Amir al-Mohtaseb is 10 years old. He lives in the City of Hebron, in the West Bank, Palestinian land occupied by Israel. According to Nora Barrows-Friedman, a writer for Electronic Intifada reporting from Hebron, Amir’s story goes as follows: “At 2 a.m., Israeli soldiers would break into the house, snatch Amir from his bed, threaten his parents with death by gunfire if they tried to protect him, and take him downstairs under the stairwell. They would beat him so badly that he would bleed internally into his abdomen, necessitating overnight hospitalization. In complete shock and distress, Amir would not open his mouth to speak for another day and a half.” This report is from Mar. 8, merely two weeks ago. Has anyone heard about it? I doubt it. Stories about abuse of the basic human rights of Palestinian children hardly ever make it into mainstream media. But they happen often.
This is why grassroots organizations that educate people on the situation in Palestine are so important, and NEIU finally got one. Maybe you have seen the flyers or the huge Palestinian flag in the corridor of the D building. Maybe you came across an information table set up in Village Square within the past couple weeks. This is the NEIU chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, a new organization on campus.
The main goal of this club is to educate the public about the apartheid system imposed on the Palestinian people in their own land, their suffering, their humiliation and the injustice done to them on daily basis. As the constitution of the club states “SJP believes that while the Palestinian people must ultimately be able to decide their future in Palestine, certain key principles, grounded in international law, human rights, and basic standards of justice, are fundamental to a just resolution of the plight of the Palestinians.”
University clubs built around common ideas and values are more appealing to me than those brought together by common background. Ideas go beyond nationalities, religious beliefs or ethnicities. Our diverse, leftist, and social-justice-concerned campus seems to be a great host to such groups. SJP falls into this first category – the group formed around the idea of justice.
As with every debate, the issues of Palestine have two sides. The NEIU campus has been long exposed to only one side of the story through other student organizations. It is time we learned the other perspective. As Malcom X once said “Truth is on the side of the oppressed. Not the oppressor.” Palestinians are the weaker party in the conflict, and that is why their voice needs to be heard. The role of SJP is here to enable it.