Shabbat Shalom

Today we heard from two journalists. Yossi Klein Halevi, an Israeli Jewish journalist, spent two hours with us in the morning, and Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arab Israeli journalist and expert on Palestinian affairs for numerous publications, spent about two hours with us this evening.
The breadth, depth, and complexity of the material they presented will take a long time for me to sift through. I took 21 pages of notes – and these are all in truncated short-hand. The primary ideas that arose from both of their talks were:
1. Arab world has to come to an age of maturation, responsibility, and accountability. The West (primarily the United States, but also countries in the E.U.) has to stop financially supporting corrupt regimes in the Middle East, thus suppressing the rise of leaders with integrity, character, and goodwill. [I will get the statistics and all the facts that I can to further explain this point. I was astounded at my ignorance, and when I can more fully present what I heard today, you may be astounded, too. Or maybe the wool was pulled over my eyes only.].
2. Judaism and Christianity have had their modern “coming of age.” Islam isn’t there yet. (Read Irshad Manji’s The Trouble with Islam Today to see what they’re getting at on this point). Islam is being held back by many social forces, including widespread corruption of Islamic governments, which leads to large groups of people looking to radical Islamic movements for solutions to their problems.
3. The relationship of Hamas to Iran, to Syria, and to extremist and radical Islamic movements throughout the world CANNOT be underestimated.
4. $10 billion was given to the Palestinian Authority for development programs for its 3 million people between 1994 and 2001 – primarily from the United States (taxpayer dollars). [This amounts to $3,333 per Palestinian – just to give you a per-person figure]. Walk into the Palestinian Territories today and look for development projects and infrastructure that dates from that period. You’ll find none. Where did all the money go? A corrupt Arafat government that was not held accountable by the nations funding his luxurious lifestyle, his construction of a casino (and not hospitals or schools), and his $100,000 monthly shopping allowance to his wife, who was living in Paris.
5. Israel is marching toward pragmatism and realism. Arab nations are marching toward radicalism, intransigence, and stubbornness.
6. Israel is badly losing the PR war. Palestine has its buzz words: occupation, wall, blockade, human rights. Israel doesn’t have the buzz words. [And the HUGE problem here, for me, is that all you have to say to an ignorant emotional activist-type American is “occupation” or “human rights violations” and the rhetoric is immediately against Israel – without any research to qualify their claims, without deep investigation into the history of the country and the two peoples in conflict, without anything that would dignify their arguments as sound, rational and logical. What about terrorism? What about intransigent religious extremism? What about corruption, misuse of funds, and lack of any stable Palestinian government to build up the Palestinian people and make them self-sufficient? $10billion between 1994 and 2001, and roughly $1 billion per year continues to be given to Palestine. WHERE IS IT GOING?]
7. Palestinians and Israelis are tired of the West’s repeated attempts to bring them into “dialogue,” to the “negotiating table” to talk about the “peace process.” Life has settled into a status quo in the past few years. Violence, terrorism, and tensions have decreased. When the West, or particularly, Obama requests that Netanyahu and Abbas meet to discuss a final settlement – Israeli and Palestinian hairs stand up on the backs of Israeli and Palestinian necks. The “peace processes” of 2000 and 2001 did not deliver.

I learned a great skill while I was in school from good professors and intelligent friends who would call me on my bullshit when I would start spouting “facts” on issues ABOUT WHICH I KNEW NOTHING. Clay truly was my savior in this respect. He calls me on my bullshit.

So, over the years, I have intentionally and deliberately tried to learn to live in humility and admit when I don’t know something. There is no problem with not knowing. There is a problem with speaking as an authority when you’re not. There is a problem in claiming expertise when you haven’t done the groundwork to learn the history, the dialectic, the polemics, etc., etc. (And, I have to say, there is a problem with having an opinion when you’ve not educated yourself in the least bit on the issue about which you’re forming said opinion. Period. …climbing down off my soap box…).

This trip is teaching me two things. First – thank goodness that I started reading about this conflict back in January, because if I hadn’t, I would be in the middle of the deep-end without my floaties and I wouldn’t know which way was up. Second – I am desperately ignorant.
Despite, or rather, because of my ignorance, I am listening with the widest open ears I can muster. My eyes are pealed. I am reading voraciously, scribbling notes voraciously, and trying to retain everything I’m being told. I’m relying on my short experience living in the Arab-Islamic world, on my undergraduate years spent reading about religion and religious conflicts, and on my previous trip to Israel so that I can learn more fully about intra-Palestinian political struggles, intra-Israeli political discourse, and the very delicate and volatile nature of this whole thing.

To conclude, today brought to light that there is much more going on in this conflict than two competing narratives, and two peoples fighting for the same very small piece of land (along with other readily acknowledged things that this is about). What is going on in many cases is journalism lacking integrity and blinded by ideology and argument.

And so, this leaves observers of good will with the high task not only of dignifying both peoples, but of searching for the truth in the media, and proclaiming it with integrity.

My suggestion: get to Israel and Palestine, meet with people in the know, and learn for yourself.