A Night on Occupation

My real AIES experience started about a week and a half ago. In the first two weeks our group had managed to talk about almost every single topic imaginable – music, movies, sports, the environment, sex, drugs, religion, philosophy – except the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, two and a half weeks in Muhaned, a Palestinian, decided to start the conversation by hosting a screening of the documentary Occupation 101 in the student lounge. At the end of an hour and a half film that was targeted to affect your conscience by portraying the moral and humanitarian issues of the living conditions resulting from occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, everyone was in a period of in a momentary reflection. What a heavy tone to set for the semester. What have we gotten ourselves into? Was this what the rest of the semester was going to be like? Never has the group been so quiet.

We slowly regrouped, and after a few laughs, we drifted into several different groups and began discussing and debating the film, its perspective, and the issues discussed in the film. Over the next two hours we moved from deconstructing the film’s bias and debating the implications of this bias to whether a two-state solution would be feasible, or even desirable.

At one point we were discussing the implications of the ways in which the film portrayed the West Bank. Raphe, an American, brought up a very good point: he felt that the film portrayed the Palestinians as defenseless people, as victims incapable of self-determination. “If you portray them like victims, people will treat them like victims. If you want to convince the world that they deserve to be an independent state, you need to show that they are a proud and cultured people capable of controlling their political decisions.”

For me, this was an especially poignant point because earlier that day I had read a Chronicle article on the return of Israeli Apartheid Week to Duke University (The Chronicle is Duke’s student newspaper). Last spring, Duke Students for Justice in Palestine (DSJP) brought Israeli Apartheid Week, a national campaign, to Duke’s campus with the intention of creating productive dialogue on campus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the occupation. Unfortunately, most of the resulting dialogue focused on debating whether the term “Apartheid” was appropriate.

There are several problems that I have with the way DSJP functions (including a dislike for their use of the term “apartheid” to describe the Israeli-Palestinian situation), but there was one I wasn’t able to pinpoint until Raphe spoke about victimization. DSJP – and much of the left-wing literature I have been exposed to – focuses on this perception of victimization with the intent of making the outsider feel sympathetic and, to an extent, guilty. It evokes the questions, “it’s it terrible that there are people living like this?” and “isn’t it terrible that these conditions are being inflicted on a people under occupation?” and “can you really support a government (i.e. the Israeli government) that does this?”

I firmly agree that these questions need to be raised and that these issues need to be addressed, but I have begun to question the way this issue has been presented by the left wing. I have only seen this sympathy-inducing tactic. It is an effective approach, but it’s far from holistic. There is never a discussion of politics, of practicality, of terrorism; just how bad civilian life is on the Palestinian side.

To that end, the Arava Institute is definitely left wing. Our Peace-Building course, and our out-of-class conversations, have focused on personal narratives—have focused on the personal experiences of those individuals living on all sides of the occupation—and on reacting to those narratives. I don’t meant to discount personal narratives; on the contrary, I think understanding personal narratives is a necessary step in the peace-building process. However, this focus on personal narrative means that the focus of discussion is on the experiences of civilians and, based on my experiences at the Arava Institute so far, mostly of Palestinians.

But what about the Israeli experience? Since arriving here, nobody has talked about losing someone in a terrorist attack; nobody has talked about growing up with a fear that if you get on a bus, you might be blown up; nobody has talked about the right of Israeli citizens to a right of physical security; nobody has talked about the actions of Hamas and Fatah, either in regard to their terrorist activities or in regard to their responsiveness (or lack their of) to their populaces. I feel like the closest we’ve come to discussing these issues has been when I rant about the fact that no one talks about these issues.

Recognizing the (Jewish) Israeli experience does not delegitimize the Palestinian reality. Conversely, recognizing the Palestinian reality does not delegitimize the Israeli experience, or for that matter, the validity of Israel’s existence. On that note, it is possible to be both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli. I’m going to say that again: it is possible to be both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli. However, in practice it sometimes seems that it is very easy to cross what seems like a fine line between being pro-Palestinian and, in fact, being anti-Israeli.

Since our ‘night on occupation’ started discussion on the conflict, our AIES Facebook page has become a forum for sharing video clips and news articles. Videos and articles have been appearing in the group over the past few days with the apparent aim of raising awareness of institutionalized anti-Palestinian sentiment: Israeli police clash with Palestinians at worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque; an Israeli solider hit a Palestinian woman; Israeli army dogs are being trained to attack any Arab who says “Allah Akbar” (“God is great”).

One student commented on the one-sided nature of this discourse: “Why is this Facebook group dominated by pro Palestinian and anti Israeli clips???” The response? “This is the AIES way. Just shut up and hate Israel already.” This was, of course, meant – and understood – as a joke. (In its philosophy, AIES is fairly neutral and, I would argue, manages to walk the fine line of being both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli.) However, this back-and-forth highlights just how fine the line between pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel sentiment is and how easy it is to cross – or to be perceived as crossing – that line.  

I hope that our debate continues at this level of passion and engagement, but that all sides are given the same weight and respect as I have seen thus far for the Palestinian cause. Without question, the Palestinian narrative needs to, and must, be both heard and understood, but it is still only one side of the story.