The Question...

Last night I started a conversation with a young Israeli woman who worked in the club lounge at the Sheraton in Tel Aviv. I made conversation, asking if she lived in Tel Aviv. Yes, now she does, but she is not from here. I asked where she was from and she said I would not know it. I said to try me, but, in fact, I did not know her village. I responded, “Sorry, I have a better sense of geography for the West Bank than Israel.”

“The West Bank?!! Why do you go to the West Bank?” I told her we were traveling as a group there, but I live in Ramallah. With her strong guttural Hebrew accent she said “Ramallah?? You live in Ramallah?!!!” I smiled and nodded. The conversation continued. She told me a story about accidentally having walked into Ramallah instead of to her army base when she was stationed there for two years. She didn’t have a gun and they threw stones at her and she says they were two minutes away from killing her. Perhaps. But what she narrated as a young, scared girl being attacked and nearly murdered by savage others I tried to explain was not so innocent. She was in a soldier’s uniform. She said that if she saw a Palestinian here she would not try to kill him, so how could they try to kill an Israeli who was lost? I tried to explain that she saw Palestinians everyday, perhaps cleaning the hotel or sweeping the streets or just walking by (I’m sure she didn’t catch my inherent class / race critique). But a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank sees one Israeli: the young Israeli in military dress who, bearing a weapon, stops, harassing, threatens, beats, frightens, and controls. She was not there as a scared young woman, even as a simple Israeli. She was there as a symbol of all that oppresses Palestinians, and they were offered a unique opportunity to challenge that symbol. I’m not sure how far I got with her. But what I do know is that she wanted more than what she is fed. I know this because she asked me a question: “Is it true,” she said, “that Palestinians teach their children in classrooms how to use guns and to kill Jews?” And she did hear and process my response to that. A glimmer of hope, because at least she asked the question.