Passport for...

     The chapter entitled "A Dog's Life" by Suad Amiry was humourous but also provocative.  The Israeli  veterinarian, in her story, gives the dog an Israeli passport, so that the certificate for vaccination would be recognized by the Palestinian National Authority in Ramallah.  Amiry says the doctor is not "that political," and suggests that he seemingly has no clue about how hard it is for Palestinians to get passes, permits, and IDs, let alone passsports.  How ridiculous that a dog could get an Israeli passport but a child with one Israeli parent and one Palestinian parent cannot get a passport.   I do have to wonder though, if the veterinarian did not know that Amiry - and perhaps other like her - could use the dog's passport for expedited travel...  Maybe it was his way of helping...

Final Project

     After much consideration (and many ideas), I have decided to do my final project on the media presentation of the conflict with an emphasis on film - film used in news reports and film used for feature films.
     I plan to research mechanisms used by media and film to influence perception specifically with relation to the Israel/Palestinian conflict and then find examples.
     To find examples, I watched Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land, then using references of media representation from the film, am searching youtube for the actual footage.  I am watching feature films - one which is a collaboration by Arabs, Americans, and Jews, Ajami, one by a Palestinian director, Paradise Now, one by an Israeli director, Looking for the Lost Voices, and two American films, Miral (pro-Palestinian) and Munich (pro-Israel) to find examples as well.
    The end product will be a presentation which uses examples from news and feature films to show how media presentation is meant to influence public perception of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

The Impact of Music

     For me, music is connected most obviously to my life through church and my parents.  Church was where I first 'formally' sang.  My mother encouraged my siblings and I to sing 'la' along with the hymns, before we could read, as a way of engaging us in the service.  We sang for Christmas programs and Easter programs, for Vacation Bible School and for choir.  I was also impacted by the fact that, not only did my mother sing, but my father sang as well, even when many men did not.  My parents showed me that music was another opportunity to praise God. 
    Not only does my father sing in church, he also loves to listen to the emerging music genre of Christian rock - especially when it became hard rock - and even when Christian rap appeared.  From him, I gained a love of Christian rock and rap and love to jam to it with the volume and bass turned up.
    It was my mother with whom I sang along to nursery rhymes in the car, my mother who insisted on me learning to play the piano (which I continue to enjoy), my mother who introduced me to the Beatles, my mother who practiced solos for choir with me, and my mother who taught me about the impact music can have on one's life.  She taught me that music is a powerful form of communication and what we listen to has an impact on how we live our lives because what one puts into the mind, is what will come out through the mouth and the hands.  Whenever I listen to music, I am conscientious of what I am hearing and thus putting into my mind.
     This idea of music as a powerful communicator translates well to the conflict in Israel and Palestine.  Negative music will likely lead to negative outcomes, whereas positive and enlightening music has the opportunity to produce good.

Trying to Play the Same Note

      The pieces of Parallels and Paradoxes, which we read, exposed an idea of Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said, that culture, specifically music, is the best means of fostering a feeling of nearness between people.  Barenboim tells of a Syrian boy and an Israeli boy who shared a music stand at the Weimar event.  "They were trying to play the same note, to play with the same dynamic, with the same stroke of the bow, with the same sound, with the same expresion.  They were trying to do something together. It's as simple as that."  Music is best able to foster this feeling because "music provides the possibilty, on the one hand, to escape from life and, on the other hand, to understand it much better... Music says, 'Excuse me. This is human life.'"
     I found the ideas of Barenboim and Said to be inspiring. Barenboim and Said recognized the presence of a common cultural aspect which allows people to experience contact and nearness and capitalized on that presence to show that Israelis and Palestinians can play the same note.

Question for Mariam Said:  What part of your husband's work inspires you most?

Artists Against Walls

    The videos on the Peteet website show that the presence of the wall and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict affects and motivates people world-wide to show their disapproval.  Both the Send-a-Message group and Banksy are from outside the conflict, yet, are using graffiti to protest the wall and separation. 
    An idea also seems to be presented in the Banksy videos that those who use graffiti to make political statements are similar to superheroes.  Elusive, these artists work under a false name and hide their face, are sought out by journalists, revered in the community, - and people continuously try to find out who is behind the signature. 
   Although I liked these videos, I do not feel that they represent the role of graffiti in the conflict accurately.  The risks taken by the Palestinians and Israelis who are using graffiti as a protest are much greater than outsiders who have protection from other countries.  The passion, the ideas of the Palestinians and Israelis who are using graffiti have different motivations than those who are not living with the separation day by day.  Graffiti is an effective tool, yes, but I wish these videos had showed how they were effective for those directly involved.

