Winning Peace
It was our last weekend trip on Sunday, and it was a great reminder of what I should be taking away from this trip in relation to the conflict here. We all got up very early in the morning to head down to southern Israel... right next to the Gaza Strip. We visited the cities of Ashkelon and Sderot, the cities that are in constant threat of Kassam rockets. There, we met a few people who each had very different opinions about the conflict.
The first person we met was a man from Nitsan, which is a temporary "town" not too far from Gaza. The residents of Nitsan are ex-settlers from Gush Katif, an Israeli settlement in Gaza that was evacuated in 2005. The man we met was very right-wing, and it was sometimes hard to prevent ourselves from speaking our minds and debating with him. But we certainly learned a lot from him. In the program that we are in, it is not often that we hear about how Israelis suffer from the conflict here, and therefore it was a good opportunity to hear what this man had to say and what his opinion about the conflict has developed into because of his experiences.
We next visited Kibbutz Zitim and met with a man who held quite the opposite opinion about the conflict. For those of you who don't know, a kibbutz is a socialist community in Israel in which everyone shares everything, including workload, with the rest of the inhabitants. Most kibbutzim are small (a few hundred people) and only about 80 of 260 kibbutzim are left (the rest have developed into different kinds of communities). The man we met had a very left-wing view of the conflict, believing that both sides, Israel especially, are messing things up.
After visiting Zitim, we had a tour of Sderot and the surrounding area, which included looking into Gaza from a distant hilltop. We also visited a police station that housed a kind of Kassam rocket "museum." A couple of years ago, then-presidential candidate Obama stood next to those exploded rockets and gave a speech, expressing that he would expect Israel to do everything possible to protect its children from such attacks. Kassam rockets are usually just "recycled" metal lampposts with fins stuck to the sides and a crude explosive mechanism stuffed inside. They're not very accurate, but dangerous enough for bus stops to be turned into outside shelters, buildings to be constructed or reconstructed with reinforced concrete, and for people to build their own in-home shelters. The people live in constant threat and fear.
The last part of the trip was a short side-step to another kibbutz called Kerem Shalom. This kibbutz is right on the border of Gaza (30 meters away) and Egypt (less than 2 km away). The man we met there was pretty middle of the road in terms of viewpoint. While he was speaking, I could tell the stress of living there wore on him, and I'm sure it didn't help that he was in charge of security. All in all, I found myself feeling sorry that he had to live under such stress.
One of the speakers on the trip said something that I think describes both the problem and the solution to this conflict. He said, "We often talk about winning wars, but we never talk about winning peace." The following is what I "read" in that comment. Most people talk and boast about being the victor in violence and how they caused either more violence than their opponent or the right application of violence. But when we do this, we miss the point. Why are we promoting and/or committing violence in the first place? This is the problem that Israel and Palestine face. The people here are caught up in one big cycle of violence. Eventually, someone has to step up and stop the cycle. It's time to stop thinking about being the victor and start working towards Peace. By Peace, I don't just mean the absence of violence... I mean the presence of Justice, and living with each other as fellow human beings. I challenge all of us, myself included, to stop trying to win battles amongst ourselves - spouses, parents, children, siblings, friends, enemies, etc. - and to start trying to win Peace.
Submitted by: AF
