2008 Woodie Awards
Israeli-Palestinian conflict affects everyone, students and professors say
Samantha Sigmon and Emile Phaneuf
Issue date: 4/4/08 Section: News
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict hit the UA campus Monday and Tuesday when a wall was stretched across the middle of the Union Connections Lounge, symbolizing the wall being raised between Israel and Palestine.
Attached to the wall at the event were photos of the actual Israeli-Palestinian wall, checkpoints and what appeared to be Israeli soldiers holding women and children at gunpoint.
Taraf Abu Hamdan, a UA sophomore and vice president of Campus Greens, helped organize the event last week to raise awareness about the Israeli-Palestinian wall.
"[The event] went pretty well," Abu Hamdan said. "It stirred up some trouble, which I think is a good thing - anything that creates an argument or discussion."
Abu Hamdan said she wanted to give people an idea of what it's like to have a wall slow them down or stop them from where they're going.
Coming from Amman, Jordan, the building of the wall is a personal issue to Abu Hamdan, she said.
She is opposed to the wall because Israel is encroaching upon Palestinian land, and any wall like this - 403 miles wide - only will cause problems instead of solutions, she said.
The wall makes it hard for people to get to schools, hospitals or even cross the border at all, Abu Hamdan said, and some people have lost their farms and homes in the building process.
The Union wall was moved away Tuesday night, and three guest speakers - anthropology professor Ted Swedenburg, history professor Joel Gordon and nonviolent activist Kyle Kordsmeier - shared opinions and experiences of the actual wall's negative effects on day-to-day life for people in the region.
"It's not a case of Palestine versus Israel," Swedenburg said. "It's a case of human rights … Israel calls it a security fence, Palestinians call it an apartheid wall."
The Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign is focused on stopping and dismantling the "apartheid wall" and resisting Israeli occupation and colonization, according to www.stopthewall.org.
Attached to the wall at the event were photos of the actual Israeli-Palestinian wall, checkpoints and what appeared to be Israeli soldiers holding women and children at gunpoint.
Taraf Abu Hamdan, a UA sophomore and vice president of Campus Greens, helped organize the event last week to raise awareness about the Israeli-Palestinian wall.
"[The event] went pretty well," Abu Hamdan said. "It stirred up some trouble, which I think is a good thing - anything that creates an argument or discussion."
Abu Hamdan said she wanted to give people an idea of what it's like to have a wall slow them down or stop them from where they're going.
Coming from Amman, Jordan, the building of the wall is a personal issue to Abu Hamdan, she said.
She is opposed to the wall because Israel is encroaching upon Palestinian land, and any wall like this - 403 miles wide - only will cause problems instead of solutions, she said.
The wall makes it hard for people to get to schools, hospitals or even cross the border at all, Abu Hamdan said, and some people have lost their farms and homes in the building process.
The Union wall was moved away Tuesday night, and three guest speakers - anthropology professor Ted Swedenburg, history professor Joel Gordon and nonviolent activist Kyle Kordsmeier - shared opinions and experiences of the actual wall's negative effects on day-to-day life for people in the region.
"It's not a case of Palestine versus Israel," Swedenburg said. "It's a case of human rights … Israel calls it a security fence, Palestinians call it an apartheid wall."
The Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign is focused on stopping and dismantling the "apartheid wall" and resisting Israeli occupation and colonization, according to www.stopthewall.org.
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