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Neon Tommy - Annenberg digital news

Sandy Tolan Witnesses Life Of Palestinians Under Occupation

Shako Liu |
October 5, 2011 | 9:42 p.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

The Middle East conflict is back in the spotlight after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas submitted an application for statehood to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept 23. Sandy Tolan, associate professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, has recently returned from the West Bank, where he did research for his upcoming book.

Tolan at the Palestinian village of At-Tatawani in 2009.
Tolan at the Palestinian village of At-Tatawani in 2009.

Neon Tommy: How long were you in the West Bank?

Sandy Tolan: I was in the West Bank, living in Ramallah, and traveling all around to a bit of Egypt and Lebanon for about three months, from the middle of May til the middle of August.

NT: What affected you the most in the West Bank?

ST: My experience in the West Bank this summer was partly to tell the story of a young Palestinian man and how he built music schools and brought musicians all over the world to help him and the children. I met him in 1998 when he was only 18 years old with very little money. Ten years ago, he was a child of the First Intifada in the late 1980s and early 90s, when a lot of Palestinian youth were throwing stones to try to get the Israeli soldiers out of their land in the West Bank. Ten years later he had put down the stone and picked up the viola and received a scholarship to study in France.

He said, “I want to come back and teach music to the children in Palestine, especially the poor kids in the refugee camp. There is something besides the stones like viola and violin. I want to bring music to all children in Palestine.” After 12 years, I saw him by chance in a restaurant in Ramallah. He told me he is opening music schools all over Palestine. So I am going to write a new book about this man and music in Palestine.

But underneath the book is a story about the occupation of the West Bank by the Israeli army and the meaning to live as an occupied people where you are constantly being told to show your documents to the solders. You can’t really drive anywhere without being stopped at the check points. Your neighbor has been taken off to prison. Your friend has been visited by the solders.

NT: What went through your mi nd  when you saw these things?

ST: A lot of people take freedom for granted. We have the freedom of movement, to make ordinary choices in life and you think so does everybody.

One of the girls I met is named Allah, 13 years old. Three years ago she was stopped at a check point when coming back from a concert with classmates. The solder made her open the violin case and play music for him. Allah’s brother Shehada told me once he was invited to Italy by a friend. He said, “When I got there, I couldn’t believe it. Because you could drive for a long time and there is no wall and no check point. I was so happy and then I was sad because I realize that we don’t have that freedom in our country.”

The occupation creates bitterness and anger among people. It’s not healthy for human development.

NT: Does the Palestinian government do anything to help the children and the citizens?

ST: The Palestinian government isn’t much of a government. It’s called the Palestinian Authority, which is created under the Oslo Peace Process to make a little sovereignty. But they don’t have the right to do things that a government does, such as having an army, or drilling a well on the ground they claim.

Sixty percent of the West Bank is under military control of Israel. The Palestinian Authority doesn’t have any power. What is worse, the landscape of the West Bank has been transformed by the growing Israeli Jewish settlers. In 1993, about 109,000 Israeli settlers were living in the West Bank. Now there are more than 300,000. This land is supposed to be for the Palestinians to make their state, but now it is being forced into being smaller and smaller pocket of land. It creates anger and frustration, fear, especially among kids. A lot of them are in depression.

When young people don’t’ have hope, that’s not only very sad, but it’s dangerous.

NT: What are the possibilities of success for Palestinian statehood?

ST: It’s not an optimistic time right now. But Palestinian has gone to United Nations and is trying to get the global attention to their predicament. The irony is they don’t have control over more than half of the state they're trying to declare. But that is going to embarrass the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and isolate Israel. It would put more political pressure on the U.S., though it is certain that United States is going to veto them. Because of that, Palestine will not have full United Nation membership, but obtain an observer status in the vote in the UN General Assembly, which will make it a quasi-state.

That will still be symbolic, because this means that the government of Palestine could challenge Israel on the international judicial levels where is not able to now.

NT: So are you saying that on the way of Palestinian statehood, the U.S. will be the biggest challenge for them?

The United States is obviously the biggest obstacle right now besides Israel in terms of blocking the Palestinian statehood. One of the ironies is President Obama made a very powerful speech to the Muslim world and the Arab world in June 2009, creating a lot of hope in the region. But since then, he is indicating that he is not ready to confront Israel in the series of measures, partly because he wants to re-elected. Now he’s pretty much lost the entire Arab world. That’s a big price for the United States.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Reach Shako Liu here. Follow on Twitter here



 

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