The Day I Walked Into the Hornet’s Nest Of the Middle East
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In December 2012, I boarded a bulletproof bus in Jerusalem and rode directly into the West Bank.
I was on an Israel trip with a program called Meor, an organization working to revitalize Jewish engagement on college campuses. I participated in their programs since my sophomore year at the University of Maryland, and this senior year trip was the culmination of the experience: studying in an Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva (school) and traveling around Israel.
Our bus passed through a military checkpoint of the border wall that separates Israel-proper from the West Bank. The latter is the region that stirs the most controversy in the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
For a rapid-fire history lesson: Jordan captured the area called the West Bank upon the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948. It is called the “West Bank” because it borders the Jordan River. Israel seized the West Bank from Jordan in the war of 1967.
The reason why it is so controversial is that the majority of the population of the West Bank is Palestinian (72%). With that said, it is filled with critical Jewish religious and historical sites, and approximately one million Jews are living in settlements inside of the territory, including East Jerusalem.
International law dictates that the settlements are illegal, though the Israeli government argues that it needs to hold the territory for security purposes. There are good arguments for both.
The West Bank is rife with human rights abuses on both sides of the table. Palestinian terrorists and mobs regularly attack settlements and Israeli soldiers. Still, the settlers and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) uproot innocent Palestinian villagers, conduct violent operations, and limit freedom of movement.
Not exactly a straightforward situation.
The West Bank has experienced several Intifadas (uprising in Arabic) where Palestinian society essentially went to war against the Israeli government.
In any event, the West Bank *is* generally safe to go to for Americans if you follow instructions and don’t bother anyone. It is essential to go because when you do go, the lines start to blur. You realize that the media narratives that you hear just don’t make a whole lot of sense.
I’ll give you an example: Israeli settlements are regularly built with Palestinian labor and contracting companies, who are getting rich off of the status quo.
In any event, back to the bulletproof bus.
The bus rode into the biblical hilltops, and we gazed into the hills filled with goats and shepherds. We observed large Palestinian cities that looked thousands of years old, bordered by Israeli settlements with gleaming multifamily apartment buildings and suburbs that looked as comfortable as Palo Alto, California.
It was like being transported into a world that was utterly familiar and utterly foreign. I had heard about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict my entire life, but I was only starting to learn what it was really like.
(This wasn’t my first time to the West Bank — I have family living in a settlement further north, and I visited their home for Shabbat several times the year before).
We drove towards Hebron, the second holiest city in Judaism. Hebron is the home of the Cave of the Patriarchs and the Matriarchs: the most ancient Jewish site on planet earth. The Cave is the second holiest place in Judaism, after the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
This property was purchased by Abraham 3700 years ago. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah — the Judaism originals — are all buried here. This is as profoundly biblical as it can get. We were driving towards the fundamental source of it all.
The Cave is also very significant in Islam (though not quite as important — the top Islamic holy sites are in the Arabian Peninsula and Jerusalem. I’m not saying that to say one deserves it more than the other, precisely the opposite, just a clarification)
Today, Hebron is a city of around 200,000 people. The vast majority of its residents are Palestinian. It also represents one-third of the GDP of the West Bank.
Less than one thousand Jewish settlers live near the city center and the Cave. The IDF has constructed a military base to protect the population and the holy sites.
Hebron has experienced some of the most horrific violence of the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In 1994, Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli doctor, experienced a mental breakdown and opened fire on hundreds of Palestinian worshipers on a mosque that borders the Cave — killing 29 and injuring hundreds.
During the first (‘87-’93) and second intifada (‘00-’05), the Jewish community was under constant assault from Palestinian terrorists. In 2001, a Palestinian sniper shot a Jewish baby.
In response, the IDF took extreme measures to lock the Jewish community down and protect the holy sites. This is why Hebron is the most militarized city I have ever visited.
As we approached the city in our bulletproof bus (now you understand why), we drove through a nearby Jewish settlement called Kiryat Arba. Asian Jewish Orthodox women walked the streets with traditional religious headscarves.
Read that sentence again. Yes, you read that correctly.
