Now in Technicolor

Israel and Palestine – Part 1

I couldn't figure out a way to compile my thoughts effectively into just one blog post about the politics of Israel and Palestine. So this is Part 1 of my now four part recap of our trip. I wanted to introduce some important concepts to keep in mind before diving into the actual issues we learned about. I'll talk about those in my next post. If you have questions, corrections, or comments about our experience, shoot me a message.

                This has taken me a really long time to post. I really needed time to process all that we learned in those short but intense two weeks. Let me first start by saying those two weeks were not a vacation, they were not a break. They were exhausting. Those 14 days were artfully orchestrated to force us to feel uncomfortable, to ask hard questions. We listened to a lot of propaganda, we heard from both sides, and from all over the political spectrum. It was a political science course in the deep end of the pool--at least for someone who majored in Chemistry. We saw a lot of the typical tourist sites, but we also had tours of Israel’s Parliament (called the Knesset) and talks from people who grew up in a Kibbutz. We attended a Q&A with Israeli grad students. We had lectures from a Jewish professor and from a Palestinian philosopher.  We often had lectures when we were on the bus while driving to another site. We spoke with Jews and Arabs and Christians in the different cities we visited. We heard from people who experienced Israel firsthand, who grew up there, who were intimate with the conflict. We heard from people working to bring peace, and others working to exterminate and expel those they felt do not belong in their homeland. It was a flurry of opinions and strong emotions, and a lot of it was hard to choke down.

Since returning to the States, people have asked me in passing who I support more, Israel or Palestine. Sometimes I have answered flippantly one way or another, depending on my mood or how much time I have to answer. But honestly when you see all sides of the argument and really understand where people are coming from, how can you pick a side? At some point or another, we all will find ourselves on either side of an argument where “our team” and our opposition are both at fault in some way. Circumstances are never black and white. If you’re seeing black and white in any conflict, re-evaluate your specs. We don’t need more arguments about who is right and who is wrong, what we need is conversation.

                 This is not a representation of all there is to know in the Israel / Palestine conflict. I took pages and pages of notes, and learned as much as I could, but it is deeper than two weeks can teach. And a couple blog posts can’t really cover everything. I can’t pretend that I don’t have a bias, but I will strive to show you the intricacies of the conversation that I witnessed. I will try to give you pieces of what was given, and hopefully by the end, it will become evident that the issue is more complicated and more intricate and yes, even more hopeless than it appears on the outside.

But before jumping into actual experiences, I need to explain the state of mind to be in when viewing this conflict. It was emphasized to us, as students. And if you don’t view this conflict with truly open eyes, you will miss aspects crucial to progress. Earlier this week, I posted THIS article on my Facebook wall. This is really at the root of my experience. In this article, he says, “We should all enter every issue with the very real possibility that we might be wrong this time.”  The author emphasizes that if we can’t argue for your opponent’s point, then you do not really see the issue as it is. In middle school I had an amazing English teacher who would assign us an opinion for a persuasive essay. And it was often contrary to our actual thoughts and beliefs. And that helped us humanize people who disagreed with me. It opened my eyes to the concept of gray areas. Arguments are not black and white. There are never just good people and just bad people. Often there are just two good people coming at a topic from different directions. This is a concept I have forgotten as I allegedly “grew up.” And this simple exercise of arguing your opposition's point is unthinkable to most people that we spoke to in Israel (on both sides, I might add).

There’s an old Indian fable about truth. You have these blind men who are trying to explain what an elephant is like, and each interacts with one part of the elephant. The blind men come together and compare notes to see that no one agrees. One man feels the elephant’s trunk and says an elephant is like a snake, another feels the leg and says an elephant is like a pillar. A third man feels the ear and says an elephant is like a fan. Is one blind man more right than another? No. They just have different perspectives.

Although I was immersed in the Israel/Palestine conflict for a couple weeks, I find it more important that I learned about considering different perspectives, particularly ones very different from my own. I’m really not good at this, and it was an exhausting, but much needed lesson for me. In the last few months as political tensions have gotten high about things I’m passionate about. I’ve been rude, stubborn and unhelpfully involved in political arguments on Facebook, and I regret that.  People are just people trying to live the best they can with the experiences they’re given. If I can’t get over myself and my own opinions, how can I expect anyone else to? I’m adding to the problem if I’m being argumentative. If you have been on the opposing side of me in an argument as of late, I owe you an apology. I have tried to make up for my harsh comments, but words are like ripping open a feather pillow outside a three story window. They’re gone, floating out into the air. Too late.

