palestinian-israeli conflict we think of
politics and Wars and land and leaders
but there is one very important aspect
that is often missing the people and
when we do hear about specifically the
Palestinians in the media we are not
shown images like this all of these
people come from Palestinian descent my
goal today is to humanize the
Palestinians the history on both sides
of the story are readily available on
many sources for whoever is interested
but I want to separate the conflicts and
acts of violence from who the
Palestinian people really are but if I
am being honest I did find it difficult
to completely separate the politics from
the people because the politics and laws
really do control the everyday lives of
these people
my name is Lilia Brooker and although I
am half Palestinian I would like to
assert that today I’m speaking here is
an American I was born and raised in
Massachusetts I do not speak Arabic and
my perspective and knowledge of the
Middle East is still developing however
I hope that I can share with you a
glimpse into what I see and introduce
you to a variety of different faces
stories and experiences that help
broaden the way we view these 11 million
people so last summer I went to summer
camp with a girl named aya as you can
see from our awkward mirror selfie and
we were in New York for the day together
we went shopping and Broadway musical
and had lunch and aya was from Tel Aviv
Israel
so we asked aya how she’d like living in
Tel Aviv and she said I love it there’s
so much freedom and we live right next
to the beach and it’s so safe I think go
out with my friends and
I have story was very different from
what I knew to be true happening right
next door and many regions of Palestine
Israel and States curfews that can last
days weeks and even months later in my
day with aya it came up that I was half
Palestinian and she couldn’t believe me
she couldn’t wrap her head around the
fact that someone like me my mother or
gigi hadid could be even somewhat
Palestinian she said that her school
takes her to see Palestine and said it
was terrible and poor and violent now
meeting aya was the first time I
realized how narrow our view of the
Palestinians are it’s not that she
didn’t know about the Palestinians it’s
not that she wasn’t aware of who they
are it’s that she had only been exposed
to a certain portrayal of Palestinians
that left out a lot so I began to think
how can I enable myself to begin a
dialogue when I come across such
instances so I did some research to
uncover the varying truths of the
Palestinian experience a boy named Sahib
was 14 years old and lived in salon East
Jerusalem he was in the ninth grade and
enjoyed studying history
one day in the middle of the night he
was awoken by Israeli officers arrested
and told he would be back home within a
few hours he was taken to a detention
center beaten and abused even though
Sohaib did not know how to speak read or
write in hebrew he was forced to sign a
document in hebrew stating that he had
not been physically abused his father
was not called until late the next
morning so habes interrogation period
lasted for ten days where guards
allegedly beat him with a chair and
threatens him with a knife he was then
moved to a prison cell where he recounts
guards preventing him from sleeping by
banging on the doors yelling and aiming
laser pointers at his eyes he remained
in prison for thirty days after his
imprisonment he was sentenced to house
arrest
meaning that he could not attend school
for the rest of the year
I’m sad to say that’s a haip story is
not an isolated occurrence according to
the defense for children international
Palestine whose mission statement is to
promote and protect the human rights of
Palestinian children the majority of
Palestinian children who are detained
are charged with throwing stones and
three out of four experience physical
violence during arrest transfer or
interrogation in 2014 alone 1945
children were detained including 92 of
those children being 12 years old or
younger now I’d like to tell the story
of a man who was really able to make a
difference for many kids like Sohaib so
Fatiha Gondor is one of my mother’s
childhood friends he became very
successful in his career but wanted to
do something to help Palestinian
refugees to briefly define who a
Palestinian refugee is is that it’s a
person who lost both home and means of
livelihood as a result of the 1948
conflict so mister wanderer started a
nonprofit called ruied that aims to
encourage education child development
youth organizing and community building
if a student successfully graduates from
high school
mr. Condor funds the student with a
scholarship to attend a local university
Rwanda has many locations in Lebanon
Egypt Palestine and Jordan in the summer
of 2015 I decided I wanted to do
something to help but also to better
understand yet a different side of the
palestinian experience so i volunteered
at the roulade located in the muhammad I
mean camp in Jordan and before I went I
was expecting a refugee camp to look
something like this not quite the
refugee camp has a population of about
54,000 people so I worked in two of Rods
many programs Bateson Sol and the
children’s library Sol Sol Sol
translates to clay and Arabic and the
program hosts severely mentally and
physically disabled
members of the community and empowers
them through art so a local artist comes
to teach the children painting and I
helped out with teaching basic sculpture
painting and drawing here are some of
the students showcasing some of the
flower drawings that we did together the
student is especially talented in art
and I really admired a lot of his other
art work so in the children’s library I
think the kids just loved the
companionship and attention they would
fight for who gets to sit next to me in
the circle or hold my hands just longing
for that affection that they so often
laughed at home in the library they
would learn reading writing and play
games one thing that I think is really
really special about robot is that
graduates of the program come back to
teach the children so I saw how a young
man now in university came and taught a
theater to the kids and their eyes were
just light up when they saw him and they
hung on to every word that he said it’s
really really unique and special Howrah
WOD not only benefits the individual but
empowers the entire community after my
experience at reward I did some
reflecting I think what disturbs me most
was the continuing generations of
Palestinian refugees still living in