Walls

     I am beginning to feel like I have grown up with a skewed representation of the conflict between Israel and Palestine.  To me, Israel has always been the victim.  Jews are God's chosen people.  Jews were horribly persecuted during the Holocaust.  Jews need a homeland.  Jews do not have a recognized state.  Jews are the victims. 
     Up to this point in class, each group involved in the conflict, has done equally horrible acts and had equally horrible acts done to them.  The readings by Manachem Klein and Julie Peteet, though, paint a very different picture of the Israelis.  Peteet, particularly, shows Israelis, who during the antifada, acted like Communist Russians.  Censorship was present.  Violent killings occurred.  Public cultural, religious, and political expressions were denied.  Walls were built. 

    Peteet's article concentrates specifically on the Palestinians' response to the overbearing Israeli occupation through the use of graffiti on the walls.  Graffiti became "an intervention in a relationship of power," a way for the Palestinians to bypass censorship and expound ideas, remember martyrs, mark territory, and call for an end to the walls of separation.

Jerusalem Project

 The biggest challenge for the Jerusalem Project in 2011 is the amount of information which needs to be learned and understood.  This project requires the understanding of centuries of historical relationships between the groups which live in Jerusalem as well as knowledge of current plans, predictions, and religious adn political motivations.  Knowledge to this extent can only come through extensive study.  This project, due to the limits of time can provide only a brief study.  The brief study is good for providing an overview and for sparking interest, but perhaps in the future, some activities should be required before the course begins.  Students could read an overview of the history - or even Karen Armstrong's book  - before the class begins so that the entire class could be devoted to delving deeper.  Having some knowledge of the conflict in history and today would help students to be better engaged throughout the course.

Future Arab-Israeli Negotiations

     When dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict, it is important to keep in mind an idea presented by Dr. Joel Peters  - that there are two types of conflict present within the Arab-Israeli conflict.

1. Interstate conflict between Israel and Arab States
2. Inter-communal conflict between two groups of peoples

     As a result, the plans for negotations must be prepared to deal with the two aspects as well.

1. To deal with the first conflict, a two-state solution should be pursued

• This gives both states independence
• Negotiations need to deal with border issues, citizenship issues, and refugee issues

    2.   To deal with the second conflict, the city of Jerusalem needs to be made its own entity - separate of any state.

• Jerusalem will become a city where no religion has more control than any other
• Neither is Jerusalem to be controlled by any one state

   In order to do both of these, the negotiations need to be secret and open.  By this I mean to propose a process like the one President Wilson found to work after World War I.  President Wilson realized that the important fact was that the areement - and not so much the process of arriving at it - was open.  Both parties need to agree to negotiations without loopholes.  Naomi Chazan wrote in her article and talked in class about the ridiculousness of Israel requiring that Palestine recognize it as a Jewish state before accepting any negotiations.  Pre-requisites of recognition should not be a part of these negotiations.  Finally, all negotiations should be entered with the goal of finding the best solution for each party involved - the solution that will best end the conflict.

What should we call it?

     Naomi Chazan, in her article, "Owning Our Identity," criticizes Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for proposing that new Israeli citizens pledge loyalty to a "Jewish, democratic state."  Chazan, then proceeds to thoroughly explain why Netanyahu 's word choice is faulty.  Defining "Jewish" is a "conundrum" and "the internal contradictions of the identity of ' the Jewish state' are, of course, rooted in its tangled history."  In addition to the Prime Minister's word choice being problematic, Chazan, considers the entire idea of legitimacy having to come from Palestinians and all who  become Israeli, when they recognize Israel as a state, "absurd."  Her argument is well organized and persuasive, but I wonder, what should the Prime Minister have said?  What should the Isreali state be called?

No one can divide a flame...

   Montefiore's epilogue, in bringing the history of Jerusalem into the history of today, covers the idea of independent states for Palestine and Israel.  Montefiore writes that those living in Jerusalem maintain the separation between groups and "the difference in spirit between noble words and distrustful, violent acts, suggest unwillingness on both sides to make the necessary compromises to share Jerusalem permanently" (536).  Yet, all are determined to have their share in it - and sovereignty is how that share will be decided.  Sovereignty, not only encompasses what can be expressed through legal agreements, but what is historical, mystical, and emotional.  Many political plans and models have been suggested for ways of dividing the area for the benefit of all groups but "Jerusalem is more a flame than a city and no one can divide a flame" (537).

