Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part series of articles by San Diego State University students who traveled to Israel with the Anti-Defamation League.
By Chad Karczewski
SAN DIEGO — Over winter break, I spent eight days in Israel on the ADL Campus Leaders Mission. The group I traveled with consisted of 18 student leaders who had a desire to learn more about Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For me, this desire came from sitting through hours of divestment meetings on my campus’ student government last year. I heard from hundreds of people who had vastly different opinions which contradicted each other. Naturally, I wanted to go and see for myself. I had read dozens of articles and heard many opinions, but I wanted to go and see the place with my own eyes. So I departed on December 27th for a priceless experience. I was fortunate enough to visit Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, a settlement in the West Bank, the Sea of Galilee, and the Golan Heights. I came home with many thoughts and reflections and can now say I have learned the many complexities of the situation there, the imperfections of the government, and I saw firsthand the very promising democracy of Israel.
Almost anyone you speak to in Israel will tell you that the situation there is complex. In fact, I heard the word so many times that it began to bother me when I would hear it. However, it could not be more accurate. The situation there is not something you can explain in a 30 second video or a minute long public comment. There is history which must be reviewed, cultural norms, and other intricate parts of both societies that are necessary to understand if you are looking to fully understand the conflict. Additionally, it is difficult to understand as an American. Early on in my trip, I asked a speaker to give a 60 second debrief of the various parties in Israel and their platforms. This is an easy question to answer in the US. We have Democrats and Republicans, and the platforms can be summed up rather quickly, but boy did I learn this was not the case in Israel. Not only is the structure confusing, but platforms, like those of the Likud party, contradict what is normal in the US. There in lies the difficult problem for those of us in the US. We look at the situation from the lens of someone living in America. We come to the table with assumptions and preconceived ideas about how politics, culture, and other facets of life in Israel work. We come with the lens of not knowing what it is really like to live within a ten or twenty mile radius of a terrorist group.
So the situation for us is very complex. It is not a situation that one can understand and solve just by reading an article or watching a few clips on the internet. The situation is much more convoluted than a 30 second video can even begin to explain. From this, I learned that it is difficult to quickly draw an opinion on the conflict. Also, missions like divestment are unfair in how they ask a group of students with little to no background knowledge to listen to a few short opinionated pieces and take a side. Developing an informed opinion really cannot be created in the matter of a few minutes or by listening to one person’s story. Many times, these short stories are taken out of context or leave out other important details that explain the situation. These are only a small snapshot of a larger issue, and it is important for them to be put in context.
Next, I learned about a few imperfections that exist in Israel. We went to i24 news and heard from an anchor there who is an Arab-Israeli. She shared with us some of the difficulties of living in Israel as someone of Muslim decent. She described the discrimination, natural segregation, and racism that are sometimes present in parts of the country. These words stirred up emotions in some of my fellow students who were upset upon hearing that some Jewish people are not so welcoming of Arabs. How could I blame them? Taken on its own, those are terrible things. However, they are again a snapshot. I can find natural segregation and racism in every place in the world. Here, in the US, I could find examples of natural segregation and even remnants of the KKK. However, is the US racist? Are we a regime that supports these KKK views? Of course not. We have our struggles and have hundreds of little snapshots which, when taken on their own, show a country with some serious imperfections. However, would you move from the US, boycott, or divest from it? Of course not, because the US strives for better and has worked over the decades to try to prevent these hateful acts that some commit.
Now I am not saying they are not an issue. They are a great issue and something that should continue to be addressed in the US and in Israel. Both countries should strive to continue to make progress on ending these hateful actions. What I am saying is that we must not be hypocritical, or as Jesus once said, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” Additionally, we must be careful of where we align ourselves. Regimes, like the one in Syria, are ones that we should be willing to divest from. They have a fundamental acceptance of violence toward their own people. However, the US and Israel do not display these systemic issues that are seen in other parts of the world. The US and Israel require us to be critical of some of their actions but not to stand against them.
Lastly, I experienced the democracy that was present in Israel. I walked the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and was overwhelmed by the sense of freedom that was present there. Freedom for Jews, for Muslims, for Christians, and for those who had no religious preference. I felt this freedom within the first four hours that I was in Israel. I landed in Tel Aviv and took a bus down to Yafa. On the way, I saw Ultra Orthodox Jewish men walking around. I drove by the beach and saw people surfing and having fun. I got out of the bus and heard for the first time in my life the Muslim prayers being played over a loud speaker. This experience was rather frightening. Which led me to think, how could someone coming from a country with “freedom of religion” feel uncomfortable when they hear a Muslim prayer being played? More importantly, how could I come from a country with citizens who believe that Israel is an apartheid state lacking essential freedoms?
While I pondered this, I heard the Catholic church bells start to ring. Within one hour, I had seen the whole spectrum of religious preferences being freely displayed. The diversity was overwhelming and spoke to the democracy that is alive in Israel. It spoke to the peoples’ tolerance and the desire to live freely together in peace. I have not been to every place in the world, but I think you would be hard pressed to have this experience in many other places in the world. In fact, I began to compare this experience to the one I had when I studied abroad in China.
China was a much different place and very much what I expected from a communist country. I remember some of the people there wanted to take pictures with me, because they had never seen a blonde hair, blue eyed person. Meanwhile, they gave perplexed stares at my friend who is half white and half Chinese, and even made comments at how they were confused about “what she was.” These experiences were a result of the lack of diversity there. Interracial marriage is not socially acceptable, and so majority of people there are Chinese. Along with that, I felt how reserved the people there were. They were afraid to share their own opinions, and you could see how repressed they were by looking into their eyes. I would ask them questions and could see they wanted to answer, but they could not, out of fear of their government.
Juxtaposing this with Israel was very important for me. In Israel, there is “Chutzpah” and this social norm is a justification for people to say almost whatever they want. Criticism of the government appears to be present in almost every citizen there. These are experiences that can not be faked. Democracy is not something that you can fake. If it is there, then you can feel and see it. The religious diversity and freedom of expression I experienced, were just a natural product of the democracy in Israel.
So I left Israel with all these experiences and thoughts. I arrived having read and heard about Israel, and I left understanding Israel. I walked away knowing that the situation there is complex. That we really cannot ask someone in the US to try and understand the complexities of the situation by looking at a few photos or hearing one tragic story. We have to be careful of small snapshots, knowing that some of them are anomalies. Rather than just taking a few, we must try and piece them all together to get a more clear understanding.
Also, I learned that we need to be careful with how we judge. I learned that the situations in Israel are not perfect. That the occupation taken by itself is far from a perfect situation. However, we cannot just start “throwing stones.” We must look at the situation in its entirety. We must notice that Israel is a democracy with good intentions, but they have harmful neighbors who require them to take actions that are not ordinary. They might not always be right, but we must remember that Israel as a whole is a fair country. A country that fosters the kind of freedom that the world needs more of. We should still be critical of some of their policies, but at the end of the day, could we find a government that would be able to rule there in a more fair and efficient way? If we reversed the roles, would Hamas or the Palestinian Authority treat the Jewish people with half the amount of the respect that Israel gives to Palestinians in Israel? The answer to that question is the reason why I stand with Israel.
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Karczewski is a student at San Diego State University. Your comment may be posted in the space provided below.