Issue Date: 12/3/07
Israeli, Palestinian natives discuss hopeful end of war
By Wayland Blue
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The two men, Miko Peled and Nader Elbanna, spoke to 20 students and several faculty members during the lecture sponsored by the Muslim Student Association.
Elbanna, an American Palestinian, lost his homeland, and then his best friend to the Israelis. Peled, an American Israeli, lost his niece to a Palestinian suicide bomber in Jerusalem. The two men found themselves in San Diego and five years later have joined together to help victims of the violence in the Holy Land thorough fundraising efforts as well as assisting in the formation of discussion groups designed to move people like them beyond the hatred and one-sided rhetoric.
Peled began the discussion.
"I think part of the problem is that we have all become comfortably numb," he said.
Peled explained that the conflict has been going on for so long that the focus is on managing it rather than solving it.
"This is a problem that can and should be solved," he said.
He added the violence could end.
"Israelis and Palestinians are natural allies," he said.
Peled explained that they are very similar and that an integrated state is possible. However, instead there is war in which the innocent people on both sides are the victims.
"I hope you are enraged…enraged in a way that we are committed to working together," he said.
Peled said that the upcoming peace summit is a sign of the misguided approaches to solving the conflict. He said that such measures as peace talks or a two state solution is a way of managing the conflict without any real hope of solving it.
"People can not go on living like this forever," Peled said.
A unified Israeli and Palestinian state is the only real solution he argued.
Peled, who was raised in Jerusalem, said that a large part of the problem is there is not much communication between the Israeli and Palestinian people.
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