthe big problems
- speakeris that the USA, which is involved in these talks, is
- speakerextremely biased. And, we are going to talk about that next and has treated both parties as though they are spirits. And as though there is actual equality
- speakerbetween Israel and Palestine. And, in fact, there is no equality
- speakerof calling yet. There
- speakeris certainly the equality of color, but there certainly is no equality of power. and they cannot be treated as though there is.
- speakerSo what that brings me to as a U.S.
- speakercitizen is born and raised in this country is. What is my responsibility? I am a taxpayer. Six billion
- speakerdollars a
- speakeryear goes to Israel and I pay taxes for that.
- speakerSo. What is it that has to do with me? Do I need to be responsible for this? What does our government represent when it gets involved in dealing conflicts?. Well, let us talk about the current government, w
- speakerhich is the Clinton administration, which actually happens to be the
- speakerworst administration in history of this country for Arabs, and especially for Palestinians. What has happened under the Clinton administration is that
- speakerUnited States dollars
- speakerhave been used for settlements. And, settlements are supposed to be by
- speakerinternational law illegal. Previous administrations at least had the pretense of not using our tax dollars or grants and loan monies to Israel f
- speakeror an internationally illegal item like settlements, but this administration doesn't even bother with the pretense. This administration ignores international law
- speakermore than any previous administration.
- speakerThis administration could just that Jerusalem actually belongs to Israel. And, there is no country in the world, including this country, that recognizes
- speakerJerusalem as the capital of Israel. Jerusalem, the city, whose status is still to be negotiated.
- speakerThere was a U.S. State Department report on Israeli settlements, which showed
- speakerthat there was continued settling in east Jerusalem. That is against the law and past presidents, including Bush, approved for. That does not mean I voted for George Bush, by the way. I voted for my
- speakermother. Actually, I thought it would be nice to have an Arab woman president. A
- speakernother thing that the Clinton administration has done. It has allowed the four hundred and fifteen
- speakerPalestinian exiles to
- speakerlanguish in Lebanon. It allowed this obvious breach of
- speakerinternational law to occur. And when the UN Security Council resolution
- speakerwas about to get adopted, saying that this is an Illegal act, and the exiles needed to be returned immediately,
- speakerthe United States with its power undercut the
- speakerresolution before it could read the board. And said. No. As long
- speakeras Israel lets them back a few at a time, even if it takes a year, that that
- speakersatisfies the letter of the law. It did not.
- speakerDisputed Territories. Now we have talked for years, for almost
- speaker27 years, about occupied territories, about the territories that are to be
- speakernegotiated. Territories Israel took in wars that n
- speakereed to be returned, like the Sinai wa returned to Egypt. The West Bank and
- speakerGaza are occupied territories. The only people who call the
- speakeroccupied territories "disputed territories" are the Israeli Jews, who feel that they should not be returned or people that also support
- speakerthe fact that those territories belong to Israel. The
- speakerClinton administration has been using the term "disputed territories."
- speakerI find this to be dishonest. The U.S. drafts papers on the peace accords,
- speakerbecause we were so involved in the peace accords that we
- speakerwere drafting papers on how they should be worded and what should be said.
- speakerNever. Never call the territories occupied. Another thing about the Clinton administration is that
- speakerafter the massacre in Hebron [Cave of the Patriarchs massacre]. The massacre of praying Muslims in a mosque. The President of the United States got up and
- speakerpublicly said, "This was a gross act of murder, but
- speakerextremists on both sides are trying to derail the peace process." As though a similar
- speakeract had been perpetrated against
- speakerIsraeli Jews praying by Palestinians. This
- speakerwas an unconscionable statement and nobody called him on it. It was an unconscionable statement. What he
- speakerdid was showed us that there is a
- speakerpremium on a certain kind of life. And, the premium in this case is on the lives of our allies, the Jews and not on the lives of the Arabs
- speakerIn addition, Clinton has surrounded himself with supporters of Israel. And, I use this term loosely
- speakerbecause I think that
- speakera lot of people that are called supporters of Israel, actually don't have Israel's best interests at heart. Among them are Al Gore, who says that Israel, Israel
- speakeris America's best friend in the entire world.
