I visited the Knesset, Israel's legislature, on Thursday and was quite struck by what I saw. I knew that Israel is a Jewish state, but the meaning of that really didn't hit me until I saw its most powerful force for my own eyes. The entire building has been inundated with Jewish symbols and scripture and art work, even the way the seats of the Knesset members are arranged are in the shape of a menorah. Our tour guide assured us that the system was fully democratic and that all citizens could attend, observe and sometimes participate in the Knesset process. But all I could think was - are Palestinians allowed here? Can they participate? Can they even vote for the people who are ruling over them? And how exactly is a one state solution even possible when the amalgamation of these two cultures would leave almost half of the population ostracized by the religious affiliation of its own government? I know the answers to these questions, but their relevancy struck me as though I had never even considered them before.
At the Knesset I met a young German woman who had been volunteering at a German guest house for a few months and is leaving next week. She and I chatted throughout the tour (and noted several times that we felt as though we were in an art galley, as a significant portion of the tour consisted of looking at artwork done by Marc Chagall), and afterwards she invited me for coffee with some of her friends who were also volunteering at German guest houses around the city. We went to a beautiful guest house in the old city near Damascus gate where we met with four of her friends, all from Germany. I asked them how they were treated being German in Israel, and surprisingly very few have had any negative encounters. But what interested me the most was when they explained to me that in Germany, many people are afraid to be proud of being German, as if this pride somehow insinuates that they agree with the Holocaust. They said outside of Germany most people bear their German nationality proudly, but in Germany people hardly even fly German flags. It has become part of their national psyche to be self-critical as a country and to be very careful in what they believe and do. Some of the people I was with seemed to think that this notion was changing through the newer generations, but there was a clear consensus that it is omnipresent in today's Germany.
For the past few days I've been staying in Jaffa with Elias at the Sadaka Reut commune where he stays. Here I met a fascinating young woman who stays here sometimes because her home with her family is in Ariel, a settlement close to Tel-Aviv in the West Bank. It is one of the larger settlements and consists mostly of Russian immigrants. Her family is originally from Russia, and used to live in Israel proper until approximately a year ago when it became too expensive for them to continue to live where they were living. They were faced with the options of either moving to a small, crowded, inner-city location or moving to a bright, spacious, new house in a settlement - each costing the same amount. Wanting her younger sister to have safe and positive surroundings (as this woman was just about to graduate high school), they chose the settlement. She realizes how terrible settlements are, but knows that her parents don't see it in the same light as she does. Having educated herself about settlements and in interacting with local Palestinians, she has broken what she describes at the settlement "bubble" which most settlers never escape - they simply drive on their Israeli-only roads to and from Jerusalem or Tel-Aviv to their daily jobs and don't see what is happening around them. It's really exciting to see a small glimmer of hope in these communities that can hopefully share their ideas with others.
I will be leaving Israel tomorrow to head to Jordan, where I will begin the more touristy part of my trip (although I believe I said this when I entered Israel, and that clearly didn't happen!). I will continue to blog as I go, but probably more infrequently. I am sad to leave here as I have learned so much and feel that there is so much more to understand. What I have realized in this conflict, though, is that whenever I learn something new, there is always exponentially more that I must then comprehend. This conflict is incredibly complicated and yet simply black and white. I leave this country feeling frustrated in that I still don't know exactly what can be done to solve the problem, and yet with hope that I believe that peace will prevail.
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