Ron Kehrmann’s 17-year-old daughter Tal loved camels.
For almost a decade Ron has worn a camel-shaped pin as an excuse to talk about Tal, who was killed in a suicide bombing in Haifa, Israel in 2003.
Imad abu-Zahra, a journalist, was holding nothing but a camera when he bled to death from a gunshot wound in 2002. His mother Um Imad now runs a women’s empowerment center near the Jenin refugee camp in Palestine in his memory.
In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, every event is disputed, every word is chosen carefully. But human suffering is not debatable.
For three weeks I, along with a group of about 20 UCLA and UC Irvine students of diverse backgrounds, traveled throughout Israel, the West Bank and Jordan. We traveled as members of the Olive Tree Initiative, an apolitical organization dedicated to education and conflict resolution. We met with affected civilians like Ron and Um Imad, as well as politicians, NGO leaders and academic experts with a spectrum of experiences and opinions.
Just like many at UCLA, the students on my trip were educated about the history and complexities of the conflict. Some of them were Israeli or Jewish and some Palestinian or Arab, so many of us grew up with the conflict at home, too.
At UCLA, the Israeli-Palestinian debate generally manifests in arguments over resolutions and rhetoric. Many of us base our activism, our staunch and unwavering positions, on pages in books we’ve read or words our communities have always sworn by. We swallow information secondhand and reflect it back into the world as truth.
We ignore, compare, justify or deny the suffering of others.
On the trip, our group met all kinds of people with legitimate grievances, with internal scars and with crushing fear. I saw parts of the region I never knew existed – the gutted-out concrete buildings of Bil’in in the West Bank, where the ground is still littered with tear gas canisters and charred from burning tires. I saw the active minefields in the Golan Heights, left over from the war with Syria, fenced off with barbed wire.
We moved past the pages of textbooks and saw firsthand the pain and fear etched into the psyche of this entire region. And I began to note how that collective pain and fear squirms its way into policy, into relationships and into prejudice.
I felt a murky combination of confusion and despair for much of the trip. While we traveled, Secretary of State John Kerry launched the newest round of peace talks in the region. But in our conversations and site visits, which were full of animosity and uncertainty, the success of a comprehensive peace deal seemed a little far-fetched.
I drew hope for peace from people and organizations that demonstrated an honest and pragmatic sense of understanding, and did not feel threatened by doing so.
The Peres Center for Peace, for example, brings together Palestinian and Israeli youth in joint soccer leagues, leadership trainings and peace education.
Israeli citizen Ronny Edry began a Facebook campaign called “Israel Loves Iran.” He receives thousands of pictures from Iranians and Israelis that read “We will not bomb your country” and “We love you.” The campaign has sparked the creation of new groups like “Palestine Loves Israel” and “Israel Loves Palestine.”
Negotiators will not achieve any common ground without understanding the charges behind key words like “security” and “contiguous borders,” or the psychological impact of fear and trauma on their respective populations.
And if we at UCLA do not so much as recognize the hurt of the “other,” whether the “other” is in a far-off land or down the dorm hall, we condemn ourselves to a severely limited worldview. But we also harm our own causes.
As Americans, especially those with ties to the region, we have the ability to influence our communities and perhaps the future of the conflict.
But continuing to refuse to look each other in the eyes, or to acknowledge that death, love, fear, resentment and deep-seated connection to land and community exists in their reality as well, we limit our ability to influence the conflict positively.
On our countless bus rides, our group argued. We disputed terms, history and strategy. And while it was rare, we sometimes even yelled at each other. But even then, when I reached a total deadlock with someone different from me religiously, ethnically and politically, I felt respected.
Understanding trauma, understanding the deep-seated connection both peoples have to their causes and to each other, does not normalize, nor does it demonize. It gives people like Ron and Um Imad the respect they deserve. And it gives all of us a little more reason to believe that peace is possible.
Email Ferdman at mferdman@media.ucla.edu or tweet her @MaiaFerdman. Send general comments to opinion@media.ucla.edu or tweet us @DBOpinion.
