NICOLE MILLER/Daily Bruin At Meyerhoff Park, third-year
student Mahmud Penjwini, of the Muslim Student
Association, speaks against Israeli aggression.
By Melody Wang
Daily Bruin Reporter
Recent outbreaks of violence in Israel sparked the Muslim
Student Association to hold a teach-in about the current
Palestinian situation Tuesday afternoon.
The event at Meyerhoff Park was part of a “National Day of
Outrage,” with more than 20 colleges and universities
nationwide holding similar teach-ins and rallies.
“We want to have a united effort among us to show a united
opposition to what’s going on,” said Sohail Shakeri,
president of MSA West, a coalition of MSAs in California, which
organized the event.
For the past month, the media has continuously reported tension
between the Israelis and Palestinians, but problems have existed
for more than 50 years since Israel was created.
At the teach-in, MSA members described the oppression of
Palestinians by Israeli soldiers and how current events in the
Middle East affect everyone in the world.
For example, MSA member Haider Sabri attributed the recent drop
in the stock market and increase of oil prices to what’s
going on in the region.
“Israel is a constant instability in the world,”
Sabri said.
But others said MSA is focusing too much on the problem and not
enough on the solution.
“(The Palestinians) have no vision of peace, they only
have a vision of violence,” said Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller,
who has advocated the establishment of Palestine since 1993.
At the teach-in, MSA members handed out green arm bands to
students to show their support for the Palestinians.
“We need anybody and everybody to support this,”
said MSA member Karim El-Sherief. “This isn’t just a
Palestinian issue. It’s a human issue.”
Speakers at Tuesday’s event described in detail the
killing of thousands of Palestinians, and voiced their thoughts on
the issue.
“This is not a war for independence,” said Gabriel
Piterberg, a professor in the history department. “It’s
a struggle of an oppressed civilian population against an existing
state with one of the most powerful armies in the world.”
Reem Salahi, a director of the Mentors for Academic Peer
Support, talked about Palestinian children dying in the struggle
against oppression while throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers.
“They’re the ones who are fighting the opponents
that we in the U.S. are too scared to fight,” Salahi
said.
Salahi added that while it is tragic that these children are
dying, they are dying as heroes.
Seidler-Feller disagreed and said parents are the ones sending
their children out to fight.
“The question is why are mothers teaching their children
to be martyrs?” he said.
But Piterberg said it would be difficult to establish peace with
both Palestinians and Jews present in the country.
“You can’t have a Palestinian state with its own
rights, when you have 150,000 Jewish extremists sitting in the
middle,” Piterberg said during the teach-in.
Seidler-Feller said because of the current crisis, rallying is
not the solution and people need to work toward peace and
compromise.
“Human history has been of different people learning to
live side by side,” he said.
While the issue discussed at the teach-in was controversial,
there was no organized opposition present like there has been in
past years when MSA held similar events.
Last year, for example, MSA held forums and rallies denouncing
the oppression of Palestinians while members of the Jewish Student
Union held signs opposing MSA’s viewpoint.
Seidler-Feller said today is not a time to yell and scream, but
for some serious dialogue.
“It’s not a question of passivity, it’s more
of an issue of maturity,” he said.
Other universities who participated in Tuesday’s event
include Stanford and Colorado State University.