This summer I was lucky enough to participate in the opening journey of the Abraham Path Initiative in Palestine. The API is an amazing organization that is and will do great things for the Middle East. The experience I had was life-changing, and, given the abundance of I/P diaries being posted since the bombs began falling on Gaza this weekend, I'd like to explain my own views, and how actual encounters with Palestinians and Israelis have shaped them. I sense the I/P fatigue that many of you are experiencing, and I empathize, but I only hope to add to it. That's right, get pissed, roll your eyes, give an exasperated sigh. Then remember you can navigate away from this page, this entire site, all of the news from the region, and never hear about it again, if you choose. Those who live this conflict every day have no such luxury...
I began my journey into Palestine alone. I had booked my flight a day early by mistake, and would be spending the night in an East Jerusalem hostel before meeting up with the rest of the group. I had no trouble coming in through Tel Aviv, and quickly found a shuttle to Damascus Gate. Riding next to me on the shuttle was an American Jewish woman who had traveled extensively within Israel and was on her 8th trip. She was pleasant, giving me tips on what to eat, what to see, how to say "thank you" in Hebrew, and asking me about my trip. When I showed her the materials from API, which outlined our journey- (we would be driving to Jenin and Nablus, hiking from the Huwaara checkpoint to just north of Bir Zeit (near Ramallah) and staying in small villages along the way. We then made longer excursions to Jericho, Hebron and Bethlehem by car.) She gasped in surprise. "You're going to a lot of really rough areas!" she exclaimed, "it would be much safer to stay out of the Arab areas all together. Especially tonight, on your own. Stay in West Jerusalem where you are safe, don't go into the Arab neighborhoods by yourself. And cover your head if you do!" I smiled and thanked her for the advice, not choosing to share that my comfort zone lay with my language skills- squarely in the Arab parts of town.
Getting lost several times on my way to the Hostel, I encountered many Palestinians happy to point me in the right direction, several insisting upon walking me there themselves. I was never questioned about my race or religion. Dressed conservatively, (though without my hair covered,) I was surprised to see that many if not most Palestinian women dressed just like my American friends back home and felt, if anything, over dressed. Many suffered my clumsy and badly accented Arabic with smiles and encouragement. As our group of internationals and Palestinians came together, we wasted no time in bonding, discovering, rather unsurprisingly in hindsight, that college-age girls of any ethnicity or religion will always find common ground in sharing stories of love lost and found. By the end of the trip, I had seen incredible injustices, staggering racism, and appalling ignorance on the part of the IDF, many of whom asked me and the other American girls on my trip "Aren't you afraid of the Arabs? Don't you know what they do to women? Come back to Israel, where you are safe." I saw the apartheid in Hebron which cannot objectively be described by any other word. I saw the checkpoints, the lines, the harassment, the everyday indignity and inconvenience and I saw my new friends and strangers alike bear it with unbelievable patience. I did not see Good or Evil, Black or White. There were friendly IDF soldiers and kind-hearted Israelis, of course, I do not want to be mistaken for saying that all on one side are Angels and all on the other are Demons. I saw the tears of joy in the eyes of Jewish tourists at the Wailing wall and other Holy sites, the singing and dancing groups of teens on birthright, evidence that Israel was not about domination and control but a sincere love for a place and a history, a deeper devotion than I have every experienced. Unfortunately most of my Palestinian friends never had that opportunity due to the color of their ID cards. The only Israelis they encountered were the IDF troops at checkpoints, trying to divide our group "Arabs on one side, internationals on the other."
Not once in Palestine was I intimidated for being female or American as I had been warned I would be. The most common request that was made of me was "Please, tell your country we are not Terrorists." In one village, we arrived as the sun was setting and a man rushed up to me with his baby daughter, still in her pajamas, saying "Her name is Salaam, it means Peace. I love Peace. I want her to meet her first American. Will you shake her hand?"
The blonde, blue-eyed Brazillian boy with us was hailed every where he went as a Turkish soap opera star (which, I would argue, he only vaguely resembled.) Children asked to have a picture with him. The only time we were hassled was on a street in the old city of Jerusalem, when very young children shouted at us and threw shoes. Immediately an older man called at them to stop and made them apologize to us.
