Land issue breeds conflict between Israelites, Palestinians

By Maryann Dakkak

The protestors on our campus aren't the only restless students around. Just last month, 41 students and 38 others were arrested at Berkeley's Wheeler Hall during a sit-in.

The University of California at Berkeley just recently reinstated the pro-Palestinian student group that was suspended after its planned occupation of a campus building.

The demonstration was held in order to urge the university to sell any investments it holds in Israeli companies.

I like to consider myself a fairly knowledgeable person when it comes to social justice issues. However, I recently found that I had close to no idea of what was really going on in the Middle East. Why did the Berkeley students feel the need to protest?

So I went to the most trustworthy source I know: my dad. He grew up in Egypt, right on the Suez Canal, very close to that piece of Sinai peninsula that was part of so many Israeli-Egyptian conflicts.

And he told me of a war, an era of hostility that continues even now, that ravages the entire area we call the Middle East. This war has become a way of life. My dad translated a 20-year-old Egyptian song for me and cried while it played.

Here are a few of the lyrics: "For you the city of prayer, I pray. The baby and His mother cry for you. The peace is gone, the love is gone from that city and from our hearts. But someday soon, I will return and the peace will return to the city and to my heart."

We all know that after World War II, the United Kingdom and the United States decided that the Jews needed a permanent place in which the genocide could not be repeated. They chose Palestine to be this place.

So the U.S. helped in creating a country based on religion, while it prides itself on its own separation of church and state.

And now it has turned into one of the longest and most violent conflicts the world has ever had to sustain.

At a Palestine event a few weeks ago when two girls from Palestine came to talk, I learned much more than the newspapers could tell me. For these people, their homeland is precious. In the U.S. we have no true concept of homeland. We move as our parents get transferred, we switch schools and houses as we grow and as our families grow. Many of us don't live near our extended family.

Their homeland is sacred. And as everything has been taken away from them and they have been reduced to living in refugee camps as they now live in refugee camps, their homeland has become even more sacred. People who were driven out of their homes decades ago still have their house keys, in hopes of reaching the day that they can go home.

One of the children in a movie that was presented said, "I don't hate them. I want to return with my homeland and live with them [the Israelis]. There is room enough for all of us."

These words shocked me. I was amazed at these children who are raised in these intolerable conditions and still want peace.

"Why do negotiators speak with their voice and not the voice of their people?" a 14-year-old boy asked.

There is a desire for peace, but it is not widespread enough to accomplish it.

"The horror is that they're training people to hate people," a freshman girl at the presentation said.

The people in power are blinded by this fight over land and power and can't see the people all around them suffering.

And here we are in the U.S., one of the biggest supporters of Israel. The bombs they use come from us. Israel, the most powerful nation in the Middle East would have been crushed years ago if it were not for the continuous flow of money and arms from the U.S.

"As U.S. citizens we can affect not only our country, but countries around the world," said sophomore Thamer Rajapakse.

The media has historically been grossly pro-Israel, but with recent growing populations of concerned citizens, there is more information about the atrocities Israel commits against the Palestinians.

The students at Berkeley took a stand. It's about time people educate themselves on this issue and take a stand, because we are all tied to one another. The U.S. foreign policy is directly congruent to the concerns of its people.

The Muslim Student Association put on a presentation, Santa Clarans for Social Justice put on a discussion this past Tuesday. The Jewish Student Union put on another talk. We have the resources to get educated on these topics. We just need to take advantage of them.