The old image of Arab-Jewish
hostility at the University of California, Berkeley, was shattered on
Sunday, May 4, 2003.
It began as an idea -- a dream of a handful of handful
of students to try listening to everyone instead of shouting and blaming.
So they created their "DAY OF MUTUAL
RECOGNITION" to begin "Humanizing the Israeli-Palestinian
Conflict."
It worked.
The day's flow is described on the Web at http://traubman.igc.org/cal.htm
.
All that Sunday afternoon and late into the evening,
300 attendees listened to Dialogue panels and featured speakers.
One student sang her inspired, exquisite new song -- "Children
of Abraham."
Audience participation prevailed throughout,
culminating in a generous Middle Eastern buffet for dinner-dialogue circles
that lasted for several hours.
Some of the participants simply didn't want to go
home, but finally the auditorium lights went out signaling the end of a great
day for American university life.
Cal's "Big C" took on new meaning.
Communication. Courage. Compassionate listening. Cooperation.
See some photos on the Web, at: https://pix.sfly.com/CNaXqG48
.
To paraphase the helpful words of
Margaret Mead:
"Never doubt that a
small group of thoughtful, committed (students) can change (their
campus).
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
Published in the Jewish Bulletin of Northern California
-- Friday, May 9, 2003
On the Web at http://www.jewishsf.com/bk030509/eb04.shtml
Jews, Arabs turn conflict to dialogue at U.C.
forum
ALEXANDRA J. WALL
Bulletin Staff
U.C. Berkeley is not exactly known for its harmonious
relations between Jewish and Arab students. In fact, it is widely considered
one of the most hostile environments in the country.
But that image was shattered on Sunday, with more than
300 students and community members attending a conference called
"Humanizing the Israel-Palestine Conflict: Day of Mutual Recognition"
at the International House.
Sponsored by Berkeley Tikkun along with a number of
co-sponsors, the program was designed to give a human face to the Middle East
conflict. Organizers also wanted to create dialogue in a setting where
participants would listen to one another, rather than debating who has suffered
more, while tabling in Sproul Plaza.
Keynote speakers included Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor
of Tikkun magazine, and Mohammed Al-Atar, a Palestinian-born activist who
helped found a Jewish-Palestinian dialogue group in his adopted home of San
Antonio, Texas. Al-Atar, who has a tattoo of a Kalashnikov rifle on his
forearm, had the audience spellbound with his emotional story of how he came to
learn about the Holocaust and along with it, how the Jews, whom he had learned
to hate as his enemy, had also suffered.
But as the day was meant mostly to create a venue for
students to talk to each other, the first panel of speakers were all students
from U.C. Berkeley and San Francisco State University: two Israeli-born, one
Palestinian-born, two Arab Americans and one American Jew.
All six spoke from the heart, talking about the fear and even hatred, in some
cases, they felt for the other side. And all six spoke of the event -- a
watershed moment in most cases -- that changed their lives and made them want
to devote much of their energies toward dialogue.
For Muna Aghawani, a second-year graduate student at
SFSU, that moment came at a summer camp in Denver for Palestinian and Israeli
girls.
Born in Ramallah to a Syrian mother and Palestinian
father, she was brought up primarily in Syria and Tunisia, but "my
spiritual home was Palestine," she said.
When she heard about the summer camp, her motivation
was clear: "I wanted to tell the Israeli girls how horrible they were. I
was shocked we had to share cabins with them."
In her first dialogue session, Aghawani told her
Israeli counterpart that to her, "Israel means a big soldier with a
gun."
The Israeli responded with her fears of Palestinians,
a fear that Aghawani had never before considered. "I didn't see her as a
soldier; I saw her as a girl just like me who was scared."
For Israeli fifth-year graduate student Shakhar Rahav,
it took coming to Berkeley, though his political consciousness was formed at
the time of the Lebanon War, and it continued when he began his own military
service during the first intifada.
"On Saturday nights we'd participate in
anti-government rallies, and then on Monday we'd be back policing the streets
of Gaza," he said of he and his like-minded friends.
When he got to U.C. Berkeley, he took a class with a
Palestinian professor. While criticism of Israel was not new to him, he said,
"For the first time I was not listening to a debate between Israeli hawks
and Israeli doves, but between Israelis and Palestinians."
"Listening to the other side can be very
difficult," Rahav continued, "but it must be done if we will have a
solution not based on violence but understanding."
Mehammed Mack, a second-year philosophy student of
Saudi Arabian Bedouin ancestry, grew up mostly in Egypt. As a high school
student, he became obsessed with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that
continued when he arrived at Berkeley.
Mack's response was to join Students for Justice in
Palestine, of which he is still a member. But in the summer of 2002, he interned
at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington, D.C.
"It was a revelation to me to discover the
Israeli left and Jewish anti-occupation voices," he said. "I was
fascinated by them, I saw them as heroes who could step outside themselves and
transcend their national identity."
When he heard about Berkeley Tikkun, at first he was
reluctant to join, thinking it was only for Jews. But then he had a change of
heart. "I did it for my own psychological well-being," he said,
"so I would not learn to demonize the other."
Mack said his activism has even affected his mother's
views about the conflict. On a recent visit to Beirut, he spoke to her about
it.
"She told me that although she could not bring
herself to make peace with Israel or the Israelis, she was very proud of her
son who could."