The Palestinain-Israeli conflict has been going on since before Israel’s creation in 1948, and has claimed thousands of lives. It appears to be what we would call “intractable.” But the Conflict itself takes on new, contradictory meaning when you’re in Israel. It becomes both more real and important, and less real and important.
When you’re there, things fall into place. Everything you learned regarding the Conflict begins to make sense. Violence is no longer a 30-second bit on the news, but rather possibly sitting next to you on the bus. You can see how tiny the land is, how traumatizing it is to evict people, how communities work.
But it also loses all its meaning. As much as people fight passionately for their side of the Conflict, you don’t see much of that in Israel. You learn to ride the bus without getting off whenever an Arab with a duffle bag gets on. Jews and Arabs interact in a completely mundane way—together on the bus, at the grocery store, at the ATM. As much effort as we in America put into arguing, that doesn’t really happen over there. In Israel people are concerned with their health, their kids, work; you know, normal things. I’d forgotten about that over here.
Understanding Israelis and Palestinians also helps to make sense of the Conflict. Israelis are a very paranoid people, sometimes for good reason. They don’t trust the Arab leadership, but neither do the Arabs! Israelis always assume someone is trying to screw them over. If there is a space in the lane next to you, you cut in. If you don’t, someone else will. There are no lines; rather, whoever wiggles their way to the counter gets helped first. If you’re not pushing, you obviously aren’t trying too hard to get what you want. Ironically, there is no concept of “I was here first.” Israelis are in everyone’s business. They ask fat women when they’re due (regardless of pregnancy status,) they want to know where you got those shoes, and “Are you married? Do you have a boyfriend? Why not? I have a cousin you should meet,” is a common third sentence among people who have just met. That’s just how they are.
And this explains some of the Conflict. Imagine negotiating with someone who thinks you’re trying to screw them over. Israel is the most progressive country in the Middle East, but there will always be a conservative undercurrent. It is a country of ideologues, where everyone has an opinion which is indisputably correct. And if you want someone else to listen to your damn opinion, you’d better yell. If you listen politely, it means you don’t have anything to say. If you’re not arguing, you must be agreeing. Even if you’re agreeing, you still have to yell!
You have to be aggressive to survive a day in Israel. You have to demand what you want. You have to shout, you have to push. You might even forget that it’s not like that everywhere. In some places it’s ok to just listen. In some places you will be helped in the order in which you arrived, without any exertion on your part. And that’s why the Conflict looks different when you’re here or there. Here if someone’s shouting it means they’re serious; there it just means you have to shout back to make them listen.
In Israel there is a party for every opinion. Everyone wants their concerns voiced. It’s not like that in the rest of the world. Sometimes you have to “compromise.” There is a way of getting what you want out of an Israeli, you just have to act like one. But is Palestinian culture so different after all these years that they don’t know how to get what they want from each other? I dunno! Shit’s intractable, remember?
I didn’t meet many Palestinians in Israel. I lived in East Jerusalem with many Arab neighborhoods close by. I interacted with Arabs on the street, on the bus, and in restaurants, but I never talked to any about politics. No one talks about politics. I heard a few lectures on my program, but the fact that someone was being paid to talk about politics in Israel is already suspicious. From things I’ve learned, I think Palestinians are holding on to things that they need to let go—they’re not going to get all that they’re asking for now. They need to focus on what they can get out of negotiations.
When I’m in California, the Conflict is all-consuming. Everyone freaks out about everything Netenyahu does. After all, he is the leader of the only Jewish state in the world. But in Israel, he’s just another big-mouthed politician; no one takes him seriously. In Israel I felt free to criticize Israeli policies. Things are so polarized here that I feel like since the Other Side won’t admit any wrong, that I can’t admit any wrong. In Israel I didn’t have a voice—I’m not a citizen and I can barely speak Hebrew anyway, who cares what I think? But here I represent world Jewry. My Side can’t be divided, so I have to go along with everyone else even when I don’t agree.
If you don’t understand Israeli culture, you can’t understand the Conflict. Will understanding the Conflict solve it? Probably not. At this point, I don’t even know if being in Israel helps or hurts your understanding. What I’m trying to say is, sometimes you have to be IN the Conflict in order to live outside of it.
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