Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Doctor shows photos of conflict in speech at Washington State U.
By Brian Everstine
Daily Evergreen (Washington State U.)
01/31/2007

(U-WIRE) PULLMAN, Wash. — Dr. William Dienst went to Palestine as a doctor, but felt his true service would be telling the stories of the people within the wall of separation.

The family physician and self-proclaimed photojournalist from Okanogan stood in front of a half-full CUE Room 203 Tuesday evening and showed people what he said they need to see.

"My photojournalism is really the thing I can help them with," Dienst said.

Dienst came to give a presentation titled "Palestine: Through the Eyes of a Doctor," presented by the Middle Eastern Students Association.

His 226-slide PowerPoint presentation contained images he said the mainstream media will not show. The crowd saw pictures of wounded and killed Palestinian children, videos of attacks on neighborhoods along with children happily smiling and waving to his camera.

One video, originally from Abu Dhabi TV, showed children sitting in a hallway during an attack. A small girl was sobbing while talking into a microphone before being knocked down by the force of a nearby explosion. During the silence that followed the showing, sounds of crying in the audience filled the room.

"I am sorry that this is upsetting, but if more Americans saw this, maybe we could put an end to it," Dienst said. "We know about the statistics of who is killed ... but we don't see the faces." One photograph showed Palestinians sitting on the rubble that was once their houses.

"These people are homeless, sitting on top of their homes with nowhere to go, and I am telling them I am Dr. Bill from Canada," he said. "What are you supposed to say to them?" Dienst has traveled to Palestine four times since 1985, each time more frightening than the last. Throughout the presentation, he compared the area to that of the Western United States.

"You can take a Disneyland approach to Tel Aviv and ignore that there are Arabs suffering," Dienst said. "It is like going to Disneyland and not going to East Central L.A." Communication associate professor Susan Ross introduced Dienst at the beginning of the presentation, adding that she was also in Palestine at about the same time, late last fall. She traveled through the area, giving guest lectures while Dienst was out on the streets with a medical crew.

"This is not just one man's experience. I was in the region at the same time," Ross said. "I was struck by the normalizing of violence in the area." Violence was an everyday occurrence in Palestine, Dienst said, adding that almost one-third of children in an area had developmental disabilities due to exposure to violence.

"We have snow days here," he said about the United States. "They have tank-incursion days." He later added: "[Children's wounds] scar their body but also scar their mind." Sarah Daoud, MESA co-chairwoman and junior political science major, said the event was important to put this issue in the face of the community.

The biggest conflict that Americans face is forcing themselves to be empathetic, and look for the truths of what is happening half a world away, Ross said.

"The hardest work we have to do is, for each of us, internally," she said.

The mainstream media are not showing everything going on in the area, and not pushing for an end to the conflict, she said.

"All we are asking is give peace a chance," she said.

Dienst echoed a similar sentiment to Israeli soldiers while in Palestine last November while crossing a border.

"I told myself I was going to behave and not take any risks, but I got caught up and ended up going under a fence," he said.

Dienst and his group were confronted by soldiers, and responded with a nonviolent protest.

"We started singing John Lennon, 'Give peace, based on justice, a chance,'" he said. The large screen continued to alternate photos of happy Palestinian children with the grotesque realities of violence.

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