Palestine in foreign eyes

The basic idea of this research is to know if non-Palestinians have knowledge

about the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. To get help in answering the question 2
methods were used, to begin with, an interview was made with 2 non-Palestinian
men, were they were asked relevant questions and other cultural information
that they have about Palestine. Then a Palestinian cultural artifact ‘’ Hanthala ‘’
was shown to know if the interviewees have knowledge about the cultural side of
Palestine. And the result would be taken into consideration to raise awareness
about the Palestinian conflict, the struggles of its people and the majestic culture
of Palestine.

An interview was made with two non-Palestinians, in particular two of my

father’s friends – Wajdi from Tunisia , and Hamzeh from Syria -. First some
assumptions were made that Hamzeh would know more about Palestine just
based on the fact that Palestine is near to Syria nothing more. The interviewees
were asked the following questions , the following are the right answers.

• what is the Nakba ?

it is the Palestinian disaster or the exodus of more than 100,000 people of their
homeland.

• who are the two forces that are involved in the conflict ?

Israeli forces along with the Palestinian forces.

• What is the difference between the Nakba and the Nazha ?

The nazha is the first occurrence of physical damage to Palestine which occurred
in 1948 were people who were forced out are called refugees. While the nakba is
the second wave of expulsions which happened 19 years later in 1967 , people
who were forced out are called emigrants.

• from where do you usually hear / read about the Palestinian conflict?
Depends on the interviewees answer ( this question was asked to figure out if the
information that they have are from reliant sources ).

• why did this war start anyway ?

after the signing of Belfour contract in 1917 which states that the united kingdom
agrees on gathering all the Jews and make Palestine their homeland . a lot of
countries agreed on this contract or promise .

• do you know what is (Hamas) ?

it is the Palestinian force of army that fight the opponent and are located in ‘’ Al-
Qudds ‘’ Palestine’s capital.

Then a cultural artifact that resembled the Palestinian identity was used to see if
they kniw the cultural side of Palestine. This artifact is called, Hanthala. first to
give you a brief idea on what exactly is Hanthla. Hanthala is one of the most
famous characters that the painter,Naji Alali drew , it resembles a young 10 years
old boy who has his back turned as where the viewer can see his hands . this
character is like a signature for the Palestinian identity , Naji says that the 10 year
old boy resembles him when he got forcibly kicked out of his homeland , and that
he will not age unless he goes back to Palestine . the turned back and tied hands
resembles the rejection of any external solutions about the Palestinian conflict ,
the fringe clothes and being barefoot stands for poverty . the character remained
a symbol of identity for Palestinians even after the death of the painter.

The results of the interview were as shown :

To start off with I asked him if he knew what the Nakba was? He answered it
correctly. I asked him if he knew when it occurred? he said 1948 and the second
one was on 1967 which was very precise . I asked if he knew the difference
between the 1948 and the one on 1967 , he said that he didn’t know. Why did it
occur? Was answered correctly .he knew what Hammas was too , I asked were
does he usually hear about the Palestinian conflict from he said documentaries
and books.

Similar answers will be taken into consideration .

To summarize information gathered between the two interviewees they both

answered three questions very similarly, which are the basic ideas of the
Palestinian conflict, when did it occur, who are the people involved in the conflict
and what is Hammas force. That means that both know the basic idea of the war
that’s going on or the disaster., that is a good starting point as we aren’t starting
from scratch. For other questions both hesitated in were as so: when asked about
why did this Palestinian conflict occur. In this part they either stuttered or got it
completely off, that means that they don’t know the details of that conflict, and
not knowing the details means they don’t know the struggles that people in
Palestinians face every day. when asked about the difference between both
disasters in 1948 and 1967 they both stuttered and dreaded back and forth while
answering the question, when they answered they tried to differentiate between
their names however they still got it wrong . this is a huge turning point in this
research! and here is briefly why, if we generalize people that don’t know the
important details like this one here you wouldn’t know how to differentiate
between a refugee and an emigrant which has a vital significance in the political
point of view , socially , in the eyes of human rights – including the actions that
were taken by the united nations and the Arabian league- and it has a major
turning point of history as thousands and millions of people went to a variety of
countries to be in a safe place. To get more ideas a further question was asked to
know from where they hear about the Palestinian conflict or read about it to
know if the information that were answered falsely can be blamed on the media
and their continuous false accusations and misleading of the events. Both
answers were different but can be summarized in the following: documentaries
and the TV, which were expected. but Hamza added this answer and said books
more often than not sources from books are reliant and true but generalizations
cannot be made.
From this interview we gather that to solve it we as a society need to focus on
raising awareness from a small age in schools and universities, because those are
the people who will lead the next generation. This can be done by having a day or
two in a year at least to talk about the conflict and stay up to date with everything
, people who were forced out can come and talk about their own stories.

for the next part of the interview when the cultural artifact was shown different
answers were given. The reasons behind that might be either personal or as what
the assumptions were made depending on their nationality. This will be discussed
in details further down this research .

I personally think that the countries that they are from had a significant impact on
their answers , I made sure that the interviewees were diverse and not from a
specific region or continent . although their answers doesn’t say much about all of
the people that are from their countries or all non - Palestinians , It kind of is a
way to show that sharing awareness actually has and an impact , here is briefly
how. So first since Syria is very close with Palestine the amount of information
they have about the Palestinian conflict is more than let’s say people in Indonesia
, because of the media coverage , old stories –could be said through generations-
, getting tough in school , all of those are considered awareness . in this way you
can bring a whole generation that knows about what is going on and have an
open eye instead of getting mislead if they grew up to listen to false news .

Geography isn’t the only factor , but age too Ibrahim is around 46 meaning he was
conscious of the news about the second Nakba but not necessarily there,
however Wajdi although he is around 31 that shows a gap of knowledge to let’s
say kids nowadays , and technology can be the one to blame .

Maybe gender is one of those factors , men usually listen to the news more and
are interested in it and maybe have more knowledge, which makes them open to
other points of view. Now this isn’t a major factor or one of the most important
ones but it still counts as one.
Those could be considered as factors that we have to think about before judging
someone’s knowledge about a specific topic , in this case the Palestinian conflict.
But we still have to take into consideration those factors if we want to raise
awareness about Palestine and its culture and the struggles that people there
face every day.