Spring Break
Gaza native reflects on childhood, war
Melissa Dilley
Issue date: 2/10/09 Section: News
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In Israel or Palestine, these two groups may not have been able to sit in a room together and discuss the current conflict between the neighboring states without violence involved.
As part of the Kent State Anti-War Committee's Palestinian Awareness Week, Gaza native Nasser Abualnour spoke about his life in Palestine and his personal experience with violence and terrorism.
Abualnour, who moved to America to attend Akron University on a scholarship, demonstrated his first experience with violence by telling a story about the death of his father and two uncles.
"In the 1967 war, my father and two uncles were playing cards at my godfather's house," Abualnour said. "Israeli soldiers knocked at the door and told my godfather he (they) wanted to see them for only five minutes."
Two days later, neighbors came to tell Abualnour's godfather that the three men were shot to death just a few miles from the house.
After his father's death, Abualnour said he knew he had to salvage his life, even amongst the destruction around him.
"I remember my mother holding my hand and asking, 'Will I be alive to see this hand become a man's?' She wanted to see me grow up."
Abualnour went to nursing school and got a job at a local hospital, one that he says now uses medical coats and hospital curtains as bandages for the wounded.
After nursing, he was a lecturer at the Islamic University. Abualnour left the University for Ohio in 2006, shortly after it was destroyed in the warfare.
Although he has two wives and thirteen children, Abualnour has not been back to visit his relatives in Palestine since his move. He said he calls his family every chance he gets before morning prayer.
"When I call my family, the first thing I ask is 'Are you still alive?' If I can't speak with them, I can't even open a book to study because I am too concerned," he said.
Martha Katz, a member of the Coalition for Peace in the Middle East, spoke after Abualnour about the importance of American knowledge about the conflict.
While Katz said she believes Israel is mostly to blame for the deaths and destruction, she also said it's always important to hear the other side.
"I'm against violence and terrorism against civilians on both sides," Katz said. "I think it's important the American government and people know both sides completely."
Contact student politics reporter Melissa Dilley at mdilley2@kent.edu.
Viewing Comments 1 - 10 of 25
Exposed: U.S. funded Hamas' Terror University
posted 2/10/09 @ 9:18 AM EST
An audit has revealed the U.S. government authorized nearly $1 million in aid to a Hamas-controlled university that senior terror leaders told WND is openly utilized by Hamas to recruit fighters, manufacture explosives and train on campus grounds for attacks. (Continued…)
Hamas executes Gaza wounded at hospital
posted 2/10/09 @ 9:26 AM EST
At Shifa Hospital in Gaza, the director, Dr. Hussein Ashour, said that keeping his patients alive from their wounds was an enormous challenge. He said there were some 1,500 wounded people distributed among Gaza's nine hospitals with far too few intensive care units, equipped ambulances and other vital equipment. (Continued…)
Gaza UN school headmaster built terrorist rockets
posted 2/10/09 @ 9:39 AM EST
By day, Awad al-Qiq was a respected science teacher and headmaster at a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip. By night, Palestinian militants say, he built rockets for Islamic Jihad. (Continued…)
Dr. Assad Pino
posted 2/10/09 @ 11:05 AM EST
HAMAS also set those fires in Australia, helped the Steelers win the Superbowl and regularly bets on Major League Baseball.
Raping Men for Jihad Recruiting
posted 2/10/09 @ 12:49 PM EST
Hey, ASSad. Your jihadi handlers have a new recruiting tool... well, maybe not so new to you, huh?
Pink News (hyperlinked above), which bills itself as "Europe's largest gay news," outlet has just confirmed that jihadists use male rape as a tactic to recruit male human bombers. (Continued…)
Thomas Noland
posted 2/10/09 @ 4:25 PM EST
The event was an absolute shame from an objective point. Both speakers failed to analyze cause and effect in the Israeli-Arab conflict. Israel initiated Cast Lead in direct response to Hamas rocket and mortar fire which has made lives for Israelis in places like Ashkelon, Ofakim and Sderot unsafe, unhealthy and miserable. (Continued…)
Mary Jo
posted 2/10/09 @ 7:04 PM EST
You who keeps bringing in Hamas this and Hamas that articles; what type of solution do you have or back or want to see? Are you just a propagandist by nature or what? What is your goal in doing this? Is it to educate people to be Anti-Hamas and Pro-Israel? So, now what? What do you want?
Dr. Assad Pino
posted 2/10/09 @ 7:16 PM EST
THE ARABS ARE THE NIGGERS OF ISRAEL: JUDGE FOR YOURSELF!
1. Discriminatory levels of state investment: Throughout Israel, government spending is proportionally much lower in predominantly Arab areas than in Jewish ones. (Continued…)
Mary Jo
posted 2/10/09 @ 8:11 PM EST
Well, I wouldn't quite be able to compare it as such because we used to actually own the slaves. Same as I wouldn't compare the open aired jail even with the latest mass killings to the Holocaust. (Continued…)
New York: Muslim TV founder beheads wife for Valentines Day
posted 2/13/09 @ 2:53 PM EST
Orchard Park police are investigating a particularly gruesome killing, the beheading of a woman, after her husband -- an influential member of the local Muslim community -- reported her death to police Thursday. (Continued…)
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