Mohammed Hussain
University of Pennsylvania
Our first trip for the day, was a strategic tour of the city with Dr. Mordechai Kedar and David Weinberg, both affiliated with the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. The trip began atop Nebi Samuel, a fortress on the highest point in the area on the Northern edge of the Jerusalem, and worked our way along to several strategically important locations around the city. The location of this first stop itself matched some of the surprises of the discussion. The hill is within what is termed by most of the world as the West Bank. However, Dr. Kedar explained that in his view, as no sovereign nation currently lays claim to the land, Israel is free to do with that land as it pleases, without it being termed “occupied,” as long as it respects private property on the land. Throughout the tour, Dr. Kedar and Mr. Weinberg presented clear, reasonable arguments supporting positions I had previously deemed to be completely irrational, arrogant, and unjust, such as this denial of the occupied nature of the West Bank. While I still disagreed with many of their statements and conclusions, I recognized the value in considering their perspective, which I had previously ignored.
Perhaps the most interesting product of that perspective was Dr. Kedar’s ‘Seven-state solution.’ Believing that creating one monolithic Palestinian state would fail to recognize the dominant tribal structure of Palestinian society, he suggested created several states, with each city center serving as a microstate. While his point concerning tribalism confirms what we saw on the other legs of our trip, in the governance of both the Emirates and Jordan, I was skeptical to the merit of a plan that would continue to have Israel holding the rural areas between these city-states (although they would be connected by underground roadways).
Our high vantage point showed us several Israeli settlements and Arab neighborhoods, with the two populations incredibly entwined with one another. We could also see the ‘security fence,’ or ‘separation wall,’ depending on whom you ask, that surrounds some Arab areas and protects the pockets of the West Bank that Israel has annexed and the roads that connect them to Israel proper. The theme of dual narratives emerged again. While the Palestinians we had met the day before saw this as an attempt to continue to push them out of their own land, Dr. Kedar explained the wall in security terms and the safety it provided. This dual narrative continued as the day progressed, for example, with our guides qualifying the harassment at checkpoints we had heard of the day before as isolated incidents that Israeli policy tries to eliminate. As we traveled around the city, we heard our guides stressing the need to maintain a unified Jerusalem, rather than dividing it as the most popular two-state solution suggests. Citing Jordanian abuses against Jews when that state held East Jerusalem from 1948-1967, they both emphasized that a divided Jerusalem would be the effective end of Israel. In their opinion, Arabs would not have respect for the city; they would “rather see it in ruins so long as it were not in Jewish hands.”
This highlights part of a so-what prejudiced attitude that I noticed throughout the tour. In addition to painting Israel as a victim, our guides often noted the Palestinian Authority’s failures in advancing the cause for peace without seeming to show concern about the livelihood of the Palestinian people in the West Bank. In addition, the intolerance of Islam was brought up in passing several times as an impediment towards a resolution, something that as a Muslim on an interfaith trip, I could not ignore. While I do not doubt that some Muslims are intolerant of Jews, and may even use religion to justify this, Islam’s theological stance towards Judaism and Christianity was used to say that Muslims cannot coexist with others. For example, our opinion of Jesus, peace be upon him, as a non-divine Messiah was said to prevent our tolerance of Christians (last time I checked, Jewish Israelis also disagree with the Christian interpretation of Jesus). Such an attitude challenges the idea that interfaith is even possible. However, aside from this issue, while the ever-present dual narrative added some confusion to the facts of the situation, such as the purpose of the wall, the tour effectively exposed to me the reasoning behind the Israeli perspective.
Our next stop, a meeting with Professor Hillel Frisch of Bar-Ilan University in his home in the settlement of Ma’aleh Adummim, furthered the same themes. I immediately noted the ease with which we entered the settlement, as there is no border or checkpoint between the settlement and Jerusalem, unlike our entrance into Bethlehem the day before. In addition, the size of the settlement was apparent; its population numbering 40,000. Our host, using the biblical and ancient names for the West Bank, Judea and Samaria, largely focused on the failures of the Palestinian leadership in creating their own state. In his view, the Palestinians have been given many chances to establish a state, but they have either rejected the deal, such as in 1948, or they have failed in creating a responsible state, as in the Gaza Strip under Hamas in 2006. He noted the work of Fatah PM Salim Fayyad in building the institutions of a state in the West Bank as a run-up to declaring statehood there by the end of next years, but remained pessimistic because of corruption within the rest of Fatah. In any case, the era of state-building is over, in his view, for the Palestinians, the Kurds, and other nationalist movements. The dual narrative entered again, with Professor Frisch posing that life is going well economically in the West Bank, despite the high poverty rate we had previously heard. Finally, he drew on his expertise to give examples as to why a binational, one-state solution, would fail. As a result of the above, I found an attitude from our hosts that simply accepted the status quo. The approach to the conflict was to be one of management, not resolution. The threat of Iran was mentioned again, and stressed, as during the tour, furthering the opinion that resolution of the Palestinian conflict is a low-priority.
