May 06, 2011
By Lou Mumford | Mum's the Word
BRIDGMAN - Peace in the Middle East? Certainly, it would be a welcome breakthrough, but it's safe to say it's not on the immediate horizon.
Advised that it may not even be on the future horizon, Bill Cotter, a 23-year-old college student who lives in Bridgman and who just returned from an eight-month tour of the Middle East, said that doesn't mean it's a lost cause. It's his hope, he said, that Palestinians at least are one day able to enjoy the same rights as people in the United States.
"I personally think I won't see it in my lifetime probably," he said. "The most striking thing to me was meeting these people (Palestinians) who are screaming at the top of their lungs for us to hear them but we're really not listening.
"They're doing a lot of amazing work. They want to see a non-violent solution to this. Nobody wants to live under that."
Separation barrier
Cotter said he personally witnessed some of the hardships Palestinians live under, largely as the result of Israeli settlers who seem to have the upper hand even in Palestinian territories. There's even a wall, twice the size of the Berlin Wall in some places, that the Israeli government installed in 1997 separating the West Bank from Israel, he said.
One side of the barrier, referred to by some Palestinians as the "Apartheid Wall," is governed by the Palestinian Authority but the other side is under Israeli military control. Palestinians there, Cotter said, are forced to contend with extended curfews, harassment and the forced closure of their businesses.
"To go to Jerusalem, I had to go through a checkpoint to get there," Cotter said.
A senior when he returns in August to Georgia State University in Atlanta, Cotter, a 2006 graduate of Bridgman High School, said he's majoring in Middle Eastern studies and is able to speak Arabic through earlier college classes. His eight-month trip to the Middle East, he said, was financed through student loans.
He said he spent all but two of those eight months in Birzeit near Ramallah in the Palestinian territories, allowing him to attend Birzeit University so he could learn about the political situation there. His intent also, he said, was to learn the dialect of Arabic that's spoken there.
Non-violent protests
At the university, he lived with about 40 other international students, some of whom, like Cotter, took part in non-violent marches to protest the treatment of Palestinians.
"We don't hear about those movements here ... but the Egyptian revolution was almost entirely non-violent," he said.
The politics of the region are complicated, made even more so by Palestinian factions such as Hamas and Fatah. Cotter said it appears from a recent reconciliation agreement, however, that at least those two factions may be able to settle their differences.
"There are over 100 Palestinian political parties and they all want a voice," he said.
A social political problem
Although many seem to think religion is the root of the bad blood between Israel and Palestine, Cotter said it's more of a social political problem.
"People lived side by side as recently as the 1930s, then Israel declared statehood and 750,000 people were pushed out of their homes," he said.
Many homes formerly occupied by Palestinians remain empty, either from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War or the later Six-Day War. Cotter said many of those who were dislodged still live in poorly constructed, overcrowded refugee camps in the West Bank.
"The one in Jenin, I could walk down the street and stretch out my arms and touch houses on either side of me. There are 10,000 people in a quarter square mile of land," he said. "There's trash everywhere and ... there's no place for kids to play. There's education (in schools operated by the United Nations) but think of the state of Michigan's budget cuts and multiply that by 10,000. That's how bad it is."
Yet another refugee camp near Bethlehem has 12,000 refugees and just one United Nations doctor, he said.
During his tour, Cotter said a bus was bombed in Jerusalem and a family of five living in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank was murdered. No one claimed responsibility for either incident, he said, adding Palestinians he talked to argued their people could not have been responsible for the killings.
"They said they don't kill children, that their bone to pick is with the Israeli government," he said.
He was moved by the spirit of the Palestinians, he said.
"They want to be treated like human beings and they're not ... But they have a surprisingly positive attitude. They emphasize family and their communities," he said. "It made me appreciate my family and my friends more."
Cotter also visited Egypt and Jordan, keeping a daily journal that now comprises 540 pages and three volumes. Once he makes copies, he'll make it available for a small fee.
"I want to encourage discussion about the situation over there," he said.
Source:SouthBendTribune.com
Link: http://articles.southbendtribune.com/2011-05-06/news/29519118_1_ramallah-palestinian-factions-bill-cotter.
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