I attended Dennis Ross's lecture, "The Prospects for Israeli Palestinian Peace," on Feb. 22 sponsored by the Political Science Department. Ross made a convincing argument, yet it was one-sided. The topic should have been, "Prospects of Peace for the Palestinians, all by the Palestinians," because his focus was on what Palestinians need to do, not on what the Israeli's government can do as regards to their mistreatment of Palestinians.

Ross was in high spirits over Sharon's "generous" offer to dismantle settlements, which refer to illegal land taken from the Palestinians, so Jews from around the world could live even though Palestinians remain sardines in refugee camps.

I am offended by the Political Science Department's decision to invite Ross to teach a course on politics of the Middle East, which he is intrinsically biased towards as a politician, not a scholar. It is not in the best interest of students to have a politician with a loaded political agenda speak about the Middle East, which is almost exclusively Arab. Politics should be objective by providing both sides of an argument, which the Political Science Department failed to do. The course and his talk are diservices to the Marquette community and students if a different perspective is not provided on an equal scale.

Not once during his hour-long presentation dedicated to prospects for peace did he mention justice or equality for the Palestinians as solutions for reaching peace. I fail to comprehend how peace can be realized when justice and equality are not uttered. Peace is not a starting point, but merely an outcome of equality and justice. What kind of peace is Ross speaking about when the Israeli government transgresses their power on a civilian population?

How can you expect the Palestinians to be silent to Israel's history of inequity, injustice, lack of responsibility, and accountability to the international community?

I do not need to provide you with five steps as to achieving peace as Ross did; peace is not a recipe that when each step is followed correctly a desired outcome is achieved. Peace is more like simple algebra. Ceasefire + X = Peace. The X is and will so ever remain justice.

Peace is defined as the absence of war and end of hostilities between people. The peace process failed because Ross and numerous others are uneducated as to the underlying causes of the problem in the region. Peace negotiations in the area will by no means end the hostilities until true justice and equality are reached for the Palestinians.

Ross, we should not be worried about small faction groups such as Hamas or Hizbulah. Instead we should be focusing our attention on tactics involving tanks, appachy helicopters, bulldozers and targeted assasinations committed by the Israeli Defense Force in the name of "security."

Furthermore, Ross does not attempt to undermine our intelligence as students by referring to the Wall as a "security fence" because barbed wire is attached to fences around prisons not cities. It is expected and a prerequisite for Palestinians to be muted to their inequality, although Israel remains to impose curfews, isolate villages from one another, imprison innocent civilians, obstruct the flow of ambulances, build ghettoes, enforce colored license plates limiting their access, inflict random acts of humiliation, set up checkpoints and conduct searches.

Need I continue because I do not have sufficient space to cite all of the injustices committed by the Israelis in 700 words or less.

Zieneb Hamdan is a junior in the College of Health Sciences.

This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on Mar. 3 2005.