- speakerThe National Security Council Middle East desk is run by a man named Martin Indyk [Indyk, Martin Sean]. And Martin Indyk was at one time associated with AIPAC [America Israel Public Affairs Committee]. AIPAC
- speakeris the pro-Israel lobby in this country.
- speakerHe also is a supporter of the Likud. The Likud is the Israeli
- speakerParty that is a very right wing, hardline party. And, he is running the Middle East desk at the National Security Council. Samuel Lewis [Lewis, Samuel Winfield] in the State Department is a former ambassador to Israel and is a
- speakercurrently a
- speakerfundraiser for the Israeli government. Dennis Ross [Ross, Dennis B.] and Mickey Kantor [Kantor, Michael]. Dennis
- speakerRoss is involved in the negotiations and Mickey Kantor, who is the trade representative, and others
- speakerare all
- speakerAIPAC people. Now. There is something wrong with the
- speakerpresident getting all of his advice from people who have one vision.
- speakerIf, in fact, these were some of his advisors and he
- speakerhad other advisors, who said, "Look! You need to look at this side of the picture well,"
- speakerit would be a different story. But he doesn't.
- speakerWe often said. And, we also send, as I told you earlier, six billion
- speakerdollars of aid to Israel per year with no
- speakeraccountability. That is almost one third ot the total of the U.S. foreign aid package. And, we can't ask for accountability. I had Israeli Jewish friends, like Matthew Kellot, who is a former
- speakermember of the Knesset. And these people write articles saying, "United States. Stop sending Israel so much money. It is not helping us at all."
- speakerIt is allowing us to continue to defy international law. It's allowing us to
- speakercontinue to prop up the military. And, it is allowing us to continue avoiding solving our problems. Ok. That's
- speakerthe Clinton administration. That's the administration that did not respond in my estimation to the massacre at the mosque.
- speakerNow,when the massacre at the mosque occurred [Cave of the Patriarchs, February 25, 1994], the
- speakerfirst thing I did was try really hard to watch as much media coverage of it as I could. And, that's hard to do because sometimes it's difficult to watch..
- speakerAnd I found
- speakerthat almost everybody was saying that this was the act of a lone gunman [Goldstein, Baruch Kopel]. One, demented person. And, it could never happen again. What I'd like to say is that this was a logical outcome of
- speaker27 years of occupation. That this was the logical outcome. And, first of all, I don't believe he acted alone. I think that he probably did not act alone.
- speakerBut whether he did or didn't, it was still a logical act of state-sponsored terrorism. Of a
- speakercountry that has a rule that says you can
- speakernever shoot a Jew, even if the Jew is shooting Palestinians. This is the logical outcome.
- speakerSettlers. The settlers are armed. And, they are almost always armed. And, they go everywhere with their arms. They go with their lavelier assault rifles and with their Uzis, and with their M-16s. They
- speakerwalk into the church of the Holy Sepulcher in the old city, carrying their guns.
- speakerThose of us, Jews, Arabs,
- speakerAmericans, Brits. Those of us that see that, stay away,
- speakerbecause we fell that that is a very inflammatory thing. We don't want to be around these folks
- speakercarrying their weapons. They are always armed. Somewhere
- speakerviolence has happened since the beginning, and it has never been stopped. In Hebron, where the massacre occurred and where Baruch Goldstein c
- speakerame from, Kiryat Arba, which
- speakerI consider to be a Fascist settlement
- speakerIt is a right-wing, hard-line Fascist settlement. He was a product of that settlement, and the
- speakerIsraeli Jews who settled in that area would overturn crates in park in the market at Hebron. They would spray insecticide on the food. They would spit at people.
- speakerAnd, according
- speakerto Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs, there were some eyewitnesses to watching
- speakersome of those Israelis Jews, who had passed by some Palestinians, who were burying one of their children, who was
- speakershot by the military. And, they
- speakerwalked past and shouted, "Mazel tov", which means "good luck and congratulations." And, this has been going on for a long
- speakertime.
- speakerNow in the midst of all that, in my criticism of the hard line settlers and of
- speakerthe policies of the government. And, I do recall I criticize the Israeli government and the American government very strongly.
- speakerI would like to see them been and continue to be more than a handful
- speakerof Israeli Jews who are appalled by what is happening in their country. And, at great risk to themselves, they have stood up,
- speakerspoken out about it, and taken as much action as they can.
