Israel Reflection

Hi friends! 

Welcome, through the Lion Gate!

It's been a while, but in my defense, since my last post, since this trip in January, I've:
1) Finished my final semester of grad school
2) Adjusted to my new role at work (kept up full time schedule)
3) Moved to a new apartment in DC
4) Switched back to the carless life (not really by my choice, but it works)
It's been a busy half-year!

Now, some of my thoughts on my trip to Israel-Palestine, where I spent the first week of 2018 with a class on Reflective Practice on Interdisciplinary Approaches to Social Change.

I touched the Mediterranean :-D

Reflective Practice is, in very simplified terms, an introspective and self-aware approach to interventions.  A practitioner or intervenor (or researcher or participant), will be affected by and have responses to the conflict at hand, and to be effective, they should be cognizant of their biases, prejudices, histories, and values, as well as ideas of right, preconceptions of solutions, and cultural assumptions.  With this awareness, they have room to build trust with the stakeholders; without this awareness, they run a distinct risk of losing their credibility.
In addition to being an important part of conflict mediation, it's also a useful life skill!

First off, an observation-cum-disclaimer: this trip really highlighted the importance of names.  Whether that particular section on the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea is called Israel, Israel/Palestine, Palestine, the Levant (or a subset thereof), is an integral part of the socio-political complexity going on there.  Language divides people into "Pro-Israel" and "Pro-Palestine," and those in one group must, by definition, be anti-the other.  At this stage, it seems almost impossible for one to support national recognition for both the Israelis and the Palestinians, particularly in the same place.  In short, its essentially impossible to even talk about this place without a perceived bias!

I will say, the food is fantastic there!  We had such a variety of falafel, hummus, fish dishes, produce, and a personal favorite, sabikh: an Iraqi pita featuring hardboiled egg, peppers, fried eggplant, and a lot of other stuff :-D

Grocery Mural

A meal in a town at the foot of Mt Tabor

Also, the landscape is striking.  We went on a hike around a small town, and saw Tel Aviv in the distance, the mid-state border, and miles of countryside.  That town is the home of our tourguide, and he told us the story of how there had been two massive grassfires on either side of their hill, devastating the flora and some residences.  Since the fires, the community had come together to rebuild, and the plants were growing back around newly uncovered rock terraces from bygone ages.

A scene from the hike

On top of Mt Tabor

On another mountaintop, Mt Tabor, we were able to look down at an array of settlements around the base of the mountain.  They were a mix of Israeli settlements and Palestinian towns, distinguishable by their distinct streetplans and architectural styles.  On Mt Tabor, we met members of the Center for Non-Violent Communication (CNVC), an organization comprised of residents of those towns who choose to come together across their dividing lines (and across their town borders), to share meals, get to know each other, and to address their differences.  Before heading down the mountain for a delicious spread prepared by a member's mother and a CNVC meeting, we walked around the mountaintop, which also holds the Church of the Transfiguration and an Eastern Orthodox Sanctuary.

Any given religion is a complex topic on its own.  Here, religion is geographically, socially, politically, historically and identifier-ly mixed.  We met an Orthodox Jewish man who was happy to talk to our heterogeneous group which including a student of Palestinian descent, a couple of Palestinian men from refugee camps who were leading different sorts of non-violent peacebuilding initiatives (where far from being avoidance or passivity, non-violence is an active presentation and recognition of the humanity of all involved Ali Abu Awwad and Mazen Faraj), a Jewish Moroccan immigrant (our tourguide, Elad), the Christian Palestinian mayor of  Neve Shalom/Wahat-al-Salam/Oasis of Peace (NS/WAS)- an intentional mixed community (Rayek Rizek), and an observant Muslim woman who worked to advance interreligious dialogues between rabbis and imams based on their shared sacred stories and their analytical/academic approaches to studying them (Ibitsam Mahameed).

The meditation center and commemoration of Roger Wilson of Pink Floyd's concert in NS/WAS

My inner art history student celebrated seeing original frescoes!

We also met a French Benedictine monk, Brother Olivier, who has an amazing voice and works primarily in the monastery's distillery.  The monastery, centered on a 12th century Crusaders' church built on ancient Roman rules, is located in Abu Ghosh, a predominantly Muslim- Eastern European rather than Middle Eastern branch of Islam- town just west of Jerusalem.  This monastery may have housed the Ark of the Covenant at some point, still has incredible frescoes, even with the faces marked out, and absolutely gorgeous acoustics.  Brother Olivier told us about singing Psalms with a local rabbi, and about standing in solidarity with a local imam to mourn the death of a Jewish boy from the town.





