I Got Schooled

When a friend of mine shared his personal narrative about a year ago, I think it was the first time I tried to fully comprehend the Israeli and Palestinian conflicts. Even now, I am ashamed of that fact.

Yes, I read the paper each day. I watch the news. I have a passion for peace and reconciliation and justice. But what did I know of the issues dividing Israelis and Palestinians? Not much, if that much.

Maybe on a stretch I got that Palestinians, and particularly Palestinian refugees and their descendants, wanted to get back or be compensated for their taken homes/land - those now being located in what is the state of Israel.

When I did my "post-meeting research," I found that the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees said that in 1950 there were 3 quarters of a million Palestinian refugees who had "lost homes and livelihoods in the war that followed Israel's 1948 declaration of statehood." That number today is something like 5 million. About 1- 2 million of them now located in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Even if they could accept citizenship in Arab countries, most think that is settling on Israeli terms; therefore, not acceptable.

So a year later from hearing my new friend's story, here I was smack dab in the middle of the Middle East. Observing. And let me tell you, I got schooled. And I was in the remedial course.

I had the deep, deep honor of breaking fast on a Ramadan evening with my friend's family. You know you get to learn a lot about someone when you hang out with their mom and dad (brothers, neices, nephews)...when you see what's hanging on the family walls, when you witness the interaction of flesh and blood, when you stand in the kitchen, look out from the deck. It adds up to volumes.

On the way to the dinner, we drove through deserts, valleys, mountains, villages. It was beautiful. In a small village up North, Sha'ab, we stopped to walk among the olive trees - trees that date back to Roman times. Trees nearby where my friend would have played and gathered olives as a child...

I recalled that my friend's family had once owned quite a bit of land and "lost it" in 1948. This was the area from which much of his family had to flee for Lebanon. Many of which have not ever returned. An Israeli-Palestinian conflict lesson in action. Real. Raw. Personal. Early prejudices ingrained, revisited, revised, removed.

The trees had character. Weathered faces, knarled branches, variations in color. Scrappy trees, imposing trees. Rows and rows and rows. The ground was reddish, dry, cracked, stone filled. The sound quiet.

We drove up into the village's neighborhoods. Up to his home.

Here was a simple, yet amazing family. Opening their home to me. A feast laid before us. No allowance for me to help (urgh!). No common language except hospitality and respect.

We hung out. We ate. We talked. We ate. We laughed. We ate. Coffee came... the universal "the food is ending" sign. A silent, "thank goodness!" Breathe. Oh nope, more food. We ate some more.

I felt so moved, so priviledged to share the moments. A time with family is sacred. I thought of my own family so far away dealing with so much in my absence. It wrecked me.

Time for the ride home came, and I jockeyed for the back seat. I wanted time to process the reality of what I had just experienced. I pondered the juxtoposition of the pressing problems that face Israel and Palestine today, the love and care I had just witnessed and the crisis going on at my own house. The long commute back to Jerusalem seemed the opportunity to reflect some more and pull into my own thoughts.

How can rational, ethical leaders not lead people out of the prejudices? The frustration of the politics of it all made my head spin. My heart cried out for vision and inspiration to win out.

I did not live this reality each day. I had not grown up in the hatred and bigotry and prejudice. I did not have a family history that still rings true of loss and separation and discrimination.

How can people not see and indeed cherish the very humanity that we all share. The desire for families to work hard, be together, love and provide for each other?

Our differences are real. But so too are our commonalities. I believe that magical blend is where the strength and hope is. Transformation is the only way out. And as small as it may seem in the hugeness of what is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I felt comfort and belief that the Jerusalem International YMCA had a very real role in inspiring and someday shepherding that vision for and reality of peace.

The schooling of Gail continues. I think I may have got a C+ this time around. I'll take it.