Issue date: 11/13/07 Section: Opinion

Editor,

I am a Jewish member of the Middle East Peace and Justice Alliance.

I recently returned from the West Bank after an eight-month stay where I lived and worked at a refugee camp and taught as a visiting professor at Al-Quds University.

Representation in Dotan Kennedy's letter that appeared in the Daily Lobo on Friday appears to be an issue here. It is important to note there is no homogeneous Israeli-Jewish narrative on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The views among Israelis vary and are representative of the political spectrum ranging from the right-wing Zionists to the left-wing anti-Zionists.

Putting together a panel of speakers who represent this political spectrum alone is a rather arduous undertaking. And then, there are the Palestinian narratives. These narratives tend to be the most marginalized.

I applaud Partners for Peace for including three women who offered differing perspectives on the conflict and provided a voice in particular to a highly marginalized people.

Rarely are we exposed to Palestinian narratives. Indeed, these tours do create more balance by the mere fact that they grant a voice to a people who are generally overlooked, misrepresented and falsely labeled as terrorists by our media.

However, I think the facts on the ground speak the clearest truth - the occupation of millions of indigenous people who are deprived of the most basic human rights.



Lori Rudolph

Middle East Peace and

Justice Alliance

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