Oppression is Oppression is Oppression

June 2nd, 2008

We went to a bunch of interesting places today. From hearing from one of the founders of the Israeli Black Panthers to being led on a tour of the wall and Jewish settlements by Rotem, an Israeli conscientious objector who spent two years in Israeli prison instead of military service to travelling into Ramallah to meet with Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, I have already learned more in one day than I learned on all ten days of Birthright.

One of the craziest things is the completely blatant way in which this is an oppressive society. They told us about how a lot of times the people who get placed on border patrol at the checkpoints are Arab Jews or Ethiopian Jews, so it creates an animosity between the Palestinians and the second-class Israeli citizens. As soon as Rotem told us that, my heart dropped. This is the creation of horizontal violence by an oppressor. It takes the heat off of the European/White Jews who are higher-ranked in the army and don't have to do this dirty work.

It blows my mind how many parallels there are between my life and life here. The conflict in the Middle East is no longer this intangible thing that I march about and pretend to be connected to. It is real, and though I can not pretend to know it, in many ways this world mirrors my own. It is at once new to me and familiar. The foreignness is fading away as I meet the founder of the Israeli Black Panthers and learn about Israeli gentrification. (There are many ideological settlers, who are groups of Jewish people who move into the West Bank onto Palestinian land and settle there because they believe the land is theirs. What most people don't hear about are the "economic settlers," who are forced out of the major cities like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv because of cost of living. The Israeli government builds settlements, plants attractive palm trees and supplies bountiful water and electrical access, and subsidizes housing so that poor Israelis have no choice but to move to the settlements. It is only after the move that the tension escalates between them and the Palestinians. Again, violence and animosity orchestrated by the Israeli government.) Government infiltration and permeation, economic relocation and sub-oppressor identification characterize the conflict I've learned on day 1. Just like home. Oppression is oppression is oppression.