Caravan for Democracy & AIPAC Policy Conference: Blog #2

Before traveling to Israel with Caravan for Democracy, I was earnestly skeptical in my support of the Israeli state. As a MENA minor, I have spent years studying the numerous human rights violations that Israel has committed against the Palestinian people. When I spent seven months studying abroad in Jordan, I lived with a Palestinian homestay family. The grandmother of my homestay family told me stories of when she was forced to leave her home in Palestine in 1950; she walked all the way to Jordan with her family. What is more, I spent my junior and senior year researching Christian Zionism in the U.S. and its subsequent impact on the livelihood of Palestinians hoping for a two-state solution.

Based on these experiences, I was adamantly against the political and military foundations of the Jewish state. This mindset started to change when I took the classes “Jewish Life & Thought” and “Jerusalem: Religion, History, and Politics” with Dr. Yudit Greenberg. Dr. Greenberg, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, taught me about concepts such as Jewish diaspora, global anti-Semitism, and the Jewish people’s historical claim to the land of Israel.

These classes, in addition to my time spent in Israel, showed me that the Jewish people have a powerful tie to their homeland that cannot be ignored. Nonetheless, that does not excuse the various atrocities that they have committed against the native Palestinian population.

Being a participant in the AIPAC Policy Conference helped me to mitigate my understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the conference, I sat in on break out sessions regarding topics such as the BDS movement, the state of life in the Gaza Strip, and the military strength of Israel’s neighbors. I got to listen to distinguished speakers from both sides of the political aisle, demonstrating that their allegiance to Israel is truly bipartisan.