CIA presents Occupation 101

                On Thursday night, March 6, 2008, I attended an awareness meeting/discussion about the 60 years old conflict between Israel and Palestine people. The event started with a documentary movie called “Occupation 101” and ended with a group discussion and questionnaires. Two speakers from the Campus Information Awareness setup the event. One of them was personally involved with the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Their main goals in the event are to spread the “truth” and circulate the tragedy of Occupation 101 to create awareness and stoppage to the Occupation.

                The first thing we did was to watch the film “Occupation 101” which lasted for two-third of the event. The documentary tried to establish when the conflict started and what it has become. It was during and after WWII when Jews became refugee because of the Nazi. The Jews made their way south to what is now Israel. Ever since then, Palestinian has been pushed to confined areas. This lead to one area called “Occupation 101” which is surrounded by a cement wall where some Palestinian are located. If you are interested in learning more about the conflict, especially Occupation 101, I would strongly suggest you rent the film or visit www.youtube.com which contain lots of clips from the film.

Screen Shot from the film. A Palestine child using an accesible weapon, a rock, against an Israel's military tank.

                The discussion after the film was as powerful as the film. One question that the speakers avoided was “why is the USA supporting the Israel government?” He tried his best to only answer all the questions with text that he as read from creditable publishers and never express any of his feeling or opinion. I am amazed at how calm he was even though he has personally experienced the conflict. Some audiences in the meeting were well versed with the subject who voluntary said one the main reasons why the US government is involved is for oil.

                If you have already read my intro, you should be aware that I came from a refugee camp located in Thailand. I have very little memories of how I lived in the camp but I am sure it was not as disturbing as Occupation 101. One thing that very caught my attention is the overused word “ethnic cleanse” in the film. That was probably the first time I ever heard the two words used together but somehow it felt so recognizable. Maybe because of my humanity, I fully understand the whole meaning of ethnic cleanse after just hearing it for the first time.