palestine/israel is a topic that i generally avoid discussing, partly because many people have strong views on it and i'm not one to invite a fight, partly because i don't have the academic background in studying the issue to feel comfortable in a serious debate about it, and partly because there is so much irrationality about the situation (and many people's views on it) that it just makes me so incredibly frustrated. no matter what your view is on the issue overall, the human rights violations that have occurred as a result of this conflict are a crime against all affected, and the responsibility lies not only with the perpetrators but with the UN and the world as a whole for failing to take action to remedy the situation- the aspect of all this that truly makes me sick to my stomach is the world's preoccupation with the politics of it rather than the human aspect.
i don't claim to be unbiased in my views; i don't think it's possible to hold an objective opinion- an opinion by definition is influenced by personal beliefs, background, and experience, so whether we're conscious of it or not all of our opinions stem from something- a bias does not necessarily imply something negative. mine in this case comes from a belief that human rights are of paramount importance, and that everyone no matter what faith, what ethnicity, what anything has an equal demand on these rights. i have always had generally the same opinion about the palestine/israel conflict that i have now, although this past semester has definitely caused me to contemplate it more fully and deepen my understanding.
i believe that neither side has an exclusive religious or moral claim on the land- over the course of history it was controlled and inhabited by both jews and arabs, and both judaism, islam, and also christianity have many of their holiest sites in the same territory, and even on the same exact spots. thus, it is no one group's land to exclusively claim. the argument used by some israel supporters that the concentrated jewish immigration to palestine and the 1948 war were just jewish reclamation of the land the arabs had previously conquered from them irks me to no end- if we were still in the 6th century B.C. (when arabs reconquered palestine) then invasion and conquering of foreign lands would be a perfectly acceptable and normal thing to do, but the 20th century context does not sanction such action. i believe jews and anyone else have every right to immigrate to and live in a land they consider holy, but i do not believe they have the right to establish an exclusive jewish national state on land that history has made belong to more than one group of people. britain should not have supported the zionist immigration push, the world should not have allowed it to occur, and there should never have been talk of a "two-state solution" or a "partition". with the dissolution of the ottoman empire after WWI, colonial control should not have been imposed on palestine but rather governing power should have been placed in the hands of a local coalition. jews that wanted to come to live in their holy land should have been welcomed to do so, but out of personal desire and at a natural pace rather than an influx at the urging of an extremist movement with political motives.
but, what happened happened, and we must now deal with present realities. i do not believe that any jewish inhabitants of israel should now be forced out, as this is just a re-perpetration of the crime committed against so many palestinians. revenge is not justice, and despite the moral wrong that was committed by israel as a collective, that does not mean it would be just to now force individuals and families to leave what may have been their home for 60 years. however, i do not recognize the right of israel to exist on solely its own terms- compromise must occur. palestinians must absolutely have the right of return in some form. by this i do not mean the right to evict jewish families from homes, but i do mean the right to build a new home next door to them and live together. although the two-state solution seems to be the world-favored option (maybe because it has become the most feasible in practical terms), i think in an ideal everyone-cooperate-and-live-in-peace world one multicultural state ("palesrael", as one graffiti i saw this weekend put it) would be best. but since this would require a cooperative government between two groups that currently refuse to even sit down at the same table together, i'm not holding my breath. but a two-state solution has its own practical problems, because no matter where you draw the borders someone's not going to be able to go home again, and each side will continue resenting the other for the land on the other side of the wall.
however, either two-state or one-state would be better than the current injustice. israel has no right to the current control it exercises over the palestinian territories (nor in my opinion does it have the right to fully control what are now considered as "israeli" lands, since those were taken by force and at the expense of countless palestinian people). the entire area should be under UN mandate until the two sides can come together to reach an agreement, because if palestine does not have the right to declare itself an independent state than neither does israel. with respect to israeli control of fully palestinian land, there is such a glaring conflict of interest in allowing those people and that land to be administered by israel that i cannot believe it has been allowed to continue. similarly israel absolutely does not have the right to build the "security wall" (=israeli euphemism, oft known in palestine as the "apartheid wall") dividing current israeli land from the west bank, and it shocks me that the world continues to sit by and allow this to happen even despite UN and international court of justice rulings that the wall is illegal. (side note- the us's blind support of israel is something that i cannot morally understand, although politically the reasons are easy enough to follow, but i hate to think that politics has obscured morality in our country). and even without the political violation the wall embodies (especially where it deviates from true population situations and encroaches on palestinian territory), it is a gross human rights violation in that it cuts off many palestinian people and towns from access to farmland, roads, economic infrastructure/markets, healthcare, and water. the water issue in palestine/israel is a whole other issue that could fill a whole blog post of its own, just google per capita water supply in palestinian territories vs. in israel and you will find an aspect of this whole situation that is even by itself a terrible human rights violation.
what motivated this whole post was my experience crossing the israeli borders this weekend. entering "israel" (really the west bank) from jordan, i was questioned to a degree not even close to what i've experienced at other borders. sure, as an american i had to wait at the syrian border for four hours to get my visa approved, but the syrians did not ask me my father's name, my grandfather's name, proof of my hotel reservation, when you plan to leave and proof of return ticket, where you're going in israel, whether you're going to the west bank, why are you going to bethlehem, do you know anyone in jerusalem, do you know anyone in the west bank, you're not going anywhere else in the west bank, etc. etc. all this made me so frustrated and i wanted to shout at the border guards what right to you have to try and keep me out of the west bank- it's not yours to control! then when i set off the next day from jerusalem to bethlehem (which is in the west bank), i came face to face with the 8-meter high "security wall" and the reality for the palestinians living on the other side of it. the israeli side of the wall is just big, serious, concrete, but the palestinian side is an explosion of color and emotion in the form of graffiti art on every available square. calls to peace, calls for intifada, calls for humanity- calls for everything but the presence of that wall were shouted all over the cement slabs, and i walked along it as far as i could to take it all in.
if this post makes it seem like i side with the palestinians more than the israelis, that is because right now it is the palestinians whose basic rights as human beings are suffering under israeli occupation. palestinians and israelis have equal rights to the land, but the current situation does not reflect this truth. i am on the side of equality of rights for both groups.
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