Reflections on Palestine

This is a photography blog, not an outlet for political commentary. However, I cannot stay silent on issues that affect me as a photographer, an American citizen, and a human being. For some reason that I still have not figured out, Palestine is a controversial topic. Reasonable debate about the issue has been replaced with overblown rhetoric, charges of anti-Semitism, and heated emotion on both sides. It is not my intent to add to the hot air on a blog that is supposed to be about photography. But I will spend one post telling you what I think and what I saw.

First things first: If you are in any Western country, particularly the United States, you are not getting the whole story about this conflict. I’ve been studying this conflict for over 16 years now. Every day I read news about the region from a wide variety of sources, from Israeli newspapers to Palestinian blogs. I’ve communicated with some of my Palestinian friends on a daily basis over the last three and half years. And, now, I’ve been there twice. I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, you are not getting the whole story about this conflict.

It begs the question “Why?”. I don’t know. I don’t believe it’s some massive media conspiracy. I think it’s more complicated than that. But I do know what the answer is. It’s up to you to demand more information. Read Israeli papers. Read Arab papers. Read blogs. Read UN and NGO reports. You need to know what is going on there. This is especially true if you are an American. Your tax money is helping to perpetuate one of the most brutal and lengthy military occupations in modern history.

I can tell you something else, as well. Israel is not the country they pretend to be. Jimmy Carter took a lot of heat for calling Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians “apartheid”. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, someone who struggled for freedom in South Africa, has also called it Apartheid. Well, I can tell you it is Apartheid. And then some.

Am I trying to justify violence against Israeli civilians? Of course not. Any act of violence against a civilian population is a crime. But Palestinian violence against Israelis is dwarfed by the acts of violence perpetrated against the Palestinian population by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers on a daily basis. And it’s much deeper than acts of violence. This is an everyday occupation. It manifests itself in the daily harassment and arbitrary detention at any one of the hundreds of checkpoints scattered throughout the West Bank. It manifests itself in the Wall (illegal under international law) that cuts off one Palestinian town from another and also cuts off Palestinian farmers from their own land.

This conflict is often portrayed in the media as Israel defending itself from a sovereign, savage Arab state that refuses to accept its peaceful, Jewish neighbor. Nothing could be further from the truth. These people are living under a military occupation and the apartheid system on which it exists has been in place long before resistance took the violent form we see today.

Did you know that almost 50% of the West Bank is off-limits to Palestinians? This is due to “closed military areas”, Israeli settlements, and the Wall.

Did you know that there are two separate road systems in the West Bank? One for Israelis (or any Jew who is eligible for Israeli citizenship) and one for Palestinians. The Israeli roads are well-lit, well-paved, and free of any interruption. Palestinians aren’t even allowed to come near Israeli roads, much less travel on them. Palestinian roads are not well-paved, they’re poorly lit, and they are subject to random and arbitrary closures and military harassment.

Did you know that the Israeli army enters Palestinian towns on an almost daily basis to kill someone who is “wanted”? This continues regardless of any truce and regardless of how long ago the last Palestinian attack on Israel took place. In fact, if you followed this blog while I was there, you saw the dorm of a young man who was killed by the Israeli army in the middle of the night while they were looking for an Islamic Jihad commander. Was this on CNN? Of course not. But you know what was? The Palestinian retaliation a couple days later, which did not kill a single person. So what is the impression that most Americans are left with? Israel entered into a truce and was abiding by it until the Palestinians, in their bloodlust, broke it. Please.

One of my fellow American volunteers (who is of Palestinian descent) wrote a poem about things such as this. There is a line that says:

“They kill my family but you wait for my response to focus your cameras and call me the terrorist…”

I could go on forever about the violations of international law, the blatant disregard for the Geneva Conventions, and the trampling of human rights that take place daily. But there is no room for that. Go look it up. It’s there. And it is incredibly important that you do so. And I’m not telling you to do this only because it’s the right thing to do. I am telling you this because this problem, in my opinion, presents the greatest long-term threat to regional stability, American credibility, and US national security. And it will only change when we, the American people, want it to.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I know most of you come here for photography and you got a little more than you bargained for. So I appreciate your time.

To my brothers and sisters in Palestine… I love you. All of you. Stay safe and keep fighting. One day, we will all meet again in freedom.

Tags: Featured, israel, palestine, travel