The Yale Globalist - From the Other Camp

From the Other Camp

Monday, 11 May 2009 | Raphaella Friedman

As I took my first step out of the bus and onto the sands of Talbieh, one of Jordan’s 10 Palestinian refugee camps, I knew I was at war. It was not a war against Israel, nor was it one against the predominantly pro-Palestinian student group I traveled with. It was not a war that I could wage against any nation, against any group, or on any soil. Rather, it was a war within myself.

After the atrocities committed during the Israeli ground invasion in Gaza this past January and the staggering civilian death toll, Jewish people around the world are once again trying to come to terms with an age-old internal dilemma. How can a Jewish person reconcile a belief now synonymous with his faith

— that Israel must exist — with the undeniable fact that this condition comes at the cost of innocent lives? Does he take a trip to Israel, speak with an Israeli general, and return home with more conviction than when he left? Or does he study Arabic at his university, wear the fashionable Urban Outfitter’s kefiyyeh of his classmates, and joke that the most Jewish thing about him is his last name? As I volunteered in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan this spring, the modern ramifications of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict had never felt more real. Yet what I found myself grappling with most was history — my own and that of the disputed land around me.

A Place of Contradictions

As we walked along the refugee camp’s main road, crumbling buildings and absolute poverty surrounded us. Children peered at us from behind graffiti-covered walls, while old men wearing the traditional keffiyeh headdress blew smoke rings, acknowledging our presence with eyes that had seen decades of hardship. Over 10,000 Palestinians live in this five-square-mile area. I had to sympathize, and I felt my parent’s version of history, which had always been a foundation for my own perspective, disappearing beneath my feet.

Yet, Talbieh too was a place of contradictions. Even in this refugee camp, a product of human rights injustices that Israel committed more than 40 years ago, there are complexities. While there are toxic roofs made of asbestos and poor ventilation systems, the

interiors of some homes that we visited were absolutely beautiful. While some families live in absolute poverty, many would beg us for visas for their sons to go to America — there are wealthy families that make more than 1,000 dinars (roughly $1,400) a week who choose to remain in camps in the name of Palestinian solidarity. Unlike the Gazan refugees in Jordan, Talbieh residents are fortunate enough to have Jordanian working papers. All believe in the right of return and most still have the keys to their old homes in occupied Palestine, yet a small minority of the younger generation believes that its future is here, in Jordan.

Aid distribution and quality of life are complicated by politics. Because the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is short on funds, camps constantly lack sufficient international aid; yet, as Fatima, our Palestinian UNRWA contact told us, community leaders fervently resist most development initiatives, viewing them as plots that undermine the Palestinian political cause and point toward ultimate resettlement. Meanwhile, while UNRWA was struggling to fund a decrepit school that has to work in two shifts to educate its 1,200 students, King Abdullah of Jordan spent $62 million to create King’s Academy, a Western private school in a nation whose population is comprised of more than 60 percent Palestinian refugees. At the same time, one cannot fault Jordan: the nation houses 50 percent of the entire Palestinian refugee population, far more than any other neighboring Arab country.

While UNRWA invited our Yale Reach Out group to promote a positive cultural exchange between Palestinian and American students, at one point the principal of the school put us on the spot, asking sharply, “You are all Christian, yes?” as though it were an unwritten condition of us working within the camp. Fatima’s quiet response, “most of them,” prompted an awkward silence as he looked at her in confusion. Sensing the tension, our trip leader quickly asserted that yes, we were all Christian. As I fumbled with my hijab and cleaned the filthy classrooms, I could not help but feel discouraged when I looked at the walls covered with maps labeled “Palestine.” There was no room for the Israeli perspective, let alone for Israel as a country; the UNRWA-funded school refuses to teach the two-state solution, in which Palestinians and Israelis would coexist as separate nations. One English teacher, in a private conversation, said that he believed that the only solution was a final battle between the two peoples. In a history curriculum that has the power to shape the identity of a people and their descendants for generations to come, there was no room for my perspective.

The Golan Heights

On a day off, we went to Umm Qais, an ancient Roman ruin, from which we could see the Golan Heights, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. After seeing the Golan Heights from the kibbutz last summer with my family and hearing the tale of war from an Israeli general, it was interesting to revisit the site from — literally — a different viewpoint.

From a kibbutz in northern Israel, you can see that there are perhaps two or three football fields separating Israel from its neighbors. The Golan Heights rises majestically, or menacingly, depending on who controls it, above the kibbutzim. I was taught that when the Israelis fought against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the Six-Day War (1967), the Syrians had the clear advantage, and Israeli soldiers had to fight an uphill battle. Looking up at the Golan from below that summer, I couldn’t even begin to understand how Israel had defeated Syria. There is no doubt that the possession of the Golan gives either nation an extraordinary strategic advantage; I did not know if Israel could achieve the same uphill victory again. And while Israel gave Sinai back to Egypt in 1973, like many Jews, I could see no incentive for Israel to give such a vital piece of land back to a nation that refused to recognize its existence, let alone forge peace without the Golan in hand.

Standing in Jordan, I felt that same awe at the proximity of the three countries. Yet, when someone pointed at a plot of land, there was much debate on how to identify it. “That land is illegally occupied by Israel,” was a phrase thrown out quite often. In a sense, that is true: The United Nations did mandate that Israel return to its pre’ 67 borders. In discussion with the Yale group, everyone said that if Israel did not return the Golan to Syria, there would never be peace.

While these are valid claims, the Israeli perspective was never really brought up. There were 13 Yalies present. It made me wonder about the nature of the education that we craft for ourselves.

Making Room

I have become increasingly aware of the approach students at prestigious liberal universities take towards Israel and the Middle East. From what I’ve seen, studying Hebrew and advocating for Israel is not trendy. If you do either, you tend to be Jewish. Arabic is the language of choice; the current humanitarian crisis and the Palestinian manifesto are the reference points for history. In a broad introductory course to International Studies here at Yale, my professor continually referred to the land as Palestine. In five minutes, he gave a biased and overly simplified history of the conflict, which many students took and wrote down as dogma before he moved on to the next topic. As young liberal college students, it is against our nature to be on the side of the gun and consequently we condemn it wholeheartedly. There is no doubt that the Palestinian plight at the hands of Israelis is abominable and horrific; however, in viewing history from the perspective of only one side, we run the risk of dehumanizing the other in an extreme and inaccurate way.

The problem with Israeli-Palestinian history is that if you lay the two narratives side by side, each tale is told from different perspective — and both have legitimacy. Many do not seek the other perspective, often without realizing their oversight, and ignore the inconsistencies in each. I catch myself doing the same. After all, it is human nature to avoid contradictions.

Perhaps it is naive, but it is my hope that one history can make room for the other.

Raphaella Friedman is a freshman in Trumbull College. She is deeply involved in Seeds of Peace, a nonprofit organization that promotes coexistence and understanding among teens from the Middle East.

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