An American Jew Reflects on His “Encounter” in Bethlehem
The author of this story is enrolled in an educational program in Jerusalem that does not permit its participants to visit the West Bank, and has asked that his name be withheld.
What do you say to your Palestinian host mother when, while sitting together at her dinner table in Bethlehem, she turns to you and asks, “Do you support the Israeli Army?”
Perhaps I should have prepared for this question before I left for the West Bank on my two-day study tour. When Rula asked, however, I froze. As an American Jew and a student of Middle Eastern Studies, I had come to Bethlehem to extend my understanding of the conflict. I had not anticipated just how personal it would become.
My tour was organized by Encounter, an educational organization that brings Diaspora Jews into contact with Palestinians through short trips to the Occupied Territories. The trips feature discussions, informal meetings with Palestinian peers and leaders, and home stays with local families. I was one of 37 young Jews on one of the group’s fall excursions to Bethlehem.
In the days before the trip, I felt a mixture of excitement and skepticism. I was looking forward to hearing first-hand accounts of how Israeli occupation affects the lives of Palestinians. I wanted to hear from Palestinians whether they believed coexistence in the form of a two-state solution was possible and, if so, which compromises would need to be made in order to achieve a lasting peace. At the same time, I worried that the group would be presented with a series of one-sided lectures and scripted visits to locations such as the Security Wall and the sites of demolished homes. What I experienced, however, was a series of authentic and moving meetings with people who left me hopeful and yet cautious about the prospect of bringing an end to the conflict.
To Bethlehem
For the novice West-Bank traveler, Bethlehem’s proximity to Jerusalem is striking. After boarding our bus near the popular Jerusalem strip Emek Refaim, we arrived at the outgoing checkpoint in a matter of minutes.
Our first stop on the Palestinian side of the wall was at Hope Flowers, a secondary school that prides itself on a curriculum of nonviolence, peace, and democracy. Our group was addressed by Ghada Ghabon, a school administrator. Ghabon showed a video which was intended to describe Hope Flowers’ approach to peace education. The video displayed images of smiling Palestinians to the tune of John Lennon’s <italics>Imagine</italics>, interspersed with photos of stern faced and menacing Israeli soldiers, to sinister effect. Later, a question and answer period revealed that the school’s textbooks contain pre-1948 maps of Palestine. I realize that, after the Intifada, it is likely that the only interaction most Palestinians have with Israelis is through soldiers, and Ghada was clear that her school is required to use certain textbooks by the Ministry of Education. Still, despite these justifications, I was left worrying that Hope Flowers’ vision of coexistence was different from my own.
A similar moment occurred when our group met with a dozen or so Palestinian high school students. Our evening together opened with a few icebreaker games. In one game, our group stood in a circle and took turns making statements that others could choose to agree with by stepping inside the circle or disagree with by staying put. Statements quickly moved from “Lebron James is better than Michael Jordan” to “I believe the Security Wall is unjust.” My surprise came when one American student tested the waters by stating, “I believe that Tel-Aviv is part of Palestine,” and just about every Palestinian student entered the circle.
Not every incident was quite so disheartening. A meeting with a Palestinian peace activist named Aziz stands out. Aziz is currently a leader at At-Tariq & Bereaved Families Forum, an organization that brings together Israelis and Palestinians who share the common bond of having lost loved ones to the conflict. Aziz himself lost his brother to the conflict when he was a teenager, and described the rage he felt toward Israelis afterwards. As he grew up, he told us, his anger intensified. However, he later decided he needed to learn Hebrew to get into university. He thus traveled into Jerusalem to learn Hebrew, where he was forced to interact with Israelis. It was there that he realized his “enemies” were not as he had thought they were. Through these experiences Aziz resolved not to let the death of his brother define who he would be as a person. “Pain is like nuclear power,” he explained. “It can be used to destroy or make things better.”
Rula’s House
It was fresh from these experiences that I first met my host mother, Rula. We met at a Bethlehem restaurant. Her husband was working late and her oldest son was sick, so Rula came alone. The dinner conversation focused mostly on our different lives in different parts of the world. In what turned out to be a common gesture among many people that I met that weekend, Rula went out of her way to explain that she has met many Israelis and Jews whom she likes, and that her grievances are solely with the Israeli government.
What was most interesting about Rula’s family was how normal it was, and the small ways in which it reminded me of my own. She apologized for having to bring me home to a slightly messy house (which in fact was perfectly clean) and tried desperately to provide for all of my needs. After watching Shakespeare in Love in Arabic, Matthew, her youngest son, decided it was time to play. We spent a solid hour making goofy faces and watching him wrestle with his much stronger mom.
It was during the next morning’s wrestling match between Matthew and mom, which Rula won with a body-slam-and-kiss-on-the-face combo that I remembered Golda Meir’s famous aphorism, “We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.” In Rula’s living room, it seemed almost silly.
Back in Jerusalem
The story of the Encounter program is surely different for each participant. There were those who left with a sense of hopelessness regarding the conflict. Others walked away believing the plight of the Palestinians to be self-inflicted. Some participants expressed feelings of betrayal that their North American Jewish education had misinformed them about many aspects of Israel’s existence.
As for me, I now feel much more aware of the contours of this conflict and the factors that are preventing its resolution. My time in Bethlehem, fifteen minutes and a world away from my temporary home in Jerusalem, leads me to believe that Palestinians are more interested in coming to an end of the conflict than continuing it.
Israel coverage is made possible by Targum Shlishi, a Raquel and Aryeh Rubin Foundation.
