Discussion on one of the most contentious issues in international politics will come to Saint Louis University next week. From Jan. 29 to Feb. 2, SLU Solidarity with Palestine will sponsor a series of events exploring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Dubbed “Palestine Awareness Week,” sessions will include a screening of a documentary film, an original theatrical piece and a lecture by a controversial scholar.
Solidarity with Palestine is a chartered student organization with about twenty active members. They organized Palestine Awareness Week to provide information to the student body that they believe is often ignored by the mainstream media.
“We hope . to bring awareness if the Palestine issue to the forefront of people’s thoughts, and, hopefully, this awareness will lead to action,” said Shahnawaz Qalbani, president of Solidarity with Palestine.
Palestine Awareness Week has received some criticism from those who fear it will lack any mention of Israel’s perspective on the conflict, including the acts of terrorism that Israelis have suffered at the hands of Palestinian militants. Some members of the local Jewish community have expressed concern over what they see as bias in the week’s events.
“It’s only fair to the student body to present more than one opinion on the conflict as opposed to only offering pro-Palestinian propaganda. I am afraid that an otherwise uninformed student who is exposed to this would develop an anti-Israeli attitude but not appreciate all the facts or points of view involved,” Eldad Bialecki, M.D., a physician at Saint Louis University Hospital, said.
Brandon Kottenstette, Solidarity with Palestine’s events coordinator, maintained that the week’s sessions will only present facts. Kottenstette believes that most students at SLU have only been exposed to the Israeli version of the conflict and deserve to hear the Palestinian side.??
“If the speakers and presentations seem to indict Israel for human rights violations and for violating international law, it is only because this reflects the historical record,” Kottenstette said.?
The week’s events will begin on Monday, Jan. 29, with a screening of Palestine Is Still the Issue, a documentary by award-winning Australian journalist John Pilger. Monday’s documentary will examine the history of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and will incorporate firsthand testimony from both sides of the conflict.
Palestine Awareness Week organizers are particularly excited about Tuesday night’s lecture by Norman Finkelstein, Ph.D. The Jewish son of Holocaust survivors, Finkelstein is an often-controversial professor of political science at DePaul University in Chicago. He is a scholar of Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; his works include The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering and Beyond Chutzpa: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. Finkelstein’s lecture will begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday and will be held in the Anheuser-Busch Auditorium in Cook Hall.?
On Wednesday, Jan. 31, Solidarity with Palestine will host “Palestine 101: A Crash Course.” The 60-minute presentation will highlight the major issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the history of American involvement in the region. The session will also include the stories of ordinary Palestinians whose lives have been affected by the Israeli occupation. The event will be held at 7 p.m. in Room 173 of Davis-Shaughnessy Hall.?
Jennifer Presson, a graduate of SLU and co-founder of Solidarity with Palestine, will give a lecture entitled “Witness to Occupation” on Thursday at 7 p.m. in Room 173 of Davis-Shaughnessy Hall. She will discuss her personal experiences in the occupied Palestinian territory.
On Friday, members of Solidarity with Palestine will perform “Beautiful Resistance: Confessions of a Human Rights Hoosier in Palestine.” Magan Wiles, a SLU alumna who spent the summer in Palestine, wrote the multimedia performance art piece. It will begin at 7 p.m. in the Carlo Auditorium in Tegler Hall.?