- speakerAnd often found themselves in jail as a result. They need our support.
- speakerNow. How does the media cover all this? How am I doing on time? I tend to talk. How does the media cover this/ How does the media cover Arabs in general?
- speakerFirst of all. We're either a bomber
- speakerOr we're a billionaire or we're a belly dancer, and that's about
- speakerit. I mean you don't really see us as anything other than
- speakerone of those three things. I've gone around throughout Michigan to speak. And, I am billed as an Arab American, because that is what I call myself, based on my pride, and also based on my necessity to say that. And, people expect me to be something other than what I am. And, they expect me. First of all, they expect me to be veiled and not to be able to really talk
- speakerAnd, they don't expect me to say, to make any analysis or to be able
- speakerto interact with other people. We have to get past that. The problem with that is the tv novels, comics, cartoons, and movies show us as rich, ugly, if we are men
- speakerSexually available, veiled virgins if we're women, but don't show as human. And, our leaders
- speakerIn this country contribute to the atmosphere. People like Jeane Kirkpatrick,
- speakerwho was representative to the United Nations, who say publicly that Arabs have a history of
- speakerviolent politics. Henry Kissinger said publicly you
- speakercan't believe anything an Arab tells you. There was no outcry. That is unbelievable to me. CNN does a report. It does a report about Jewish kids and their response to this m
- speakerassacre [Cave of the Patriarchs]. And the Jewish kids in Israel.
- speakersay this massacre was awful. We've got to give up some land for peace. We don't want to keep living like this. They talked to
- speakerfour or five groups of Jewish kids. And then they showed the final shot. And, the final shot is
- speakerchildren in Gaza. But nobody talks to the children in Gaza to ask how they felt. Why not?
- speakerAnd, the Grand Rapids Press, we see headlines like "Rabin remains steadfast." He remains steadfast
- speakerafter Palestinians said, "Look. We've just had fifty of our people massacred, maybe more. And, we need some protection." And, he said, "No."
- speakerSo. He's not called intransigent? He's called steadfast? I'm urging all of you, pay attention when you read the newspaper. Pay attention when you hear the news. Listen to those buzz words.
- speakerFind out what those buzz words do to you. If it says "terrorist," its dumb. But if it says, "soldier," it's us or our ally. "Us" meaning American. "
- speakerHard line" is down. "Resolute" is up. "Inflexible" is
- speakerdown, but "firm" is up. Hear it after theirs. Ours is a tragic error. Now. We hear this stuff all the time, but we usually don't stop to analyze
- speakerhow it makes us perceive the
- speakernews. And,we need to start doing that because, if we do that, we will perceive the news differently. Those stereotypes and those kinds of headlines really hurt us.The CNN headline that the Israelis are on high alert. That's the headline. So, you immediately think
- speaker"Oh! My gosh! Something bad is happening to Israel.
- speakerWhat has
- speakerhappened is that the Israelis shot into a crowd and wounded twenty Arabs. The headline is Israelis on high alert.
- speakerSomething is wrong with that. How many people heard about what
- speakerhappened at the funeral of Baruch Goldstein in Israel, when
- speakeranother Israeli settler said,
- speakerOne million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.
- speakerWhy was there not an outcry about that? There should have been an outcry about that. What I want to say is that those kinds of headlines lead to acts of
- speakerracism. And
- speakerthose racist acts then get lost.
- speakerDuring the U.S.A. war against Iraq, what was called the Persian Gulf
- speakerWar, I was walking into a shop in Grand Rapids. And, what I saw in a huge display with
- speakerteeshirts,
- speakerseveral teeshirts. And, all of them said the same thing. They said, "I'd fly ten thousand
- speakermiles to smoke a camel." And, in the center of the teeshirt was a circle. And, when I got closer, I realized that that circle was the sight of a gun. And, through the sight of the gun, there was an Arab sitting on the camel.
- speakerWe talked, my friends here and I, talked to the man
- speakerwho made that teeshirt. We said, "Would you have said that if it was, 'I'd fly ten thousand miles to smoke a Jew? Or a black?' And, he said, "Oh, no! I've got my limits."
