israel all the time

I had a pretty horrifying experience this week at the "Fetes de Geneve", which is this month-long celebration down by the lake, with food and rides and games and music. My friend Ophelie (from France, family is from Morocco, Jewish) and I were listening to a band (an Irish group that played the blues and some rock&roll - Geneva LOVES rock&roll). The music ended and a couple guys came up and began to hit on us. They were Moroccans, and Muslim, and Ophelie said "Oh, I come from Morocco, but I'm Jewish." Suddenly everything changed. Immediately they started bashing Israel, saying "Israel does not exist, only Palestine exists, we will have Palestine in the end, you will see." I was so shocked. They kept saying, "No, we don't hate Jewish people, we just hate Israelis" - which is a cop-out. Anti-Zionism is a manifestation, in multiple ways, of anti-Semitism. People who support the right to self-determination for Palestinians but not for Jews demonstrate explicit bias against the Jewish people. Even Martin Luther King expressed this when he made a speech at Harvard in 1968, saying, "When people criticize Zionists they mean Jews; you are talking anti-Semitism." And check out this article for more on the topic: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/nov/29/comment

Anyways, I must say, though, that because of all the work I've done during the course of my internship I felt well-prepared to explain and argue my views on the issues. The men we met were speaking without any knowledge of the history of the conflict, the history of the land, the peace process, ANYTHING. So, in French, I tried to persuade them to educate themselves. How did they expect to be taken seriously when all they were able to say to us was, "We will bomb you out, we will win in the end. Israel does not exist." Why must Israel cease to exist for there to be a Palestinian state? That was a question they could not answer. We kept trying to discuss the two-state solution, with absolutely no success. Ophelie was brave and continued to talk to them for almost 45 minutes. I wasn't as strong - I couldn't push away the feeling that I was talking to children about such a basic thing - educating oneself. They had it all wrong. They were spewing nonsense - false information, radical propaganda. I couldn't believe I was listening to terrorist rhetoric coming out of the mouths of young, mid-20s Moroccan men who connected so deeply to the plight of Palestinians.

The thing is, I agreed with them on some counts. I think there is a LOT to criticize about the Israeli government, and there is no one who criticizes it more fiercely than Israelis themselves. In my opinion, Israel should not be building Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories because that kind of action hinders plans for peace. However, the Israeli government has issued statements time and time again saying that as soon as the PLO can guarantee the security of Israelis across the border, they will immediately pull all settlements and remove the people from that land. Unfortunately, this makes for a cyclical 'chicken and egg' situation.

I really can't stop thinking about the conversation we had with them. One of the men had lost his two twin brothers in Ramallah, the West Bank, due to the conflict (I'm not sure how). Of course he was emotional, angry, aggressive, and would not listen to our side. In the end he apologized for the harsh language he was using and explained simply that "C'est un putain de guerre" or "It's a fucked-up war". I said to him that even though we disagree about the land, at least we have something in common - loss. Hopefully the desire on both sides to avoid further casualties and more loss of life will lead to a reasonable and peaceful solution. Until then, I can only hope that these men and others like them are willing to learn about the conflict instead of repeating the propogandist rhetoric that is perpetuated by Hamas leaders and which fuels supporters of the Palestinian cause.