Nationalism

Today we had a seminar on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords. That year marked a real turning point in which the Palestinian Liberation Front finally acknowledged Israel’s right to exist and Israel finally acknowledged the PLO as an authoritative entity over a unified people.

            The teacher shows us film clip after bloody film clip of the First and Second Intifadas. I’m shocked by a room filled with a shallow lake of bright blood being swept up by an Israeli emergency response worker, two cowering Palestinian boys being shot point-blank, and lynch mobs on both sides. The seminar ends with footage of an Orthodox Jewish family being removed from their settlement homes in the Gaza Strip. In 2005, that narrow piece of land was transferred back to the Palestinians. The mother and children scream in rage and claw as they’re gently carried out.

            Tonight, I hear our Madricha talking in our dimly lit apartment. The girl I live with mentions that someone in class asked if the Palestinians must have felt the same way when forced to flee their homes in 1948. The counselor pauses before answering.

            “With my humanity glasses on, yes, I can see the similarities, but no, I don’t think so. At the end of the day, I see it from my side and I want to protect my country.”

            I slip into my bedroom. I scowl until my brain hurts and I feel like I’m going to suffocate from all the contradictions. There has not been peace in the Middle-East since the invention of writing. A state by its nature will fall and when borders turn to vapor we’ll maybe see each other as the herds we’ve become. So if you have them, why the fuck would you take your humanity glasses off.