Loading ...OPINION: A Palestinian walks into a synagogue… | Al Jazeera America
A year after last summer’s war between Israel and Hamas, which lasted for 50 days and killed at least 2,251 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 74 Israelis, the Gaza Strip remains in ruins. Most of the 12,000 Palestinian homes destroyed during the conflict have not been rebuilt. Much of the pledged international aid is yet to be disbursed. An estimated 20,000 Palestinians still struggle to access basic amenities at temporary shelters.
Last fall and while the dust was still settling on what was left of Gaza, I walked into a synagogue in Andover, Massachusetts. A mutual friend had introduced me to the rabbi, who extended an invitation to talk at their Shabbat service. I wanted to share my experience living under Israeli occupation in Palestine.
The congregation is reconstructionist and clearly open-minded, but I knew my talk would be nothing but contentious. The gap between the reality of Israel’s occupation and the pro-Israel narrative fed to the American Jewish community is astounding. Israeli media outlets targeted at American Jews portray Israel as a last line of defense against another Holocaust and paint its actions as purely defensive.
They rarely acknowledge the existence of the Palestinians and describe the military occupation of their land with euphemisms, as if it is nothing but a scheme to distribute candy to Palestinian children. They attack anyone who challenges this narrative with accusations of anti-Semitism, including Jews, progressive liberals, or both.
But there is also a rise in Jewish support for the Palestinian cause ironically due to the new media’s ability to provide alternative narratives and expose state-centric propaganda. Today, it is not difficult to find out the truth about life in the occupied territories. To get a glimpse of this reality, one can simply watch a video of Israeli soldiers releasing an attack dog on a Palestinian child or of Israeli soldiers arresting and carelessly throwing an 11-year-old boy in the back of a jeep.
It is often overlooked that the plight of the Palestinian people, as perceived by the Palestinians, looks eerily similar to the plight of the Jewish people, as perceived by the Jewish people. They are both peoples of the Diaspora. They longed, or are still longing for a piece of the same real estate. They were both persecuted by ultra-nationalistic powers that underestimated humanity’s capacity to survive, even if those powers differ substantially in how and why they acted. As a result, both Palestinians and Jews live with collective existential traumas, which are impossible to ignore or resolve. If anyone could empathize with being a Palestinian, it would probably be someone of a Jewish background.
Source: america.aljazeera.com