Abu Ghosh also features a gas station/diner completely devoted to Elvis Presley:

An addition to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

In Jerusalem, we were based in a hotel just a few blocks from the invisible-yet-impenetrable wall between East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem, within half a mile from the Old City.  The density of the holy spaces in and around the Old City is incredible.  The Dome of the Rock build over/on the Temple Mount, with mosques within mosques around the corner from the Stations of the Cross leading to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, jointly maintained by the Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Roman Catholic, Coptic Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, and Ethiopian Orthodox churches- with the key to the front door historically and currently held by a Muslim family.

Dome of the Rock, Temple Mount, Western Wall, Old City, Security Lines

Before going on this trip, I was more inclined to secular solutions than religious, but seeing these places and the palpable significance they hold for so many people, and the religious leaders justifying and demonstrating coexistence and peaceful unity with their beliefs really makes me question whether a purely secular approach is the right way.  (There's always the question of defining "right", but that would be another post.  There is a lot of potential for religion to be a progressive force for good, despite the fundamentalists, extremists, and purists who bind themselves to certain interpretations of the teachings.  Yes, this applies to every religion I know of, including my own. By whatever name, I can't imagine a universal divine being really caring about being called different names in different human languages.

As for solutions, I firmly believe that whatever comes about, it will be mixed. Also with ballroom dancing (Pierre Dulaine, the inspiration behind "Take the Lead" and "Mad Hot Ballroom" is originally from the region, and has started using his dance program to bring Israeli and Palestinian kids together)!

3 Sailboats on the Sea of Galilee

Now, though, there severe inequalities preventing real healing from taking place.  I'd had a hint in Bosnia, but on this trip I gained a much deeper understanding of what it means to be a secondclass citizen at home.  The difficulties of the Palestinians to travel internally or externally- there was one young person who dreamt of being a pilot, but couldn't, because it's a small country and it would be prohibitively difficult to get a passport.  Refugee camps, there and in many other places, where generations live just grates me wrong, every time; no one should have to spend their entire life in a refugee camp, see their children and possibly their grandchildren in a refugee camp.  There are also differences between the 3 or 4 school systems available to different subsets of the population.

The current context is built on millenia of history which is still very much part of present life.  Whenever I've gone to Europe, I've been fascinated by the buildings that haven't changed their usage in longer than twice the US's existence.  On this trip, we'd hear references to events of 500, 1000, 2500 years ago as if they happened yesterday.  We saw Canaanite ruins with Egyptian hieroglyphs in Jaffa, city walls, city walls that had been taken apart and turned into shops, and walkways worn dipped and smooth by millions of footsteps.  We  heard about overlapping claims to the territory at large, to specific houses, to worship spaces and language.  Often when the conversations turned that way, they devolved quickly into misery contests of whose ancestors, grandparents and beyond, suffered more deprivations.

So much history on history, literally! <3

Now, there are few to no opportunities for Palestinians and Jews to casually interact, and fewer on arguably equal footing, due to ingrained perceptions of power).  There is a perception among some young Israelis that part of being Palestinian is wanting to kill Israelis, and vis-versa, and I sincerely think that it's because for the most part, they live in separate worlds, although not far from each other if there were real, reachable paths connecting them.

Over the course of this week, stories from my family history came to mind, namely when my grandmother took my mom and her siblings on a year long cross country Winnebago trip, from San Francisco to New York and everywhere in between.  At one point, they stopped in Chicago, in a part of town populated by a very different demographic, who'd never seen a motorhome, and there was an impromptu cultural exchange, as the Chicagoans explored the Winnebago and talked with the Californians.  From this, I'm casually developing a theory of practice called Winnebago Diplomacy, or Peacebuilding Through Roadtrips ;-)

___
P.S.  Observation- Americans abroad are the ones who are working to make America great, not the MAGA folks.  Political context of the trip: weeks after Trump announced that the US would recognize Jerusalem as the capital- restricted our group's side trips due to security restrictions.

P.P.S. Crystallization- It is impossible to buy one's own safety with someone else's blood.


There's more to say - as always - but for now, I'll see you out.

Damascus Gate at night- Byebye!