Washington Report, March 2006, page 67

Waging Peace

Activists Discuss Recent Trips to Palestine

APPEARING at Bus Boys and Poets in Washington, DC on Dec. 11, Andrea Barron, professor of Women’s Studies at George Mason University, and Jamal Najjab, Washington Report advertising and administration director, told listeners at the Peace Café about their separate trips to the Middle East. 

Barron, who spent three weeks in Israel, the West Bank, Jordan and Egypt, presented her views on religious extremists and pro-peace forces among Israelis and Palestinians. When she visited a refugee camp in Jordan she spoke with Palestinians who discussed their right to return.

Najjab was in the West Bank village of Jibya for three months caring for his dying father. The experience, he told the audience, gave him a first-hand opportunity to observe daily Palestinian life under the Palestinian Authority as well as under Israeli occupation. His talk was accompanied by his poignant photographs depicting the faces of Palestinians and examples of their trials and tribulations as they attempt to live under very difficult conditions.

Most of the hardships the people of Jibya endure were directly linked to the Israeli occupation, Najjab emphasized. But he also was quick to point out that the PA had a role to play in the region’s problems with its examples of extreme corruption and lack of order. “During the month of July we went without water for nine days,” Najjab said, “while the settlement across the valley from us had water every day. Can you imagine taking care of a sick man without running water?” He told the crowd of about 100 that Jibya had exactly 136 inhabitants, 60 percent of whom were under the age of 16, and that even though their future seemed bleak he found them a joy to be around.

Later, during the question-and-answer session, an audience member asked Najjab if it was true that most Palestinian violence toward Israelis was caused by watching anti-Israel propaganda on Arab-run television stations. Najjab pointed out that the people of Jibya—and, for that matter, all of Palestine—did not need to watch TV to become hostile to the situation at hand. All they needed to do was walk out their front doors and encounter the horrors of occupation.

—Naseela Saleh

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