Accent Speaker’s Bureau brought former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren and Italian-Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal together for a discussion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Tuesday, where they agreed to disagree on the roots of the issue.
Students felt the heat of the topic. Before the event began, Students for Justice in Palestine stood in the rain outside the University Auditorium, holding signs that read “Oren’s speech is hate speech,” “No war crimes on our campus,” and “Gainesville stands with Gaza.”
“It is appalling to have a war criminal on campus,” Tesneem Shraiteh, a 20-year-old UF linguistics junior said about Oren. “We want to voice our opinions that this is not okay with us.”
Moderator Matthew Jacobs, UF associate professor of U.S. foreign relations, sat in between the two guests on the University Auditorium stage. He said the discussion was valuable and invited Jebreal to start off the conversation on the conflict.
“I felt the urgency to come here to talk to you,” Jebreal said to the audience. “I want you to look at the other side. Not of Hamas, but of the Palestinians.”
She said the Palestinians should be treated as equal citizens of Israel, entitled to have their voices heard and a sense of belonging to a homeland.
Oren agreed the narrative is important and said we must recognize each other’s. He then switched gears, identifying how the media is biased to highlight the best news.
Jebreal rolled her eyes, and their own conflict began.
While she said Hamas was a bi-product of occupation and the worst thing to happen, the Palestinians have been detained since before Hamas came into power.
“There’s not an occupation,” Oren said. “Hamas chose not to be peaceful.”
Jebreal interrupted Oren, explaining her views on Palestinians’ lack of human rights in the so-called democratic Jewish state. Speaking passionately with anecdotes and historical facts, she said they should have full rights.
“They’re blocked in because otherwise, they’ll kill us,” Oren said. “I disagree with everything you said.”
Oren, a self-proclaimed Zionist, listed the issues on the Israeli side, and he also gave facts proving Israel is democratic and has been coexisting with Palestinians.
After an hour and a half, Jacobs asked two of his questions and two out of the 16 submitted by students.
Naor Amir, a UF mechanical engineering senior, said he thought Jebreal had emotional appeal, and Oren had good counter arguments.
“I think the moderator could have done a better job of dividing the time between them,” Amir, 21, said.
Students left the auditorium to find the Students for Justice in Palestine still holding up their posters.
“This topic is dubbed controversial and not talked about on campus,” Shraiteh said. “There is a skewed version of this so-called conflict. Palestinian voices are not really heard.”
Other students walked away from the event with more positive feelings.
“I thought it was a good event,” Amir said. “I would love to see similar events in the future.”
[A version of this story ran on page 1 on 9/17/2014 under the headline "Accent hosts discussion on Israel-Palestine conflict"]
