You Can't Take Me Anywhere

Did my parents teach me nothing? I have vivid memories of my mother giving my father the evil eye and making him promise not to talk about religion, sex, and especially politics when we go over to a friend's house for dinner. Or more recently when my Dad and I were staying with my very conservative Uncle in Virginia - we were not to discuss politics while he was hosting us for the week. Israel must have done something to me. I am generally good about letting a comment slide or keeping my mouth shut when someone says something I adamantly disagree with, especially if it is someone I'll probably never see again. But that didn't happen this weekend. All pretenses flew out the window.

I was in Jerusalem for Shabbat with Anna and Aaron. We had lunch with a number of recent and soon-to-be olim's (people who make aliyah and become Israeli citizens) including four young men who are currently, or who had served, in the Israeli army. I don't really remember how the conversation started, but somehow Gaza came up, and something to the affect of "Gaza should just be carpet bombed" was said. As I said before, I can usually keep my mouth shut, but it was just inappropriate and based on what I'm doing here, I couldn't let the comment go. We got into a heated conversation (if you can call it that) which lasted for over an hour. It was essentially me, Anna, and Aaron versus everyone else, and eventually turned into multiple conversations with Anna and Aaron talking to one person and me taking on the rest by myself. It was intense and upsetting.

The reality is that a lot of Israelis and a lot of Americans who move to Israel feel this way. Everyone claims to want peace, just so long as it is peace in their terms. In the meantime it is ok to force Palestinians to live in horrendous conditions and subject them to humiliation at border crossings because it prevents Israelis from being harmed. And anyway, other countries have done much worse, so Israel really isn't that bad. And the media is feeding us anti-Israel propaganda. AHHH! Needless to say, we talked (or yelled) at each other and nothing constructive came of it.

If anything, it seemed that they were speaking to me in a very patronizing way. Not only did they say things to me as if I didn't know anything, but one girl even asked me, "So how did you come to have these views? Was it because of your experience here (at the Arava) or your upbringing or what you learned in school?" I didn't really know how to respond and was later quite offended by the question. As if it is something novel to support human and civil rights? That I have some strange or foreign beliefs? In hindsight I should have said to all of these practicing Jews that my view comes from the fundamental value of Tikkun Olam - to repair the world - and social justice, which does not only apply to Jews, but to all of humanity. They probably would have just given me a blank stare, though.

And if I had ever previously considered making aliyah, this experience certainly made me think again...probably not the response they were hoping for.

It was bound to happen. I just expected this kind of heated conversation to be in a PELS session (the peace building course) or something, not at Shabbat lunch. But I'm in Israel, so I shouldn't be so surprised...