Raed Hadar
24
Is there a message you wish to convey to the international community?
I ask the Europeans not to abandon the Palestinians and remain objective. The Israel lobby1 constantly works within Europe and the US, especially with the media. Even in Italy I met people with misconceptions regarding Palestinians. Many people simply didn't know the facts of the conflict and thought Palestinians were a minority within Israel who were just going through a hard humanitarian time. They weren't even aware of the national dimension of the issue and the struggle of an occupied people for independence. As a Palestinian it is my duty to make it clear to those people that we are two different people one of which was under military occupation enforced by the other. We stressed that we weren't a group of people in need of improvement of their humanitarian situation. I consider the proper presentation of my people's struggle a small triumph. Israelis have many more means than we do and have groups embedded within European society, therefore they can readily influence European decision-making. The result is that Europe leans towards the Israeli position. Our interest is objectivity and fairness in positions regarding the Palestinian issue, mainly from Americans and Europeans, because we don't have the means or a powerful media to show our suffering at the hands of the occupation. Another of our goals as a group is to show Europeans the suffering Palestinians are forced to go through; land confiscation and misery in general. I ask the Europeans not to leave us on our own while the occupation carries on killing, torturing and suppressing Palestinians. We ask them to take an objective stand towards the conflict and put direct pressure on the Israeli government. Many ways were suggested on how to create a Palestinian state. I don't make any distinctions between the Europeans and Americans, when I say international community I am referring to the outside world and how to increase its involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Europeans and Americans play an important role in the conflict and can put pressure on the Israeli government to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders or according to international law.- 1The term "The Israel Lobby" came into popular use after Professors John Mearsheimer (University of Chicago) and Stephen Walt (Harvard) published an article and later a book entitled The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (working paper first posted 23 March, 2006). The thesis suggests that a conglomeration of pro-Israel individuals and institutions in the United States have been driving its Middle East policy, irrationally setting Israel's interests ahead of American security. The thesis is a subject of great debate. See Mearsheimer, John and Stephen Walt. "The Israel Lobby." London Review of Books. 23 March 2006. 9 January, 2009. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html. For a critique and analysis, see Zunes, Stephen. "The Israel Lobby: How Powerful is it Really?" Foreign Policy in Focus. 16 May, 2006. 9 January, 2009. http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3270.