Clashes.

Israel / Palestine – Part 2

This next and final part of the blog may seem like a hodgepodge of events that don’t exactly come together in a neat and tidy pattern. That’s sort of what it felt like: we were given all these different experiences, puzzle pieces that didn’t go together, and we struggled to make sense of them and combine them as a cohesive whole.  This is an attempt.

Our second day in Israel, we went to Independence Hall in Tel Aviv, where Israel declared itself a country in 1948. We heard from a very enthusiastic, passionate historian name Ruthe. She was charismatic and emphatic in talking about her nation. She talked about Jews as being the underdog. They were persecuted for hundreds of years by Europeans, by Russians, even by Americans. In some of their most desperate times of need, they were blocked out of countries and left to die in concentration camps. Everywhere they went, they were driven out, killed, robbed, treated as criminals just because they worshipped differently, dressed differently, spoke differently. Millions of Jews worldwide were facing the same persecution, until one day, a man named Herzl came along and said “Enough. After centuries of this treatment, we deserve our own nation.” And the underdog, the age-old victims fought their way for a place to call home. It was an emotional speech, and it was evident how important this event was to Ruthe. There was also a Jewish family with us for her presentation who were in tears thinking about the struggles. Jews have faced an existential crisis for hundreds of years. And it’s important to remember that. Every decision made by Israel has come from a fear of losing everything. Because they have come close to extinction many times in our not-so-glamourous history.

                Shortly after Tel Aviv, we stopped by Jaffa. Beautiful place, Jaffa. It’s on the coast, you can see the Tel Aviv skyline light up the sky like celestial stars. There’s this pseudo-European marketplace, with high class shops. Very clean, very posh. We were enjoying taking pictures and admiring the view.

Beautiful Jaffa

Tel Aviv city lights. 

                Then Dil asked, “Do you know what an erasure is?” We didn’t. He then explain that an erasure is a place that used to be populated by Palestinians, by Arabs, who were kicked out of their homes by force so Israel could build something nice and touristy there instead. Jaffa is an example of an erasure. The nice area in front of the Western Wall in Jerusalem is another example. It’s where Jews gather on Friday nights to dance and celebrate the Sabbath Day. Hundreds of Arab families evicted and homes demolished to make room for something Israel wanted. Sepphoris is another example. It used to be an Arab city, but Israel pushed them out and now it serves as an historical tourist site. You might have heard of an organization called the Jewish National Fund, the JNF. In the 90s, the JNF solicited for donations to grow trees and beautify the countryside. Although much of this money did go to planting trees, much of it also went into destroying Arab villages to create forests simply for aesthetic appeal. It can be more complicated that just Israelis pushing Arabs out. Sometimes, like in Jaffa, the Arabs benefit from the parks made too. Some may have lost their homes, but for some, it’s not the worst thing.

Beautiful Israeli countryside

Then there is a neighborhood in Jerusalem called Silwan. It’s right outside the Old City walls. When you are on a tour with a Jewish rightist, he will take you to this gorgeous excavation site where they are uncovering ancient Jewish ruins say “This is David’s City.” Then he will point across the street and say “and that is Silwan, an Arab ghetto.” But what he fails to say is Silwan and “David’s City” are one and the same. The old city of David is in Silwan, which has become a slum due to Israel’s ghettoization of it. Israel is using politics and withholding tax dollars being paid by everyone, including Arabs in Silwan, for schools and sanitation in an attempt to push Arabs out. Israel wants Silwan to dig up their ancient sites to further prove this land is theirs. They’re crafty in how they do it too. Their actions are completely legal, or at least probably are. But just because something is legal, doesn’t make it right. Pogroms were legal too. We entered Silwan and spoke with a woman attempting to run a school for Arab children. She spoke of some pretty horrible things the IDF does to the children of Silwan, but also how discouraging it is to try to raise good men and women in conditions where they receive no support. They are set up for failure. It’s the same story in our own slums and ghettos. Kids will drop out of school and join gangs and get involved in things generally frowned upon in society because they are out of options and they want to support their families. It was a little startling to see how universal that sociology is.

