Pro-Israeli speakers met on Thursday to discuss the search for peace in the Middle East.

Rabbi Matt Friedman, Sociology Professor Tom Kando, English professor Cherryl Smith and the director of Hillel at the University of California, Davis, Hillel Damron, spoke at the event in the Student Board Room in the University Union.

Computer science professor Dwight Fruend moderated the discussion.

“The primary purpose of this meeting is to interject an Israeli perspective on campus concerning the ongoing conflict in the Middle East,” Freund said. “It is an impromptu response about the one-sidedness of discussions so far.”

More than forty people attended the event including Sacramento State students and people from the community.

Sheena Borja, a sophomore majoring in interior design, attended the meeting in an attempt to learn more about the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.

“I?m glad I?m here because I want to know what?s up,” Borja said. “But I don?t have too much knowledge about the subject.”

Borja said she was also getting extra-credit in one of her classes for being there.

Rabbi Friedman was the first to speak and wanted to stress three words.

“Israel wants peace,” Friedman said. “That?s the core of my message.”

Friedman gave a historical overview of Israel, which declared its independence in 1948.

According to Friedman, Israel was the first country in history to give back lands it had won in defense of itself.

Kando discussed the changing world public opinion toward Israel.”Blaming the Jew is a habit that comes easy,” Kando said. “Potential for anti-Semitism is always under the surface.”

Smith talked about her Sabbatical in Israel in the summer of 2000.

“My own experience of Israel and Israelis is so at odds with the perceptions people have,” Smith said. “They have an internally non-violent society and I felt the country was much safer than Sacramento.”

Damron, a man who was born in Israel and served in the Israeli army, was the last person to speak.

“The Zionist movement was and is a just cause by any measure,” Damron said. “On the other hand, Israel did inflict a great harm on the inhabitants of the land before Israel, and until we make right with them, Jews will never live in peace.”

Palestinian students attended the meeting and asked questions from the back of the room. One wore a shirt which said on the front “anti-oppression, anti-Zionist.”

Most of the pro-Palestinian contingent left before the meeting was over and the one who did stay did not clap at the end of the presentations.

The event was hosted by the Jewish Student Union at Sac State in association with the Hillel House.

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