At no point was I asked "what were you doing in Israel? Do you have friends in Israel? Did you meet with any Israelis? Did they give you anything that you brought with you?" However, on my way out of Tel-Aviv, I was stopped for additional screening in the airport. This devolved into a strip-search, where I was yelled at for associating with Arabs, for the Palestinian flag in my checked luggage, and for the Arabic tattoo I have on my chest (which I was required to reveal when one of the security agents saw part of it as my jacket slipped down.) I was shouted at for being alone with Arabs, the officer demanded to know the names of my friends and the cities they lived in. She called me stupid and naive for buying gifts for my family, pottery and olive wood carvings she insisted could be bombs. Of course, none of them were, and after a rough search and degrading interrogation, (and the threat of confiscating my asthma inhaler,) I was released. One of the younger Israeli women who had been the one to perform the search of my body had apologized numerous times and been polite, almost ashamed of what was being done, escorted me past the later security checks directly to my gate. She said "please don't let this represent our country to you." I thought back to the other encounters our group had with Israeli Security; My Brazillian companion was held for hours and told he was going to jail, not allowed to call his father or the Brazilian Embassy. One American girl on the trip, born to Iraqi parents, was interrogated for hours and saw her traveling companions, young Palestinian males, humiliated by checkpoint guards.
I wanted to reassure her. This young Israeli woman would, under other circumstances, likely have been trading make-up and clothes and boy stories with the rest of us on the trip. But through it all I could not get past the overwhelming sense that, despite being better-armed, better-funded, and professionally trained as soldiers, the many of the Israeli troops still feared the Palestinians simply for being Arab. While I had experienced little or no racism from the Palestinians, I had witnessed so much from the Israelis that I could not understand. (This did not lead to the conclusion that all Israelis are racist, or that racism is absent from Palestinian society, just an unsettling sense that what I had always been taught, even what I had once believed, that the mindless hatred of one side for another was met with the merciful but firm self-defense of the other, barely surviving, was simply not true.)
There are opinions, one-sided anecdotes such as my own, and then there are facts.
Facts tell us that Palestinians die at the hands of Israelis in numbers staggeringly larger than the reverse.
Facts tell us that the Israeli Military is an elite, technologically superior force that rivals any other in the world, while the Palestinians are fighting with minimal technology, funding and training.
And yet, the story is told of two deadly foes, deadlocked forever in an eternal struggle, fueled by hatred and religious fanaticism, each determined to kill one another. Perhaps in some worldviews this is factual, and I don't pretend to believe I will change any minds, but that was simply not what I experienced. That the Goliath in this metaphor seemed so terrified of the David made it even more perplexing.
My belief? Israelis have legitimate reasons to be afraid, but none are so toxic to their safety and to the structure of their society than fear itself. Israel's long-term survival will not come by force, by bombing every foe into submission; there are too many and violence only creates more. Israel will survive if and only if it learns to live alongside neighbors, and actively working to ease the day to day suffering the occupation has caused Palestinians. Gaining the respect, even affection, of its neighbors could be possible, if only Israel did not fear them so.
The power that must be harnessed by the Palestinians, the reason that so many IDF soldiers wearing body armor and carrying assault rifles still honestly believed that I and they had more to fear from the unarmed college boys sitting next to me than from some one like them, does not lie in the rockets Hamas fires so recklessly and with such cowardice. The power is in the quiet resistance of those who defy taunts at checkpoints, choosing to study rather than become martyrs, recognizing that martyrs are being made every day without volunteering. Recognizing that the real fear is not a Palestinian with a gun or a missile or even a Palestinian willing to die for their cause- it is those far more numerous people devoting their lives to it.
Both sides want to claim the moral high ground, which cannot be defended with guns or bombs or tanks or stones or missiles. The physical battle may be easily won by the bigger guns, but the war of ideas, of honest to goodness right and wrong is a much closer fight than is comfortable, and won ultimately only by embracing the right of every human to life. Human life is a tremendous weapon, a powerful force for change and for progress, and plenty on both sides of this conflict have dedicated their lives to better futures for all. Theirs is the moral high ground, and they are the truly fearsome.
I've been all over this debate since 8th grade Journalism. I've read mountains of opinions and histories from both sides, and I know there is much we can debate and disagree about and all still be completely right and completely wrong. But I've seen what I've seen, and it may not be ultimate truth, but it is a small piece of reality, which cannot be denied or refuted. This is what I saw, and why I believe what I believe. I would encourage those who feel strongly about Israel/Palestine, and especially those who are just tired of hearing about it, to see both countries for themselves, if the opportunity ever arises, and to share what you see with others. It is all any of us can do.