Religion & Beliefs
Welcome to Palestine
By Lilit Marcus / July 10, 2009
As we drove along the Israeli border, one of the members of my tour group got a new message on his PDA. It was from his service provider. "Welcome to Palestine!" it said.
As one of the Class of 2009 Shapiro Fellows (gratuitous linkage here), I knew that this trip to Israel was going to be very different than any traveling I’d done before. The program focuses on professional development, and each of the 12 fellows was paired up with an Israeli "mentor" in their career field. In addition to the work component, the trip included Jewish education and meeting with Israeli peers. While "meeting Israeli peers" could be code for "go out and get drunk with cute soldiers" on other trips, but on this one it included spending time with the members of an education-focused kibbutz called Kibbutz Eshbal, working with activists who help the country’s growing refugee population, and learning to do traditional Ethiopian dancing at a center that helps new Ethiopian immigrants get accustomed to Israeli life.
However, by far the most dramatic component of the trip was our interaction with people who, depending on who you ask, are called either Arab Israelis or Palestinians (note: I am using the term "Palestinians" because the people I met identified themselves as such). We spent a morning touring an elementary school in Kfar Kassem, an Arab village not far from Tel Aviv that was the site of a shooting of civilians in 1956 when the IDF imposed a curfew on the town and were ordered to shoot violators. Even though the "Kfar Kassem Massacre" happened more than fifty years ago, residents of the town cannot erase it from their memories, and a large memorial in town lists the name of the people who died that day. I must admit that I thought the residents of Kfar Kassem would spend their day lecturing us or accusing 20something American Jews for complicity with something that happened before they were born, but that was not the case. Instead, once we finished our tour and had some time to sit with various teachers and school faculty, all they wanted to do was tell us their life stories – which included everything from getting graduate degrees in Hebrew Literature to being harassed by the police on the way to class to teaching at majority-Jewish Israeli schools and using their job as a way to discuss peace with students. Although the day left me with more questions than answers, I was really glad to take part in an Israel trip that was about more than just floating in the Dead Sea and buying Judaica on Ben Yehuda.
My thoughts about the benefits of Jewish/Muslim interaction stood a greater test a few days later, when the Fellows met with several residents of a predominantly Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem. Both sides were encouraged to ask each other frank, honest questions, but soon tensions got so heated that several people walked out or threatened to do so. I’ve never been the kind of person who enjoys arguing (my boyfriend’s exact words are "allergic to conflict"), and that day in East Jerusalem made me incredibly uncomfortable. For awhile, I wished I’d never taken part in the program or at least skipped that day’s event. On a micro level, the events of that day (a shouting match between one of the Fellows and one of the Palestinians, an uncomfortable amount of "you people"s, etc) gave me some tiny sense of what it must be like for the people who work toward peace and conflict resolution every day. As an American who has the privilege of simply reading news about Israel in the morning newspaper or online and then going back to my regular daily routine, it was jarring to see the conflict on a more intimate level.
Ultimately, though, I’m glad that I stuck out the experience in East Jerusalem and didn’t bail as soon as people started to disagree with each other. It’s dangerous to send tour groups to Israel, let them meet with a couple of pre-screened Palestinians, take a couple of pictures of everyone holding hands, and then let everyone come home thinking peace is just so darn easy and why can’t we all get along. Letting tourists treat the conflict like an Afterschool Special doesn’t help anyone – instead, it boils the conflict down into a dumb show, yet another souvenir that somebody can take home along with their Evil Eye charm bracelet. If peace was as easy as showing up somewhere, holding hands, and posing for photos together, we would have achieved it by now. The truth is that peace is harder than that, and I commend the Fellowship for giving me a chance to experience it on a more visceral level, even though it’s certainly not something I ever would have done on my own. I’m still confused about where I stand politically and what I think needs to be done, but I’d rather feel this way about it than come home and think I personally solved the war and politicians are so stupid for not having figured it out by now.