I’m still working on reigning in my vicious retorts that stem from emotional responses. But long story short, those two weeks in Israel really flipped my worldview on its head. It tugged at the strings of my soul in a way I wasn’t expecting. Many of my views have changed politically, and the experience has changed how I look at people in general, as a whole and individually. Travel can have that affect.

Another Vicious Cycle

One of the most important concepts we were taught was the idea of dehumanizing people. One of the professors on the trip, Josh Gubler, gave us a lecture on this. How can reasonable, good people be so cruel? How do we justify violence and treating people different than us like dogs? He talked about how it stems from how we view ourselves and our “groups” (i.e. churches, national groups, families, political parties) and how we often view everyone in “our group” as good and moral. Unfortunately that often translates into seeing people in other groups as bad and immoral. So we make up excuses for people that disagree with us by saying “She says that because she’s a democrat.” Or “He believes that because his family does.”  That’s dehumanizing. That’s making “The Other,” the groups different from our own, into something more animal than relatable. That’s placing that person outside of ourselves, across the fence. The only way we really know how to be human is what it is like in our own experience, so it is easy to dehumanize others when we don’t understand how they think. And dehumanization makes it really easy to justify aggression. Most of us don’t feel bad if we kill a mosquito because it’s not human. If you’re seeing someone as less than a human being, you can excuse a lot more violence inflicted on him or her. Then when that group reciprocates that violence back toward you, you further justify your actions. History repeats itself and the battle trumpets play on.

It’s a vicious cycle of violence and misunderstanding. You see it all the time in television shows, and so often we think “Come on, protagonist, get it together! Isn’t it obvious that you just need to understand XYZ?” One such television show that depicts this well is Doctor Who. Regardless of if you enjoy watching it or not, there’s a conversation in a recent episode that can be appreciated in the context of the Israel/Palestine conversation. It’s not terribly important to know context of the storyline, just that there are two groups deciding whether or not to obliterate one another. You can watch it here, or read the dialogue following the video.

The Doctor: You just want cruelty to beget cruelty. You're not superior to people who were cruel to you. You're just a whole bunch of new cruel people. A whole bunch of new cruel people, being cruel to some other people, who'll end up being cruel to you. The only way anyone can live in peace is if they're prepared to forgive. Why don't you break the cycle?

Bonnie: Why should we?

The Doctor: What is it that you actually want?

Bonnie: War.

The Doctor: Ah. And when this war is over, when -- when you have the homeland free from humans, what do you think it's going to be like? Do you know? Have you thought about it? Have you given it any consideration? Because you're very close to getting what you want. What's it going to be like? Paint me a picture. Are you going to live in houses? Do you want people to go to work? What'll be holidays? Oh! Will there be music? Do you think people will be allowed to play violins? Who will make the violins? Well? Oh, You don't actually know, do you? Because, just like every other tantruming child in history, Bonnie, you don't actually know what you want. So, let me ask you a question about this brave new world of yours. When you've killed all the bad guys, and it's all perfect and just and fair, when you have finally got it exactly the way you want it, what are you going to do with the people like you? The troublemakers. How are you going to protect your glorious revolution from the next one?

Bonnie: We'll win.

Doctor: Oh, will you? Well maybe -- maybe you will win. But nobody wins for long. The wheel just keeps turning. So, come on. Break the cycle.

…

The Doctor: And we're off! Fingers on buzzers! Are you feeling lucky? Are you ready to play the game? Who's going to be quickest? Who's going to be the luckiest?

…

The Doctor: Because it's not a game, Kate. This is a scale model of war. Every war ever fought right there in front of you. Because it's always the same. When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who's going to die. You don't know who's children are going to scream and burn. How many hearts will be broken! How many lives shattered! How much blood will spill until everybody does what they're always going to have to do from the very beginning -- sit down and talk! Listen to me, listen. I just -- I just want you to think. Do you know what thinking is? It's just a fancy word for changing your mind.

