In fact, at first, I did not plan to base my blog on the conflict before Christeen presented herself in class. As a meaningful picture, she chose an Israeli kid and a Palestinian kid walking together. Therefore, I went and ask her if she wanted to do something about the conflict. I then realised it could become a great opportunity to understand something that has been troubling me for years: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and how it became such a mess. Why people today do not want to "understand" and prefer "believe"? - among all the different questions raised by the conflict.
We did not know how to approach this, so we adopted a random process instead of deciding on a final aim; step by step we would blindly advance. Some steps would perhaps be useless, but would help us to spot other relevant topics. I believe sharing the stories of our families on the land is a first interesting step. Getting to understand the "influential ideas" such as Zionism is another one. Trying to understand how the conflict is analyzed (and made understood!) through the media perspective is a third one.
In fact, I realised how arbitrary and difficult is the job of the Historian. As students, we are provided with history lessons we take as granted (the selection was already made for us). What was actually really interesting in this process is that I would become the Historian. I would go through the process of trying to make sense out of "nothing and everything". It is a very delicate mission to try to honestly understand, bring sense, and explain to others.
At the end of the day, what we wanted is to obtain "a center" instead of "two edges" to our dialogue. This is, we want to complete each other's puzzle; while the pieces of the puzzle would be scattered pieces of truth. This week end dialogue with Khaled will be a good occasion to assess how "complete" is my puzzle.
The "research" is getting to a deadline. The main lesson I will keep from all this is that if somebody states he objectively understand the conflict, he is certainly mistaken! Many times, I would discover new "facts" that would make me feel really ignorant. I believe there is no end to such a quest. Hence I completed my puzzle, but I certainly have a slight understanding of what is really going on. The conflict mixture is one very special of intertwined stories, destinies, ideas, religions, philosophies... The truth is not reachable; thus, it is dangerous to blindly follow one government politics. As I explain to Jerome Bourdon in our correspondence, I believe it is the duty of every single person who believes in the land of Israel to assist the government in its politics instead of blindly and cowardly relying on it. The final lesson is that when truth is not reachable, our humanity sense should prevail. Hence, I do not know what will happen if Gaza blocus is weakened, but this though situation the Israeli government is facing should be thought with a touch of intellectual modesty, and a touch of human sensibility!
Last but not least, why does it matter to me? Well, I am Jewish, and I truly believe in the land of Israel as being a Jewish land, but I want it to be an integrated and peaceful part of the world. I might sound too idealistic, but the actual situation does not give me satisfaction in the Zionist project. As an eventual future citizen of the state of Israel, I believe it is my duty to tackle the government politics and bring my slight influence to this never-ending debate...
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