The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one that I’ve witnessed personally.
During my senior year of high school, I travelled to the Middle East and spent time in Jordan, Israel and the West Bank–an experience that changed my life. The purpose of the trip was to visit religious sites in Israel, and although I enjoyed that aspect of the trip, the region’s political situation affected me more.
I saw first-hand the influence that Israel has in the Palestinian territories, and I was surprised and shocked. Admittedly, I did not know much about the conflict before I travelled there, which I originally thought was a mistake, but now I think that it allowed me to perceive the situation with an open mind.
I did not expect to see electric fences and Israeli soldiers with machine guns as I passed through the check-points into the West Bank, and I did not expect to hear from the kind, hospitable residents of the West Bank what kind of life they live at the mercy of the Israeli government.
Resources like land and water, and policies that affect traveling restrictions, imports, exports and almost every other aspect of daily life are controlled by the Israeli government because the word Palestinian seems to be synonymous with terrorist–a common misconception that I’ve noticed even in the U.S.
Although organizations like Hamas are labeled as terrorist groups for good reason, they do not represent all Palestinians or even the Palestinian authority.
The problem here is that innocent people are being caught in the middle of the violence. As I talked to Mohammad Al-hroub, a 19-year-old Jerusalem University student, my heart broke because I was reminded once again that, although this conflict seems a world away, the people living with it are real and just like my family, friends and me.
Israel is not always wrong, and Palestine is not always right, and the violence will not end with one side admitting defeat while the other claims victory. Real life is not like that and neither is politics.
Until people–Republicans and Democrats, Israelis and Palestinians, white people and black people, the 99 percent and the one percent, men and women–recognize that we are all citizens of the world, and have equal rights and valid opinions, as well as the responsibility to promote the voices of the disenfranchised, we’re just kidding ourselves if we think things are going to get better.
I’m worried that the violence in the Middle East is going to get much worse before it gets better, and I’m praying for safety and peace for all those affected, just like I pray for all Americans and not just members of the party I voted for. Huge problems begin on a much smaller scale, and that’s also how they will be defused.
As the world waits for news about what the future will hold, remember that the solution begins with you.
