Two students from opposite sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide agree on the causes of the conflict, and they came to Tufts Monday to tell students how to help solve the problem.
Khulood Badawi, the former president of the Association of Arab Students in Israeli Universities, joined Yuval Adam, the leader of the Student Coalition at Tel Aviv University, in Cabot 205 for a discussion hosted by the New Initiative for Middle East Peace and the Fletcher School's Med Club.
"Israel is a democracy, yet Palestinians are not given the full rights of citizenship," Badawi told the audience of about 25 students. "When I was at university, I couldn't receive scholarships or live in dorms."
She said she felt conflicted as a Palestinian citizen of Israel being asked to serve in the army. "Why do you ask me to serve in the army and serve the same system that doesn't serve or recognize me?" Badawi asked. Military service is required of most Jewish citizens of the state, but not of Israeli Arabs.
Israeli Arabs pay taxes to Israel but are denied equal rights as Jewish citizens, Badawi said - a system that inspired her to become a student activist and protest against the Israeli government and for peace.
"It's not useful to be observers," she said. "You should take the action into your own hands and do something."
She was expelled from Haifa University for organizing demonstrations not approved by the school. Many Israeli universities have similar policies, she said, because of the October Riots - the clashes between protesters and the Israeli military that left a dozen Israeli Arabs dead in the town of Umm el Fahem in 2000.
Adam, an Israeli Jew, began working for peace when one of his fellow students at Tel Aviv University was shot for protesting. "It made me think about how an Israeli could possibly shoot one of us just for being at a demonstration," he said. "People are killed all the time, but this was the first Israeli who was killed."
This event made Adam see how easily his life could be affected by the violence in Israel. It can be easy as a college student to think only of personal problems, such as an overdue paper, he said.
Adam began to ask questions about the presence of equality and human rights in Israel. "I want to believe that we [Israelis] are the good guys because I love my country," he said. "Yet, they are doing bad things in the name of a Jewish state."
One of the main reasons cited in support of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's pullout from the Gaza Strip this past summer was the higher birthrate among Palestinians in the occupied territories, and the threat this posed to Israel retaining both a Jewish majority and a democracy.
"Arabs are referred to as a 'demographic problem' in Israel by Israelis," Adam said. "Yet Jews were once considered a demographic problem, too" before the state's creation.
He said the benefits of protesting injustices are worth the challenges. "Being an activist is tough," Adam said. "It is not fun and people can scream at you and call you a traitor. The Vietnam War would have lasted a lot longer if it were not for students protesting against it."
Adam said the United States' preferential treatment of Israel only hurts the chances of peace.
Both students also discussed the barrier being built along the border with the West Bank. Referred to as a separation fence by Israelis and a wall by Palestinians, the barrier has been condemned by the non-binding International Court of Justice and rerouted by the Israeli Supreme Court for encroaching on Palestinian land.
The Israeli government says the barrier has limited terrorism inside the state - a similar barrier surrounds the Gaza Strip, from which attacks were minimal during the latest Palestinian uprising - but Badawi and Adam said it is a land grab.
The discussion was sponsored by The Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, which is hosting a conference in Tel Aviv in December for Israeli and Palestinian students from different parts of Israel. The group coordinated the New Initiative for Middle East Peace's (NIMEP) student research trip to Israel and the West Bank over Winter Break during the 2003-2004 school year.
