Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Palestinian Uprising in Michigan (or: Lecture Day)

Yesterday I filmed a lecture given by Don Matthews, an asst professor at Oakland University. He gave a lecture here in the Middle East Speaker Series, put on by the college, and headed by Randy Schwartz. The lecture was titled, "Palestine, Israel, and the Origins of a Conflict." Matthews has visited Jerusalem annually, including in August.

The Speaker series is normally around 2pm on Wednesdays, but yesterday was different. It was on Tuesday and at 3pm, or so. There were fewer people there than normal (though more people than the first lecture I filmed) and in the audience were four Palestinian supporters, two of whom had the grammar and accent to have actually been from the area. Of the other two, one was a young kid with ghetto stylings, and the other was an older guy who had fish eyes and strong-ass glasses.

Matthews' lecture was surprisingly even-handed. He placed equal blame on the Israelis as on the Palestinians, or he did as much as possible. He went through the history of the area from pre-Roman era through the diaspora, the regions name, and its occupational changes.

For those of you who don't know the history, I'll give you a brief recap. Palestinians were the name of a group of indiginous people pre-Roman era. Not necessarily the people who are Palestinian Arabs though. They disappeared during the Roman occupation, and spread out. After the destruction of Jersualem and Israel, the area was named Palestine.

Palestine was always named Palestine throughout its occupations, though generally as a provencial-type name. It went through independence, occupation by the Ottoman Empire, British Mandate, and now Israel again.

Around the time of WWI, or just before, there were no Zionist Jews in the area, as most were nationalist for Palestine. The Zionists decided to take over the land, and ended up going from 35,000 to 450,000 population in a relatively short amount of time. The Brits promised the Jews a section to call their own, but not necessarily a state. The Arabs rose up against the Zionists before this time because they saw them as taking over the land (which they were). The Zionists were also not being friendly to the Arabs at this portion, killing many who didn't submit. Post WWII, the Brits finally leave the land because they were tired of the Zionists demanding control of the land, and the Arabs fighting over it.

They then left Israel in the hands of the Jews. There was a war which broke out, launched by the Arabs, against Israel by the five nations, and Israel lost 1% of its population suppressing the uprising. Then, in a combo move, the Arabs were simultaneously driven out and fled to become refugees in foreign lands.

Then, we fast forward and skipped over the Six Day war, of which Matthews said one of the scariest things possible (and it was also of the reugees too), "The history on that is still being written." Israel was the first to use arms, but Egypt had blockaded a river. Either way, this is the Gaza Strip and the West Bank areas.

At the present time, Egypt is at a formal peace with Israel, though they may be hostile otherwise.

After the lecture, this is where things got a bit hairy. The four Palestinian sympathizers decided to go rabid and make this a pro-Palestine source, and/or thought that Matthews was somebody who commented for Israel. He was, actually, very even handed. They started asking the most pointed questions and cutting him off before he got a chance to finish his statements.

Lord knows that I am not an Israeli sympathizer, but this guy was no expert. He was giving a foundation for the conflict, and these four fuckheads started going on about Ariel Sharon and recent events:

Fucktard 1: What do you see the war as...
Matthews: *gobbeldy gook* and Sharon's use of targeted killings...
Fucktard 1: targeted Killings, you mean assassinations?
Matthews: Yes, targeted killings, assassinations, whatever term you want to use for extralegal killing
Fucktard 1: But, here, isn't asassinations illegal?
Matthews: Yes, that's what extralegal means, outside of the law.
Fucktard 1: But, doesn't that
Matthews: Well, Sharons, if you'll let me finish my point, excuse me...

It was almost embarassing how pointed the questions were when he was trying to mak an even-handed point. If I had a beer for every time one of these fucktards had a personal story, I would have passed out. "They only gave us a tank of water on Tuesdays and Thursdays." "My grandfather was in the Jordanian army." "My foot hurts because of Israel." Shut the fuck up. If it wasn't for Israel, you wouldn't be in America, you fucktards.

Matthews handled as well as one could handle over-dominating cretins.

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