The Palestinian Perspective: What the World Looks Like from the West Bank an...

Google Tech Talks
February 17, 2009

ABSTRACT

When I first visited the Palestinian territories, I was afraid I would have to hide my identity as an American and possibly wear a headscarf. To my surprise, I was warmly welcomed exactly as I was, and after more than two years living and working there, it remains one of my favorite spots on earth. The people are charming and generous, the landscape is gorgeous, and the parties, concerts, and beer gardens in Ramallah are world-class.

But behind all this looms the conflict, the occupation, and violence. Since September 2000, more than 5,500 Palestinians and 1,100 Israelis have been killed. A series of walls, fences, roadblocks, checkpoints, army bases, and settlements keep the Palestinians in the West Bank under an almost constant state of siege and strangle the economy of many towns and villages, including Bethlehem. Gaza has been turned into an open-air prison whose desperate inmates can only get vital supplies through smuggling tunnels -- which also transport weapons that Palestinian militants use to target Israeli civilians.

Using photographs, stories, and statistics, this presentation colors in the Palestinian experience, with all its complexity and contradictions, as it is rarely shown on the news or in books. It is a fascinating world of beauty and terror, of hospitality and homicide, of the absurd and the sublime constantly together -- a microcosmic view of a little-understood human story with global implications.

Speaker: Pamela Olson
Pamela Olson graduated from Stanford in 2002 with a major in physics. She lived in Ramallah, West Bank, for a year and a half beginning in the summer of 2004 and worked as a journalist for the Palestine Monitor. She interviewed the first elected female mayor in the West Bank, witnessed the 2005 Disengagement from inside the Gaza Strip, and served as the foreign press coordinator for Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi's Presidential campaign against Mahmoud Abbas in January 2005. She later worked for a year at the Institute for Defense Analyses in Washington, DC. She is now writing a book about her time in the West Bank called Fast Times in Palestine.

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[thearabunity]

wow i can date my family 1200 years in palestine so i do not exist???

palestine forever

[silwadiya14]

i have one word 2 reply 2 wht u said: BULLSHIT. if israel would get their asses off Palestinian land and END the occupation, Palestinians wouldnt resort 2 blowing up buses! now i do not speak for or against wht they do because i dont have a right 2 judge them bc i live in peace unlike them. so the message is idiot GIVE PALESTINIANS JUSTICE AND THEY WILL REWARD U WITH PEACE. BUT DONT EXPECT 2 LIVE PERFECTLY HAPPILY WHILE U KILL PALESTINIAN CHILDREN AND STEAL OUR LAND

[justletuslive]

I know all this.. ANd i cant change anything?

[GWC1975]

@thearabunity

Prove it.

[thearabunity]

@GWC1975 yes i can buddy

[kinestic]

So that's like saying "other people have done bad things before so why can't israel?" Also, I doubt the occupiers you mention were enabled by american tax dollars. If they were you of course would be for it then.

check out realzionistnews web site.

[kinestic]

The Jewist supremacists are the problem. They control american media, hollywood, political system and most major universities AND major US and world banking institutions. realzionistnews for a dose of reality. Also maxkeiser for world financial and banking reality.

Hey, how about the 30 foot jewish menorah on the white house lawn at christmas? where's the nativity scene. Hidden away in an alcove somewhere in the white house. Jews rule fools!

[GWC1975]

@robtak111

Did you get your "facts" out of your mother's ass? Everything you wrote is bullshit.

[GWC1975]

All right. Now that we've seen the Palestinian perspective, where's the Israeli perspective? Oh, wait, you don't have it to post? I see...rather one-sided.

[GWC1975]

@thearabunity

You can't trace your family realistically back that far.

[sda102966]

She's advocating for Palestinians, and against Israel, which is her right. But i wonder why she dramatically distorts the demographics of the region? I suspect her goal is to make it look as if Israel is on the verge of being demographically overwhelmed by Palestinian Muslims.

She states Israel has "5 million Jews, and 1 million Arabs (sic)," but there are 6.5 million Jews in Israel. Why would she get this easily verifiable fact wrong? I know it seems small, but its 30% error!!!