By Kathleen Nahill
Two student activists discussed their experiences growing up in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Tuesday in McShain Lounge, noting the hardships they have overcome to work on ending the violence.
Yaniv Rivlin, an Israeli, and Shadha Musallam, a Palestinian, said the constant presence of violence in their lives led them to become politically active in pursuing a resolution to the ongoing conflict.
“We are not living,” Musallam said. “We are struggling every day just to survive.”
Rivlin and Musallam are members of OneVoice Movement, a youth-led organization that seeks to build consensus among moderates and meets with international leaders to advocate for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Rivlin, a student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who served for three years in the Israeli army, said he lost seven of his closest friends in one year to violence.
“[Going to funerals] is the daily routine of an Israeli conflict soldier,” he said.
Musallam witnessed the 2006 Israeli invasion of Jericho, her hometown.
“For a whole day we heard bombs dropping,” she said. “I looked out the window and there were Jeeps, tanks. …The policemen were forced to go naked on international television.”
Musallam and Rivlin emphasized that OneVoice is not a “dialogue group” or a peace movement, but rather “a movement for conflict resolution.”
“I don’t have to love the other side,” Rivlin said. “I don’t think I ever will … but we have to end the conflict.”
The event was sponsored by the Office of Campus Ministry, the Lecture Fund, Students for Justice in Palestine, the Georgetown Israel Alliance, the Jewish Student Association and the Muslim Student Association.