Film, speakers focus on conflict

Since 1977, the United Nations has recognized every Nov. 29 as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestine People.

Monday night, the Arab Student Organization sponsored an event to honor this date.

The event began with a viewing of "The Killing Zone," a documentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip filmed in May 2003. The film presents, in graphic detail, the daily horrors of Palestinian life.

After the documentary, three individuals stepped forward to speak to the audience about their personal experiences in Palestine. Audience members were given the opportunity to question the speakers.

Brian Avery, one of the speakers, witnessed the violence firsthand. He was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier in April 2003 while working with the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine. He returned to the United States and has been undergoing surgical reconstruction on his face ever since.

ISM is a movement aimed at achieving freedom for the Palestinian people through nonviolent acts.

An audience member questioned Avery further about the shooting.

"The left side of my face was ripped off," Avery said. "(The Israelis) have no regard for the way the military uses their force. They simply fired and ran."

Rebecca Highlander was another featured speaker. Highlander said her experiences in Palestine were different because she did not go to the country as an activist.

"I witnessed the conflict in a different way; I wasn't on the front lines," she said.

Highlander spoke of her experiences with the Palestinian-Christian community. She said she thinks Palestinian Christians often are overlooked in the conflict because Muslims and Jews tend to be the focus of media attention.

Highlander said most people view the conflict in the Gaza Strip as a solely religious struggle, adding that people's faiths are only one aspect of the situation.

"(Palestinian Christians) serve as an important reminder that this is not only a conflict about religion -though religion has certainly added fuel to the fire," she said. "This is a conflict over land and resources."

She added that she thinks it is important to remember the Palestinian Christian community because it is diminishing rapidly. In recent years, the number of Palestinian Christians in the Gaza Strip has dropped from 20 percent to 2 percent.

Highlander said this drop is the result of the brutal treatment of Christians in the area by the Israeli military. "As an American Christian, I feel I need to tell their stories," she said.

Rann Bar On, an Israeli who has been involved with the ISM, also spoke about the conflict on the Gaza Strip. He underscored the importance of effecting change through nonviolent acts. "It is important for us as activists to witness and resist."

The three speakers stressed that the violence in the film and their stories are a real part of daily life for the Palestinian people.

"The only thing that made it unusual was that I was an American," Avery said. "For Palestinians, a thing like this is a daily, regular occurrence."

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