refugee camps I asked myself why has it
been like this for so long will there
ever be a way to fix this but so far my
questions have not been answered now I
would like to tell the story that I
think really illustrates the resilience
among hardships that Palestinians face
so two women named my seeds and Raavan
live in the Gaza Strip and they recently
graduated from an engineering University
in the area and they came across a
problem construction materials are
extremely difficult to access in Gaza
due to the Israeli blockade so they
engineered a way to make bricks out of
ash from coal and wood rather than the
traditional sand and stone bricks the
bricks are flameproof lighter in weight
and traditional bricks and also cheaper
their invention even received approval
from labret
in Japan last August the bricks were
used in the construction of a building
and are now in high demand this story is
a great example of how someone can take
the rubble around them quite literally
in this case and turn it into something
that can rebuild what they have lost my
seeds and Raavan were not only able to
help her community but have set an
example for what future innovators can
accomplish now I would like to tell the
story of my own family my
great-grandfather was a man who spoke
five languages fluently including
Russian and French my great-grandmother
was a homemaker as my mother put set but
her love of good manners and preserving
the Palestinian tradition was drove her
everyday life
my grandfather pictured here attended
law school in England and my great uncle
once University in America my mother’s
aunts all played piano in their
Jerusalem home this is my grandma in the
middle and my grandparents wanted to
make a better life for themselves and
their daughters which they couldn’t do
anymore due to the occupation in
Jerusalem so they had to leave and some
of the places they lived included Kuwait
and North Africa my mother remembers
that their daily lives were consumed
with listening to the BBC radio for any
glimmer of hope that they could one day
return home to Jerusalem but the years
passed and this never happened so
eventually my mother came to America for
university during her beginnings at
college here she worked part-time
waitressing at Cafe Algiers in Cambridge
Massachusetts when she was serving
people they would detect an accent and
often ask her where she was from she
would challenge them to guess and all of
their guesses were said with such
excitement and awe France Austria
Germany Argentina and on and on and told
the moment my mother said I’m actually
Palestinian and their shoulders would
hunch it would squinted her and
confusion and lose all interests of
continuing any conversation up until now
due to her Western demeanor
my mother is still faced with the
questions but what do you mean your
Palestinian you have light skin and blue
eyes what do you mean you’re from
Jerusalem so she now feels that she is
in an emotional die spora that nowhere
ever is truly home nowadays she feels
she has to add another elements to her
Palestine Palestinian ISM to have
someone’s ear or respect she has to draw
upon some old Turkish ancestor or her
life in Europe to feel respected and
human and being Muslim well that was a
whole nother story now by telling you
these stories I’m not trying to make all
Palestinians the victims nor am I trying
to say that everything’s fine and it’s
all right because it’s not home trying
to do is broaden the perspective we have
of Palestinians in the media on the rare
occasion that we are faced with the
image of a Palestinian it is either of a
violent angry one or have a victimized
helpless one but what we’re missing is
the third side Palestinians living
normal lives all over the world this
third side is what I saw growing up I
saw people like my friends in my family
and I was immersed in the culture I
would like to conclude with one last
story about how learning is not static
rap but rather dynamic just last month I
was speaking to one of my friends over
FaceTime and I’d been sharing some of
the research I’ve been doing for this
talk and he had been raised and exposed
to a very different perspective
regarding the palestinian-israeli
conflict than I had
so we began sharing experiences and the
experiences of others relating to the
conflict we shared articles and YouTube
videos and by the end of our call which
lasted roughly five hours we slowly
began to understand each other
regardless if we agreed or not we as
humans are too often surrounded by our
similarities and disengage or get
defensive when our differences arise but
from aya I learned about a different
perspective than my
from Sahib I learned about a reoccurring
problem from fatty Condor I learned that
it’s possible to make a difference on a
large scale from volunteering at reward
I learned how to make a difference on
even a small scale from a seeds and
Raavan story I learned that resilience
in the face of adversity is a first step
to solving any problem from my own
family story I learned about how diverse
the Palestinian experiences and from
facetiming with my friends I learned
that we all have the power to enlighten
someone or be enlightened yourself for
my humble experience living only a mere
16 years on this planet I among others
believe that the first step to
rekindling humanity is understanding
with which compassion and empathy will
follow it may sound vague and simplistic
but through finding compassion for
others we truly can make a difference
but come on we’ve all heard this make a
difference talk but what has always
stumped me was well how what I’ve
learned is that it doesn’t always
require travelling across the world it
can begin by reading an article or
watching a video on the little machines
in our pockets it can begin by chatting
to the person next to you it must begin
by stepping out of our comfort zones and
into somebody else’s shoes in this day
and age with news events and tragedies
being thrown at us every day our daily
lives are becoming reduced to only the
facts of the situation but what we need
to do in addition it’s knowing the facts
is to hear the stories see the images
and feel the emotions to truly
comprehend the impact or importance of
any world event before we can construct
solutions to any of our problems in this
world we need to see eye to eye we need
to recognize that we all have the power
to share to listen to engage and to
question it is an hour
and more importantly with our
responsibilities that we use these
powers to change the way we think thank you