About a week after news of Israel attacking Hamas broke in the U.S., I went on my Birthright trip to Israel.
Birthright, a program that sends young American Jews to Israel, lasts ten days and splits participants into different groups.’ My group had 29 Americans, and for four days, 7 Israeli soldiers toured the country and lived with us.
When I’d signed up to go months ago, I’d expected to explore Israeli culture and learn more about the state’s history and my Jewish heritage.’ Days before I went, friends tried to persuade me not to go, saying it would be too dangerous.’ Now safely back in the states, I believe I was lucky to have gone when I did.’ I learned more than I had ever expected to.’ Being in Israel in the midst of the conflict sparked intense conversation between our entire Birthright group and the Israeli soldiers we lived with– conversation that definitely would not have been so intense only a few weeks earlier.
In the U.S., I had never been able to fully understand the conflict between Israel and Hamas.’ I do not pretend now that I fully understand it, but I believe I had gained a new perspective by being there and that I learned a lot of truths, many of which most people outside of Israel and the Middle East are ignorant to.
For a while after the apparent cease-fire in 2006, I heard little to nothing of the conflict in the news.’ Then, one week before I was scheduled to leave, the media suddenly began reporting that Israel was attacking Hamas and the Gaza strip.’ No news station at first said why, only that it was so.’ Again, like I’d felt in 2006 when I first started trying to understand the conflict, I felt I was missing something.
In the few days before I left for Israel, I saw the news reports on CNN and other major stations, each focusing on the numbers of civilian deaths in the Gaza strip.’ After the first day of reporting that Israel had been on the offense, some news stations began to say it was because Hamas had been firing rockets into Israel.’ It wasn’t until I arrived in Israel that I learned that Hamas had been for weeks firing as many as 80 rockets a day into Israel.’ The U.S. media got around to telling that part by the time I came home.
When I learned of the 80 rockets per day, I first began to ask why there had been no mention of this in the U.S. news before Israel attacked.’ Was the reporting at home really so incomplete?’ Was it biased?’ It made no sense that the first big stories about the conflict suddenly arose because Israel decided to defend itself.’ Israeli soldiers I spoke to asked this same question of us.’ They too could not understand why the big news came when Israel decided to make a move.’ One person in our group suggested maybe it was the number of casualties the media cared about.’ It was an unsatisfying explanation, but the best we could come up with.
These were the first questions we asked of ourselves and each other.’ In the days to come, I learned even more about the conflict.’ I felt myself growing angry each time our group spoke and I realized how much wasn’t reported, and how much so many people- including myself only hours before- had been oblivious to.
In the U.S. when I heard reports of civilian deaths, I had always felt sadness and not much else.’ Unable to understand what the conflict was even really about, I doubted Israel and wondered how it could be worth it.’ All I had seen was the number of innocent lives taken everyday.
As our group talked and met with different Israeli leaders and guides, much of my sadness was replaced with anger.’ Anger for the things I learned Hamas was doing, anger for the lack of thoroughness on the part of U.S. media, and anger toward groups who were angry with Israel for defending itself.’ What other country in the world would sit by and take no offense while it was being relentlessly attacked for weeks?’ Israel warned Hamas, pleaded with them to stop before they had to act.’ I don’t know of any country with an army as strong as Israel’s that would wait so long before striking back.’ Imagine the U.S. doing nothing if it was attacked with 80 rockets a day.
Of course I still felt sadness when I learned of innocent deaths.’ Nothing made me feel any better about the innocent who were killed, but I knew more now.
The soldiers we lived with told us the side of Hamas Israel is dealing with, the side that is given proportionally little attention in the media.
‘Civilian deaths,’ as reported in the U.S. news, mean something different in Israel.’ No Israeli denies that innocent lives are taken, but many dispute some of the numbers the media comes up with.’ Also argued is how these deaths are portrayed in the news.
Hamas hides behind civilians.’ It uses them as shields.’ In the U.S., when we hear that 50 civilians were killed, it doesn’t always mean 50 innocent people.’ Hamas wears no uniform, and stands out no differently than innocent people on a crowded street.
Soldiers in our group told us that when Israel Defense Forces strike, they send warnings out to civilians.’ They target specific areas; places where they know Hamas leaders live or organize.’ The IDF never attacks at random the way Hamas randomly launches rockets over the Gaza border into Israel.’ The IDF knows who the Hamas leaders are, but true civilians, and evidently the media, do not always.
The more the media reports about civilian deaths in Gaza and the less about Hamas tactics, the happier Hamas is.’ Hamas is a terrorist organization– it cares nothing for any innocent civilians.’ It gains when there are reports of civilian deaths in the Gaza strip.’ It gets what it wants: people hear only about innocent deaths and suffering and begin to turn against Israel.
During my trip, I felt myself understanding Israel’s fight more and more.’ While nothing made me feel better about the loss of innocent lives, it became clear that there is truly no other way for Israel to protect itself at this time.
Hamas’s tactics and the unfair reporting of U.S. media were not the only things discussed on this trip.’ While I support Israel, I also learned that there are many faces of this conflict in the Middle East– not just the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.’ It seems that there are many things that still need to be understood.
At one conference we had near Haifa, the speaker there asked us to define who a Palestinian is.’ No one could come up with a clear answer.’ He asked: Was it someone who lived in the West Bank or Gaza?’ Someone who once lived in what was officially called Palestine?’ But weren’t some of those people also living in Israel– didn’t that make them Israeli also?’ Then he asked us to define who an Arab was.’ Just a person who spoke Arabic?’ Were Arabs living in Israel not Israeli also?
His point was that many people today aren’t sure exactly who they were referring to when they talked about Arabs and Palestinians.’ We learned that many people in the Middle East who thought of themselves as Arab or Palestinian found themselves conflicted, and not necessarily on one side or another.’ Because Israel is called the Jewish state, many who are not Jewish are not sure what their identity or their place in Israel is.
The conference we attended was in a community where Jews and Arabs lived next to each other.’ While they did not live exactly together, they were able to live in peace as neighbors.’ Unfortunately because of the conflict, we were unable to go into these villages and speak with some of the Arabs living there as we had been scheduled to.’
We did have a chance to speak to a group of Muslim Arabs while we were on the trip.’ The men we spoke to were called The Bedouins, a tribe that lives in the deserts in Israel.’ Our group asked them what they thought about the current conflict.’ One of the greatest surprises to m
e on this trip was the Bedouin’s response, when they said they were not involved in the politics of the state, and they truly meant it.’ It had seemed to be that just about everyone in Israel was involved in the politics somehow.
Since the trip, I feel more knowledgeable about the current Hamas and Israel conflict, as well as the other daily conflicts taking place in Israel between borders, religions, nationalities and identities.’ I feel that I am able to understand a lot more about the conflict, though I wish we had been able to speak to someone who identified themselves as Arabic or Palestinian who may have had a different view.
I learned that the important thing to understand about the conflict in the Middle East is to realize how much there still is to understand, and how many sides there are to everything.
As much as I have learned in my time in Israel, I have even more questions now.’ Out of everything, I think the most important thing I learned were truths in this current conflict between Hamas and Israel, and all of the things being left ignored in U.S. media reports.’ I feel grateful that the U.S. is on Israel’s side, and wish that the mainstream media would report more of the true face of Hamas, so that maybe more people could see that Israel is doing what is necessary, and only what is necessary.’ Most importantly though, I believe everyone needs to open their minds and try to see beyond what is being reported, and try to see that the Middle East is an entirely different world than anywhere else.’ It truly cannot be compared to anything else, which is why it is something you need to see to begin to understand.
“