Brit Tzedek v'Shalom

Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace

Chapter Activities

Austin, TX

The Jewish Outlook
June 2004
Trip to Israel Finds Despair against Backdrop of Murky Shades of Gray

By David J. Albert
Brit Tzedek Board Member and Austin Chapter Leader

I recently traveled to Israel and the West Bank with a delegation from the Fellowship of Reconciliation to learn firsthand what life is like today for Israelis and Palestinians. Our delegation's goals included trying to understand both peoples as human beings, not stereotypes.

This trip differed greatly from my previous visits to Israel. Suicide bombings have shaken Israeli society. Israeli closures and checkpoints have devastated Palestinian society. The Israelis security barrier running through the West Bank has literally transformed the landscape of the conflict. Both peoples live in fear and terror of the other. Israelis are afraid to get on a bus or sit in a café. Palestinians living under closure are often unable to leave their homes, and when they can it is difficult for them to travel from one town to the next.

The greatest change since my last visit 10 years ago was the great despair on both sides. Most Israelis have despaired they will never see a final resolution of the conflict that would provide their children with a safe, secure future. Most Palestinians have despaired they will never see an end to the crushing occupation that has turned their lives into an ongoing nightmare. All I know for sure is that the longer the Israeli occupation goes on, the less safe and secure both peoples will be.

Nothing Black-and-White

I do not want to pretend to some grand lesson because I do not believe the answers are simple or solutions easy. The most important lesson is, nothing I saw was black-and-white; there are many murky shades of gray that are often difficult to distinguish between. Also, I am struck by the patterns of self-destructive behavior among both sides of the conflict.

Below are some selected sections, mostly vignettes, from the journal I kept during the trip:

March 22: Flying over Israel. Israel is beautiful from above. One cannot see all the blood that stains this tortured land... (Amman, Jordan): Our guide stunned us with the news (while we were in the air) that the Israelis assassinated Hamas' murderous leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin. Why is Israeli turning Yassin into a martyr? The cycle of violence will just go on and on... What is it they say? If you follow, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," both sides end up blind and toothless.

March 24 (West Bank): The disparities of wealth and water between the Israeli settlement Ma'ale Adumim and the neighboring Palestinian town of Eizarya were disturbing. In the settlement, there were flower beds and even swimming pools. There was none of that in Eizarya, which was rocky, dry and very poor... Our bus driver invited us to have tea with his family in his home in Eizarya. Most striking for us was the 27-foot security barrier that Israel had built in his backyard. It ran through the Palestinian town of Eizarya... As I see more of the security barrier, I feel ashamed of what we (Jews) are doing here. I don't like what we are doing and what we are becoming as we fence the Palestinians in.

March 25 (Hebron): Hebron brought back memories of the last time I was here 10 years ago when I prayed outside the Tomb of the Matriarchs and Patriarchs standing next to Israelis soldiers praying with guns strapped over their shoulders. We met with a Palestinian woman who has set up a day care center for Palestinian children, who often live inside under 24-hour closures. She told us how the young children often play imitating the soldiers and the Palestinians, pretending to fire guns and throw stones at each other. At one point, we went through some alleyways in Hebron where the Palestinians had put up wire mesh to protect themselves from the particularly fanatical Israelis settlers who live in Hebron. The settlers throw garbage down on the Palestinians. What sort of person does such things to other people? These fanatics are people who have lost touch with the core values of Judaism. Going through a security checkpoint, I was struck by how young many Israeli soldiers are; some look scared and must wonder what they are doing here... We visited a museum in Hebron, a memorial to the Jews massacred in Hebron in 1929. It was important to connect with this piece of Jewish pain and suffering. We can't forget the past, but can't live in it. (Jerusalem): We did a walking tour of the Old City. We stopped at a shopt where I bought a new tallit (prayer shawl). Ironically, I bought it in a Muslim-owned shop located on the Christian Via Dolorosa.

March 26 (Jerusalem): We spent the morning visiting Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust Memorial. I was deeply shocked and saddened to learn that Yad Vashen was built over the ruins of an abandoned Palestinian village. Why are we building a memorial to our tragedy on top of another people's memory of theirs? I was struck by a photo of Germans humiliating an elderly Jew by cutting off his beard; humiliation can be worse than killing a person.

March 27 (Jerusalem): On Shabbat morning, I walked to the Western Wall to daven (pray). I wore my new tallit. It was quite spiritual to pray at the Western Wall, although I felt a little weird surrounded by so many Hasidic Jews. One feels connected to thousands of years of Jewish history at this site. I walked back to our hotel through the Muslim quarter. As I neared the Damascus gate, I saw an Israeli soldier arguing with a Palestinian woman who had set up her vegetables at a busy intersection - apparently without the proper permit. They were both screaming at each other angrily. Many people, including many Palestinians children on their way to school, were standing around watching. In the end, she packed up and moved without any violence. Still, it was difficult to watch.

