THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 11, 1996 TAG: 9610110492
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL SIZEMORE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: 70 lines
Six years ago, two Hampton Roads scholars traveled throughout the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, meeting and interviewing the Palestinian Arab population.
It was an unsettling experience.
When historian Mario Mazzarella entered a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, his colleague, sociologist Lea Pellett, observed the scene from outside.
``I watched some Palestinians pile up a large mound of rocks because they had decided that he was Israeli and they were going to get him coming out of the refugee camp,'' Pellett recalled.
Another time, both scholars were inside a camp when Israeli troops tear-gassed the residents.
The two Americans completed the trip unscathed. But the still-vivid memory is helping them understand the recent flare-up of tension in the Mideast.
``You get some sense of what it means to be powerless,'' Pellett said.
In a panel discussion Thursday, Mazzarella, Pellett and four other faculty members at Christopher Newport University discussed the latest outbreak of violence that claimed 70 Israeli and Palestinian lives and prompted an emergency summit at the White House to try to salvage the derailed peace process.
They agreed that the process must somehow be pushed forward over all obstacles, whether it is Palestinian rage against the Israeli occupiers or intransigence in hard-line Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
And they agreed that violence on any side cannot be tolerated.
``Though the frustration of the Palestinians can be understood, the fact that they reverted to violence rather than negotiation is what concerns me,'' said Donna Phares, a political scientist.
But several panelists said it is important to understand the conditions fueling Palestinian anger, conditions that make it difficult for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to keep a lid on the violence.
The young stone-throwing Palestinians ``have no respect whatsoever for anybody,'' said Hael Sammour, a native Jordanian who teaches management and marketing. ``They don't even respect Arafat. They ridicule him. They have no respect for the United States. They have no respect for the Arab leaders, because they were left alone to fight the battle. They were born into poverty.''
Historian Maia Conrad, who, like Phares, is Jewish, agreed: ``You've got an entire generation who are now in their 20s who've grown up with violence being their only tool to respond. They don't know anything else.''
Pellett added: ``Many of them grew up in Israeli jails. . . . They were colonized. And I think Arafat would be the first to realize that he does not have control over them.''
Shumet Sishagne, an Ethiopia native who teaches Middle Eastern history, said: ``Gaza is a huge prison, and Arafat is the warden. Palestinians were forced to leave from 23 percent of the land that they had in 1948. It is the most crowded place in the world, and 50 percent of that crowded place is allocated to 5,000 Israeli settlers. There is a lack of options.''
Mazzarella suggested that ``the conflict in the Middle East is no longer between the Palestinians and the Israelis, but between those who want peace and the enemies of the peace process.''
Perhaps, Sishagne replied, but ``when we speak of the enemies of peace, we should also understand what kind of peace. Is this peace able to create a viable Palestinian entity, or is it something that is thrown at them which validates the fragmentation of that society and perpetuates its misery?''
Conrad said the American Jewish community is not as monolithic as it once was in its attitude toward Israel.
``There are those who feel that because they're Jewish they have to be loyal 100 percent, and there are those like me who would like to take (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and throttle him,'' she said.
``I think there's been a movement more and more toward being openly critical of the Israeli leadership and saying, `Look, you have to do this. Yes, it's painful, but you've got to make peace.' '' by CNB