Controversial Israeli journalist Israel Shamir argued in favor of a "one vote, one state, one solution" proposal to resolve the Palestinian/Israel conflict as he spoke about historic and current Middle East problems in his speech at Tufts on Friday.
Shamir, who was once fired for his views, told students that the State of Israel is responsible for the violence that has plagued the region over the past six months, and that the Palestinian people share a greater link to Jerusalem and to the land than do Jewish Israelis.
A Russian-born Jewish journalist, translator, and novelist, Shamir spoke as part of the Arab Student Association's Arab Awareness Week. His perspective was applauded by the majority of the mostly-Arab audience, though a few students spoke out against the connotations of his speech.
Shamir, siding firmly with the Palestinians, gave a brief history of the intifadah - the Palestinian uprising - and accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak of having planned the insurrection.
Drawing from a movie he seemed to believe every audience member would recognize, The Matrix, Shamir presented an analogy in which he described Israelis and Palestinians in terms of an intrinsic connection to the ground.
"Palestinians are perfect mammals; their life is deeply rooted in the ground," he said. "Israeli people represent a virus form of a human being because they can live anywhere," he said.
The connection between people and land is eliminated with the creation of similar environments, said Shamir, who believes that shopping malls - symbols of capitalism that are found in thousands of cities - replicate environments around the world so that people can become perfectly moveable. "Malls are powerful ideological weapons that make virus of men."
Shamir encouraged members of the audience to pass questions to the front of Alumni Lounge, where 26 people, ranging from Tufts students to high school students to alumni, sat expectantly. Once he concluded his address and responded to each of the questions he received, Shamir welcomed direct questions.
Much of the media, he said, alluding to newspapers in Britain and France and making specific reference to a particular headline in The New York Times, is controlled by Jews, and thus there are many biased interpretations of the conflict.
The Zionist movement, he continued, is about uprooting people. Shamir offered a comparison between the State of Israel and the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, in which there were two classes of citizens, those who had rights and were considered citizens, and the helots, or slaves, who were denied all societal privileges. According to Shamir, a more extreme level of apartheid exists in Israel than did in South Africa.
If he were in charge of resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict, Shamir said he would not create peculiar borders as the Israeli government has done, but rather bring equality to the Palestine, giving Israelis and Palestinians the same rights and supporting universal elections and suffrage.
ASA Co-President Dina Karam, who was involved in bringing Shamir to Tufts, said she saw him as a controversial character who says things that many people do not want to hear. "Shamir can criticize the things Israel does, but he is not anti-Israel," she said.
Few members of the audience objected to Shamir, although some alluded to the Israelis' history as an uprooted people, and asked about the dangers that exist for the Jewish people today.
Hilda Silverman, a former Ex College lecturer, said she agreed with 99 percent of Shamir's statements, but had a problem with his use of the term "virus" in reference to Jewish people.
"When both stories [the Palestinian and the Israeli] are presented, the Palestinian story is compelling," she said. "Jews see the pain of the Palestinians, but most of us have some sort of tie to Judaism. I'm not saying Israel Shamir doesn't have it, I am saying that I can't sense it."
Senior Gustavo Gomez, an international relations major, defended Shamir's word choice. "I don't think his terminology was directed at attacking Jews, but emphasizing a socialist ideology. If he had wanted to attack Jews, his rhetoric would have been different," she said.
ASA did not bring Shamir to campus to make a political statement, organization Co-President Samer Abou-Ezzeddine said. Rather, his talk and views are a more intellectual nature. "Shamir propagates a humanitarian and anthropological view," Abou-Ezzeddine said.
