For a brief moment of solidarity on Bruin Walk on Thursday,
students representing both the pro-Palestinian and the pro-Israeli
views together chanted, “End suicide bombings.”
But immediately following the synchronized chants, students
returned to their clashing chants of, “End the
occupation” and “Stop blowing people up.”
The demonstration was part of a week of events put on by student
groups including Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim
Student Association called “Israel and Palestine: Obstacles
to Peace,” which organizers said they hoped would shed light
on the issues Palestinians face in the Middle East.
Organizers of the week hosted what they called guerilla street
theater ““ a demonstration of what they said was a typical day
in the life of a Palestinian living under the control of Israeli
forces.
In front of an erected wooden wall they titled
“Israel’s Apartheid Wall,” student actors
carrying water guns donned emblems of the Israeli flag and staged
their interpretation of the interaction between Israeli soldiers
and Palestinian civilians at checkpoints ““ which were
recently established on roads leading to Israel by the Israeli
government in order to curtail suicide bombings.
Shouts of, “Line up,” “Nobody move” and
“We search you, if we want to let you go, we let you
go” were among those said by students acting as Israeli
soldiers.
“We organized the theater skit in order to expose some of
the realities that Palestinians go through in occupied
Palestine,” said Adam Elsayed, vice president of the Muslim
Student Association.
“We hope Bruins learned from our skit,” he
added.
In Israel’s 58 years of existence as a state, the region
has been full of conflict concerning the rights and allocation of
the land, and both Israelis and Palestinians have suffered.
The student actors’ demonstration was often drowned out by
cries from student protesters, shouting phrases such as “stop
murdering civilians.” Some students wearing cloths covering
their heads and faces and wearing signs that read, “If I was
a Palestinian suicide bomber you would be dead now” were
handing out slips of paper to passersby that read, “If I was
your neighbor you would want a fence too” and shouting
“boom.”
At certain points, emotions came close to boiling over, and in
one instance, police officers rushed in to break up an altercation
between two males.
Some students who were present for the demonstration, both to
support and oppose it, voiced concerns about the way in which the
events unfolded.
George Malouf, an engineering graduate student, said he was
disappointed with the way both sides tried to voice their opinions
and thought an open dialogue would have been a more effective way
to reach an understanding between the two sides.
Throughout the event, he held a sign that read “Israel for
Peace, Palestine for Peace, Share the Hope,” which he said
showed solidarity, as it was held by two people ““ one from
each side of the conflict.
Tom Carpel, a second-year computer science and engineering
student and a member of Bruins for Israel, said he did not like the
performance because he felt it was an inaccurate portrayal of
typical interactions between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian
civilians.
“I have many friends who are soldiers working at similar
checkpoints, and they never treat people like that,” he
said.
Similarly, he said he did not agree with the way his fellow
members of the Jewish and Israeli community were yelling and
provoking the actors during the performance, and wished both sides
had allowed the others’ views to be heard.
He said he felt more progress toward peace would have been made
“if they had watched the show and heard what (the other side)
had to say.”
Following the performance, organizers invited students to form a
circle and share their stories and feelings about the day and the
broader controversy. While mostly the pro-Palestinian students and
their supporters joined, a few pro-Israeli students
participated.
Students continued to mingle and discuss the various issues long
after the organized demonstration was finished.