By Ethan Cohen
Sixty minutes.
That’s how long it took for a living room near Long Beach State to become a space for one of the world’s most entrenched conflicts to unfold — not in headlines or protests, but in a dialogue shaped by nuance, personal stakes and the weight of recent violence.
Over a dozen students sat facing a television screen, listening as Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid spoke over Zoom from East Jerusalem on April 18, thousands of miles away and nearly half a day ahead.
Eid was not there to defend one side or condemn the other. He came to discuss what comes next.
“Right now, nobody knows where we are going,” Eid said during the discussion. “It looks like to me that this war will probably continue for the coming year, and it’s a long time. That will make the Israelis and Palestinians very tired.”
Eid was invited by Beach Hillel, a Jewish student organization, to the Hillel House to participate in a speaker series to deepen the understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
For many in the room, this was the first time hearing from a Palestinian voice that had been critical of both the Israeli and Palestinian governments, while also rejecting common activist slogans in favor of something more complicated: coexistence through economics, local governance and difficult compromises.
“I think that he has an unorthodox perspective to what I think of the pro-Palestinian perspective,” Claudia Rawson, a 22-year-old computer science major, said.
For Rawson, hearing directly from a Palestinian man who has lived through the conflict brought a different kind of clarity: one that challenged Western portrayals of the region.
“Obviously, there are valid criticisms of Israel,” she said. “There are also things that he is saying about the [Palestinian Authority] and Hamas about how those governments don’t bring up the quality of life in people there…and so I think that is a much more holistic way of looking at things, because at the end of the day, as people, what we care about, whether you’re pro-Palestine or pro-Israel, is that we’re supposed to care for the people.”
Eid began his career documenting Israeli human rights abuses with B’Tselem. As he continued the work, he grew disillusioned with Palestinian leadership—a shift he said was shaped by his own experience growing up in the Shuafat Refugee Camp in East Jerusalem.
“I started realizing, while I’m living in the camp, that the problem of the Palestinians is an internal problem, rather than it is an external problem,” Eid said. “I think that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas almost proves that they are the major problem for the Palestinians…I lost my trust in my own leadership, and this is a big loss.”
After the failed Oslo Accords peace process, Eid shifted his focus. Today, his work centers on exposing human rights abuses by the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, and Hamas in Gaza.
Since the start of the Oct. 7, 2023 attack in Israel, Eid has taken aim at the international community for not doing enough to help Palestinian civilians.
He also criticized the wave of campus protests that followed the start of the war in Gaza.
He said many protesters lack a full understanding of the conflict’s complexities, and the people most affected are often the ones least heard, adding to the divide.
“I think that these people, as I see them, are the ones who are adding oil to the flame,” Eid said in an interview following the event. “I think that everything is flaming right now here, and there is no need to add any oil to the flames. These people are causing damage, in my opinion, to the reputation of the Palestinians, because they have no idea what they are protesting for, and they have no idea what’s really going on here.”
While Eid’s views may not align with campus narratives on either side, some students said his voice added something often missing from the broader conversation.
“I guess the older generation also has wisdom, too. So I think he’s adding some of that and he’s adding some of his past experiences into it,” Eliana Eisen, a 21-year-old history major, said. “Just the idea that he’s knowledgeable and he knows how to speak without hurting feelings in a way… he’ll just give it to you, point blank.”
For others, including 21-year-old business major Jonathan Bloom, the event sparked ideas about how dialogue on campus could be more interactive, such as a dual tabling event.
“I think students would be able to come up and actually ask both questions with people from both sides, who can give input at the same time,” Bloom said. “When students go to just one event, they get input from one person. If you go to another event, you get input from one person. You’re not getting that [information] together. Something like that would greatly aid understanding in the conflict.”
