Daily Tar Heel - Opinion
West Bank tales from two Tar Heel alums
By: Brian Phelps, Stephen Lassiter
1/28/08

Today marks the first day of Palestine Week at UNC. As May 2007 graduates of the University and teachers in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestine, we write to invite you to the week's events.

While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is immensely complicated, the organizers of Palestine Week have tried to make it as accessible as possible. The Tuesday program "Israel and Palestine for Beginners" is specifically tailored for that purpose. Students have the opportunity Wednesday to hear firsthand accounts of what it's like in Palestine from Tar Heels who have visited.

Living and working here for five months has been an exercise in trying to make sense of what's going on around us. We are regularly perplexed by the stories we hear and the experiences we have. Given this opportunity, we feel obligated to share them.

When we asked our ninth-grade students to write an essay about important events in their lives, we didn't expect to receive the stories we did. We knew that Israel has held the West Bank under military occupation for 40 years, but what exactly does that mean?

It means some of our students have never swam in the Mediterranean, despite being able to see it from West Bank hilltops.

It means many of our students are prohibited from using Israel's airport, only 30 miles away, and instead must travel four hours to the airport in Amman, Jordan.

It means some of our students have not left the West Bank in years because, despite living on their own land, the Israeli government would bar their re-entry.

It means one of our students could visit her sister undergoing chemotherapy in Jerusalem only twice over many months because she needed a permit from the Israeli government to do so.

It means our students, only 13 and 14 years old, have written about running away from Israeli soldiers and tanks.

It means Christina, the best friend of one of our students, was beaten by Israeli soldiers because she tried to go around a military checkpoint while running late to school. The ambulance taking her to a Jerusalem hospital was delayed at the same checkpoint.

Christina was dead on arrival.

We fully acknowledge that Palestinians have no monopoly on suffering and that the suffering of the Jewish people throughout history is virtually unparalleled. But like the Jewish academic Norman Finkelstein, we're wary of using past atrocities to justify current ones. To present a few statistics, the ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed in 2007 is 373 to 13. The ratio of prisoners held by each side is 10,000 to 1. The ratio of homes demolished as a part of official government policy is 18,000 to 0.

With the exception of these extraordinary living conditions, our students are hardly different from American high school students. They are talkative, rambunctious and eager to get away with anything they possibly can.

Coincidentally, four of them were born in North Carolina. Two were recently admitted to MIT and Duke University. All of them have taken English since first grade. Our ninth-graders are reading "The Diary of Anne Frank," and students in the International Baccalaureate program read Shakespeare and "Wuthering Heights." A group of seniors recently produced its own cinematic version of "Romeo and Juliet," set in Palestine. You can view its trailer by searching "In Fair Palestine" on YouTube.

These stories might not fit with the image of Palestine you had in mind, as they certainly did not when we first heard them. To learn more, take advantage of Palestine Week and take advantage of us. Send us an e-mail, and check out our blog and pictures. If you're ever in the neighborhood, let us know. As fellow Tar Heels, it would be our pleasure to host you.

Stephen Lassiter and Brian Phelps can be reached at their blog: http://makingcoffee.blogspot.com.

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