Parallels of discrimination
Discussion raises thought-provoking views, few solutions

Palestinian-American Jamal Abdeljawad address a crowd during a panel discussion at UNM-G Saturday evening. The multi-national panel compared the struggles of Palestinians to Native American history. — © 2009 Gallup Independent / Cable Hoover

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff writer

GALLUP — Two complicated historic relationships — one between Native Americans and the United States and the other between the Palestinians and the State of Israel — formed the framework of a thought-provoking public forum on Saturday evening at UNM-Gallup.

“Two Peoples — One Struggle,” a panel discussion that was organized to explore possible parallels between the dispossession and colonization of Native Americans and Palestinians, attracted an audience of nearly 50 people who filled a university classroom to capacity and who stayed beyond the event’s scheduled two-hour time limit.

Julia Good Fox and Jennifer Nez-Denetdale, two Native American women scholars, were featured on the panel, along with Abigail Okrent, a Jewish attorney who works on the Navajo Nation, and Jamal Abdeljawad, a Muslim Palestinian-American from Gallup who is in the Indian arts and crafts business.

Similarity in conflicts

Comments from Okrent and Abdeljawad, the panelists with the most firsthand experience and knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, dominated the evening’s discussion.

According to Okrent, most Americans share the presumption that all Jews support Israel’s political policies.

“This is increasingly not true,” said Okrent, who differentiated between being Jewish and being supportive of the Israeli government and its policies toward Palestinians.

Okrent said she believes some of the language the government of Israel uses to justify its policy toward Palestinians is similar to the language the United States used to justify the policy of Manifest Destiny in its dealings with Native Americans.

Abdeljawad agreed that Native Americans, seeing some similarities in the two historical conflicts, would recognize they’ve “been down this path” that Palestinians are now on.

Historian and author Nez-Denetdale agreed policies like Manifest Destiny have been used around the world, including the Middle East.

Good Fox, a member of the Pawnee Nation who teaches at the Haskell Indian Nations University, has visited the Occupied Territories in the Middle East. Concerning Israel, Good Fox voiced the idea that Israel is not a country with a military but rather a military with a country. She suggested audience members visit the Web site of Combatants for Peace, which is an organization made up of former Israeli combat soldiers and also Palestinians who formerly were involved in acts of violence. The group is now committed to the establishment of a Palestinian State, alongside the State of Israel.

Psychologyof oppression

There were almost no dissenting opinions expressed during Saturday’s panel discussion; however, one audience member attempted to raise the question about attacks against Israel and their effect on the country’s policies.

Okrent admitted that Israelis live with the knowledge they can be the victims of random violence, but she said violence against Palestinians is a daily part of life. While all governments have an obligation to defend their people, Okrent said, she doesn’t believe Israel’s policies are contributing to peace for Israelis. Instead, she sees the creation of a bi-national state as a possible peaceful solution.

Because of their historic experience, Okrent said Jews have a “collective psychology of fear” and a “terrible psychology of oppression.” On a personal level, she explained, her grandparents were survivors of the Holocaust, and she was raised with the ideas of “Never again is now” and “Anytime you see oppression, you have to speak up.” However, Okrent believes many Jews are blinded to Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.

Abdeljawad emphasized that his own criticism of Israeli government policy didn’t extend to the Jewish religion or individual Israelis. “It’s never a question of Jews against Muslims…” he said. “This is not a question of faith.”

Noting that both Jews and Arabs have a common ancestor in the figure of Abraham, Abdeljawad joked that he and Okrent are first cousins. He also expressed personal gratitude to the Jewish physicians in Israel who have provided medical care to his father free of charge.

But Abdeljawad also said he doesn’t have a solution to the complicated conflict, which he admitted has fanatics on both sides. “I don’t have the answers for it, honestly I don’t,” he said.

Okrent suggested audience members could get a more balanced news perspective of the conflict by viewing two online news Web sites, www.haaretz.com from Israel and http://news.bbc.co.uk from Great Britain, rather than depending on U.S. media news sources.