Reflection on Palestine

People ask me what I did this summer, and I answer easily that I went to Haiti, then to Germany with my family, home in Ludington for a while, and then the next part gets tricky. To some people, I say I went to the Holy Land, others it is Israel, to many I say Palestine. If I am being honest with myself, I must admit that there is an apprehension about telling friends, peers, and even family that I went to Palestine. I think that it stems from not wanting my trip to be judged without them knowing what I did. I fear that when people hear Palestine, they immediately think of the conflict and terrorists. A major reason that I went on this trip and on my trip in the past is to fight this image – to be able to return and show others what the real Palestine is, and yet I have a hard time getting that conversation going.

If I say I went to Israel, I am denying the majority of my trip, which was spent in the West Bank or East Jerusalem, but I know that this is generally the most well received. If I say Holy Land, it is too ambiguous and denies that my trip had more going for it than a simple religious pilgrimage. And as I said, Palestine conjures images of radicals and anti-Zionists.

So what do I say? Well, I consider my audience and am trying to be more honest. Yes, Palestine is where I was. You heard me right – PALESTINE.

What is Palestine to me?

Palestine is a place.

Palestine is occupied.

Palestine is holy.

Palestine is torn.

Palestine is desperate.

Palestine is loving.

Palestine is hopeful.

Palestine is hopeless.

Palestine is committed.

Palestine is complicated.

Palestine is awesome.

Palestine is filled with youth and potential.

Palestine needs us. Palestine needs me.

What can I do for Palestine? How does it need me? It needs my experience. My ability to share that experience with others. From me, and the thousands others that visit, it needs the truth. We have to share what we saw.

The challenges of living under occupation, the lack of resources, the denial of rights, the inability to travel, checkpoints that have blocked family from family, family from farm, the wall that has cut into their land and again separated. Palestine is separated. Palestine is torn.

How can I put it back together? How can I fight the huge lobby force that continues to deny Palestine’s right to exist. Most Palestinians do not deny Israel the right to exist, as the media likes to portray it. Instead, they want to live FREELY in Palestine. Yes, many will never be able to return to the homes they fled sixty years ago, but they need to be able to live within Palestine now – which is increasingly hard when they cannot build or expand homes without demolition orders, when settlements encroach on their villages, when they cannot travel within the country.

How can I fight it? I can tell my experience and hope others listen. I can attend local meetings organized by peace groups. I can write my representatives. But truthfully, I do not do these things as often as I should. Studying endless details about pharmacodynamic properties of drugs or the intricacies of pathways through the brainstem get in the way. So for now, I just talk, or write for that matter.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for reading.