The other night I was in the Campus Center looking to attend a certain event. Having no idea where it was being held I looked at the directory for the evening’s events. Glancing up and down the list, the event I was looking for wasn’t listed. Something caught my eye though. It was the word “Palestine.” As a Palestinian, this is one of the things you look out for. So I looked back and there it was, a teach-in was being held on Palestine on the 9th floor of the campus center.
So I decided to go to the 9th floor and got a seat up near the front of the room. There isn’t much I don’t know about the subject but I never turn down the opportunity to learn more about it. The event was well organized thanks to its sponsors, the Palestinian Action Coalition and the Arab Students Club.
The audience was advised by the coordinators of the events to keep their questions till the question and answer period after the speakers were finished. They were also advised to keep their questions under 60 seconds in length and to direct them as questions as opposed to statements. This was a very fair request on behalf of the organizers for obvious reasons, yet some people had trouble complying with the request.
Both speakers were very educated people who, from what they said, have obviously done their homework on the issue and knew what they were talking about. Unfortunately, I was extremely angered when a few attendants decided they wanted to “take” the floor. And they did it so well it made me think they had experience at this. I have to be honest an say that the majority of the questions asked were kept under the 60 second time limit and were in the form of a question. Yet there were those who decided they were above rules and regulations.
When the event “ended” many people were disappointed because they couldn’t say what they wanted due to time constraint. I stayed behind for a little while because I wanted to ask the speakers a couple of questions and thank them for coming. We’ll I didn’t get a chance to do that. Both speakers were barraged with members of the audience who all wanted to ask questions and argue about Palestine.
The speaker reacted in a very calm manor, as he should, having had experience in this sort of thing. There was one lady in particular who continued to try to justify Israel’s oppressive policy toward Palestinians. And with every claim she made the speaker responded with documented facts about why she was wrong. He suggested several books for her to read and also documents written by Israeli historians, which proved her wrong. She, not surprisingly, refused to accept these facts and continued to support the Israeli policy. I had no problem with this. Every question she asked had a documented answer and the speaker knew exactly what to tell her.
The problem arose when she started to talk about the Palestinians right to return. She said that there was no reason why Israel should allow Palestinians to return (to the land which they were ethnically cleansed from in 1948). This is what set me off. I’m usually a very calm person but when she said that I could no longer hold back.
I very politely told her I wanted to ask her a question and redirected her attention from the speaker who seemed relieved to stop talking to her because she was not very open-minded and refused to accept documented facts. Once I had her attention I told to stop thinking about politics for a moment and to consider a true story. I told her my grandfather had worked for years in Palestine to afford a house to live in with his young family. Before he could settle in, he was aggressively forced to leave by the Zionist movement during the mass depopulation of towns and ethnic cleansing. So I asked her “If you can morally justify this action in any way, you can have the land.”
She looked at me shocked; she almost didn’t know what to say. Obviously there is no moral justification for what they did to my grandfather. In fact, there was no morality involved in their actions at all. My grandfather’s story is one of millions just like his. This is why the Palestinians not only deserve to return but they have the RIGHT to return.
Now back to the lady I posed this question to. After thinking for a moment she responded to me by asking me a question ” Have you heard of the Holocaust?”
So without thinking too much, I looked her straight in the eye and said “Which one?” She was shocked. Her eyes opened up in amazement as if the messiah was standing behind me. “The only one she replied.”
This was a big problem for me. At this point I just began to rattle of genocides that happened throughout the world before and after World War Two. It angers me to think that there are people out there who want to make the rest of the world believe that the genocide in World War II was the only genocide in history. “What about the Armenian genocide and the Sudani genocide and the Sri Lankan genocide and the Algerian genocide?” I just kept saying these things to her. She didn’t know how to respond.
Why is it that I know about these massacres worldwide? Is it because I am a Political Science Major or because I am Palestinian? In part yes, it’s both, but it is primarily because I hear about Palestinians dying everyday without ever having tasted freedom.
I think by telling this lady, who was so strongly sure of her convictions, about my grandfather and about the rest of the genocides in this world, that she will go home and think differently about Palestinians. And because I had the chance to reach this one person, I am grateful to have stumbled upon this event.
