This continues my series of posts on the recent trip I led to Israel.  As part of the Israel trip, we met with different groups working on coexistance.  One group–Encounter–focuses on bringing American and Israeli Jews into the West Bank to meet with Palestinians.  They describe their work thus:

Encounter provides the only oppor­tu­nity for main­stream American Jewish leaders to visit Palestinian terri­to­ries in the West Bank. On our Middle East program, a plural­istic group of Jewish leaders meet Palestinian civil­ians and leaders in Bethlehem, Hebron, or East Jerusalem and engage in thoughtful conver­sa­tion about the complex­i­ties of Israel and the conflict.

A diverse array of Jewish leaders–rabbis, Federation Executives, lay leaders, and Jewish educa­tors from every denomination–sleep in Palestinian homes, play with Palestinian school­children and gain unique, multi­fac­eted insight into Palestinian life. These programs include rich Jewish conver­sa­tion amongst Jewish partic­i­pants who have disparate polit­ical and reli­gious affil­i­a­tions and perspec­tives. Many partic­i­pants iden­tify this internal dialogue as an equally powerful part of the trip.

We heard from the leaders how important facilitiation skills (based on the Public Conversations Project) are used to help groups listen more carefully and respectfully to those perspectives that are often difficult to hear and one of our Muslim students noted that she thought this would be a terrific program for American Muslims–to come to Israel and hear a perspective that they normally do not get.  

Easily the worst part of the trip for me was at the beginning when one of my students was detained by Israeli immigration upon our entry to the country.  Although it was an experience that we had discussed as a possibility (she had visited grandparents in Pakistan and had the stamp in her passport), it still came as a scary surprise as it was occurring.  To then be bookended by her visit to the Dome of the Rock (where she was forced to prove her religion and fully cover herself in additional clothing) was a learning experience for all.  In the words of Nida Shakir:

In 2007, I was detained for eight hours at an Israeli-Egyptian checkpoint for merely wanting to tour Jerusalem, and because I was Muslim.  The tour group I was with left early in the morning so that we could pack in as many touristy things in the single day we had in the city.  However, upon entering from the southern checkpoint at the Sinai Peninsula, we were held at the border for eight hours.  By the time we were allowed in, we were only able to see a few sites in Jerusalem.  I left disappointed, disconcerted, and vowed that I would never return.

Who would have thought that five years later I would travel to Israel again. 

Much as I did in 2011, I will be posting some of the student reflections on the trip to Israel as the best way to reflect on the conflict.  I could brag about the students–what the students have learned, how being actually there is so important, how proud they made me with their insight and questions–but their words are so eloquent that I am mostly going to put them up on the blog directly with little editing.  This is from our first full day in Israel when we started our tour of Jerusalem with a view over the Old City.  Courtesy of Erika Frank Motsch:

I am standing atop the Mount of Olives. Jerusalem is before me. The time is near midday. On top of the land, I see every major monotheistic religion represented – Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The sun is shining; the sky is a bright blue that makes you believe you can reach out and touch it with your finger-tips. The wind brings mixes the exhilarating and calm smells of spicy and clean. At once, three beautiful sounds fill the air: Christian church bells, the Islamic call to prayer, and a Jewish prayer in Hebrew coming from a group of Orthodox Jewish men below. I am in awe. In this moment, I feel the beauty of each faith.

In that exact moment, I also begin to realize how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so much deeper than one of land and politics.