Georgetown students heard a dialogue between an Israeli and a Palestinian woman at the Georgetown-Israel Alliance’s “Mothers For Peace” forum yesterday.
Sponsored by the Israel Project as part of a speaking tour, the event featured Noni Darwish, a Palestinian mother and daughter of an assassinated Egyptian military officer, and Miri Eisen, an Israeli mother and former Israeli Defense Force colonel.
The discussion focused on the evils and hindrances of terrorism, the need to establish a Palestinian education system that teaches tolerance of Israel and the hardships of the region’s violence during the past six years. While both women focused on the activities of their respective homelands, they agreed about the steps necessary to achieve peace.
In contrast, several audience members posed passionate objections to the speakers’ criticisms of Palestine and their defense of Israeli practices.
Muriam Davis and Ruba Batniji, graduate students in the Master of Arts in Arab Studies program, questioned the women on the validity of their statistics regarding poverty in Palestine and alleged human rights and international law violations by Israel.
“While [the event] was an interesting introduction of Israel’s justification of their measures, there was not enough about the root causes,” Davis, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine, said.
Jerusalem-born Hammad Hammad (SFS ‘08), also a member of SJP, was similarly disappointed with the portrayal of Palestinians and the unipolarity of opinion among the two women.
He questioned the authenticity of Darwish, who lives in the United States and converted to Christianity, as a voice for the Palestinians. He also objected to the use of “peace” in the program’s name.
“The focus of the speech was barely about the future or about prospects for peace,” Hammad said. “Rather about ‘terrorism … hatred … terrorism … hatred’ and was very hateful towards Palestinians in nature.”
Greg Goldberg (SFS ‘08), president of GIA, defended the event as a fair, representative presentation of moderate views in the Middle East.
“[This] event is one example of such an exchange of ideas that will lead to a mutual understanding between the two peoples,” Goldberg said.
