Palestine Awareness Week starts today on campus, with different
events planned through Thursday. The week will include
presentations by professors, journalists and others who have
visited this contested area of the Middle East.
The weeklong list of events got its official start Saturday,
when two distinguished speakers came to UCLA to talk about the
Palestinian territories and their connection to the rest of the
world.
As part of the week’s events, the Muslim Student
Association, in conjunction with Students for Justice in Palestine
and the United Arab Society, will also erect a replica of the
security fence that the Israeli government is building around the
West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The wall ““ which is 10 feet high and 24 feet long, and
constructed out of cardboard boxes ““ will stand through
Thursday in Schoenberg Quad, located across from Murphy Hall.
“We wanted to give a feeling for what is like to have a
wall running through your city,” said Mariam Jukaku, a
third-year computer science student and president of MSA.
Students standing by the wall will pass out flyers talking about
the actual security fence in Israel.
Additionally, from Monday through Thursday, students
representing Israeli soldiers will be stopping other students
playing Palestinian refugees to simulate an Israeli army
checkpoint.
“We wanted to basically create awareness on campus, make
students more aware of the situation in Palestine right now,”
Jukaku said.
The awareness week at UCLA is part of the International
Palestine Awareness week which is held all over the world and on
many U.S. college campuses.
Lena Khan, second-year political science and history student and
member of MSA, said she encourages all students to attend as many
of the events as they can.
“I would definitely encourage all students to come,
especially in UCLA where you want to educate yourself on so many
different facets of the conflict,” Khan said.
She added that the planned events will be beneficial both for
those who are familiar with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and
those who don’t know any details about the region.
“For those knowing nothing it will give sources and
information, and for people who already know something, they will
be able to see different viewpoints,” Khan said.
“They will get a variety of information to make an
educated opinion,” she added.
This week’s events will encompass a variety of themes,
with speakers talking about topics ranging from the security fence
to refugees living in the area.
“This is an opportunity to hear about Palestine from
Palestinians, which is unusual and not the way it had been
presented in the media,” said Jess Ghannam, a member of the
Free Palestine Alliance and president of the San Francisco chapter
of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
Ghannam also underscored the importance of such worldwide
awareness events occurring on college campuses.
“I think that college campuses and universities are places
for open discussion and critical analysis of world events,”
he said.
Ghannam together with Zahi Damuni, the co-founder of Al-Awda,
delivered a presentation Saturday during which he discussed
Palestine in the global context, and showed a documentary film he
has been working on for over four years on the subject of
Palestinian refugees.
The Al-Awda, or The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, as it
is commonly known, is one of the largest international networks of
grassroots activists dedicated to Palestinian human rights.