Let me tell you something about Israel that you won't read in the papers and you won't hear on the news: Israel is gorgeous. From the deep, crisp blues of the Mediterranean crashing on the shores of Tel Aviv to the dusty canvas of the Negev desert, Israel is one of the most beautiful countries you could ever imagine. Even the Bible doesn't do it justice.
Of course, there is a reason you don't normally read or hear about Israel's unsung beauty. The New York Times is not a travel brochure. And why write about the verdant, rocky paradise of the Golan, when you can write about the jungle of Syrian mines still lurking undiscovered there? Why write about Jerusalem and the way every street in the city seems to come alive, when you can write about the deaths of innocent victims at the hands of terrorists? This is news. This is politics. This is the land of Israel today, both at once beautiful and tragic, with one never separate from the other.
I've been to Israel twice, once when I was 13 and now this winter with Hillel's free Birthright program. It is called the Birthright program because, as a Jew, the land of Israel is my birthright. For nearly 4,000 years now, Jews have been a presence in Israel. Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, and since 1948 it has been an independent democratic state that has fought off its enemies 10 times over and deserves the right to exist. That said, Israel is also the home to Palestinians who have been on the land for centuries. Some argue the land belongs to the Jews. Others, the Palestinians. But you know what? It doesn't matter. It does not matter. Because both of us - both Jews and Palestinians - are in this mess together, and the only way we can get out of it is together, not at the expense or destruction of each other.
Walking back to the hotel from the Western Wall on a Friday night I ask Guy, our group's Israeli armed guard, how he feels about the Palestinians. Young and surprisingly modest, Guy has a cigarette in one hand, a cell phone in the other, and a gun slung over his shoulder.
"Many Palestinians are innocent," he says. "If a Palestinian wants to come stay at my house, fine, I welcome him. I don't hate Palestinians. I hate terrorists."
He says the last part with a certain emphasis that reminds me why I am asking these questions. Life goes on so normally in Israel that I almost forgot about bombings and terrorists.
As we get closer to the hotel, I have another question for Guy, this time about the atrocities of which Israel is accused by so many.
"Do terrible things happen sometimes? Yes, they do," he tells me. "But for every one Israeli soldier killed, we could kill 10,000 Palestinians, if we wanted to. But we don't. We are trained to hold back. And when Palestinians are killed by accident, we have investigations. Where are their investigations?"
Guy then tells me the story of a childhood friend of his who was killed by a Palestinian sniper. Life goes on in Israel, but not without the weight of memory.
"What can you do against such hatred?" he says. "Personally, although I would like to say different, I do not think I will see peace."
There is a saying in Israel: listen to two Israelis argue and you will hear four opinions. That is why I am surprised to hear Shai, our Israeli jeep driver in the Golan Heights, say many of the same things Guy did.
"We just want peace. That is all we want," he says. Shai is a middle-aged man who served in the air force and now has a son who wants to visit America like many other Israelis do. For a few minutes Shai goes off about how proud he is to be a Jew and an Israeli before I ask him what he thinks about the human rights of the Palestinians.
"Human rights?" he retorts. "Of course the Palestinians have human rights. But so do we. We have a human right to be here, to exist."
There is a saying in Israel: listen to two Israelis argue and you will hear four opinions. I never saw this proverb in action while in Israel, and it is only now that I realize why. I never asked the right question, the political question: How do you think Israel can achieve peace with the Palestinians? What is the solution? Somehow I am sure that if I had asked this of Guy and Shai, I would have gotten 12 different opinions.
After all, everyone in Israel has his or her own idea about how to reach peace. But think about it: this is a wonderful thing to disagree about. It means that no one is arguing for war. And this is the fundamental difference between Israelis and Palestinians that is keeping the two sides apart. If there is one thing in the entire country that Israelis can agree on, it is that they want peace, and they do not want it at the expense of Israeli or Palestinian lives. The Palestinians cannot even agree on that. That is why there are terrorist bombers in pizzerias. That is why the PLO charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. How do you make peace with a group that calls for your extinction? How do you negotiate?
Israel is one of the most beautiful countries you could ever imagine, but without the people that make it so, it isn't half as gorgeous. And if its people don't begin to at least agree for peace, then eventually the land will be all we have to write about.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
