What is freedom of speech? Is it the freedom to focus only on your own point of view, or to manipulate a body of data to suit your own purposes? The press coverage of the situation in Palestine has seen too much of the terrible extremes of bias, prejudice and omission, so I thought that I would let some students speak for themselves. The following articles are either the direct quotes or paraphrased words of current Muslim and Jewish students here at NEIU, and since some respondents have chosen to remain anonymous, for the sake of fairness I have changed all the names of those I have interviewed. For my own part, I hope and pray for peace, therefore my main reason for this exercise.
Some NEIU Muslim Voices:
Speaking on the level of violence seen during the recent Gaza operation (or invasion, call it what you will), a woman named Fatima told me that it was “uncalled for, unjust. The scale of destruction and death was very shocking.” She went on to say that she believed the Israelis used the invasion as a political tool, and that “using force to win an election was to me barbaric.”
While she understood that Hamas rockets were causing fear and anxiety among the Israeli populace, she also pointed out that they generally had no specific targets and that very few Israeli casualties were incurred by these attacks. Given this, she stressed that she thought the scale of the Israeli response was “grotesque.”
All the Muslims I spoke to during these interviews shared the belief that the Israelis, as one person phrased it, were using their “Holocaust Mentality,” as an excuse for their actions. Ibrahim went so far as to say, “The recent words and campaign promises of those right-wing [Israeli] candidates remind me of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party of Germany. They complain about the Holocaust and then they talk about putting all the Israeli Arabs on trucks and expelling them from the country? It is shameful!” Fatima expressed somewhat similar sentiments when she said, “Didn’t the same thing happen to them fifty or sixty years ago? Wouldn’t this make them care more about the Palestinians?”
Medina, on the other hand, said that she cared most about peace and she thought that the violence displayed by both sides was unacceptable. She raised an interesting point when she said, “My opinion about the conflict in the Middle East is that I think it is unnecessary that we have the U.S. helping the Israeli government while watching the Palestinians die.” When I asked the Muslim respondents about the Obama administration’s hopes that they might work with the new Israeli government towards a peace settlement, the response was very mixed.
Ismael said that any peace deal must include withdrawal of the settlers from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but he added “I doubt that the Israelis would ever agree to that.” Ibrahim just shrugged, shook his head and said, “I don’t see the possibility of peace with Israel.” Fatima explained that, “There is a lot of hope and expectations among Palestinians [for Obama’s team], but also the fear that they will be disappointed again.” Two people also pointed out the controversial appointment of Rahm Emanuel as the president’s Chief of Staff, expressing that Muslims neither like nor trust him.
What I saw during these interviews was a mixture of sadness, anger and frustration, and most of them expressed doubt for the future. For me, the most poignant words came from Medina, who said, “I think that both sides should try to come to a resolution where you don’t see young children and civilians dying. It takes people to make people, but it also takes people to kill people.”
Some NEIU Jewish Voices:
I will start with Joshua, who has served a number of years in the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces), so he has seen the situation in the ‘occupied territories’ first-hand. When I asked him if the recent Israeli operation in Gaza was executed with an appropriate amount of force, he replied that in actuality it didn’t go far enough. “Hamas has not been taken out,” and “the rockets keep flying,” was his reasoning. He pointed out that since the IDF withdrew from Gaza in the summer of 2005, Hamas has launched over 10,000 rockets into Israel, and that it was “nothing less than a miracle” that the casualties were so light.
Abraham, another veteran of the IDF, pointed out that the United States would have responded with even more force had rockets been launched onto its own soil, and Joshua agreed, saying, “Sure, America wouldn’t stand for that for five minutes!” They both emphasized that Israel’s security issues were paramount. It was also pointed out that IDF soldiers are given rigorous training in protecting the lives of civilians during combat operations, yet success at this policy is all that much harder when Hamas is caught launching rockets from a school compound.
As is also the case with any other government, their primary focus is to protect their citizens. The rocket attacks have had the effect of disrupting lives and businesses, and have instilled great fear among the Israeli populace, which in turn places pressure on the government to take action.
I pressed both of them with the question, “Doesn’t a strong military strike into a crowded urban area just serve to bolster the opposition, thus further enabling the endless cycle of violence?” Their responses were given without any hesitation. Joshua stated that, “the object is to destroy the military opposition.” He pointed out that the IDF’s main goal was targeting Hamas’s technical and military ability to create effective opposition. Abraham stated that the rocket strikes on Israel don’t leave the government with much choice, and that “it is a job that must be done.”
They were both in agreement on the sovereignty of Israeli territory, and that the removal of over 600,000 Jewish settlers from the West Bank would prove a near impossible task. It would be an operation that, according to Joshua, might also lead to a civil war within Israel itself. Joshua was also adamant in his assertion that the Jewish people have deep spiritual ties to the land, which includes those sacred sites found in the West Bank. He also said that were Israel to abandon their holiest sites, which representthe very essence of Judaism itself, then “they’re denying their relationship to the land altogether.” For his part, Abraham was more concerned with the city of Jerusalem, which all three people I interviewed agreed was the spiritual capitol of the Israeli people.
Finally, I come to Rebecca, a political science major who, like her counterpart on the Muslim side of this debate, is concerned mostly with peace. She says that, “Israel has the right to exist, especially after being recognized as a legitimate government. Palestine, however, doesn’t simply cease to be just because Israel exists.”
She goes on to say that both sides have the right to protect themselves, but for her this doesn’t mean “provoking each other,” as she puts it. She feels that this is at the heart of the “endless cycle of violence” alluded to earlier. She summed up her viewpoint by stating, “Both sides need to learn to swallow their pride and negotiate if peace is to be had.”
On a final and somber note, these respondents were also doubtful of the future. They all thought that the impending right-wing coalition government would not be willing to concede much ground during any future negotiations, thereby forcing the Palestinians to give in even more. They all seemed to agree that peace was unlikely in the foreseeable future. This conclusion sounds familiar, doesn’t it?