Why I Am a Pro-Palestinian Activist

Why I Am a Pro-Palestinian Activist
By Wendy Campbell
Director and Producer of
"TRUTH: Exposing Israeli Apartheid"
A new documentary

People always ask me how did you get so involved with the Palestinian cause? After all, I am not Jewish, nor Muslim. I am a 51-year old, petite, green-eyed blonde, whose mother's side is fourth generation American from Sweden, and on my father's side, his mother was off the boat from Ireland and his father was second generation American from England. I was brought up Roman Catholic, but now consider myself a liberal, spiritual Christian rather than religious. I believe that Jesus Christ is one of the prophets of God, and He happens to be my favorite, however I rarely read the Bible or go to church. I consider practicing The Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you) the most important key point to observe in life and believe that Love is the most important aspect of God.

So, to begin to answer the question, about how I got so involved with the Palestinian cause, I think I can trace it back to the fact that I dated a Palestinian man about ten years ago. He was a good friend. When I first started dating him, he told me he was Jordanian. Later he told me he was Palestinian, and I asked him why he didn't tell me that in the first place. He said ruefully that most people think of Palestinians as terrorists. Since at the time I wasn't aware of this, I just said that that was too bad, thinking that it obviously sounded like bigotry. At the time, I was not at all aware of the Palestine-Israel conflict. At any rate, what distinguishes me from many Americans, is that I have known a Palestinian, and now know many Palestinians. So I know that Palestinians are human beings, not the "barbarians" Zionists and the media try to portray them. I know that our media tends to demonize Palestinians by focussing on suicide bombers, whose actions are taken out of context, leading Americans to think they are just crazy, rather than people who are driven to desperate extremes because of the brutal, long-term Israeli Occupation, which is funded by US taxpayers' dollars.

It was not until about ten years later, that the second intifada broke out in September 2000. I was in my car and was riveted to a discussion between Israeli and Palestinian speakers on the progressive Berkeley radio station KPFA. I couldn't get out of my car until the end of the program because it was so compelling and fascinating. All I can remember of it is my basic impression and gut feeling that the Palestinians had just cause to be resisting the Israeli Occupation. I started to get the desire to learn more about the Palestine-Israel conflict.

I had lost contact with my Palestinian friend through the years, however I had Jewish friends and acquaintances so I began asking them simple questions to feel them out about their opinions on the conflict. The answers I got back from them were not at all satisfactory or convincing to say the least. To the basic question "Don't you think Palestinians deserve some land of their own, I mean, after all they have historical ties to the land?", typical responses included, "No, they are barbarians, and nobody wants them" or "You don't know the history and I don't have time to tell you" or "It's not your problem". These answers indicated to me there was unfair prejudice and that I was being stonewalled.

So my suspicions were brewing that there was something going on that most Americans were being kept in the dark about, and that whatever it was, it wouldn't stand the light of day.

These suspicions were confirmed after 9/11 when my gut instinct told me that one of the reasons 9/11 happened was because of the injustices happening in the Middle East, most specifically the Israeli Occupation. Right after 9/11, I intensively researched the Palestine-Israel conflict and became convinced that finding a just solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict would be the top priority in the search for a just peace in the world, and I e-mailed my thoughts to my entire e-mail list.

I am deeply grateful to be living in the Bay Area and next to Berkeley, the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, and home to many peace activists who have been very inspiring to me. I went to an incredibly eye-opening and moving slide show about the Occupation by Jewish peace activist Penny Rosenwasser of the Middle East Children's Alliance. After hearing Penny talk and seeing her slideshow of the horrible conditions under which Palestinians are forced to live because of the Israeli Occupation, I was inspired to become a peace activist dedicated first and foremost to peace and justice for the Palestinians. Not many people leave her shows with dry eyes, and I felt compelled to try to do something to stop the Israeli Occupation which my government was supporting. I had always wanted to make a documentary so I decided to make my first documentary about the Palestine-Israel conflict to dispel the disinformation that Americans are constantly served in the mainstream media, so they might also feel compelled to take action to correct the injustices being committed with our tax dollars.

Myths such as Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East must be debunked once and for all. My documentary proves that Israel is indeed an apartheid, racist regime, and no one has more authority to say it with conviction than the eloquent Israeli Refusenik Tamir Sorek who is featured in my documentary. A picture says a thousand words, and peace activist Donna Wallach allowed me to include surrealistic footage she took in Gaza of the apartheid conditions Palestinians are forced to live.

Knowledge is power, and I read have been reading as much as I can about my subject, including "The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict" written by Jews for Justice in the Middle East, which is exceptional and can be found at http://www.cactus48.com which I recommend to everyone I can. I also sat in on a couple classes about the creation of Israel taught by Stanford professor of Middle East Studies, Joel Beinin, whom I had met at the Jewish Voice for Peace. Jewish Voice for Peace has an excellent e-mail newserve called Jewish Peace News, however I found their organization not proactive enough and too fuzzy on important issues. In fact, I found it very frustrating that they preferred not to discuss nor take stands on the hardcore issues such as one-state vs. two-state and the right to return, so I sought out other groups, and found Al-Awda as well as Boycott Israeli Goods.org and others. Fortunately, there are many people drawn to this cause, and I am sure that in time, it will be a mainstream cause, just like the anti-war movement against the Viet Nam War became mainstream.

Because of the internet, information can be distributed much more widely than ever before. This wiil hasten the end of the Occupation, and hopefully be a catalyst to achieving peace and justice for the Palestinians and the world in general.

At first, I was a firm believer in the two-state solution. However, now, I think that the one-state solution is the most desirable, reasonable and logical. After all when South Africa became a true democracy and ended apartheid, it did not break up into one state for blacks and one state for whites. Even the United States remained one country after the Civil War, and segregation was outlawed because of the Civil Rights Movement.

First of all, all four million Palestinian refugees must be allowed to return to their ancestral homelands inside Palestine/Israel as is their right according to International Law and UN Resolutions. They must also receive generous reparations. The UN, who gave away land that wasn't theirs to give away in the first place, should send in peace-monitoring troops to oversee the transition from the current Israeli government to form a new secular, democratic government that equally represents all the citizens of the new unified country of Palestine/Israel, otherwise known as The Holy Land, or maybe just renamed Palestine, which is its name to many people, and has been for thousands of years. There will no military in The Holy Land, except for the UN peace-monitoring troops, and otherwise all weapons would be strictly banned. Discrimination of any kind would be illegal. Equal rights for all regardless of religion, ethnicity or sex would be enforced by law.

This is a win-win situation. We have seen the injustice and inhumanity of the win-lose situation.

If enough people in the world want peace and justice, there will be peace and justice. The more people become educated about the issues and open up their hearts, peace and justice in the Middle East will become more than a dream. It will become reality.

If you have questions for Wendy Campbell, or would like to purchase a copy of the video "TRUTH: Exposing Israeli Apartheid", please contact her at TruthAboutIsrael [at] earthlink.net. The premiere of "TRUTH: Exposing Israeli Apartheid" will be at La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley on Thurs. Aug. 22 at 7:30 pm. $20 donation is recommended. Proceeds benefit Middle East Children's Alliance and mass distribution of the film.