Finding the real in the midst of what my TV shows me of Israel

My friend Craig Miller posted his thoughts earlier today on the current news coming out of Israel, and as I was reading I thought back to my own experience of Israel this past January.  And I should start by saying that life in the strip of land between the Mediterranean Ocean and the Jordan River is far more complex than American news sources are capable of reporting.  The narrative that you and I hear coming from every major news source is that there are two essentially two sides that are separated by culture and religion and cannot come to terms for sustained peace because of these differences... this narrative is incomplete and if we try to make value judgments with this as our baseline understanding of the conflict, we will almost surely be in error.

When Cindy and I were there, we were instructed by Rabbi Brad Hirschfield to do what we could to suspend judgment as we heard the stories of the people.  He encouraged us to assume that every person we talked to was being honest and that each of them were describing their interpretation of the reality of their lives.  He said that if we went into our experience looking for what is true we would leave frustrated, but rather if we listened for the real, we would have a robust, enlightening experience.  I listened to his advice and these are the realities that I remember from my trip to Israel.

The Main-line Ben Gurion reality:
In the early 20th Century, Mayor Meir rode his mare, Mayer, into Tel Aviv and started a colony for displaced, discouraged, disenfranchised Jews from across Europe.  One of the early founders of this city was a man named David Greene.  Greene would later be known as Ben Gurion and when the British left the land in 1948, Ben Gurion, along with the first Israeli paliament declared that Israel would be a Jewish state in the Holy Land.  Within 24 hours, all the surrounding nations attacked, but by God's grace Israel survived.  In the year's following the Israeli government has acted in the best interest of Jews around the world providing a safe place to live to a people group who have been persecuted continuously for 3,000 years.  While Israel isn't perfect (for instance, Sephardic Jews were discriminated against in the 80s and 90s), it offers greater freedom, safety, and prosperity than the other states in the region and has the only functional, quality centralized health care system in the world.

The Palestinian refugee camp reality:
In 1948, the Jews removed the locals from their homes, gave them a tent, and put them in open air prisons promising that in two weeks they would take them back to their homes.  It has been 65 years, and they are still waiting to go back to their home.  In the last 65 years the refugees endure daily dehumanization from IDF guards and have developed a strong disdain for their jailers.  The camps are overcrowded, but if someone tries to build on empty land beyond the boundaries of the camp, their home is demolished by bulldozers in the night.

The National Religious Party Reality:
Forget the last century, three millenia ago, God gave them the land and by God they are going to live in it.  Settlements are not illegal, but rather the will of God who promised the land to the children of Abraham.  With each settlement, God's will is coming to pass.  (Some of the more hardliners would call for the expulsion of all non-Jews from any land that was Israel/Judah during the time of the unified kingdom)

The Bedouin reality:
In the last 40 years, the Israeli government has bulldozed 80% of their communities, and even now the communities that are still intact have rules which forbid putting permanent roofs on homes, installing sewage systems, and other essentials for thriving.

The Eritrean and Sudanese refugee reality:
As many as 100,000 African refugees have come to Israel looking for a safe place to work and live, while their country is embattled in bloody civil wars.  They, in union with human rights groups are asking for work visas so that they can enjoy the privileges of being documented workers.

The Conscientious Objector reality:
At 18 Israeli citizens (with some exceptions) are expected to join the Israeli Defense Force.  Some of these soldiers after seeing the inequity and oppression of the Palestinians conscientiously object to the way in which their own government has governed its neighbors in the Holy Land.

The bartender at our hotel's reality:
Palestinians (he was one) are stupid.  The only way they can live in prosperity is to come to grips with the reality that the Jews are here to stay.  Learn the rules and play by them, quit dreaming of the way things were 70 years ago, because the world is a different place.  Educate yourself and learn how to live in the Jewish world.

These are just thumbnail sketches of the realities that I can remember.  What I learned is that I need to be really slow in judging who is right and wrong, understanding that such value judgments run the risk of dehumanizing both sides.