The Students Against War meeting was anything but peaceful. Tempers flared; people jeered. When Aaron Ackerman stood up to give his viewpoint on the conflict between Israel and Palestine, the majority of the students in attendance weren't interested in hearing what he had to say. Eyes began to roll, and he was quickly hushed when his allotted time was up. He was a minority among a group of pro-Palestinian students.
These students were against war, but very few seemed to be about peace.

It was understandable. Many were angry about how Israel was handling the Palestinian situation, and for one student, the conflict was personal, because she had grown up and lived in it.

In 2004, San Francisco State international relations major Keyan Dawoud was back in the West Bank visiting her family. Her student visa had expired, and she needed to get to Jerusalem City to renew it in order to continue her education in America. But once the Israeli soldiers took a look at her Palestinian ID, they wouldn't let her through no matter how hard she pleaded. The Israeli soldiers told her that if they caught her trying to bypass the checkpoint again, she would spend a month in prison. Determined to acquire her visa, Dawoud risked her life by sneaking through the checkpoint in order to get to the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.

Every day in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians are subjected to checkpoints established with the stated aim to protect Israel. These checkpoints restrict freedom and movement for Palestinians, and can be humiliating, and in extreme cases, lethal.
"My best friend's grandfather was sixty when he left the camp to go get some milk and bread for his grandchildren," says Dawoud. "He was not involved in any sort of politics, but was shot with nearly thirty bullets in his body."

Twenty-three-year-old Dawoud grew up in a refugee camp called Dheisheh in the West Bank, surrounded by eight-foot-tall fences, strict curfew laws, and frequent soldier invasions of her home. Her father, a physics, chemistry, and math teacher, was jailed for teaching and tutoring students privately under curfew--a violation of Israeli-enforced curfew law. When Dawoud was born, her father, still in prison, gave her the name Keyan. It translates to "existence" in Arabic--a fitting name for Dawoud, whose father was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. "My father wanted my name to refer to Palestine's existence," says Dawoud.

The conflict between Palestine and Israel is a long, ongoing one that has its roots in both sides' claim to Jerusalem as their holy land, nations apart from their own deciding their territory, and a long history of tension that stretches back almost to Biblical times.

"It's an ongoing process that starts from the onset of the 1948 war, and even before that in conflicts between Arab Palestinians, Christian Palestinians, and Jewish settlers," says San Francisco State student and Israel Coalition member Ackerman. "It's a conflict between those who believe in Israel's right to exist, and those who don't."

Nineteen-year-old Ackerman has been to Israel at least five times. In 2000, at the age of ten, he remembers visiting the Gaza Strip: "I was in Gaza right before the second intifada broke out, and at the time it was still pretty peaceful," says Ackerman. "I was ten and I couldn't look at it with a critical eye, but I remember it still being tense."

The word "intifada" means "to shake off" in Arabic. The first intifada was an uprising in Palestine that lasted from 1987 to 1993, and is most remembered by the images of Palestinian children hurling rocks at the approaching Israeli Defense Force. By the end, nearly 1,300 Palestinians and 160 Israelis had lost their lives. Nearly one thousand additional Palestinians who were thought to have allied themselves with Israel were also killed. In September of 2000, the second intifada broke out, and the conflict continues to this day.

In 2003, while visiting family in Israel, Ackerman got the news that there was a suicide bombing just twenty miles from where he was. Ackerman and his family immediately stopped taking public transportation, and took extra precautions in ensuring their safety. "I still felt safe at the time," says Ackerman. "But it brought me closer to the fact that there is tension in this place."

There are nearly twenty refugee camps in the West Bank, and Dawoud's camp, Dheisheh, with around twelve thousand inhabitants, is one of the biggest. The streets are narrow and there are very few places for children to play. In the summer, water shortages are always a concern.

Just miles outside of the camp, Israeli settlers violate Annapolis peace agreements by illegally settling and living in the West Bank. Recently, the European Union condemned the settlements as hurdles to peace in the region. But they've been there for as long as Dawoud remembers. She vividly recalls the affluent lifestyle the settlers led. While water was short in her camp, the settlers were enjoying their swimming pools. The disparity in the quality of life inside and outside the fence confused and angered Dawoud.

"I never knew an Israeli my age when I was younger, but I always wanted to ask 'How come I live here, and you live over there? How come I live this life and you live that life?'" says Dawoud. "I didn't get it--I couldn't understand."

Tanks and jeeps roll into the camp with loudspeakers blaring curfew instructions. You mustn't leave your home. You can't go to school or to your job. You can't leave even if you have to go to the hospital. Soldiers armed with M-16s make sure of that. Sixteen-year-old Dawoud and her younger sister are alone when the soldiers come into her home to search for weapons. Their mother and three siblings have risked their lives to leave the camp. Dawoud would rather die in her own home surrounded by friends, than outside of it, alone.

"They came into our homes and locked us in our bathroom. They started searching for weapons, mixing the food, the rice, the flour," says Dawoud. "And then they'd watch television and laugh while we were in the bathroom. They left without telling us--our neighbor had to let us out."

Israelis must join the Israeli military at age eighteen, and Dawoud believes that because of the draft, many of the soldiers take their aggression out on the Palestinians. "They do many things that are unrelated to security," says Dawoud. "When you're forced to do something you get frustrated, and you unleash this frustration onto others."

For Dawoud, who one day would like to advocate for Palestinian women, children and refugees as part of a non-governmental organization, the conflict is an everyday reality. Even now, as she sits at a table on campus, she is upset by recent news: "I just called my mom and found out my brother was beat up by Israeli soldiers when he was coming home from work," she says. The battle exists not only in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but wherever she is as well. "I felt powerless and helpless; that's why I attended every protest I could," says Dawoud. "But it makes me sad, because I feel that nobody cares."

However, when asked if she has hope that this conflict will end one day, her body relaxes. She eases into a smile and says, "I always have hope. I don't know if things are going to change, but it's always good to have hope."

contact: esong@sfsu.edu | Ellis Song fights crime on the weekends under the alias Hyper-Hyphenator. His super power consists of adding hyphens where none are needed. It doesn't help fight crime, but it sure drives his editor-in-chief crazy.