In a letter to the editor last week, Rawan Musaitif urged her fellow students to become more educated on the Middle East, specifically the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.
I agree that more people should research the topic and come to their own conclusions. However, where Musaitif and I differ is what conclusion a person can come to. She implies the only conclusion a “truth embracing” mind can find would be that of Palestine being the victim.
As a half-Palestinian Arab American, I’ve heard arguments like hers countless times before, and there’s no doubt that I’ll hear them many times in the future. But where has it gotten us? Nowhere.
The only thing I see is Israelis making pro-Israeli arguments, and Palestinians making pro-Palestinian arguments. Two extremes, and I’m not sure I see a middle ground.
This next bit may come off as controversial, but I think it’s high time the Muslim/Arab world realizes that Israel is our neighbor, it is a country with a right to exist, and Israel is not going anywhere.
Some will surely accuse me of selling out, but if selling out means accepting what’s in front of your face, then so be it. Our current mindset has done nothing but dig us further into a deep hole.
If others want to continue down this path, they should keep in mind that it hasn’t worked before, and it most likely never will. I’m ready for something different.
We as Palestinians need to realize that we’ve made our own fair share of mistakes. Step two would be setting out to correct them in a respectable fashion.
This does not mean continually launching rockets into Israel even as we get pummeled. It does mean that we should try to handle things in a more diplomatic fashion.
We may have tried this before, and it may have failed, but I do believe that it results in fewer casualties than our current methods.
Above all else, we need to preach tolerance amongst each other.
I, along with fellow Bradley student and Hillel President Dan Shore, have been putting together a dinner event that will hopefully inform people of our respective cultures and religions and will hopefully pave the way to a new relationship between Bradley Muslim and Jewish students. I hope you will join us on April 16.
Wassim Elhouar
Sophomore journalism major