The B’nai Menashe is a group of 10,000 people from India’s northeast border regions with Myanmar. They claim descent as one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Their physical appearance is similar to the broader population in this region.
They appealed to the State of Israel to return to their spiritual homeland and were granted acceptance as a legitimate Jewish population. Three thousand members of the B’nai Menashe have made aliyah (literally: ascent) to Israel.
They have a significant presence in Kiryat Arba and Hebron, and they serve and deploy in the IDF in the region. We saw Asian IDF troops walking throughout the streets when we were there.
Our bus left the settlement and drove into Hebron.
It felt like entering Baghdad. Troops everywhere. Streets filled with Palestinian merchants with smartphones selling their colorful spices and sizzling meats. Rolling hills, narrow streets. Old buildings topped with water tanks and satellite dishes. Ancient met modern in the most extreme way.
We were met by an Orthodox Jewish tour guide who walked us around the streets of the Jewish areas. He made Seinfeld jokes and told us about the history of the community, of their beauty and trauma. Down the road, a Palestinian woman with a full Burka glared at us.
We walked by a synagogue filled with Jewish children dressed up in cute costumes. A man was speaking to them. My Hebrew wasn’t excellent, but I could pick up on what he was saying to them about Palestinians. Cringe.
We got back on the bus and drove to the Cave. We walked into the central plaza, filled with a crowd of Jewish settlers, again with Asian Orthodox Jewish children running in every direction (was I tripping?).
I entered the Cave, and there was a minyan (Jewish prayer group) proceeding. I said some prayers, I followed along, but honestly, I didn’t fully get it. I didn’t process the significance of what I was doing. Only now can I see how powerful that experience was. I was connecting to Deep Judaism.
As I walked out of the Cave, I watched the people entering and noticed the garb they were wearing. If you had asked me the week before whether these people were the same religion as me, I would have said: no chance. I recognized none of what these people represented.
But then again again, the Hebron experience taught me that I knew very little about Judaism.
I knew the safe, comfortable, familiar Western Wall. I did not know what Hebron was. But I connected with some kind of exquisite infinity in the Cave that will never leave me.
I got something to eat, and the group was ready to leave. As I was waiting in the plaza, I spoke with one of the soldiers waiting by the gate. I thanked him and asked him about his experience.
He said something along the lines of “these are holy sites, and we must protect them at all costs.” And that was it.
(Several years, a soldier positioned in a similar place was shot and killed by a sniper).
We got back on the bus and departed through the city. We drove by a flock of sheep, and our group, a bunch of naive Jewish college students, started waving to young shepherds.
The teenagers looked at us and spit at us.
I know nothing.
I left Hebron with only questions, questions, and more questions. It has taken me eight years to process what I saw there.
Here’s what I have to say: I am fully in support of Jewish and Palestinian human rights. I am also a fervent believer that both religions need to have access to their holy sites. This is a fundamental right. And when those sacred sites sit right next to each other (or are the same thing), we need to negotiate compromises.
It is obvious to me that certain Palestinian factions are interested in denying Jews from visiting the Cave — or perhaps destroying it. Plenty of Jewish settlers have suggested just as much about Muslim holy sites.
Have we made judgments about the Israeli-Palestinian (or should we call it: Jewish-Islamic) conflict without this critical information? Should we trust what we read in the media? Do we have all of the facts about why the Israeli government does what it does, or why Palestinians are so angry?
Here is what we need to do: learn, learn, learn. Observe, observe, observe.
As Westerners, we do NOT understand this part of the world, and we need to stop imposing policies that do not take into account local context, however well-meaning. This is why the two-state solution has failed so miserably.
I believe that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is solvable, and it is the doorway to peace in a lot of other parts of the world.
Who is going to solve this conflict? NOT (non-Jewish/Palestinian) AMERICANS.
Jews and Palestinians. Not the well-meaning European human rights activists, not the left wing progressives from college campuses. It must be solved deep in the hornet’s nest, among the most conservative factions in the region. These are the people who are capable of creating change.
We must be empathetic to understand why they do what they do, and from where they come.
I want to see a secure, peaceful Israel. I also want to see a secure, peaceful Palestine.
This is on us.
