Editor’s note: Will Smethers is an alumnus of Ouachita and former The Signal writer. He is currently a graduate student at Hebrew University and is living in Jerusalem.
The war in Gaza is the hot topic of the day. I find it so interesting that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict causes the entire world to get up in arms. Aren’t people dying in Darfur? No one demonstrated against Russia’s invasion of Georgia.
Instead, on the news I see random Norwegians wearing black kaffiyehs in the streets of Oslo as if they have some vague connection to the Gazans. This isn’t meant as a judgment, but an observation of a disparity of global reaction.
The farther away someone is from Israel-Palestine it seems, the more dogmatic their opinions. A teacher once told me: “People come [to Jerusalem] for a day and write a book, stay for a month and write an article, stay for a year and form an opinion, live here and don’t speak about it.”
The “facts” about this conflict get very confusing. More than 800 Palestinians dead vs. about a dozen Israelis.
My Palestinian friends rightly point out: where’s the equity in this?
And my Israeli friends: Hamas has hit our cities with rockets for eight years not to mention suicide attacks. But didn’t Israel bomb two UN schools? Yes, and children died.
But what of the reports of Hamas hiding in homes on purpose, of intentionally locking civilians inside, of turning mosques and hospitals into ammo dumps? But, isn’t Israel preventing United Nations aid from entering Gaza?
The “facts” continue to go back and forth. Who to believe?
I do have some personal experience. I have been to Sderot (a town a few miles from Gaza that was hit the worst by the Hamas Qassams). It’s in rough condition. The economy is in shambles, there are bomb shelters everyone. It’s really terrible.
A girl in my class lives in Ashkelon (north of Gaza). They get hit by Qassams every day. She told me that you “get used to it.” “You do something for an hour, siren, run to bomb shelter, do something for an hour, siren, then run to bomb shelter.”
Two weeks ago, a Qassam hit her neighbor’s house. Her neighbor. A few nights ago, the sirens sounded so frequently that she and her husband spent the night in the bomb shelter.
In September, I visited a kibbutz literally 100 meters from the Gaza wall. They were relocated by the government after the Gaza pullout in 2005.
A tour guide from the kibbutz recounted a story about how some armed Gazans snuck into the kibbutz at night before the wall was finished. By mistake, the men accidentally turned right towards the Israeli army barracks instead of left into the residential part of the kibbutz. The tour guide claimed only divine intervention prevented a massacre.
In Jerusalem, I live in a neighborhood on Mount Scopus called the French Hill. It is surrounded by Arab neighborhood and refugee camps.
On the Saturday that the airstrikes began, a Palestinian mob attempted to force its way up the long hill into the French Hill, but were stopped by Israeli security forces. I heard choppers and sirens, and saw army and police trucks driving by my dorm all that evening.
The next day, I went to the French Hill post office and heard loud bangs. I walked outside and watched as on the hill opposite me the Israeli army shot tear gas and rubber bullets into a mob in the Shufat Refugee Camp.
Last week, I rode the Arab bus to Damascus Gate with some friends. As we got closer, we began to see groups of Israeli police on every street corner. When we got off the bus, the street was flooded with police and people. It was Friday and the Israelis had barred all Muslim males under 50 from entering Al-Aqsa, so the Muslims were praying in the street.
It was a strange sight. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of Israeli police stood around a mass of Muslim men praying in the street while reporters and cameramen captured the scene.
I have crossed into Bethlehem many times now. The wall and the checkpoints disgust me. Israel maintains tight control over the West Bank and entrance into Jerusalem.
All of the Palestinians that I meet just want to live a normal life, they don’t want to hurt anyone. Palestinians tell me of how they are spoken to rudely by soldiers and those that have Israeli citizenship are treated like second-class citizens. They feel helpless, conquered.
The Ramallah checkpoint is the worst. The roads are poorly maintained, muddy and trashy, and the massive iron-gate looks like something from a war movie. Written across the wall in English, Arabic and Hebrew are obscenities against Israel.
It is easy to understand why both sides are angry. For the Israelis, Hamas is shooting rockets at civilians. Not too long ago, they were blowing themselves up on buses. The more civilians the better.
One Palestinian friend, speaking under the influence of great emotion, told me “to hell with [Israeli civilians]!”
The Israeli government reacted like any normal government would. The United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq on much less direct evidence of attacks on its citizenry.
For the Palestinians, it’s about more than Gaza. The Israelis have taken over their land whether by force or slow population encroachment.
The Israelis from the beginning refused to integrate into the existing cultures and instead chose to keep their communities as separate as possible. Today this includes a massive wall separating Israel from Palestine which constricts large Arab cities while Israeli settlements have lots of room to expand.
Israeli President Shimon Perez has even stated on international television that Israel endeavors to “preserve the thoroughly Jewish character of the nation.” This means restricting Palestinian movement, refusal to let them live in Israeli areas and limiting their access to resources and facilities enjoyed by Israelis.
These words have not been meant to convince you, Dear Reader, of the merits of either side, but merely to convey the complexity of the situation and to cast doubt on those who have a black and white opinion but live thousands of miles away.
I live in Jerusalem and I still have not figured out who is right. In all fairness, I know hardly more than you do about the “real” situation in Gaza, sitting comfortably here in Jerusalem. I read the same newspapers you do. True, I can talk to real Israelis and real Palestinians, but that just makes it personal and in fact more confusing.
The situation in Gaza is far more complex than what you watch on Fox News or read in the New York Times.
It’s good to see Will’s writings are not limited to his Facebook audience.