- speakerThere's
- speakersomething wrong with this and we're letting it happen.
- speakerThere was another CNN. You can tell I don't like CNN. headline that says
- speakerThat two Israeli soldiers were killed in the so-called security zone in Lebanon, an area where they are actually in illegal occupation. They were killed in the security zone
- speakerby supposedly Hezbollah. In retaliation, Israel shelled a market place, killing a twelve-year
- speakerold
- speakergirl and injuring twenty-two children. That item was disappeared from the news the next day. Try to put
- speakerany other group of people in there and
- speakertell me, "Would that item have disappeared from the news the next day?" There is something wrong with this.
- speakerI. I've done a lot of speaking with a friend of mine who happens
- speakerto be an American Jew. And whenever we speak
- speakerPeople will say to me, now, you do believe in Israel's right to exist, don't you? That, they do not want to hear me talk unless I say I believe in Israel's right to exist.
- speakerNobody says to me, "You
- speakerdo believe in Palestine's right to exist, don't you?" That is a double standard. And, it is a double standard we now take for granted.
- speakerI want to say a couple of things about hope, because I'm not leaving time for anybody to ask questions, because there are things to be hopeful about. And, one of them was
- speakerthat my
- speakerJewish friend and I wrote a letter to our newspaper
- speakertogether after the massacre [Cave of the Patriarchs] in the mosque. And, we both sent it, and we talked
- speakerabout it being a product of a violent society. And I think that that's something to feel hopeful about.
- speakerThere are other things that make me feel hopeful. There was recently a World Day of Prayer by Church Women United.
- speakerAnd, the prayer service was written by Palestinian women. And it was very strong and very
- speakerbeautiful and that was celebrated all over the world. We can also
- speakercelebrate the fact that there are Jews and Arabs who have been
- speakerfriends and have talked
- speakerto each other for years. And, that they form alliances, and they do so no matter what the political situation is
- speakerThere is a group of Jewish women called Women in Black, who every Friday stand in different squares in their country, pulling aside against the occupation
- speakerEven though they get yelled at and called whores of Arafat.
- speakerAnd they get spit at. That other people come up to them and
- speakergive them
- speakerflowers and give them fruit. And as they stay there every week. And they have done this for more, for more than a year.
- speakermore than a year. One final thing is.
- speakerThat it is important that you all speak
- speakerout. That when you recognize this stuff that you speak out about it. It is important that we listen to the
- speakervoices of Arabs. I repeat. That it is important that we listen to the voices of Arabs. I took a class called "The Arab-Israeli Conflict" at the University of Michigan just a few years ago. Our list of r
- speakereading material had three Israelis, six American Jews, not
- speakerone Arab. Something is wrong with this. This is a huge university.
- speakerYou need to listen to the voices of Arabs. Arabs deserve to be heard, and it is up to us to ask them to talk. We have to object
- speakerto government policies, and above all. it was my proper call about is there any hope? Yeah. Is there any hope
- speakerfor justice and peace?
- speakerThere is. And one of the things that we can do is go right back to the United
- speakerNations General Assembly, Article 19, adopted in
- speaker1948, which is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I wish I had the Declaration with me. But what it does, it affirms
- speakerthe full
- speakerhuman rights of every single person on this planet. And if, in fact, you believe that and follow
- speakerinternational law. There will be some hope for justice and peace in the Middle East and maybe even here at home.
- speakerQuestions? I know you've got like five minutes before a lot of us have to get out of here. Discussion, questions, comments? Announcements: One
- speakerof the organizations of Grand Rapids that my colleagues and I do work with is called
- speakerthe Institute for Global Education. Middle East education project. The Middle East Education Project has put on a lot of events and seminars. A seminar called understanding Islam, where we've had speakers that are cultural people, educated people about that religion, and what it is like to live it.
- speakerWe all have the speaker, who is the Rev. Dr. Don Wagner, who is the Director
- speakerof Mercy Corps in Chicago, who will be coming to speak in Grand Rapids
- speakeron May 4 at 7:30 at the Eberhard Center. He has
- speakerjust written a book called Peace or Armageddon and he will be giving a
- speakertalk. And, we have entitled his talk," Peace or Armageddon: the Holy Land in Turmoil." He has been to Palestine recently and has an eyewitness account that I think will be of interest. He has made
- speakera study of the area and of
- speakerArmageddon for years and is very capable of answering any questions as well.
