Asil ‘Asleh was killed by Israeli police on October 2, 2000, at a peaceful Palestinian demonstration. The 17-year-old died wearing a T-shirt of a group working for Jewish-Arab friendship.
Mordechai and Tzira Schijveschuurder and three of their children were killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber on August 9, 2001. They were in Jerusalem for the day on an outing with five of their eight children.
On Thursday evening, students from the University chapter of Amnesty International read their stories at a candlelight vigil in the EMU Amphitheater to mourn the victims of violence in Israel and the occupied territories.
“These are just some cases of many from the last year and a half,” said Karen Kennedy, an academic adviser who spent 10 days in Israel in January investigating human rights violations for Amnesty International.
The vigil was held in conjunction with Amnesty International’s worldwide day of mourning April 27.
Senior Jessica Nunley, one of the co-directors of the group, emphasized that the vigil was held to remember all victims of the violence.
“We want to remember victims on both sides,” she said. “There’s human rights abuses being perpetrated by both Israel and Palestine.”
About 15 students attended the vigil. They lit candles and gathered in a half-circle around Kennedy as she spoke about some of Amnesty International’s human rights concerns in Israel and the occupied territories.
“A fundamental right is that civilians must never be the object of violence,” she said.
Students from Amnesty International read the stories of a few of the victims and then asked for a moment of silence in honor of all of them.
After the vigil, discussion among students who were there turned to a speech earlier in the day by former BBC reporter David Zev Harris, who came to campus as part of the pro-Israeli Caravan For Democracy program.
Junior Marc Faulkner, who heard Harris speak, said he came to the vigil to hear another perspective. The Caravan For Democracy fliers “made it seem like if you didn’t support Israel, you weren’t patriotic,” he said.
He said Harris made statements “demoralizing” the Palestinians’ values that reminded him of the way American generals described the Vietnamese people during the Vietnam War.
“Some of the stuff the guy said was just frightening,” he said.
Jessica Lurie, a junior who also attended Harris’ speech, said she didn’t mind hearing a pro-Israeli viewpoint, but Harris seemed to be an extremist who made claims that he couldn’t back up with facts.
“I don’t think he really reflected the average Israeli person,” she said. “He was very right-wing and extreme.”
Lurie added that she was offended by the way Harris described the Palestinians.
“His most egregious statement — I wrote it down because it made me sick — was that the Palestinians used their children as cannon fodder.”