"My homeland is not a suitcase and I am no traveler." in Silwan

To be able to enter Israel as a tour group, you have to have a tour guide. Our tour guide was a Palestinian named Hassan, and he was so levelheaded. Let me tell you a brief anecdote on the kind of man Hassan was. We had a tour with a radical rightist Jew named Daniel, and during this tour, Daniel was extremely rude to Palestinians, with full knowledge of who Hassan was and that he was in our group. Daniel called all Palestinians violent dogs who are selfish and want all of Israel to themselves, intolerant of Jews and who all wreak havoc on the peaceful neighborhoods of Jewish people. He made fun of the Quran and claimed the only thing Palestinians care about are their 70 virgins in heaven. He was impeccably rude to Hassan. He was talking to us, the students, but he knew Hassan was there. He knew Hassan was Palestinian. And Hassan just took it in stride. He still made sure none of our group got lost in the tight Jerusalem streets. He helped a young woman in our group up when she tripped. When I asked him about it afterwards, he shrugged. He didn’t say anything bad about Daniel, even though Daniel had plenty negative to say about him. But we all loved Hassan. For someone who had so many reasons to be angry, he was very even-tempered.  He was always waiting for us on the tour bus, and was never late despite the checkpoints he undoubtedly had to go through to arrive at the Jerusalem Center where we stayed the last week. One morning, we found out that he had been awake all night because there had been an IDF raid in his neighborhood and there was shooting. But he did not complain once. We probably would not have found out it had happened at all had it not been for one of our professors drawing attention to it.

Saying goodbye to our awesome tour guide, Hassan.

Having a Palestinian as a tour guide allowed us to travel into cities labeled “A Zones.” In September of 1995, world leaders got together to try to get Palestine and Israel to agree (one of many attempts at establishing peace). Part of the accord was labeling different areas in the West Bank as A, B, or C Zones. A zones were controlled by the Palestinian Authority, B Zones have joint Israeli-Palestinian authority, and C zones have full civil and security control by Israel. Israelis are not allowed to cross into A zones. If it weren’t for Hassan, we would not have been able to get into these zones either. Some really important historical and biblical places are labeled as A Zones, like Jericho, Bethany, and Bethlehem. These Zones were set up to encourage a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. Palestine couldn’t quite get on its feet. Its government had a lot of corruption and things to work through, so the agreement was that Israel would give it some aid until it could be a country again. However, over the years, this dream of a two-state solution has diminished. The likelihood is very slim, if not impossible at this point due to Jewish settlements. Radical Zionists began building settlements in C Zones illegally. Palestinians and the United Nations kept getting on Israel to stop allowing the settlements to be built and basically Israel would try half-heartedly to stop them: “Hey guys, you should stop doing that.” And then when they didn’t stop it, “oh alright. Here’s some running water and electricity.” Today, millions of dollars have been invested in these settlements, and there’s no way Israel is going to lose all that money and move their people out. Even though it is in direct violation of all their agreements to make peace with Palestine. Recently it has become even more evident that Israel has no intention of removing these illegal settlements.

We entered Israel from Jordan, and it was immediately evident how must more Westernized and clean and aesthetically appealing Israel is. This is probably intentional as Israel wants to be very distinguishable from Arab culture. It is much greener, the farms are made of neater, straighter lines. The equipment is newer and the countryside is more lush. Israel is beautiful. But the hospitality ends there. Israel just isn’t very friendly as a whole. The checkpoints are brutal. I am not a fan of 18-year-olds waving automatic rifles in my face as an intimidation tactic to keep us tourists in line. Tourists, I might add, who provide most of the economic stability Israel has. I also did not appreciate the woman on the street stopping us in the street and asking why we were traveling with him, while pointing a jeering thumb at Hassan. She stopped a couple of us just a few steps outside of the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem. She couldn’t tolerate a Palestinian even three paces outside of their cage.

                Probably the most emotional, challenging site of the trip was seeing the Separation Wall. I didn’t even know it existed until we were there, and it was difficult for me to control my emotions.  The Separation Wall was built by Israel to separate Jews from Palestinians. It does not abide by international peace agreements. It almost seems arbitrary, as it snakes nearly 700 km (450 miles) long. It is 8 meters high (about 26 feet) and in many places has barbwire on the Israeli side. It prevents Arabs from going to school, work or just visit friends who live on the other side of the fence. It sends a clear message. Arabs are not welcome in Israel. And we’re going to make your life hell to deter you from getting jobs and attending well-funded school until you leave.

