Dialogue and Friendship Between Palestinians and Jews

by Miriam Stern

We often ask ourselves, why it is so difficult for the two neighbouring nations in the same country, the Israelis and the Palestinians, to make peace. The conflict in the Middle East has been going on for almost 60 years, or even more than one hundred years if we go back to the conquest and settlement of Jewish people in Palestine.

Despite all this, one would assume that Jews most fervently long for a life in peace and understanding with their surroundings, and moreover, that due to their own history they could never expel, oppress and persecute any other people, because they – who suffered in such a terrible manner from this fate – know what it feels like to be deprived of their rights and tormented. In a very absurd way, however, this history of persecution could be the very reason for their desire to become invincible, to make it to the top and exercise power over others. It is a psychological mechanism that can be observed in humans, as the individual psychologist Alfred Adler also described and explained in his work. It is the desire to escape a situation of inferiority (or merely the feeling of being inferior) and to make it to the top – if natural sympathy for other human beings and the predisposition to relate to them on an equal level is not fully developed. The idea exists of the Sabra, the young Israeli who should be strong and protective. He was mystified and depicted as a tall, muscular man, working on his land or armed with a rifle as a pioneer. Many of the Jewish post-war generation, daughters and sons of the survivors of the Holocaust despised their fathers, who, in their children's opinion, let themselves be driven into the gas chambers like sheep, without resistance.

Somewhere against this background, my ­education as a Swiss Jewess took place: an ever-present fear that I might land in a gas chambers at some time. The State of Israel with its strong army, its own Jewish army, guaranteed our safety and survival in a world which could turn against the Jews at any time. Hitler had shown that not even attaining the best achievements for the country in which one lived, not even the most beautiful contribution to the culture or complete adjustment to it was any use to the Jews: those people's Jewish family trees were retraced over generations, and their fates sealed. When it came to the situation in Israel and the surrounding Arab countries, we learned that the Arabs very much wanted to drive the Jews into the sea, and that they were our enemies. Naturally, I also come into contact with other ideas and opinions during adolescence, but the true circumstances of our neighbours in Palestine were somehow excluded. Our side accused the Arab countries of letting their Arab brothers in Palestine suffer from deprivation in the refugee camps, instead of integrating them into their own society. Later I read more, which modified my one-sided view of history. I read, among other things, about Israel's tactics of creating facts in order to create a larger Israel, and about its ignoring of dozens of UN resolutions concerning the human rights of the Palestinian refugees. I learned that one could not simply move to a country and build settlements there without first making arrangements with the inhabitants there, without asking them and trying to reach an agreement with them. However, the Jewish "pioneers" purposefully established a shadow-state organisation which acted before the concrete establishment of the Israeli state and increasingly started to exclude the Palestinian society.

Over the years I grew deeply disappointed about what had become of our hope for peace and security: our holy land had become a suppressor of other people.

One day I established personal contact with a couple of people from Palestine and heard from them their personal histories. These two individuals left a deep impression on me, their warmth and above all their conciliatory attitude towards Jews, despite the sufferings they still have to endure every day. I realized when our relationship became closer that we have common fundamental values and that as teachers all three of us endeavour to teach knowledge and empathy for other human beings to the younger generation – both in Palestine and in Switzerland.

I grew very fond of these people and a feeling of solidarity developed between us, regardless of borders and time, despite the fact that we belong to different religious communities and – at first glance – stand on opposite sides of political events.

Understanding the history of others was the most important thing when we started our dialogue. For me it was of central importance that I learned a lot about their being driven out of their houses and their homeland in today's Israel by the Israeli army in 1948 – the Nakhba, a catastrophe for their people. I immediately began to read recent Israeli history books, written for example by the Israeli "new historians" Ilan Pappé and others who dissolved the myths surrounding the Israeli establishment of a state after having taken newly accessible historical sources into consideration. Soon I had a rich collection of books about Israel and Palestine in my library. Now I regularly read up on newspapers from Israel and Palestine in the Internet. There I read daily what suffering the Israeli occupation policy causes, what that means for Palestinians, how they are harassed and bullied to the utmost. I read for example of a mother who lost her child, shot in the head by Israeli army snipers while the mother was hanging up the washing on top of the house. I am made to realize that our Palestinian neighbours have quite literally become the target of cynical Israeli power politicians and warmongers.

My empathy with the situation of my friends from Palestine has also aroused a desire to help, to make a small contribution in order to compensate for what members of my people did to them. I myself do not feel completely innocent because I failed to remember in the past that a different people lived in the Holy Land when the Israelis came and because I had stuck to our "Biblical claim" to the country. Today the Jews are no longer helpless or at the mercy of someone else – the opposite is true. My thoughts are very much with the people in Palestine; however, I understand that Israeli people feel disconcerted by the suicide bombings. Terrorist attacks can never be sanctioned; they belong to the same category of violence.

Why do Israeli citizens not turn against the occupation politics of the Likud and the fanatical settlers which caused this misery? It seems that propaganda has had its desired effect in Israel: "We are threatened in our existence", "They want to smother Israel", "We do nothing but resist". Rethink that against the background of Jewish education after the Holocaust – deep-seated fears of the Israeli people were addressed and unfortunately instrumentalised for purposes of power politics.

In my opinion, the road towards peace lies along the path our friendship took: becoming personally acquainted with people on the other side of the border, who beyond all religious and cultural differences are people like you and me. We must begin to listen to others with an honest interest. This is, as the Israeli writer David Grossman recently said, the only possibility open to us – a dialogue must be made possible. He said that in Israeli society there has not been any serious dialogue for years. And this was true of Jewish culture, which is characterized by discourse and lively exchange between speakers, by story telling and dialectic thinking, a culture, which developed dialogue to its optimum.

I think it is from "the grassroots", from the dialogue and the friendship between individuals, that we can develop the desire to honestly look at the injustices that we have done to each other and try to find solutions together. We, the people of both nations, can talk to each other, and we can live and let live. We have sufficient common ground for a dialogue. Both cultures can learn from each other and stimulate each other.

I have never forgotten how I once suffered in the heat from terrible thirst as a young girl on a trip into the Palestinian surroundings of East Jerusalem. We rested in the shade of a small house. Suddenly a woman came out and offered us hot mint tea – the best thirst quencher in Arab culture. Naturally, she knew that we were Jewish tourists. That, to my mind, is the cordial hospitality of our Palestinian neighbours.

The desire to understand the situation of the people whom we suppress now must be at the very beginning of any peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine – as well as the desire to re-enable them to lead their lives in dignity.