Speaker Addresses Palestine-Israel Issues

By Stewart Nielsen
Stanford Daily
Tuesday, February 19, 2002

With tensions in Israel and Palestine running high, many scholars of the region have said there is a more now a need than ever for understanding the causes of conflict in the area. Raja Shehadeh, a native Palestinian and scholar of Jewish-Arab relations, spoke about these issues Friday to students and community members in the Lane History Corner.

"I wrote my memoirs to show [among other things] how I got into human rights work," Shehadeh said.

He began his lecture by reading several selections from his memoirs, "Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine."

Shehadeh described how an Israeli interrogator had been tried for torturing a confession out of a Palestinian prisoner. The legal system was corrupt, he said, and did not adequately address the problem, so the torturing continued.

"This is a metaphor for the entire conflict," Shehadeh said.

According to him, the problem is that most of the Western world sees Palestinian settlements not as being occupied by the Jewish state, but as part of the Jewish homeland.

"[There has been a] failure to put the conflict in an international context," Shehadeh said.

Shehadeh said the effect of some international agreements, including the "largely ineffectual" Oslo negotiations of 1993, only ended up encouraging the application of "two separate legal regimes and legal developments to the Jewish and Palestinian people, [which resulted in] an apartheid-like situation."

One audience member asked: "What approach would you take towards accomplishing what every Palestinian has in mind -- the complete return of occupied territories?"

Shehadeh said that although a majority of Palestinians seek complete independence, not all do. According to Shehadeh, honest negotiation, reduced violence, better leadership and a freer and more democratic system of government are important ingredients in achieving a peaceful solution in the region.

Other audience members asked how the conflict relates to America. One person asked Shehadeh what Palestinians could do the change the view many Americans have of them as terrorists, which has been a problem since Sept.11, 2001. Shehadeh urged that non-violence is the answer, although he admitted it is difficult to see a complete cease-fire happening because "the Israeli siege is worse now than ever."

Nile Elwardani, an audience member from outside of Stanford, said that she agreed with Shehadeh’s comments about the need for Americans to be better informed.

"The people in this audience are well-informed," she said, "but they're not representative of the American people."