- speakerSo, we invite you to that. Are we going to have this photocopied? Are you going to make a photocopy of this? And make it available maybe? Can we leave it with you? There you go. Is this a political or a religious conflict? It is everything. But it is primarily a political, economic, empowerment kind of conflict
- speakerReligion figures into it, but I think that is one of the mistakes that we make is that we talk about it being a religious conflict. I will make this comment, however. It wasn't a mistake that Baruch Goldstein shot muslims. I think that was the intent. He did not go into a church. I think that his intent was to shoot and kill muslims. But I wouldn't say that the conflict itself is religious in nature. The conflict has to do with a lack of justice and that is . If there is no comment about the massacre in Hebron massacre. come to New York with his wife and children before the massacre. a million dollars. And they now will not do that. Secondly, about Gaza Strip because it is the most populated area in the world. There are no resources. Nothing in there except people. And the Israelis look at it, and find bombs. They don't want it. That is why they are going peace treaty,
- speakerThe peace accords are a clear no. They don't want it.That is the other thing.
- speakerI am not allowed to move back to Gaza before nine months. I need to go now. People
- speakerhave not come back before I am not allowed to come back before nine months. Now, after the peace treaty, they started a revolution.
- speakertwenty-five years, because I am older than, I am allowed to
- speakerThese are some of the pictures that we never saw that came out of the Gulf War. And, this is how we censored ourselves in this country
- speakerthat we did not have to realize what a horrible war this was. This is a
- speakersoldier who was actually trying to comply with the United Nations resolution that said you've
- speakergot to leave the area, the Iraqui soldiers leave the area. And, it was believed they would leave the
- speakerarea. As they were departing. This is called lutlana. As they
- speakerwere leaving on the road, which is dubbed the highway to death.
- speakerWhat happened is, it was just unbelievable is that we shelled them. We pounded them at both ends. He was retreating, and
- speakerwe made sure he never got out. These pictures didn't come out, but one of the generals was asked why. He said, my goodness if you showed pictures like this, there'd never be another war. I think he's wrong about that, a
- speakerctually. I think we've seen horrible pictures, and I think we're still willing to go to war.
- speakerBut it is important to recognize that we did a lot of censorship of this kind. And we continue to do censorship. I
- speakerdidn't know about the eighty-five percent unemployment in Gaza.
- speakerI work. I worked in college. I work sometimes for eight months. Still I am unemployed.
- speakerShown several times. That is all right. On the other hand. an Israeli civilian. He is not a civilian. This
- speakeris my
- speakerOf course, it is compulsory, both men and women, Most of them carry rifles, even the ladies, they carry M-16, Israeli, Uzi, all kinds of weapons. For us, Hebron, Gaza Strip. A Palestinian woman was killed and she was pregnant. They said even that the Palestinians killed her. How could we kill one of us?
- speakerAnd they control the house. and how should we kill a lady walking the streets. We not shoot. If you walk in the Gaza Strip without a leader you might get shot. It is not easy.Snipers and.
- speakerOpen the.
- speakerThem and. maybe You know
- speakerthe main reason why you.
- speakerThe universities were closed, the schools 1987.
- speakerAnd I just remember talking about Jerusalem. I had been in Jerusalem for twelve months. One day, I was going to pray at Dome Rock in Jerusalem. And
- speakerI was stopped at the gate for
- speakeridentification to get through to the mosque. And, I was beaten up by the soldiers
- speakersimply because I am
- speakerfrom the North, and simply because I insisted to go to the mosque for Friday prayers. I was taken out to the hospital.
- speakerI still have eight stitches in
- speakermy chest simply because I insisted. Since
- speakerI was a kid. I thought the Arab-Israeli, pursuing the Israel conflict is a very complicated issue
- speakeror equation. Now, I believe it is very simple from both sides. U.S. aid to Israel will cause equal killings of innocent Palestinians. I was told two years ago in summer of 1992, and I couldn't stay there. I was there four years. I couldn't stay there
- speakerBecause I couldn't find my friend.
- speakerAnd, you cannot ask.