Concluding Thoughts

     In Armstrong's final chapters, she continues to focus on the spiritual connection with places - and the effect that places have on one' s spirituality.

• "Thus they were moved to see Theodor Herzl, who had become the spokesman of Zionism, ascend the podium.  He looked like 'a man of the House of David, risen all of a sudden from his grave in all his legendary glory,' recalled Mordechai Ben-Ami, the delegate from Odessa.  'It seemed as if the dream cherished by our people for two thousand years had come true at last and Messiah the Son of David was standing before us.'" (365)  From this quote, it would seem that Jews are so connected to their spirituality through location that they would believe that the person who leads the movement to restore the location of their 'homeland' to them, is their Messiah.  Is the connection that great or was this one man just very excited?
• "Jerusalem remained a religious and strategic prize." (371)  The pursuit of control over Jerusalem was/is never simply for land, but for control of sacred land.
• "A religious spirit had emerged in Israel which fostered not compassion but murderous hatred." (415)  Though Jerusalem was supposed to connect the people to the divine, the fight for Jerusalem was disconnecting them from the divine ideals and teachings.
• "Yet from the first, Zion was never merely a physical entity.  It was also an ideal." (420)  Each religious group saw Jerusalem as a place which embodied the essence of their spirituality.
• "One of the inescapable messages of the history of Jerusalem is that, despite romantic myths to the contrary, suffering does not necessarily make us better, nobler people." (423)  All groups, who have at one time claimed rights to Jerusalem, have suffered from war, have been socially ostracized, have had to leave the city, and have seen their sacred sites trampled and destroyed.  Yet, instead of unifying them or causing each group to become more willing to cooperate, it has hardened them, leaving each to fight brutally for his own group.

Project Proposal

     For my final project, I would like to make a video which is focused on the possibility of peace in Jerusalem.  The video would be comprised of two types of interviews.  One type of interview will come from common American citizens/non-scholars.  These people would be asked the following questions after being selected randomly off the street (on and off campus):

• Do you think peace between Israel and Palestine is possible?  Why or why not?
• What do you think the implications of peace would be for Israel and Palestine?  The world?

     The second type of interviews would be from scholars, diplomats, and policy advocates, and religious leaders who have knowledge and a vested interest in the peace of Israel and Palestine.  This list ideally would include Dr. Steven L.Spiegel, who works in the Israel Policy Forum to suggest US policy concerning the issue, Benjamin Gidron, Stanley Katz, and Yeheskel Heasenfeld, authors of Mobilizing for Peace, and scholars such as Ari Shalim, Noam Chomsky, and Dr. Yousef Nasser, and religious leaders from Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.  These people would be asked the same general questions as the common citizens but also asked questions specific to their work, be it policy, religious prophesies, or past experience.

Identity Connection

I am continually struck by the importance of a specific location for people to experience the sacred and to build their identity around.  In chapters 14 and 15, it is the connection of the Jews which Armstrong concentrates on. 

The Jews are convinced that "Jerusalem remained the center of gravity for the Jewish people and that a Jewish state founded elsewhere would have no validity." (299)  Some even considered the Jews' separation from Zion as a victory for evil.  "Cut loose from their roots, Jews experiences the world as a demonic realm and their life as a struggle with evil powers." (337)  There was a "deep imbalance at the heart of all existence, which could be rectified only when the Jews were reunited with Zion and restored to their proper place." (307)

Jerusalem was not only a place to establish identity but also to establish a divine connection.  "Jerusalem was the center of the earth, the place where the mundane world opened to the divine.  Prayers rose through the Gate of Heaven, which was situated directly over the site of the Devir, and the divine power flowed back through this opening to the people of Israel, filling them with prophetic power.  Only in Palestine could the Jews maintain their creative link with the divine world and be truly themselves." (298)  The western supporting wall of the Harem which had been built by King Herod and was the last part of the lost Temple becomes the main location where Jews experience divinity.  "Like the Jews themselves, the wall was a survivor.  But it also reminded them of the desecration of their Temple, which itself symbolized the accumulated tragedies of Israel.  Weeping over the wall, Jews could cathartically mourn for everything they had lost, in the past and in the present.  Like the Temple itself, the Western Wall would come to represent both God and the Jewish self." (329)