260321391's social context blog: My apologies, Khaled is not a fanatic!

First, I must apologize. When I met Rennie and Nicole one week ago, I told them I would not dialogue with Khaled since “he is a fanatic”. My initial judgment was a stupid and biased assumption based on the fact that he came and see me in class to ask me “what is the logic behind Israel attacks of Humanitarian aids?”. Although his first exchange with me seemed a little aggressive, I now believe Khaled is a “balanced thinker”.

We spent one hour on Friday dialoguing with Khaled, Anthon and Christeen, and two hours on Saturday. Khaled told me how his grandparents were invited by the Israeli Defense Force to evacuate their villages in 1948. On the Jewish side, we like to tell that the surrounding Arab countries asked the Palestinian to evacuate, in order to attack the Israeli army. Both Khaled’s and Christeen’s testimony seem to prove that the 1948 War of Indepence story is more complexed than sticking on a Black or White perspective: we cannot blame only the Israeli army or the surrounding Arab countries. And this story is one of the many episodes of the conflict “simplified” by the two camps, sticking on their edge.

While dialoguing, we followed the advice given on the reading “Tips for Convening a Dialogue” (such as the setting of the dialogue etc.). We first introduced our understanding of dialogue, in order to avoid letting the dialogue becoming a debate. After setting the layer, we spoke about the conflict itself.

“We focus on inquiring into the unknown.” We tried to follow this tip: we raised many interesting questions during the dialogue. How supportive is the Israeli citizen regarding the current government politics? How supportive are the Palestinians of the Hamas fight against Israel? We sought these polls on the internet, and derived interesting conclusions: over 50% of the Israelis and Palestinians are against the politics of their leaders.

“We question our assumptions”: I believe we tried to tackle our assumptions. For him, Israel is an occupying country, and I tried to explain him the Jewish deep connection to the land Amos Oz speaks about in Help us to divorce. Moreover, I tried to explain him that he should not view the conflict as a football match where deaths should be counted. Likewise, he explained me why the Hamas was elected (Fatah was corrupted), and how the Palestinian feel about Zionism, and this broadened the dialogue. What I would take as granted was greatly challenged by his explanations.

As a result, we derived many connections between our ideas, and I believe we got closer to a “more holistic view of reality”. We all agreed that Hamas is worsening things, and that peace is not negotiable with this Islamite party. Moreover, we agreed that the Israeli blockade is a political choice that will not lead to peace. Israel should stop its “absolute” choice of harming Hamas by harming the Palestinians, and making believe to the world that it is the only answer to the woes they are facing. The government is facing further international pressure, and two days ago, it announced it would weaken its blockade! I like to think this blog had its influence over this decision, and that we participated to this “international pressure”. We did not come with a miraculous answer to this never ending conflict, but at least now we “understand more” and “believe less”.