Separation Wall, Bethlehem

                The specific place part of the Separation Wall we visited was in Bethlehem, and we saw it from both the Palestinian side. It’s like night and day. Slums on the Palestinian side, posh and white on the Jewish side. Political graffiti and stories have been posted on the Arab side. It breaks my heart that we live in a world where building up a wall is still considered a solution.

                It all falls around the very real, very valid existential concern that Jews have. This means there are Jews today who are very afraid that tomorrow they won’t exist. They are ferociously defensive because when they weren’t, they were persecuted. There’s this concept that’s come about in the 19^th century called the “New Jewish man,” a man who is strong and fights for his life and his family. It’s fierce and sheds all the worn threads of passivity. They will fight for a home, even if it means crushing an entire nationality to do so. Isn’t that the gruesome truth about how any nation came into being though? The United States certainly falls into this category with brutality towards Native Americans. Nation-building isn’t pretty. Israel is just arriving late to the game. The established countries of the world just got all their bloodshed out of the way hundreds of years ago.

                But there’s something deeply ironic about all this. Israel has put a lot of effort into placing themselves as the victims in this equation. Their holocaust museum, when compared with the Holocaust museum in Washington DC, is shows a people deeply wounded. A people crushed almost out of existence. And they were the victims for many hundreds of years. Here’s a description of the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland during WWII.

•  Jews were rounded up from the suburbs and herded into the city, into an area too small to contain them all
•  Jews were closed off to the outside world.
• The Warsaw Ghetto’s wall was typically about 10 feet tall and topped with barbed wire.
•  Escapees could be shot on sight.

Doesn’t this sound familiar? Is this exactly what the separation wall is doing? Isn’t this what the erasures have been? Why thousands of Arabs were herded into Nazareth so Israel could demolish their home to plant trees? Israel is still playing the victim to justify oppression of Palestinians. 
              What this all comes down to is basic playground psychology. Hurt people hurt people, and the Jewish people have not been healed from their generations of wounds. They are a bully in the park because they were bullied first. Violence is how they were taught to function, and when Palestinians respond in kind, they point fingers at them and say “Look, what barbarians they are.” It’s interesting to see how Israel can keep playing the victim while victimizing and dehumanizing the Palestinian people. They definitely have the upper hand in this conflict.

                This isn’t to say it is completely Israel’s fault. I truly believe there should be a safe place for Jews. They are a culture of their own, they have a unifying faith, and they are great in number. That sounds a whole lot like a people who deserve their own country. The Palestinian government was weaker than the unified, organized Israeli government. Palestine’s rulers were corrupt and the people divided. There are Palestinians who have grown up being beaten down both physically and psychologically, and to some, the only way to get attention that they need help is through violence. Again, kid stuff. When you start looking at politics as schoolchildren, motives become clearer. HAMAS, (pronounced Hum-Ahs, if you would, Ben Carson) is considered a terrorist organization, but they were willing to reach out to the Arabs in the ghettos. For example, they built a park in Silwan for the children there when the Israeli government wouldn’t fund one. So Palestinians voted HAMAS in because that’s where they saw help. It sounds crazy to us on the outside, but these people are desperate.

                All of this has come from fear. Jews rake Arabs out of their country because they’re scared of losing it. Palestinians are defined by those violent days of rampaging where you see horrendous videos of Jewish rabbis being mowed down by terrorists. Both Israelis and Palestinians see the other as stubborn and unrelenting. Both believe that if they give an inch, a mile will be taken from them. Both have firm reasons to believe this land is theirs. And they are both valid.  Jews might have been there first, but Palestinians (or the Ottomans) were there longer. Jews won the war, but does that give them the right to repeat the same cruelties that happened to them? Jews may argue that they are a Jewish state because Israel is made up of more Jews than Arabs, but that isn’t counting the Palestinians expelled from their homes who now live in Jordan. Palestinians in Jordan still consider themselves refugees, even though an entire generation has grown up in Jordan. 

