In the Margin

I traveled to Israel and Palestine on January 2023, nine months before the war broke out. The trip, organized in academic manners, aims to find peaceful resolutions for the decades-long Israel-Palestine conflict. Travelling from Tel-Aviv-Yafa to Jerusalem, to Bethlehem, and to Hebron, we engaged with activists, educators, religious leaders, and community leaders across the region.

Consequentially, the article was drafted around February 2023 as a reflective piece of the trip. It has been heavily revised from the original text to protect myself from any political retaliation – something I have to consider writing as an alien in the U.S., Israel’s biggest sponsor.

The views expressed on this blog are my own and do not reflect those of any institution I am or have been affiliated with. Critiques are welcomed, and errors are mine.

Israel’s Existential Fears

On the last day of our trip in Tel Aviv, I met an Israeli friend from Georgetown, a former lawyer who worked for the Ministry of Justice in East Jerusalem. Despite showing empathy for Palestinians, the fear of terrorist attacks and the breakout of wars is entrenched in her everyday life. When we farewelled, I told her I was deeply intrigued by the conflict and would come back to this land one day, in 2 years or 20 years. And she said, jokingly, “there may not be Israel in 20 years”. It was such a profound reflection composed of everyday fears, and never would I ever expect such words from an American or a Chinese.

One facet of the reason that contributes to this pervasive fear lies in generational trauma. The Jewish narrative is steeped in stories of exile, destruction, and massacres from Moses to the Holocaust. The fear of losing the Jewish nation (again and again!) overwhelms. Further, this fear is used to construct a Jewish nation-state and Zionism. As in many other nations, security concerns dominate domestic politics and reinforce the state’s presence in everyday life.

Beyond the security struggle, the Israel-Palestine conflict represents a clash between two contrasting identities. A common fear is the super-glue among different groups, replacing or at least existing in parallel with a common religion. For thousands of years, the Jewish religion has bound Jews around the globe. However, the unique origin story of Israel, that Jews from all over the world come together to construct a nation-state, brings great diversity to this land. Jews coming from different cultures, possessing original nationalities, and practicing different sects need a goal to build national solidarity. The goal was Zionism with a positive outlook toward a nation-state; as time passes, it has partly deteriorated into a fear towards Arabs (misbelievers who are already commonly associated with extremism and terrorism – how convenient). The fear of the common enemy becomes an external pressure that pushes the atoms closer to each other. The fear serves as a tool to unify Jews from different backgrounds.

Palestine’s Anger

In contrast to the Israeli fear, Palestinians exhibit great anger towards the unfair treatment they receive. During interactions with local Palestinians, words such as “enemy” and “fights” come up very often. I met a young Palestinian girl from the West Bank on the last day in Jerusalem. She told us that she studied Hebrew as a college student and would love to travel and see the world one day. She struck me as an educated, liberal-artsy young woman. I asked her why she wanted to study Hebrew, and with a shy and timid smile, she said, “We need to know our enemies to defeat them.” Although the peace treaty has existed for three decades, the warfare narrative and status are deeply entrenched in everyone’s mind. More than once, we heard Palestinians express their disillusion and anger about the peace-making process.

For a people whose right to exist and whose access to basic human rights are denied, anger has become a significant component of their identity. The othering process that the Jewish people towards the Arabs perpetuate is internalized by the Palestinian people themselves – if you do not claim Israel as your enemy, you’re not a true Palestinian.

This anger is further encouraged by Palestinian political organizations, namely the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas. Despite their different governing approaches and different natures, their leading position in the fight against Israelis has become one of the most important sources of legitimacy. It reminds me of the vanguardism of Leninism, where the communist party is described as the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat. Similarly, PLO and/or Hamas is the vanguard leading the advancement of the Palestine nation-state construction, acquiring its legitimacy, at least partially, from their fights against the Israeli government. Just like the existential fear unites Israelis, the anger toward the Jews also pushes Palestinians tighter. The PLO and Hamas further make the outrage against Israel the primary agenda dominating the entire Palestinian society, and essentially overshadowing other internal struggles that exist amongst the Palestinian people.

Reflection on Myself

Tel-Aviv is a huge echo chamber, a surreal bubble for secular (and potentially leftist) Jews away from Palestinians as well as the Ultra-Orthodox religious power. It is a place where it is easy to talk about politics over a nice cup of Starbucks – which does not even exist in the West Bank – and “vote correctly”. Certainly, we have also witnessed great Israeli journalists and activists, giving up their comfortable life and risking their lives standing between Palestinians and radical Zionists. If put into the same shoes, I question if I’d have the courage to do the same. I am ashamed of my hypocrisy. It was easy to talk about politics when I wasn’t directly affected by them, but would I have the courage to risk my life for what I believed in?

I cry for the people on this land.

© Yuhua Cai, 2022. All rights reserved.
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