Pro-Palestine students create campus checkpoint

University | 5:31 p.m. | Nov. 16, 2011 | By Alex Chituc

A screenshot from a video of today's protest posted to YouTube. Photo by YDN.

Yale Students for Justice in Palestine held a mock “check-point” today on cross campus as part of their “Right to Educate Week,” in order to simulate what Palestinian citizens go through when traveling within the West Bank. Students from Yale Friends of Israel were also present, and stood to the side of the performance to hand out flyers about checkpoints as a form of counter protest.

Omar Mumallah '12, a coordinator for Yale Students for Justice in Palestine, said that check points, “define life in the West Bank in a lot of ways,” and cited restricted access to medical care and an unequal division in the educational system as a direct impact. Mumallah also said that these checkpoints do not only affect university students, but also people going to work and children going to school.

The Yale Friends of Israel defended the check points as necessary protections for Israeli citizens, and that Israel has drastically reduced the number of checkpoints in the West Bank since 2003, when there were more than 100 check points, to only 13 today.

Throughout the day, students could go through a checkpoint, where “guards” wearing sunglasses and holding cardboard machine guns interrogated students as they passed through. As part of the performance, actors checked the bags of participants, asked them if they were part of any political organizations and if they knew any terrorists or criminals.

Yale Students for Justice in Palestine will be holding a “talk back,” or a forum to discuss the performance and student reactions to it, tonight at 7:30 p.m.

A video of the protest was posted to YouTube on Wednesday.

"We Don't Have to Explain the Reasons..." by strugglevideomedia

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COMMENTS

JE14 6 months, 1 week ago

Excuse me, but that was the stupidest thing I've seen ever. I walked by it, I hate to put it that way, but those guys actually looked like terrorists more than anything else. (sunglasses, winter hats and what looked like a pretty good imitation of an AK47.)

lillywoods 6 months, 1 week ago

then they clearly made their point because israeli soldiers ARE terrorists

Jess 6 months, 1 week ago

this.

JE14 6 months, 1 week ago

you seem very intelligent. do you know what terrorism is? get a clue.

Stanley Heller 6 months, 1 week ago

video of the protest http://youtu.be/JkoVJ-TVJ44 Judge for yourself.

As for the assertion that there are only 13 checkpoints, the UN in September issued a report stating that 522 roadblocks and checkpoints obstruct Palestinian movement in the West Bank, compared to 503 in July 2010. So far in 2011, an additional 495 ad-hoc ‘flying’ checkpoints obstructed movement around the West Bank each month (on average), compared to 351 in the past two years. The link is here: http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_MovementandAccess_FactSheet_September_2011.pdf