On the day before the annual Birthright Israel trip departed for its 2001 experience, a bomb exploded in a Tel Aviv marketplace. On the same day, in the streets of Chicago, New York, Washington D.C., and many other cities, innocent people were attacked with knives and clubs, women were raped, children were shot and homes were set on fire. While CNN rushed to Tel Aviv to begin another day's analysis of the horrors taking place in Israel, thousands of tourists flocked to Washington, amid daily violence, without a moment's fear for their safety. Hundreds of students cancelled their plans to travel to Israel and instead made plane reservations to visit their friends in New York, despite the attacks that occur there every day.
I checked the New York Times website at least three times a day during the weeks before the Birthright trip. Each time a soldier was shot, each time a car bomb went off, I did feel a momentary pang of doubt. Is this trip truly safe? Are we going to see all those horrifying pictures that they are showing on the news? How do I know that the one time that the one bomb goes off, we won't be in the wrong place at the wrong time? And I was right. One never knows. There is always a risk involved in travelling to somewhere like Israel, where the long-running tensions between Arabs and Israelis have everyone on edge, but there is also a risk in walking down a street in Chicago. You never know when you will be standing at the wrong street corner at the wrong time. My hometown of Cincinnati is just 45 minutes away from a major Ku Klux Klan headquarters. Every year during the holiday season, the Jewish community puts up a Menorah downtown which stands next to the Klan's cross. But this doesn't stop me from going home. The armed policemen who stand outside synagogues and churches on major holidays don't stop me from going to services. The swastika that was painted on the wall of my synagogue didn't stop me from practicing my religion. And a bomb going off in Tel Aviv did not stop me or thousands of other students from going to Israel.
When we arrived at Ben Gurion airport early on Jan. 3, we were not greeted by gunshots, Palestinian protestors, and CNN reporters. Instead, we were welcomed by our wonderful tour educator, Gal, who made it his mission to introduce us to Israeli life and culture. Wherever we traveled, he did not point out to us the places where a soldier had recently been shot or a bomb had exploded. He pointed out the bakery where he and his wife had gone on their first date and showed us the beautiful views of the Sea of Galilee. We lay on the beaches of Tel Aviv and climbed to the top of Mt. Massada to watch the sunrise. We explored grottoes formed by waves crashing into rocks, prayed at the Western Wall and experienced Israeli nightlife. We encountered life on a Kibbutz and bicycled in a valley of the Golan Heights. Not once did we see the terrifying scenes portrayed on the news stations. The people we met did not share with us new stories of bloodshed. We were not warned each day about the dangers of visiting Israel. Each Israeli we met, from the students of Haifa University to the man whose son had been killed, said the same thing. They want peace. They wanted us to visit Israel and take back with us the conviction that peace must be established, no matter what the cost in land. That "every stone of the Western Wall was not worth the life of the one young soldier."
As we took in Israel's beauty, as we walked barefoot through a field, as we floated in the Dead Sea, and as we discovered a newfound part of our heritage, we also came to understand that to destroy Israel in an attempt to control it would be the worst act of violence of all. We learned that the people of Israel, Jews and Palestinians alike, just want to prevent their children from being the victims of their own strife. It is vital that America and the rest of the world understand that it is not important to know how many died, or how many bombs exploded, or how old the people were who were killed. It is only important that one died, that one motherlost her child, that one child lost his father. That even one died meansthat it is time for peace. Even one life is too great aprice.
Stephanie Glass is a sophomore majoring in political science.