Bonnie: I will not change my mind.

The Doctor: Then you will die stupid.  

                We get so stuck on being right, for winning, that we don’t see that we’re losing a whole lot more in the fight than if we would just have a conversation about it. We often talk about "flip-flopping" as one of the worst things a politician can do, but is it really? Is it the worst thing to stand corrected? We live in an age of information. When we learn more about a situation, when more facts come to light, don't we have an obligation to correct it? I think we would do a far greater injustice if we didn't change our minds or our opinions just to save face. 

Monochrome Vision

As Christians, it may be a lot easier for us to relate to the Jewish side of this conflict. We share scriptures with Jews. Our Bible says that this was the land of the Jews. We think we need to side with the Jews because they are our God’s chosen people. But I want to remind you that God created Arabs too. God created His children of all cultures, skin color, and traditions. 

1 Peter 2:9-10 says this:

9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:

10 Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

That’s us he’s talking about. We are his chosen people. We are Sons and Daughters of God through Christ. And as Christians, it is our duty to love people, and to love people we must understand people. That requires we look further than just face value. In this conversation, I urge you, despite your inclinations otherwise, to view Arabs and Muslims as part of God’s family of humans.

              I would also urge you to view this not as a religious issue. Keep in mind that the original Zionist Jews who moved to Israel were not religious in the least. Quite the contrary. The first Jews to return to Israel as part of the Zionist movements left religion behind. They didn’t want anything to do with faith, because they blamed being religiously zealous as the cause of all the persecution. Early Jewish immigrants moved to Israel, bought some land, and established a socialist colony called a Kibbutz. Since then, Jews are still mixed as far as having religious reasons for being in Israel or just a political reason. Like most large groups of people, you can’t paint them with a broad brush. You have religious Zionists and anti-religious Zionists. One way Israel united the two arguing groups was by moving Theodor Herzl’s body to Jerusalem, to make it both a center of faith and a center of Zionism. This did not originate as a battle of faiths.

                It’s also important to remember that not all leaders are accurate representations of their people. Take the United States, do you feel properly represented? You cannot judge all Palestinians by the actions and opinions of Yasser Arafat, and you cannot say all Israelis agree with Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s important to consider that maybe not all the people are in agreement with their leaders. 

                Participation in this program helped this conflict really come to life for me. It is my hope to help you see this conflict in color in much the same way. Not in the monochrome painted by media in the United States. I realize what I’m asking is a really difficult thing to do. It’s hard to question what you’ve been taught by people you respect, ideas that have been ingrained in you since you were small. I want to convince you to not just view this conflict through the eyes of religion. I want to convince you to see Arabs and Jews as people. Imperfect, scared people. These people are the same kind of scared that allowed communism into Russia, the same kind of scared that allowed Nazis to take over Germany, the same kind of scared that has modern-day American politicians wanting to build walls on our borders to solve problems. I want to encourage you, as an individual to be brave and to question what you’ve been taught. I am asking the almost impossible, but I’m asking you to entertain the idea that maybe you are wrong.

Art on the Separation Wall in Bethlehem. The chains spell "Fear-Hate-Fear-Hate-Fear-Hate"

                That doesn’t mean I’m asking you to tell me I’m right. I don’t necessarily want you to agree with me. I want you to see where I am coming from. I am begging you to look at this situation with your eyes wide open, refuse to see it in black and white. See the situation in Technicolor, see it in real life. Because I was proven wrong. I was shot down. I was slapped in the face with my own inconsistencies, biases, and half truths. And it was one of those humbling experiences I wouldn’t trade anything in the world for. It’s one of those experiences that help you become better, it defines you differently. Howard W. Hunter once said this: "When [the difficulties of mortality] humble us and refine us and teach us and bless us, they can be powerful instruments in the hands of God to make us better people, to make us more grateful, more loving, and more considerate of other people in their own times of difficulty." I would hope everyone would have the same experience at least once in their lives. 

                When you think you might be wrong, you learn ask different and better questions. A lot of good comes from getting over your pride. And I think a lot of politics and the human experience in general would go smoother if we emphasized humility over pride and black and white definitions.

The final post soon to come!