Does an Eye for an Eye Make the Whole World Blind?

Initial Reflections on Israel

There are many realities here that I am trying to unearth, to explain or rationalize or just see clearly. It all begins with history, with the perpetual persecution and "othering" of the Jewish people. When Israel, the Jewish nation, became a reality in 1947 and then extended in 1967, it seemed that Jews would finally be able to live as one in the absence of ghettos and markers and all the things that made Europe and other locations unbearable for the Jewish people. But as David Schulman pointed out tonight, Jerusalem is defined by ghettos. Whether this can be called projection or retaliation or the nature of human dynamics is not for me to say. It is so clear here that the branding, the consequences of being identified as Jewish or Palestinian or Arab or tourist, defines daily life to an extreme extent. People are not living here simply as people living in a nation. They are living here as communities and enclaves that connote dangerous potentials--their ID cards and passports and religious affiliations are demanded of them at random, in drugstores, at historic sites, on city sidewalks. Has the collective memory of persecution, first in the Jewish community and now fermenting in the Palestinian community, really led to respite from this persecution? Doesn't an eye for an eye make the whole world blind?

There are too many parts that I am struggling to piece together here: the Palestinian experience, the many Jewish perspectives, the role of the Israeli government, what it means to claim what you deserve, to speak a different language, to ignore similarities when the particularities define the deserving-ness. These are only some of the things I'm trying to understand.

I am also thinking about newness. Though I have no real sense of what was here before 1947 or even before 1967, I doubt it was in Hebrew. How has an entirely self-sufficient, self-perpetuating, self-defined nation developed in such a short time? How is it that it seems as though this is how life has been here forever?

Another element to process is fear. Two incidents today paused the pace of daily life in Jerusalem for a handful of moments before business returned to usual. Near the King David Hotel, a Palestinian turned a construction tractor onto pedestrians, injuring about thirty people. Nearly simultaneously, the doors to the Old City were closed, creating a fortified section of what has become a much larger urban realm. Around the same time, two blocks from where we stood, watching, an Israeli officer detonated an abandoned duffel bag that was considered a suspicious package. Once the streets reopened, locals photographed the charred contents--coping by calling it a novelty. In these moments, fleetingly, I understood the fear with which many residents of this terrain must life. Especially during intifadas, when anything is possible, how do you maintain both patience and composure?

Amongst all these thoughts, I visited some of the most holy sites in the world today. The Temple Mount, the Western Wall, the birthplace of Mary, the tomb of Jesus, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Via Dolorosa. These are the footprints and cornerstones of modern history. These are the symbols that restrict and presuppose the ways that I will interact with Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Simultaneously, they should be informing and enlightening my own personal relationship with my spirituality. Each of these thoughts, or brackets of thoughts, could occupy me wholly. Which should take precedence? What is my duty? How can this visit define (in part, at least) the plot of my course?