In 1992 as an undergraduate, I went with a friend from university to Israel to visit family and friends. Having been a high school student in Israel during the Intifada in the 1980s, I was anxious to see for myself how the project of Peace was progressing. My friend, an activist in the movement to end violence against women in the US, had organized a visit with a Palestinian woman who founded a women’s shelter in Ramallah. As per her directions, we started off in a shared taxi cab at the Damascus Gate. We never got to her. The driver, a young Palestinian, was stopped by a group of angry men identifying themselves as members of Fateh. They shouted at him, and after several tense minutes in which they took his keys, roughed him up, and examined the paper on which we’d written the shelter address, they sent us back in the direction from which we had come. So scared was this cab driver that he drove us to his father’s house to convey what had happened, the cigarette in his mouth shaking in fear. Once back in Jerusalem, my friend and I were admonished for being so reckless as to arrange a meeting with a Palestinian feminist. Her shelter was ransacked soon after our attempted visit, a drastic reprobation for trying to meet with us.
It’s hard to imagine that the time period in which this incident occurred was actually more hopeful and open than the years that followed it. Now that I teach courses on gender studies and social movement participation here at U of T, I see this story as a reflection of the contribution mostly men on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have made to violence over dialogue, destruction over dignity. I have begun to wonder if each side is committed to the conflict-nurturing it, feeding it, living for its continuation.
We’ve seen this masculine, violent, hatred-based conflict play out by proxy on college campuses near to us-Concordia being the most notable. It is with this in mind that I turn my attention to two upcoming student events, Jewish students’ planned week of festivities called “Israelfest” and the Arab Students’ Collective counter-conference, “Anti-Israeli Apartheid Week.” Neither of these events as described convey an understanding that an election has occurred in Palestine and a real opportunity to move forward exists again. Israelfest, filled with movies, rock concerts and food seems farcical. Yes, Israel is very important to Jewish history and survival, but guess what: it involves a lot more than eating falafel and folk dancing. Anti-Israeli Apartheid Week, while at least focusing on issues of substance such as the substandard living conditions to which Palestinians continue to be subject, has planned an anti-corporate action across the street from the Jewish student center with the help of a poverty advocacy organization in Toronto legendary for its taste for confrontation. While the Arab Students’ Collective claims on its website to be feminist and peaceful, it seems to be baiting Jewish students. Inviting violent interaction is not feminist.
So, don’t hold us in suspense. Are Jews and Arabs going to put on a virtual minstrel show, a display of hatred and disrespect for one another for the voyeuristic appeal of folks throughout the campus and the world who think us incapable of mutual understanding? Is this going to be another ugly display of masculinist nationalism, in which men shout and fight and women wring their hands? Or maybe, the week of these planned events, male students whose passions in the conflict run deep will do us the favour of letting women’s voices lead.
The dialogue and change that students involved in these planned activities would like to see in Israel and Palestine must be modeled by them. I vote for something that is not being done in the Middle East-giving women a try. My advice for action? Do what my friend and I unsuccessfully tried to do over ten years ago: take a trip across the borders to which each side seems so committed, and with compassion, try to understand the other’s hopes, investments, and pain. Better still, get together and plan a conference on the role of women in state building in Israel and Palestine.
Such risks would illustrate how we at U of T have a decidedly different take on the politics of difference. Rather than copy the tired conflicts exhibited at other campuses, students here have the opportunity to model activism that is more relevant, sensitive, and beneficial.
Judith Taylor is a Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at U of T.
