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A pro-Israeli student dressed as a suicide bomber confronts a pro-Palestinian man representing a

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Mohamad Ahmad, a fourth-year economics and international development studies student who is dress

For a brief moment of solidarity on Bruin Walk on Thursday, students representing both the pro-Palestinian and the pro-Israeli views together chanted, “End suicide bombings.”

But immediately following the synchronized chants, students returned to their clashing chants of, “End the occupation” and “Stop blowing people up.”

The demonstration was part of a week of events put on by student groups including Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Student Association called “Israel and Palestine: Obstacles to Peace,” which organizers said they hoped would shed light on the issues Palestinians face in the Middle East.

Organizers of the week hosted what they called guerilla street theater – a demonstration of what they said was a typical day in the life of a Palestinian living under the control of Israeli forces.

In front of an erected wooden wall they titled “Israel’s Apartheid Wall,” student actors carrying water guns donned emblems of the Israeli flag and staged their interpretation of the interaction between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians at checkpoints – which were recently established on roads leading to Israel by the Israeli government in order to curtail suicide bombings.

Shouts of, “Line up,” “Nobody move” and “We search you, if we want to let you go, we let you go” were among those said by students acting as Israeli soldiers.

“We organized the theater skit in order to expose some of the realities that Palestinians go through in occupied Palestine,” said Adam Elsayed, vice president of the Muslim Student Association.

“We hope Bruins learned from our skit,” he added.

In Israel’s 58 years of existence as a state, the region has been full of conflict concerning the rights and allocation of the land, and both Israelis and Palestinians have suffered.

The student actors’ demonstration was often drowned out by cries from student protesters, shouting phrases such as “stop murdering civilians.” Some students wearing cloths covering their heads and faces and wearing signs that read, “If I was a Palestinian suicide bomber you would be dead now” were handing out slips of paper to passersby that read, “If I was your neighbor you would want a fence too” and shouting “boom.”

At certain points, emotions came close to boiling over, and in one instance, police officers rushed in to break up an altercation between two males.

Some students who were present for the demonstration, both to support and oppose it, voiced concerns about the way in which the events unfolded.

George Malouf, an engineering graduate student, said he was disappointed with the way both sides tried to voice their opinions and thought an open dialogue would have been a more effective way to reach an understanding between the two sides.

Throughout the event, he held a sign that read “Israel for Peace, Palestine for Peace, Share the Hope,” which he said showed solidarity, as it was held by two people – one from each side of the conflict.

Tom Carpel, a second-year computer science and engineering student and a member of Bruins for Israel, said he did not like the performance because he felt it was an inaccurate portrayal of typical interactions between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians.

“I have many friends who are soldiers working at similar checkpoints, and they never treat people like that,” he said.

Similarly, he said he did not agree with the way his fellow members of the Jewish and Israeli community were yelling and provoking the actors during the performance, and wished both sides had allowed the others’ views to be heard.

He said he felt more progress toward peace would have been made “if they had watched the show and heard what (the other side) had to say.”

Following the performance, organizers invited students to form a circle and share their stories and feelings about the day and the broader controversy. While mostly the pro-Palestinian students and their supporters joined, a few pro-Israeli students participated.

Students continued to mingle and discuss the various issues long after the organized demonstration was finished.