Pluralistic, diverse Israel awes visitor

Editor’s Note: Following is the first of two articles by San Diego State University students on a recent trip to Israel sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)

By Tony Berteaux

SAN DIEGO — It was our first day in Israel and I was already in awe.

Our ADL group had arrived from JFK a few hours earlier into the Tel Aviv airport, we settled into our hotel rooms and soon enough we were on the move into Jaffa, where we would first walk and see Israel.

As our tour guide was giving us a history lesson in Jaffa, multiple sirens throughout Jaffa echoed the Muslim call to prayer, otherwise known as the adhan.  The Muslim call to prayer, a controversial subject here in the U.S. as recently proved by the outrage from Duke University’s proposal to broadcast it, was treated as a fact of life in an area where I saw Jews and Muslims co-existing. The normalcy of the prayer made it seem almost mundane, when, from an American perspective, it was anything but.

The Muslim call to prayer and its existence in Jaffa was a symbol that exacted a message as loud as its wail. It could not be ignored anymore that what’s being said about Israel through the anti-Israel narrative in the U.S was untrue. Here I was, just hours in Israel, and I could physically see and sense religious tolerance and diversity within Israeli society. No one had to tell us anymore what Israel was, no one would had to convince us that Israel wasn’t a brutal apartheid state that violated religious freedoms. No one spoke a word.

It was evident that Israel would speak for itself.

Throughout the 9-day ADL campus leaders’ mission trip, Israel would continue to speak to me, through its people, its culture and its history. As our group traveled from Tel Aviv, to Jerusalem, to settlements in the West Bank, and to the Galilee, and as we spoke to Israeli Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Israeli-Arabs, Palestinians, and other Israelis and immigrants within Israel, we were exposed to a variety of nuanced narratives, stories  and opinions, each one valid in its own right. Such diversity in opinions and ethnicities are a result of the democratic nature of Israel.

This nuanced perspective of Israel is what often gets lost. It’s difficult for us, who come from a polarizing society, to contextualize the complicated nature of the region. It’s not enough to read about it to fully grasp the scope of Israel. The real fact of the matter is, Israel is complicated. We would come to hear this phrase repeatedly, from different people, in different ways. However no matter how many times we heard this phrase, its power never diminished.

Israel would continue to prove its complicated past, present and future, but also the democracy and resemblance of normalcy that exists within the chaos.

I would be taken aback when I would see an IDF soldier brandishing a gun in Tel Aviv, but also feel safe. I would come to see a Christian church, a Jewish synagogue, and a Muslim mosque all within a block of each other but see a unity in worship. I would be devastated by the atrocities of the Holocaust at Yad Vashem, but also feel awe at the miraculous existence of Israel as assurance that never again would such atrocities happen. I would feel tremendous empathy towards Palestinian students and their struggle, but understand the critical political nature of Israel and Palestine.

I saw so many stunning sights, but the ones that were the most powerful, weren’t huge declarations of democracy and freedom, but these small celebrations of life, tolerance and human empathy that I saw every day in Israel. When I would hear from an IDF soldier about her program to help at-risk youths transition into the army better, it made me hope for the future of Israel. When daily and nightly, I would see Jewish youth dancing and singing in the streets celebrating life in Israel it became clear to me that to be alive is the very reason Israel exists.

My journey in coming to Israel began with a simple questioning of the anti-Israel movement and everything it stood for. Everything I have written and done since that point has been a consequence of that question, condemning the BDS movement for marginalizing students on campus and for not seeking real justice for Palestinians. I came to Israel seeking answers to the conflict asking: “who’s to blame, who’s right, who’s wrong, where do I stand?”

However, I left Israel, with more questions than answers, but I’m content with having these questions. How and when will the settlements come to an end? If a two-state solution is reached, what’s the guarantee of peace? What makes falafel taste so good? The journey to a true peace resolution in Israel is allowing for that questioning to exist, promoting an open-mind and allowing for dialogue to occur. At the end of the day, with these questions and many more, I’m pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, and pro-Peace.

I look back at the trip, to the wild land that has taught me so much about coexistence, compassion, democracy and perseverance in the face of hostility, and I now look at my computer screen notifying me that my campuses’ Students for Justice in Palestine has started its BDS campaign, a campaign seeking to deliberately simplify a complicated issue to slander Israel and promote hate. Given current events, with terrorist attacks targeting the Jewish people across the world and even within Israel, I have no question about what the right thing to do this semester is.

There’s only one option: to stand up for the country I’m still in awe of.

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Tony Berteaux is a student at San Diego State University.  Your comment may be posted in the space provided below.