Journal #1

So far, I enjoy this class. I'm normally not the biggest fan of posting my thoughts and feelings about issues online. I like to be old fashioned and write a diary in a notebook or somewhere that it couldn't potentially be lost. But, I guess that's life. Technology happened and I have to jump on the bandwagon. I like the idea that the class discussions are so open and that I get to reflect on my own perceptions of the conflict but also with other people's perceptions. I hope that we get to do more small group work, I really like my group and feel like I could learn a lot from them.

I think that if the festival actually happened, it would be amazing. Bringing together of such different groups of people with such a crazy past. If the festival were tomorrow I would want to go and talk to as many people as I could from all the different backgrounds and eat a lot of HUMMUS ! yum. It seems to me that this conflict has too much too it for the festival to ever actually be supported. People are far too selfish, especially now a days. Sometimes I lose hope that there's still good people out there. But then you read about the people that organized the festival and realize that there are, and you do service work and realize that there are more, but sometimes in class and on campus people can be really disheartening.

 I can't imagine what it would be like to feel like my home was taken from me, or I didn't have home in the right place. The Zionists wanted to redefine their home in Jerusalem, for the fear that they no longer had a place in their own home. If I one day came to my house in Indianapolis to find that my parents no longer lived there, I would feel like a nomad, like I didn't belong anywhere. But my question is if I went back to my home like the Zionists did and try to expel a new family that had made their own home there, would I ask them too to give up their home? They might have also felt a strong connection to that home. The Palestinians removed from homes and displaced to Jordan, Syria, and Egypt might have found a home in one of those places, but still longed for a home in Jerusalem. But now, the Zionists were back in their homeland, and that is what made them happy.

Sometimes when I am doing the readings I really get confused. The thing is I understand the back and forth fight for something you believe is yours, but it seems like it can never fully be resolved because once some place is your home, you have an everlasting connection to that place, and it can be really hard to leave or be forced to leave. I feel like the United States and the United States didn't do enough. It was like they were always choosing a side that needed help at that particular instance. Couldn't they have tried to deal with the conflict more head on, instead of once it was already in a place where thousands of people were displaced? It kills me to read things like the 6 Day war ISrael started, and the number of tragedies that came with it. I just wish all the time that people could come to terms with compromise.