Hamada Dara Al-Zahawi is the president of the United Arab
Society and a fourth-year history student.
By Hamada Dara Al-Zahawi
Julie Bernstein’s submission has made it clear that she
believes the goal and message of our event, “Know the People
not the Myth,” was somehow aggressive; the event was clearly
misunderstood by some on campus (“Accusations, aggression
don’t further Mideast peace process,” Viewpoint, May
21). Instead of walking away with the impression that we, the
members of the United Arab Society, had been promoting the
humanization of the Palestinian people, some got the impression we
were defending the Palestinian Authority and justifying violent
Palestinian actions. In reality, however, after months of
contemplation and analysis we came to the realization that giving
the event a political concentration would accomplish less than an
event designed to raise awareness of the suffering of the
Palestinian people. In addition, we chose not to make this a
nationalistic event, contrary to what others may believe.
Furthermore, we did not try to justify the actions of either party,
and we did not try to come up with specific solutions for bringing
about peace, as we are neither politicians nor political
analysts.
It is not surprising that people who did not take the time to
stop, listen or ask questions about the event could have
misunderstood or misinterpreted it. Many who saw the feathers laid
out across campus had no idea what they were for””mdash;”I
thought they were for some sort of Native American holiday”
was a common guess. What did they actually represent? The
dove’s feather of peace entrapped by barbed wire represented
the violence and intolerance on both sides that is keeping peace
from coming to fruition. We believe that “˜Peace will take
flight’ when the Palestinian people are treated as humans and
their basic desires are addressed, which are summarized in the in
the following five points: 1) Recognition of the
Palestinians’ basic rights as human beings; 2) The right to
self determination through an end to the occupation; 3) A just
resolution of the refugee issue; 4) Equal access to water and
freedom of movement for Palestinians; 5) Application of
international norms in resolving the fate of all illegally held
political prisoners.
In that light, we sought to represent the moderate majority of
Palestinians who see peace as the only solution, yet require that
peace to be based on even-handedness that would put them on par
with the Israeli population through the five points of peace
mentioned above. Along with these points our brochures outlined the
truth behind several myths concerning the Palestinians propagated
by the media, several interesting facts about Palestinians,
resources for further education and reading and an image of a
feather entrapped by barbed wire.
Likewise, this image appeared on our T-shirts in conjunction
with the combined landmass of Israel and the Palestinian
territories. We purposely left out the names, flags or other
nationalistic symbols of both countries from our shirts. The color
green is conventionally used to represent fertility and land and
thus was chosen to fill in the landmass; the red used for the
barbed wire again represents violence and intolerance. Our
intention was that education would cause the barbed wire to unravel
and allow the feather of peace to gently fall, not
“stab” the region, effectively ushering in peace.
Another misunderstood aspect of our event was the use of a
political cartoon on one of our A-boards, which was brought to our
attention not only by Julie Bernstein but by the staff writers of
the Daily Bruin. The cartoon was not drawn by any of our members or
Arab politicians, but was used as a visual illustration which we
hoped would be more easily understood by the student population
than words. It was designed to dispel the commonly believed myth
that Palestinians rejected Camp David because of greed. It also
highlighted that there are media biases in general which should be
addressed.
As a club, we have reached out to people in the UCLA community
and walked away knowing that we have worked hard and done well. Our
event was not about politics, nationalism or confrontation, but
rather was epitomized by occurrences such as the one Shukry Cattan
(UAS EVP) recalled, when members of Hillel, the MSA, UAS and
interested UCLA students were discussing, on more than one
occasion, the plight of Palestinian people, not the political
situation, near the UAS tent. Another representative recalls the
positive comments and support for our event made by students,
professors and administrative officials, as well as Rabbis.
In conclusion, the UAS would like to thank all those students
who engaged in conversation and genuinely wanted to learn about the
other side of peace, that of the Palestinians.