Where Do We Stand?

While living in Tel Aviv, I realized that this peace of mind is sorely lacking in one of Israel’s most vibrant cities. Oddly, while enjoying the pleasures of the city (galleries, music, the beach, shops), in Tel Aviv I feel more uncomfortable and conflicted than anywhere else in either Israel or the West Bank. For all its pretense at peace, I feel the least peaceful here. It is a place permanently at odds with its true identity. Tel Aviv pretends to be Miami Beach or southern France, a carefree, freewheeling hub of hipsters and bohemians, urban princesses and punks. “What conflict?” is the common, slightly tongue-in-cheek response I get to my persistent probing. Being an ostrich and living with one’s head in the sand is a false and ultimately defeatist way to find peace. It leads to just as much passivity and denial as that the Palestinian refugees who refuse to leave their camps.

Indeed, the parallels between West Bank refugees and Tel Aviv urbanites are striking. Both believe in a glorified and air-brushed past. For Palestinians, it is their rose-hued remembrance of land and family and freedom fighters, lost cities and lost brethren whose names become incantations. For Tel Avivers, it is their identification as “sabras” – strong, independent, land-loving Jews with a flair for military bravura and triumphant patriotism. Both refugees and Tel Avivers have constructed false walls around themselves. In the former case, refugees have perpetuated a false imprisonment in their now defunct camps. In reality, they are freer and more empowered than they know. In the latter case, Tel Avivers (and those Israelis who prefer separation to unease), have built a real Wall, a “security fence” that allows them the false liberation of their beaches and nightclubs. In reality, of course, they are more conflicted and less independent of the conflict than they admit.

Generally, then, I take away from this trip, and from my contrasting experiences in both Israel and the West Bank, a feeling of paradox. And, strangely enough, I am relieved at this outcome. Humans are always trying to flee “cognitive dissonance,” to pursue a worldview in which everything is simpatico and harmonized. But conflict is a part of life!
I don’t believe in “conflict resolution,” but rather “conflict transformation.” Conflict is natural but can either be destructive – as is the current case in Israel/Palestine – or constructive. Changing this conflict from destructive to constructive is the real challenge I see.

In the final analysis, what I found in Israel is a land of relics. A fossilized land of churches and icons, mosques and synagogues, pilgrims and tourists all jumbled together in confusion and lost meaning. Meaning must be regained or else conflict is inevitable. A new orientation, or reorientation, is needed. It’s time we take a stand. But this time, the stand we take should not be toward a person, cause, or ideal. That’s valuable, of course, but it misses our current crisis which is not outer, but inner in scope. It’s time for us to take responsibility.

It’s time we take a stand toward ourselves.

(To be continued...)