Problem is, Maia, Islam knows no respect for others particularly when it comes to Jews.
Now you elegantly encourage others to study and learn about the situation yet you know so little yourself. You think you do, but you do not.
Islam is a supremacist religion and anyone with eyes, ears and a modicum of intelligence can figure this out. Nowhere in the Islamic world do we find true equality for non-Muslims and often it is the opposite where non-Muslims fear for their lives.
And, of course, Israel is in the worst position in this regard for despite your idealistic (which means unreal) words to the contrary if Palestinians were given the opportunity they would not embrace Jews but would kill them and push them into the sea.
Now you have the opportunity to dream being a southern Californian but the Israelis cannot dream. They have to keep it real or lost their loved ones. Words are cheap and your blessed with the gift of penmanship so go write a play, but don’t pretend to tell anything real about this conflict as it is clear you know nothing about it, much less about Islam’s historic hatred of Jews.
Much of your lies about Islam have been debunked on Loonwatch, which has demolished your idol, Spencer, lies about Islam. Google it
I agree with your thoughts. See my comment above. Thanks
And thank you too.
Arafat, so Islam is a supremacist religion and Judaism which emphasis “the chosen people” who are above all gentiles, is not? Are you ignorant of Jewish history? Read the old testament, you will see endless stories about Jews glorifying themselves over non-jews and justifying the genocide of tribe after tribe just because they are gentiles. This is not just history, it is playing out now with many Israelis who dehumanize Palestinians and non-Jews and justify ethnic cleansing and discrimination based on the Talmud and the Torah.
Ro,
Religions are not as simple as you apparently believe. Nor are societies like Israel in which there exists separation of “church” and state as opposed to Islamic countries where Sharia law (Allah’s law) and religion dominate governments.
Yes, Jews consider themselves the chosen people but their religion also emphasizes values upon which the Golden Rules were based. If Judaism was anything like Islam – as you insinuate – then I guarantee you there would be more than 14 million Jews alive today as compared to the 1.4 billion Muslims living today.
Jews are good at whatever they put their minds at: Science, medicine, law, arts, charity, you name it. If the Jewish religion valued aggressive Jihad (as you insinuate) then Jews would be good at it and they would control the Middle East, North Africa, southern Asia, the Caucus region as Muslims currently do.
This is especially true given the fact that Judaism goes back thousands of years before Islam began.
Yet there are only 14 million Jews alive versus 1.4 billion Muslims. Tell us how this is so if Judaism is a war-mongering religion like Islam? Why has Islam violently conquered all these lands, forcibly converted, raped and pillaged while the Jews have contented themselves with a little sliver of land no bigger than a pimple on the caliphate’s ass?
Tell us how this fits into your simple-minded thesis.
Thank you for this nuanced essay that ultimately calls on us as an academic community to recognize our common humanity and to strive to find peaceful resolutions to complex conflicts.
While it’s an understatement to say the majority of the violence in region is perpetrated by the side serving as a proxy for U.S. imperialism, that doesn’t diminish the fact that people on both sides suffer. Ms. Ferdman is right to point out that all the victims of the conflict have names, family members, and communities.
Unlike most of the hateful comments that already appear here under the essay, Ferdman and her fellow student travel-mates’ desire to learn, listen, and work for peace is an indication of the way forward. It is stories like this that give me hope.
You want hatred? Try this on or size….
“The last tribe to remain was the Banu
Qurayza. Like the others, the Qurayza were a peaceful community of farmers
and tradesmen who eventually surrendered to Muhammad without a fight.
Although the prophet of Islam had been wise enough not to order the wholesale
slaughter of the first two tribes following their defeat (which certainly would
have stiffened the resistance of the Qurayza), there was no practical reason for
Muhammad to repress his genocidal urges once the last tribe had surrendered
their wealth and power.
