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Jewish writer Anna Baltzer speaks in USU on Palestinian experiences

Author Anna Baltzer criticized the mainstream media for its lack of information on the current occupation in Palestine in a speaking event Tuesday in the Beach Auditorium.

As part of Palestinian Awareness Week, the Muslim Student Association (MSA) invited Baltzer to talk about the issue in her presentation “Life in Occupied Palestine: Eyewitness, Stories and Photos.”

“In Palestine you have a situation in which rights are dependent on your religion and your ethnicity,” Baltzer said before her presentation from a table, where she was selling various items to help the people from Palestine. “Not only are people’s rights being violated, they’re being violated with our tax dollars.”

Baltzer referred to the $3 billion in annual grants that the U.S. has provided to Israel since 1985, according to the Congressional Research Service in the Library of Congress.

According to Baltzer, the dangerous part of this issue is the lack of information that Americans have despite the fact of their involvement.

“We’re living in a very closed environment, and the media usually distracts us by keeping us unaware of the other side of the story,” MSA President Syed Hamza said. “This [event] brings people who have been there and experienced this themselves.”

Baltzer presented the audience with various photographs that she took during her trips to Palestine, and through her own narrative she explained the current conditions that these group of people are currently facing.

Most of these stories, according to Baltzer, don’t make it to the mainstream media and if they do, she said they are altered or unbalanced. Baltzer said she recalled an instance where a local FOX station in Providence, R.I., superimposed images of Palestinians with guns while she talked about the issues affecting them.

The stories that she mentioned ranged from women who give birth while held at checkpoints to students having to wake up at 3 a.m. to wait in checkpoint lines.

She asked the audience to put themselves in their shoes by imagining to have to take nine to 10 hours just to go from Long Beach to Anaheim, just because of your religion and ethnicity.

Baltzer emphasized how effortless it is for her as a Jewish woman to talk about these stories. She said that these same stories told by Palestinians for years, but have been called anti-Semitic.

Hillel Director Rachel Bookstein said that Baltzer was not showing the full picture.

“The things she is showing are things that she has seen,” Bookstein said about the presentation. “My concern is that she presents a very narrow piece of the full spectrum of experiences of Palestinians.”

Although Bookstein has lived in Israel and traveled in the West Bank, she doesn’t necessarily agree with all of its policies. Bookstein said she was afraid that the way Baltzer presented the issue simplifies a rather complicated issue.

“It’s very shocking as a Jewish person who is used to seeing Jews as victims and humanitarians that she doesn’t show the full picture,” Bookstein said. “There are many organizations in Israel that airlift Palestinian children to Israel for heart transplants.”

Baltzer admitted that people may disagree with her when it comes to the issue, but she encouraged the audience to do their own research by going beyond American mainstream newspapers and magazines and to see what media outlets in other countries have to say.

Bookstein made reference to the images of schoolgirls that Baltzer showed in her photo slide. According to Bookstein, they are not representative of the fear and concern that Israelis have about security.

When a student asked about the Palestinian suicide bombings, Baltzer said that suicide bombings are a relatively new phenomenon in Palestine and that she did not condone them.

“How can she in good conscience not associate with those people if she’s representing the Palestinian totality,” Bookstein said. “We see in the news people marching with guns. There’s no accident that she didn’t show any photographs of that, she defended them using their bodies as the only weapon they have.”

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