                I don’t mean to leave out crucial details. I recognize that not all Palestinians are like Hassan. I know there are some who breed violence. But that’s the face the media portrays, and I figured we see enough of that. The news in the United States also makes it seem like Palestinians are always the stubborn ones in the peace talks, and that Israel is really cooperative. Well, the truth is, neither side really has been helpful 100% of the time. Israel has a tendency to be compliant only when it benefits them. They will talk about how the UN recognized them as a nation in 1948, therefore they are a valid country, but ignore the UN when they asked them to stop building settlements in the West Bank. It goes back to playground psychology. We listen to the authority that we like until we don’t like them anymore. And we throw tantrums and bully others until we get our way.

                I have heard people tell me that the situation in Israel will never get better. Not because we can see the situation is futile, but because it has been prophesied as such. Even if that is the case, (which, in my personal point of view, it is not the case) does that make it okay for us as Christians to sit back and look on at the challenges and struggles in that part of the world? Are we so far removed, with an ocean separating us, on our high horse of first world perspective and entertainment gluttony that we take a hands-off approach? When did Christ ever take a hands-off approach to anything? He could have. He could have seen that a lot of the world would never believe in Him, would never accept His sacrifice. So why bother? Because it was never about just one group of people as a whole. It was never about just the Jews or just the Gentiles or just the Muslims or just the white people or just the Europeans. It has always been, from the beginning of all things, about us as individuals. So even if we can help one person, one child come to peace in Israel/Palestine, that is worth it.

I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t have a solution, and the truth is, Palestinians and Israelis don’t want a solution from America. From the outside we can offer suggestions, but often those suggestions put some of their deepest beliefs in jeopardy. We are a young country with young problems. These are old cultures, in lands rich with hundreds and thousands of years of history.  There is a lot of pride to overcome in the conflict. In our class discussions, we would bring forward a lot of different suggestions that to us made perfect sense. Our professors would immediately poke holes in any suggestion we had. Or they would suggest bringing this idea to a rightist Jew or a Palestinian which would be immediately shot down.

O Jerusalem, by Greg Olson

Outside of Jerusalem, peace seems almost possible. We were given the opportunity to speak with a lot of people from the different areas we visited. Tel Aviv is pretty heavily populated by Jewish people, but mostly secular Jews. You don’t see a lot of skull caps there. The people we spoke with in Tel Aviv were pretty open to talking with and about Muslims. Nazareth was amazing. It was Vaughn’s favorite city to visit. There were Jews and Christians and Muslims all living really peacefully. When asked if they would prefer to live under Israel or Palestine, Arabs mostly responded by saying “Whoever allows us to provide for our families, we’d be happy with either.” But as soon as you enter Jerusalem, you are met with checkpoints and rifles and palpable tension. Jerusalem is the real issue. Neither Palestine nor Israel wants a country without it—and they won’t agree to allowing a third party to have control of Jerusalem. Luke 19:41 says that Jesus wept over Jerusalem. After my experience in Jerusalem, I don't think Christ was just mourning over the destruction soon to come. I think he was also seeing the violence in our day. I think he saw the frustration, the fear, and the hopelessness. He knew the hatred of the two sons of Abraham that would come to a cusp in the 20th century.    

     

                In my second blog post about this trip I spoke about the “holy envy” I felt seeing the Western Wall on Friday night. It’s a stupendous sight to see a groups of people so patriotic and excited about their country, their heritage, their holy places. They are so enthusiastic about their faith’s rituals, a people so victimized by pogroms (state-sanctioned violence) and apartheid and shut out of “welcoming” countries during their own refugee crisis. It was humanizing and joyful to see this same group happy. But also incredibly sad. This conflict is so devastating. It was a glad occasion to see both young and old dance in celebration of their holy places, but you can’t see this joy without knowing the ground upon which they dance was once a Palestinian home, demolished for such a celebration. I would love to see all groups of people to have a reason – and a place—to dance and celebrate like this. And if our personal celebrations encroach on the freedom of another group, then we need to evaluate our individual actions. And maybe, just maybe, if enough individuals consider this, progress will finally be made.