A lot of people ask me what I think about the situation in Israel. What do I think? I think people are dying. I think families are being destroyed. I think natural resources are being ravaged. I think all the people of a beautiful country are giving all their hearts at the expense of their blood.
And it is mired in this political sewage. Do I care what America thinks about Israel? Yes. Do I care what the UN thinks about Israel? Yes. Do I care that Zionism is being equated with racism?
My grandfather and his family were active members of the World Zionist Congress after leaving Poland and that my other grandparents emigrated to Israel after leaving communist anti-Semitic Romania. My father and cousins have fought in the army to protect Zionistic fundamentals, and if I move back to Israel I will have to do the same. Considering the above, the answer is yes. Do I care that Israel is being called a terrorist state, the ultimate of paradoxes? Yes.
Do I care what the world thinks about the way Israel provides security to its lands and its people? NO! You can have your opinions, take your polls, and lobby 'til the cows come home, but I support actions which prevent my aunt and uncle from being blown up by a suicide bomber in a restaurant two miles from their house.
I support actions that prevent car bombs going off in the same neighborhood in which my grandparents live. I support action that protects my cousins when they hang out in Tel-Aviv and that prevents them from being shot or mortared at their posts as they stand guard as the first line of defense to protect civilians from these attacks. I support action that allows every citizen of Israel an opportunity to ride a public bus without fear, to send kids to school in buses rather than armored cars, and a capital city that does not need to be constantly patrolled by soldiers toting M-16s and Uzis. Is this unfair? I don't care.
I can't even fathom how anyone expects me to start thinking about an autonomous Palestinian state when the terms of peaceful coexistence aren't even on the table. There are a lot of demands, and I can not simply trust the assertion that once they are all met, peace will just happen.
Anyway, even if those demands are addressed, I am not willing to give up even a piece of Jerusalem. I've seen bullet holes in walls from the fighting that went on in the old city when it was occupied by Jordan. I've seen pictures of grown men crying and Moshe Dayan walking through the gates for the first time, touching the remains of the second temple, the wall. Those are my heroes.
I've been to the places and talked to the people who put their lives on the line. I've been to the cemeteries where hundreds of soldiers who, when they died for their country so that I could have the honor of calling myself Israeli, were younger than I am. Israel is something my great grandparents could only pray and dream for and something my grandparents helped create. I cannot and will not let the very roots of my religion and my family heritage hinge on a promise which has already been made and broken.
That's how I feel. It's not because I hate Palestinians. It's because I am Israeli.
Don't ask me about what Sharon, Peres, or Arafat said. I'm no IR major, and I have issues deciphering everything that goes on in the political arena. Nor can I give you an in depth explanation of most of the topics ranging from air safety, water flow, border crossings, and the textile plant in Dimona.
It's not that they don't matter. They do. They matter a great deal to everybody in the region because they effect every person's daily life and not just some clauses on a piece of paper. However, they're just not the issues I can worry about right now.
In my mind, it is not about Israelis vs. Palestinians. It's not about religion and it's not about land.
I know I should probably end this with some sappy message about coming together and negotiating compromises, but I'll leave that for a more qualified person. All I want is to be able to walk the streets of Jerusalem with my friends, pointing out where I was born, where I lived, and where I'm going to live without a flak jacket on.
Ariel Weissman is a junior majoring Engineering-Psychology.
