Saint Louis University students were given a chance to walk in a Palestinian’s shoes for a few minutes on Wednesday, March 28. As part of an effort to raise awareness of the Palestinians’ plight in the Middle East, SLU Solidarity with Palestine built their own West Bank checkpoint in the Quad in front of Griesedieck Hall. As students passed through on their way to class, those who volunteered were briefly detained, questioned, mock-searched and/or asked to show their ID in order to give students a taste of what Palestinians experience every day.
SLU Solidarity with Palestine Secretary Sharifa Barakat hoped that by “detaining” students, they would “become motivated to do something about the misery that Palestinians live with everyday.[and] to learn more about the crisis going on and, in general, know more about the Palestinian side of the conflict that rarely gets the kind of media coverage that the Israeli side gets.” She stressed that SLU Solidarity with Palestine is not taking a political stance in this issue but rather that it seeks to bring the Palestinian humanitarian problems to light in a way that the media often doesn’t.
Though Israel currently occupies part of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, the conflict lies in the fact that both the Israelis and Palestinians claim to have sovereignty over the land. The checkpoint on the Quad represents a wall that the Israelis are building into West Bank, which is causing huge problems for the Palestinians according to Barakat. In some extreme cases, “they are cut off from family, their jobs; sometimes their property is cut in half so they can’t tend to their crops or business,” she said. Many wait for hours every day in checkpoints that were imitated here at SLU.
Freshman Kristin Swanson was one of many students who gave up several minutes of their time to support this cause. After being thoroughly questioned, she was detained for a little while off to the side of the “wall.” Though she already knew she didn’t support what was happening to Palestinians, she found it “eye-opening to actually be a part of the process” that so many Palestinians face each day, especially knowing that it is much more extreme at the actual checkpoints in West Bank.
Through events such as these “[SLU Solidarity with Palestine] is hoping to change the perception of Palestine that the average American has so that they are more ready and willing to see the reality of the oppression that Palestinians suffer under occupation,” said the Event Coodinator, Brendan Kottenstette.