Now that the Fellowship is over and I’m back home, I still have my experiences in Kfar Kassem and East Jerusalem burned into my memory. Even though I made some great new friends and had plenty of positive experiences to balance out the more challenging ones, I’m really glad I got the chance to see the conflict from multiple perspectives. It’s frustrating to have even more questions now than I did before my trip, but it’s better than thinking I have all the answers.
POST A COMMENT
Â
"I too am frightened by the Palestinian extremists but I know that as
bad as East Jerusalem is, it is many times safer to sleep in at night
than those areas of Jewish controlled Jerusalem writhing with pimps,
prostitutes, drug addicts and small time mafioso. How about testing
your mettle in Beit Shemesh during a gang fight between extremist
Jewish religious groups. There certainly isn’t an area more Jewish and
less Arab than that town. Yet it is one of the most dangerous Jewish
areas in the country."
 First of all, I’m wondering how much time you’ve spent in East Jerusalem. I have zero desire to debate the reasons, but the fact is that if a Jew is making a decision as to where to hang out – in the evening hours, as you suggested, or at another time – it’s pretty common knowledge that due to obvious tensions, East Jerusalem is a bad choice. I don’t mean to say that all of its residents are criminals, or anything as unfair as the way you’ve depicted Beit Shemesh, but if you’re a woman in the mood to have your ass slapped by a 15 year old in the middle of the stree, or someone looking to have their cell phone taken out of their hands while writing a late night text message on his way home– East Jerusalem is the place to be. For the people that live here, this is simply a verifiable fact. Jabel Mukbar, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem that borders Arnona, is home to the lovely bulldozer terrorists, and many others that made shining appearances during the intifadas– would you really feel safer, as a conspicuous Jew, walking around their streets late at night? Fact is, political tensions and general resentment have rendered this a neighborhood that isn’t quite so safe, especially if you’re a 1) a Jew 2) alone or 3) someone who does not speak Arabic. I cringe at the thought that a future visitor to Israel will read your comment and feel like the ‘dangerous’ connotation is simply hyped. Not so.
 As for Beit Shemesh and other similar neighborhoods– I have to say, it’s pretty rare that bystanders get caught in this type of crime. Very rare, in fact. For the most part, Beit Shemesh is a place where you can walk around freely, regardless of the hour, and not have to fear violent crime, hold on to your cell phone for dear life, etc.. kind of like Jewish neighborhoods within Jerusalem itself.
Again, I have no desire to get into the politics of it all. It just seems to be a disservice to misrepresent safety issues in the area. Sure, if you’re in a tour group visiting Israeli Arabs, you should be fine– but being in E. Jerusalem as a lone, clueless Jew– bad idea. Very bad idea. Similarly, no good reason to fear visiting your friends in Beit Shemesh.
Cori
coriac@gmail.com
I have some degree of empathy for your position, Lilit. I visited Israel in the summer of 2000, just after the Camp David summit and just before the outbreak of violence that gripped Israel and the Palestinian territories. It wasn’t a typical trip setup to infuse young Jews with a love for Israel. It was a small group of college newspaper editors, most of whom were not Jewish, organized by the ADL. Before showing up in Tel Aviv, we’d visited Poland and Bulgaria to see the history of the Shoah and the challenges small Jewish populations in Europe face.
I was pleased, at the time, by the ADL’s willingness to put us in the room with people where tensions were almost predisposed to explode. Looking back, the trip had an obvious bias. We went into the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We met with Palestinian leaders critical of Israel. But we still spent more time with Foreign Ministry officials and academics than we did with the very hostile leadership on the other side of that equation. Even the activists we met with would be considered moderates by any definition.
Nevertheless, many of our group found themselves emotionally drained. "These people just want to keep fighting and spilling blood. Let them," was one refrain I heard. So it certainly is a worthwhile experience to make these trips genuinely challenging, even hostile. The interactions are no less divisive when a group of American Jews hasn’t hopped off their tour bus. Anything less would be dishonest, to the point of willfully misleading.
