Maia Ferdman: Israeli-Palestinian conflict needs respect on both sides

Ron Kehrmann’s 17-year-old daughter Tal loved camels.

For almost a decade Ron has worn a camel-shaped pin as an excuse to talk about Tal, who was killed in a suicide bombing in Haifa, Israel in 2003.

Imad abu-Zahra, a journalist, was holding nothing but a camera when he bled to death from a gunshot wound in 2002. His mother Um Imad now runs a women’s empowerment center near the Jenin refugee camp in Palestine in his memory.

In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, every event is disputed, every word is chosen carefully. But human suffering is not debatable.

For three weeks I, along with a group of about 20 UCLA and UC Irvine students of diverse backgrounds, traveled throughout Israel, the West Bank and Jordan. We traveled as members of the Olive Tree Initiative, an apolitical organization dedicated to education and conflict resolution. We met with affected civilians like Ron and Um Imad, as well as politicians, NGO leaders and academic experts with a spectrum of experiences and opinions.

Just like many at UCLA, the students on my trip were educated about the history and complexities of the conflict. Some of them were Israeli or Jewish and some Palestinian or Arab, so many of us grew up with the conflict at home, too.

At UCLA, the Israeli-Palestinian debate generally manifests in arguments over resolutions and rhetoric. Many of us base our activism, our staunch and unwavering positions, on pages in books we’ve read or words our communities have always sworn by. We swallow information secondhand and reflect it back into the world as truth.

We ignore, compare, justify or deny the suffering of others.

On the trip, our group met all kinds of people with legitimate grievances, with internal scars and with crushing fear. I saw parts of the region I never knew existed – the gutted-out concrete buildings of Bil’in in the West Bank, where the ground is still littered with tear gas canisters and charred from burning tires. I saw the active minefields in the Golan Heights, left over from the war with Syria, fenced off with barbed wire.

We moved past the pages of textbooks and saw firsthand the pain and fear etched into the psyche of this entire region. And I began to note how that collective pain and fear squirms its way into policy, into relationships and into prejudice.

I felt a murky combination of confusion and despair for much of the trip. While we traveled, Secretary of State John Kerry launched the newest round of peace talks in the region. But in our conversations and site visits, which were full of animosity and uncertainty, the success of a comprehensive peace deal seemed a little far-fetched.

I drew hope for peace from people and organizations that demonstrated an honest and pragmatic sense of understanding, and did not feel threatened by doing so.

The Peres Center for Peace, for example, brings together Palestinian and Israeli youth in joint soccer leagues, leadership trainings and peace education.

Israeli citizen Ronny Edry began a Facebook campaign called “Israel Loves Iran.” He receives thousands of pictures from Iranians and Israelis that read “We will not bomb your country” and “We love you.” The campaign has sparked the creation of new groups like “Palestine Loves Israel” and “Israel Loves Palestine.”

Negotiators will not achieve any common ground without understanding the charges behind key words like “security” and “contiguous borders,” or the psychological impact of fear and trauma on their respective populations.

And if we at UCLA do not so much as recognize the hurt of the “other,” whether the “other” is in a far-off land or down the dorm hall, we condemn ourselves to a severely limited worldview. But we also harm our own causes.

As Americans, especially those with ties to the region, we have the ability to influence our communities and perhaps the future of the conflict.

But continuing to refuse to look each other in the eyes, or to acknowledge that death, love, fear, resentment and deep-seated connection to land and community exists in their reality as well, we limit our ability to influence the conflict positively.

On our countless bus rides, our group argued. We disputed terms, history and strategy. And while it was rare, we sometimes even yelled at each other. But even then, when I reached a total deadlock with someone different from me religiously, ethnically and politically, I felt respected.

Understanding trauma, understanding the deep-seated connection both peoples have to their causes and to each other, does not normalize, nor does it demonize. It gives people like Ron and Um Imad the respect they deserve. And it gives all of us a little more reason to believe that peace is possible.

Email Ferdman at [email protected] or tweet her @MaiaFerdman. Send general comments to [email protected] or tweet us @DBOpinion.