Over 800 surrendered men and boys (and at least one woman)
from the Qurayza tribe were beheaded by the prophet of Islam in a bloodbath that
is of acute embarrassment to today’s Muslim apologists. It is an episode
that is not only completely at odds with the idea that Islam is a peaceful
religion, but also the claim that it is the heir to Christianity, since even
that religion’s most dedicated critics could hardly imagine Jesus and his
disciples doing such a
thing.
It is only in modern times, as Islam finds itself
having to compete with morally mature religions in open debate, that the story
of the massacre has become controversial. Some Muslims deny the episode,
largely on the basis of mere inconvenience. Others are unaware of it
altogether. But, not only is the incident well documented in the Hadith
and Sira (biography of Muhammad), there is even a brief reference to it in the
Qur’an (verse
33:26).”
Instead, the prophet of Islam had the men bound with rope. He dug trenches and
then began beheading the captives in batches. In a scene that must have
resembled footage of Hitler’s death squads, small groups of helpless Jews,
who had done no harm to anyone, were brought out and forced to kneel, staring
down at the bodies of others before their own heads were lopped off and their
bodies were pushed down into the ditch.
There is some evidence that Muhammad personally engaged in the slaughter. Not
only does the earliest narrative bluntly say that the apostle “sent for them” and “made an
end of them,” but there is also support for this in the Qur’an. Verse 33:26 says
of the Qurayza, “some you slew, some you took captive.” The Arabic
“you: is in the plural, but the Qur’an is supposed
to be Allah’s conversation with Muhammad, so it makes no sense that he
would not be included.
In any event, there is no denying that Muhammad found pleasure in the slaughter,
particularly after acquiring a pretty young Jewish girl (freshly “widowed” and
thus available to him for sexual servitude) (Ishaq/Hisham 693).
Other women were not quite as compliant.
The historians record the reaction of one woman who literally lost her mind as
her family was being killed. The
executioners apparently found her maniacal
laughter annoying and beheaded her as well. As Aisha later recounted:
“I will not forget that she was
laughing extremely although she knew that she would be killed” (Abu
Dawud 2665)
(One can forgive Aisha’s obtuseness. At the time
that she and her husband
sat observing the
carnage together, the wife of Muhammad was only 12-years-old).
Boys as young as 13 or 14 were executed as well, provided that they had reached
puberty. The Muslims ordered the boys to drop their clothes. Those with pubic
hair then had their throats cut (Abu Dawud
4390). There was no point in
trying to determine whether or not they were actual combatants because there
were none. There had been no combat!
Muhammad parceled out the widows and surviving children as slaves to his men
for sexual servitude and labor.
The wealth accumulated by the Qurayza was also divided. Since the tribe had been
a peaceful farming and trading community, there were not enough weapons and
horses taken to suit Muhammad’s tastes, so he obtained more of these by trading
off some of the Qurayza women in a distant slave market (Ishaq 693).
In addition to the main question as to why people
who had not killed anyone were put to death and enslaved, there are several others
raised by Muhammad’s massacre of the Qurayza. For example, the Quran
says that no bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another” (Quran
53:38)
yet every
member of the tribe was punished for a decision pressed on one reluctant member.
And what of the places in the Qur’an where violent passages are sometimes
mitigated by the occasional admonishment to cease killing those who stop
fighting? The surrendered Qurayza had never even fought in the first
place.
Thank you. That was a fine essay. Its nice to feel other’s pain and look into the eyes of your enemy human and try to find some accord, but values are the key to all of this. Humans with bad values have pain but they need to change their values or be fought. Israel is a wonderful democracy with deep respect for law, democratic institutions, the right to free speech, press and religious practice and a deep longing for peace with its neighbors. It is surrounded by people with a terrible value system (not every individual of course)- people holding a value system that desires wish to annihilate the Jewish state and its infidels and replace it with another degraded soft or hard tyranny in the middle east. Its simple but not simplistic. Its nice to feel others pain and humanity but values are key to leading a good life. Take a look at the great Prager University 5 minute “course” on the mid east at: http://www.prageruniversity.com/Political-Science/The-Middle-East-Problem.html#.Uk2S8ihQNS8
best regards: Howard Sachs/Washington DC