That being said, while these personal interactions are critical. They must be heard, if only to illuminate the urgency and real difficulty of the issues, the ultimate solution will occur on another level entirely. And I think it’s safe to say that while the purpose of your trip was professional development, not policy briefs, we could use more trips to the Foreign Ministry and the Palestinian Authority offices. There are political structures in place and a certain political will (or lack thereof) that exists and will have to be overcome at the moment a real peace agreement is reached. Then, and perhaps only then, will these interactions come to the fore and become the final battleground.
 In so many ways the majority of the the problems between the Palestinians and the Israelis is blown out of proportion by the media. Here in Israel there are flash-point areas and these areas are visually very alluring to prime time news shows. However, areas not high on the red alert level are dismissed as visually not media worthy. Why?
Why shouldn’t we begin to focus on the areas of Israel where Arabs work along side Jews. There are so many companies that employ Israeli Arabs, for instance in sales and engineering and health care. How about showing the world the shopping malls where Israelis and Arabs fight only to get to the sale items first. And how about hotels that are booked to brimming with Arabs at times of celebration and on holiday. Go to a pharmacy and see if the pharmacist isn’t an Israeli Arab – 9 times out of 10 he is.
There is a ‘difference’ between Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, I do admit. But, why not shift the focus and see what happens. Let’s see the peacemakers instead of the war mongers in the spotlight for a change. Let’s focus on mutual cooperation and support. It is there.
I too am frightened by the Palestinian extremists but I know that as bad as East Jerusalem is, it is many times safer to sleep in at night than those areas of Jewish controlled Jerusalem writhing with pimps, prostitutes, drug addicts and small time mafioso. How about testing your mettle in Beit Shemesh during a gang fight between extremist Jewish religious groups. There certainly isn’t an area more Jewish and less Arab than that town. Yet it is one of the most dangerous Jewish areas in the country.
It does well for the State of Israel to expose middle class American Jewry to heated Palestinian areas of tension. This aids the propaganda machine to deflect the attention from what is becoming the real problem of Israeli society, its own criminal and extremist groups. This imbues the Jewish soul with the aged protectionist enthusiasm. But see the real Israel. See the day to day Arab/Israeli state and notice how well it functions. See Israel as the true multi-cultural success it is and please report that to the family at home.
Help stop the heated negative propaganda machine and help those who wish to foster peace.
 Â
Current beliefs are based on past information
For someone allergic to conflict, you sure walked into the belly of the beast. Whale? It’s impressive that you were so open minded and willing to hear some serious passions expressed. I’ve been in similar conversations between Israeli Jews and Arabs and it’s never easy because it’s essentially an irredentist conflict. Two peoples fighting over the same land. Zero sum.
 My feeling on the whole interaction is that they’re important on a personal level, but pretty meaningless politically. Meaning, we should always be friends with our neighbors and seek out commonalities and brother/sisterhood wherever we go — but we should never think these dialogues will stop the horrific nature of two groups competing over a scarce resource. In this case, a sliver of land.
Not to be a cynic, but I think that the issues here are really huge and dwarf local-level contacts. I’m talking about: will political Islam evolve to accept non-Arab Sunni Islamic sovereignty in the Middle East? (This mostly affects issues in Israel, but it’s also very relevant for the Kurds, Persians, Assyrians, Christians and Berbers. Never mind the Shia.) Or: will Israel be able to get recognition for the hard fought victory of the 1967 war and claim it’s fair share of the "West Bank" and Golan Heights as its own? Territories that were never under control of any sovereign power, and can be just as rightfully be called Israeli as they can be "Palestinian." (Palestine being an arbitrary term the British used to recall the Roman conquest of Jewish lands millenia ago.)
These aren’t arguments or conflicts a group of local people can accomplish locally, but perhaps by showing up for a dialogue we help break away at the perceived notions and effect change, albeit small, on the personal level. So maybe I’m not a cynic after all.
Wanna post your own comments? Gotta log in first!