Palestine Week kicks off with lecture

Student groups not pleased with the methods used to cover the war in Israel invited a Palestinian activist to come and speak to the Bloomington community Monday.\nAli Abunimah, a Palestinian activist who co-founded the online newspaper electronicintifada.net, spoke in Woodburn Hall 100. The lecture entitled, "Back to Reality: the Past, Present and Future of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict," offered his prospective on how the conflict in the Middle East escalated to the point it is today and what needs to be done to ensure a lasting peace for all people in the region.\nAbunimah, a graduate of both Princeton University and the Univerisity of Chicago, has been on a college tour recently trying to highlight the growing problems in the Middle East to students, faculty and the general public. The lecture was part of Palestine Week at IU, which has also featured an art exhibit of work by Palestinian children living in Jerusalem. \nMany different student groups on campus including Collins Living and Learning Center, Students for Justice in Palestine, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and the Committee for Peace in the Middle East are sponsoring Palestine Week.\nProfessor Nazif Shahrani, chairperson of NELC, said the purpose of hosting the week was to give a better understanding of what is going on in Palestine.\nWhen Adunimah took the podium, he echoed Shahrani by saying the purpose of the lecture was to "provide a perspective that is not heard in the mainstream media." \nAdunimah compared the present day situation in the Middle East to that of the Apartheid era in South Africa.\n"The parallels are very similar, the Israelis feel they have a divine right to the land," he said.\nAdunimah does not believe that the strife is religious but points to more socio-economic reasons for the hostilities.\nHe ended his lecture by saying, "The conflict is not about theology, it is about good old fashion colonialism."\nHe also added that his ideal solution to the problem in the Middle East would include "peace with justice, an end to military rule, a future for an Israeli and Palestinian state and a life worth living for all."\nMany of the attendants at the lecture were affected by the arguments Abunimah made during the lecture.\nBret Davis Eartheart, a Bloomington resident, explained after the presentation, "I thought what he said was irrefutable; there is no way to justify colonialism."\nEartheart said what is happening in Palestine is a military occupation.\nNot everyone who attended the lecture said the points that Abunimah made were valid.\n"I feel that both sides were not represented fairly in the discussion," sophomore Dan Kuperstein said. "I felt he could have done more to show peace and stop pointing fingers thereby causing more anger"