March 28 (near Tubas): We spent most of the morning at an Israeli checkpoint trying to get into the small village of al-Aqaba in the West Bank, where we had planned to help local residents. We waited on our bus at the checkpoint for three hours trying to get permission to enter. While we sat, a Bedouin family was also at the checkpoint waiting to get in. The mother, her two young children and her brother were waiting in the hot sun trying to get past. They had no shade or access to bathrooms. We wanted to help them, and gave them some food and water. These poor helpless people didn't appear to be any sort of threat. It is clear that closing entire cities is a form of collective punishment. It is cruel to punish a whole population for the evil acts of a few terrorist fanatics. But then again, it is cruel to Israelis not to do everything possible to prevent such attacks. I think that Israel often goes too far in its efforts to protect its citizens, but the real question is, "How does one quantify 'too far?'" When do legitimate efforts to provide security become unnecessary acts of cruelty, and how does one create rules that protect both a people's security and its humanity? For me, watching this poor family bake in the hot sun was going "too far," but that does not provide us with any real answers to these existential questions.

March 30 (Ramallah): At Bir Zeit University, we met with a Palestinian professor who argued that the Israeli policy of checkpoints and closures is, in effect, a cultural war designed to break apart Palestinian identity by disrupting Palestinian education, culture and media. I was troubled by her comments about the 2002 lynching of two Israelis soldiers in Ramallah. She claimed that the two soldiers were spies and seemed to be suggesting that the lynching was therefore justified. Apparently, most Israelis believe these soldiers simply got lost, while most Palestinians believe they were spies. Again, I am reminded how each side has their own narrative - indeed, their own truth - to help explain events.

Human Rights Group
During the afternoon, we visited a Palestinian human rights organization. I was impressed by their work, but confused by their claim that they cared only about the human rights and it doesn't matter who the perpetrator or the victim is. While they said they monitored human rights violations by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, it was unclear if they also considered the rights of Israelis. I asked them whether they reported on violations of the rights of Israeli settlers. They sort of hemmed and hawed about this question, but it became clear that, while they spoke about human rights in universal terms, in practice they were only concerned about the human rights of their own people. This was sadly reflective of a trend I see from both Israelis and Palestinians; both are more concerned about the rights of their own people than they are about the rights of all people. (Jerusalem): At night, I met with a friend. He said he and his family had been driving past the Israeli security barrier around Qalqiya a few weeks before. His wife had looked up at it and said in surprise, "I didn't know there was a prison here." From the outside, Qalqiya looks like a large prison. He also said that most Israelis believe that the Palestinians built the barrier around themselves by allowing suicide bombers to continually attack Israel. I partially agree; both the Palestinians and Israelis seem to blame each other and portray themselves as the victims and the other side as the victimizer.

March 31 (Bethlehem): In Bethlehem, we met with representatives of the Holy Land Trust, a group dedicated to non-violence, peace and reconciliation. I was impressed that they have been trying to teach members of the Tanzim militia that non-violence is a much more effective way of challenging the occupation than the violent means they had been using. In the afternoon, we visited al-Aida refugee camp. We saw a number of Palestinian children perform several wonderful dance routines. I was saddened to learn later that the song that they were singing was about how they would someday return to their lost villages inside Israel. They were teaching these kids to live in the imaginary past where they would someday return to lost villages inside Israel. Many people on both sides seem to be living in the past. That night I stayed with an olive wood carver. Sadly, he isn't able to sell many carvings today because so few tourists visit Bethlehem. I was struck by how close the Palestinian families are. When the son got married, he built a new home for himself - connected to his parents' veranda. Another sad observation: Both Israelis and Palestinians smoke way too much. I wonder if both peoples are not killing themselves with cigarettes as part of a cycle of self-destructiveness.

April 1 (Bethlehem): We visited the Hope Flowers School, where they use a peace education curriculum that includes teaching Hebrew to Palestinian children. Sadly, the school's cafeteria remains under an Israeli demolition order threatening to knock it down to build the security barrier to protect the settlement of Efrat. We wondered if it wouldn't be better for the children in Efrat to attend the Hope Flowers School rather than build a barrier between Efrat and the school. (Jerusalem): In the afternoon, we visited the Israeli human rights organization, B'tselem. I was most struck by their name, which in Hebrew means "in the image," from the idea that every human being is made in the image of God. That evening, we met with Rami El-hanan. He told us how his daughter Smadar, was killed in a suicide bombing and about how he was gradually able to move from grief and anger to working for peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. In his view, ruling over and dominating another people is not in line with Jewish values. I can't disagree. April 3 (on the flight home): I arrive back in Austin tomorrow, just before Passover. The biblical injunction continues to ring in my ears: "You shall love the stranger as yourself, for you were strangers in the Land of Egypt." (Lev 19:34) Passover and its story of liberation will take on a new dimension for me this year as I struggle with the sad irony of how the freedom of my people has led to the oppression of the Palestinians.

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