From this long and challenging day, I gained a perspective on Israel’s actions, and I saw them as more rational and justifiable than I had previously, when I simply viewed them as completely arrogant and unjust. Just as Palestinian sentiments of frustration and even anger are justified and reasonable, so are Israeli actions to protect its citizens, at least in theory, though we cannot verify that Israel is not intentionally undermining Palestinian territorial integrity under the veil of security. Israel does in fact have security concerns that need to be addressed while trying to resolve this issue, as our guides and hosts made clear. However, an attitude that is satisfied with the status quo, despite the political, infrastructural, and economic suffering faced by Palestinians, is unacceptable from a humanitarian perspective. After returning from the settlement, Dr. David lectured on terrorism at the hotels, in which he highlighted similar issues for the United States, in that the need to protect herself from terrorism today may override the need to address the root causes of radical extremism. However, I believe that if those root causes are not addressed, we may face a perpetual threat.
A venture back into the Old City for the evening led to a conversation with some Arab store owners whose family had lived in the current Muslim quarter for nearly 300 years. Together with the woman who cleaned up after breakfast at the hotel, a Montessori teacher until her school recently closed (assuming I understood correctly), and our bus driver Amir, who spoke little English, they were the extent of my direct conversation with Arabs living in Israel during the trip. While three examples are not enough to conclude about class differences, though I am tempted to do so, they made it clear that our short time in this holy city had left huge swathes of the population nearly untouched.
The next day, the last non-travel day of the program, began with two meetings at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv. We first met with Dr. Eran Halperin, a political psychologist. He believes that in a conflict, the two sides often miss opportunities to resolve the conflict, or improve the situation of both parties, for purely psychological reasons. If they were acting completely rationally, they would move in a particular direction, but they turn away from a solution due to psychological barriers. For example, a party may oppose a proposal simply because it came from the other side, even if they had the same idea. Other barriers he discussed include self-victimization and perpetually seeing oneself as the more moral side. In these situations, one side will often ignore or easily forget any good news about the other side that it is presented with. His perspective helped me to better understand the opinions we had heard the day before, especially when he noted that Israel can live comfortably with the status quo, even if a lack of conflict resolution poses an ever-present security and diplomatic threat. Dr. Halperin also works with leaders and individuals in Israel and the West Bank to help them recognize these barriers in their own thinking, usually through indirect means. He points out that the vast majority of Palestinians and Israelis see the two-state solution as the end result of this conflict, and a majority support that end, leading him to believe that minimizing these psychological barriers will make it easier to come to a resolution.
Our last meeting of the trip was with Dr. Hani Zubideh. He discussed new trends in Middle East politics regarding religion, namely the posturing of the non-Arab Turks and Iranians and the strengthening of US-Israeli relations as a result of the strengthening of this new Muslim Axis. Dr. Zubideh also discussed his research with migrant workers, showing another side of Israel, in both its diversity and the problems it faces with the maltreatment of these workers. Often times only the Palestinian issue is mentioned, when in fact there are other matters to deal with here as well.
We finished off the day, and a good chunk of the night, on the beach in Tel Aviv, a mere thirty miles from the Gaza Strip, enjoying the sand, a beautiful sunset, and the World Cup on a big screen right at the Mediterranean’s edge. As we pack up to head home, I feel somewhat of a sense of guilt. For less than two weeks, we have tasted the world over here, staring up at Dubai’s skyscrapers, back into the history of Jordan and forward at its future leaders, and straight into the eyes of Palestinians and Israelis. We have sought to understand these places a little better, using this window to connect words on a map or in an article to experiences and sensations. And now, we are just going home, where life will be more or less the same as it was before we left. While we can just divorce ourselves from this world by jumping on a plane, the people over here do not have that luxury. And thus, my ability to ignore the daunting challenges and uncertainty here comes with a feeling of guilt. I do not know if I can make a difference in the Middle East, but I do know I can care about it; caring that is the first step to having an impact. Moving forward, I will utilize my abilities and the tools and understanding I have gained on this trip to try to provide that benefit, God willing. But regardless of what happens, this incredible opportunity has guaranteed one thing: I can be sure I will always care.
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