This Tuesday I went up North to visit Kibbutz Metzer and the Arab village of Meiser. The theme of this week's siyur (trip) was coexistence and our guide explained that Metzer has lived peacefully with Meiser and the surrounding Arab villages across the road on the other side of the green line. From what we learned, Metzer and Meiser have a "very special relationship" though I am unclear about what that exactly means.
We heard a presentation from the Educational Director of Meiser, walked along the green line and then sat through a second session, this time with the secretary of the Kibbutz.
Saied describes himself as an Israeli Arab Muslim Palestinian. In his speech and in the Q&A that followed he spoke about his family background as a Palestinian, his conflicting loyalties to the country he lives in and the people he is a part of and his hopes for the future. I walked out of the session feeling frustrated. This man would be considered to be one of the more open minded of those on the Palestinian side of the conflict and his audience equally as open minded and yet I couldn't help but feel a hopelessness for the future. Our viewpoints and ideas for how to achieve peace are so infuriatingly different it gave me a new appreciation for all politicians and leaders and peace makers who have ever sat across the table from Palestinian leaders such as Arafat and successfully fought the urge not to strangle him when he spoke. The following are a few examples of things that were particularly urksome to me:
- While he several times reiterated his loyalty to the land he lives in, he is strongly against any type of national service. Israeli Arabs are excused from military duty because of the possibility of a conflict of interest that may arise. However, they don't do sherut leumi (national service) instead, and are actually strongly against it because of the programs ties to the army.
- When asked how peace can be achieved he said both sides must compromise. When pressed further he said a compromise for the Palestinians would be to accept the pre-1967 borders and well...for the Israelis to compromise on everything else.
- When asked if he would remain in Meiser if a Palestinian state were created he said he would. But later on he said that all Jews would have to leave this Palestinian state. Something of a double standard.
Perhaps it was just that we were all extraordinarily tired that day but it wasn't a very interesting siyur. It mostly left me feeling fairly depressed about any hopes of a lasting peace in the near future. It just seems the more I learn about the Arab-Israeli Conflict and the problems in the Middle East in general, the more complicated and hopeless the situation seems.
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