Israel and Palestine

Middle East Blog

This week in the Global Perspective class we saw a documentary of a British reporter that was both Jewish and Muslim, and it was about how this reporter was going through Israel and Palestine, and talking to different people about their perspective on the situation and what can be a solution for them. She interviewed people from the cities, settlers and military officers on both sides about their opinion on the conflict and their perspective on how they live their lives and if the conflict affected their lifestyles. As she was doing this she wanted to know more about where she came from and she wanted to discover more about the two cultures she came from. Nearing the end of the documentary she says that being part of many cultures can either open your mind to a limitless source of cultural richness and diversity or it can close all the doors of learning about cultures.

I believe that this is a very important part of the documentary as it shows how closed and strict some cultures are and how liberal others are, in her experience she found that because of her cultural heritage she is was the only one that was interrogated before going into different touristic destinations and before being let out of the airport. She was even denied entry of one of the most holy Muslim landmarks because she was part Jewish.

As she comes to discover that religion is a tool that opens and closes doors she feels frustrated and confused which leads to her thinking that she will never be able to understand and be part of her heritage and religions. She believes that she will not be able to fit in or feel comfortable in Israel or Palestine, which saddens her as she was in a journey to discover herself.

The interviews that she takes confuse her even more as she finds opinions that are very controversial and extremely closed minded in some cases.

For example she interviewed a military officer from the Israeli army, her way of seeing the conflict was that Palestine was their enemy and Israel was righteous. She thought of Israel as love and compassion and as Palestine as the enemy, as something to fear and evil. This could be because of her involvement in the army, the fact of her witnessing her friends, her people dyeing because Palestinian troops have attacked, has to have tarnished her way of seeing the conflict, and that is why she must have had a closed and one sided opinion. The horrors that she must have seen had to affect her in some way, she couldn´t see the whole picture or perspectives of the conflict, because of her close relationship with it. She was too close to the conflict to be able to see the other side’s opinions or views.  Also the remarkable calmness that she presented infront of 18 year olds with weapons and thinking that it was natural was stunning. This is another attitude that one, as an outsider cannot relate to, or comprehend these are people that have just finished high school and are risking their lives, because the government dictates that´s what they have to do. The idea in my way of viewing it is outrageous.

Another perspective that she saw was that of two young women about her age, that had come to live in Israel recently after spending all their life in England. Since they were just recently exposed into the interior of the conflict that´s probably why they didn´t have much of a personal view, but their views on how their living was certainly interesting. The reporter asked them if they´re life had really changed or if they experienced fear because they lived so close to where a terrorist attack had just occurred, but they answered that they didn´t lead their lives based on fear but based it on living in the moment. They were conscious of the threat but they didn´t really feel the need to be worried they lived as they had lived in England, except for the fact that they had a beach nearby now.

This was very interesting because I didn´t expect such an attitude from people who live under a constant awareness that they might be attacked.

This reporter also interviewed a settler community that lives very close to the border. When she asked who gave them the right to live there. Their response was that they had the right to because it was their land; it was land that was given to them just like the rest of Israel. The situation that they are in is very complicated and dangerous, just how dangerous, can be shown by the murder of a baby, it father, mother, and elder sister. This community is very interesting, because although it is dangerous for the people to live there they still do it, and I believe that they will continue doing it, because they think that it is their land and that they have the right to occupy it.

The British reporter also interviewed the Palestinian side of the area, where she interviewed a person from the town that the murderers came from, he told her that when this happened, the Israeli troops came and for a short period of time occupied the town, and interrogated everyone in it. There were Israeli soldiers living in their homes, and there was nothing they could do. This man didn´t speak with any inclination for the any side just for a certain kind of peace, and tranquility, no worrying that, if he walk to far to their side of the land, that he would get shot at. The small scale invasion of the Israeli troops, had to be a violation to the few understandings they have.

She also had a very interesting conversation with a Palestinian citizen, this citizen had a very ignorant and closed view on what should happen with the population of Israel, but she stood and explained her beliefs and thoughts thoroughly. She thought that the whole of the Israeli population should go back to where they came, to go back to the rest of the world, and that if the USA loved the Israelis so much they should give them space, that the USA was a big nation. This conversation was a very one-way view, but it had to be respected.

She also had the chance to interview a local family, in the area. She was just filming and these kids came up to her and guided her to their home, where she interviewed the mother, of the children. The mother´s point of view was very open minded and wasn´t focused on who had to do what or who was wrong, but she looked at the conflict as a whole and said that she just wanted peace, she said that when her children play, they play “Guns”, one team was Palestine and the other Israel. She asked her son what he wanted to be and he said he wanted to be a fighter. The mother said that she wanted peace for her children, so that they would have a future without violence. I believe that this mother´s opinion was focused at looking at the conflict as a whole, not as one side or the other, this is something that I believe is great, because she just wished for a better future for her children, not for the retreat of a nation, or the death of one.

After this the reporter went to an important holy site for the Palestinian people, where she saw a form of gender separation. The site was divided into two, where the men had a rather large piece and the women a rather small and thin piece of it. This was totally unfair as the men and women have an equal right to this holy site, a separation of this kind is an injustice and this injustice should be amended. The reporter shared the same ideas as me in this matter.

As I had started this blog I will finish it with the same thought, a diversity of cultures that one can call his or her own heritage, can open many doors in learning one´s origin and cultures or it can close the mind and close the doors of learning and reaching a cultural awareness of one´s heritage. In my opinion the reporter finished learning a lot from each culture and their views on the conflict. She learned what is happening in her national homes, and how they live, but I believe that she has to dig deeper not necessarily into her heritage to know who she is, but look more closely at herself, one´s past does not define who we are, the actions we take for the future are what mold us into what are becoming.