Reflection

By Anonymous

This course truly challenged me to understand Israel and its ongoing attempt to expel Palestinians from their homeland. As I discussed in my first blog post, I spent a good chunk of my childhood engaging in Jewish institutions like the JCC and my synagogue or celebrating Jewish holidays with family. Collectively, they heavily influenced my idea of what Israel is. 

The non-religious sleep-away camp I went to for nine summers was not only disproportionately Jewish, but it hosted a sizable group of Israeli campers. While many of us continued to go to camp as counselors past our 18th birthdays, only a few of our friends from Israel ever came back to camp after joining the Israel Defense Forces. Maintaining connections made at camp during the school year proved hard enough, but staying in touch with Israelis was impossible. Occasionally I am reminded of their existence when one of them posts a picture to Instagram of themselves and their friends clad in army-issued camouflage.

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 Presidential Election marked the beginning of when many members of my generation began keeping track of domestic politics. As I joined Twitter and followed journalists, publications, and other political pundits, my awareness of geopolitical issues grew. While media outlets in the United States typically keep their coverage of the IDF’s abuse of Palestinians to a minimum, certain pieces trickled down into my social media feeds. I could no longer claim ignorance concerning the matter.

Rabbis and Hebrew school teachers never characterized Israel as a colonial or apartheid state. And my camp friends never seemed capable of being involved in the despicable actions of the IDF. As I began to learn what “the true Israel” really was, I chose to not engage in Israel-Palestine related dialogues. I could not manage to put my two impressions of Israel together. I was not in denial over Israel’s despicable actions, but I was disillusioned with the institutions that painted an inaccurate picture of the country for me and my peers.

For most of my time in high school I envisioned the conflict from a “both-sides” perspective; one that saw both Israel and Palestine as aggressors in their own right. I was still not at the point where I could look beyond the indoctrination of my childhood and begin to realize Israel as the perpetrator of the conflict. If Israel truly was in the wrong, how could so many family members that I loved and adults that I trusted be incorrect?

Entering college brought an array of new challenges to my perception of Israel. My politics were leaning increasingly left and I found my new friends held similar values. Many of them were Jewish themselves and expressed support for Palestine. Twitter prepared me for the intense climate surrounding Israel-Palestine debates in college. I saw right-wing members of the media call out college campuses for hosting pro-Palestinian speakers on campus. Given my political leanings, I approached these talking points with heavy skepticism.

My first months in college quickly exposed me to these sorts of controversial dialogues. Kenyon Students for Justice in Palestine invited disaffected CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill to campus. Immediately pro-Israel groups on campus began attacking Hill and his sponsors, labeling them as anti-semitic and calling on them to cancel Hill’s talk. After taking a quick look at Hill’s Twitter and reading about his firing from CNN, I realized that his critics were more concerned with assassinating Hill’s character than disproving his talking points regarding Israel-Palestine. Thanks to my friends and my new collegiate environment, I found myself on the “Palestine” side of the conflict for the first time in my life.

While I still think of this as a turning point for my political values, my picture of the conflict engaged in the “oppressor and oppressed” binary I condemned as insufficient in my first blog post. Boiling the conflict down to two groups blinds us from evaluating the conflict from a truly international perspective. This past semester encouraged me to take a step back on a worldwide scale. For me, the question has shifted from evaluating the blame each side holds to an examination of their respective levels of agency. The conflict has evolved in such a way due to outside actors like the United States, England, France, and broader forces within the Middle East, leaving Israel and Palestine with few paths forward. The institutions that shaped my early beliefs and values failed to maintain a firm grip over my understanding of Israel.

 

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