This month the Coalition for Justice in the Middle East (CJME) will be putting on a series called Palestine Awareness Month, cosponsored by the Muslim Student Awareness Network and the Organization of Arab Students in Stanford. The organization’s aim is to raise awareness on campus about the situation in the Middle East. In the past, CJME has been involved in organizing human-rights-related events, often focusing on the situation in Israel and Palestine.

Over the next two weeks, there will be a variety of programs promoting information about Palestine. The hallmark event, sponsored by the ASSU Speakers’ Bureau, features Mustafa Bargouti, a Palestinian presidential candidate in the 2005 elections.

Barghouti is a prominent Palestinian democratic activist and finished second in the 2005 Palestinian presidential elections, receiving approximately 20 percent of the vote. He will speak about the Palestinian democratic process and his experiences fighting corruption.

Though under partial occupation, Palestinian society is one of the more democratic Arab societies today. Still, controversy has arisen from Hamas — considered a terrorist organization by the State Department — winning the majority of parliamentary seats elections. Barghouti will address the emerging challenges in the Palestinian governing authority.

A medical doctor by training, Barghouti is one of the founders of the Palestinian National Initiative — a reformist, democratic alternative to Hamas and deceased Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat’s party Fatah. In 1979, Barghouti founded the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that provides health care and other related services in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Barghouti was recently elected to the Palestinian parliament as the head of the Independent Palestine list, a coalition of independents and NGO members.

“It is not uncommon for other campuses in the U.S. to have an event or series of events about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, due in part to the American media’s inadequate coverage of this conflict,” says junior Tala Al-Ramahi, who helped organize the event. “American journalists consistently fail to consider the history of the conflict and hardly ever shed light on the basic human rights that the Palestinians deserve but are often denied. Our goal is to educate the Stanford community about the injustices that occur under the Israeli occupations in Gaza and the West Bank.”

On May 9, the campus will commemorate Nakba Day. “Nakba” means “catastrophe” in Arabic. Throughout the Arab world, the word is used to refer to the dispossession of the Palestinian people resulting from civil war before the establishment of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948 and the ensuring war afterwards when surrounding Arab states invaded. The reasons for the initial (before May 1948) expulsions is unclear, with explanations ranging from claims that Arab leaders called on Palestinians to flee, to that deliberate Zionist tactics caused the flight, to a disintegrating Palestinian social structure that prompted flight to nearby shelters. However, it seems fairly certain that much of the second stage (after May 1948) was caused by Israeli military forces bent on driving the Palestinian population out of the area.

The Nakba is also the source of the still-unresolved Palestinian refugee problem. Today, over 4 million Palestinian refugees are scattered throughout the world. Many live in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in poverty-stricken refugee camps.

Al-Ramahi points to United Nations Resolution 194, passed on December 11, 1948. Paragraph 11 states: “...the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date... compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return.”

This issue is highly controversial. Many Jews, in Israel and elsewhere, argue that granting the right to return would be tantamount to declaring the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.

But Al-Ramahi highlights the current situation.

“The result of the Catastrophe has created the largest refugee population in the world today,” he says. “Over four million Palestinian refugees are denied their right of return to their homes; none have been compensated for the loss of their property and homes.”

The awareness month comes at a crucial time, with the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority responding to the deadliest suicide bombing in 20 months that occurred last Monday by calling it a legitimate response to Israeli aggression. The blast outside a packed Tel Aviv fast-food restaurant killed nine civilians and wounded dozens during the Jewish Passover holiday, and troop reinforcements were deployed across Israel for fear of more attacks. The 21-year-old bomber, a West Bank university dropout, was sent by the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad group. The attack has heightened divisions between Israelis and Palestinians.

Al-Ramahi says that one goal of the event, especially the Palestinian Culture Night, is to “reflect the truly unique heritage of the Palestinian people through dances, music, and poetry readings.”

But she emphasizes the political nature of the awareness month. “Many people wonder why the Palestinians and Israelis have not been able to achieve an enduring peace,” she said. “CJME hopes that Stanford students will realize that Palestinians must first receive justice, freedom, and dignity before peace can happen.”