In Tony Horwitz’s novel, much of the content is focused on how the Arab nations react to his American and Jewish background. However, there are a couple of chapters that focus on the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the seriousness of the fighting. Being Jewish, I have been taught many reasons for the fighting relating to Israel and the Palestinians, though this book made me realize how bad it truly was. I was always taught that the fighting originated between the two countries because they both think that Jerusalem is the religious capitol of their religion, and they fight over who it belongs to. It seemed to me that on the news the Palestinians were just throwing rocks and yelling at the Israelis, but I was only in fifth grade and did not understand the seriousness the conflict had evolved into. The book focuses on a different time during the conflict, closer to the early 1990s. Tony Horwitz describes the conflict many times during his stay, particularly when he is in Jordan near the Jordan River. He describes his stay on a kibbutz, a Jewish farm, and I found it particularly intriguing how when he interviewed one of the men on the kibbutz that they said to get out of the country because the conflict is so bad. It is and has always been a terrible conflict between the two countries, but it seems that during that time it is particularly gruesome. Maybe eventually the conflict will be resolved and the two countries can live in peace.
EJ
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EJ wrote about the brutality of the conflict between Palestine and Israel. I too found this conflict shocking. There were two things in particular however that stand out when I read this chapter. First of all it is disturbing that the conflict is based on the Jordan River, a divider only 15 feet wide in some parts that turns neighbors into enemies. The Israelis wake up every morning and look across the river too see people in the same situation as they; suppressed by brutal poverty, and worn out by war. The two groups of people, although they live parallel lives, no nothing about each other except for hatred. Years ago, when the conflict started, the two groups of people fueled the start of this hatred. It is for the younger generations, the generations today, that I feel the most sorrow for. How impoverished and how hard would their lives still be even without this ethnic conflict? Already they have no money, and endure hardships beyond the realm of what we can imagine. Add a war of hatred to their list of hardships and their lives are severely burdened.
The second aspect of this chapter which catches my attention is the side that Horwitz takes regarding the stereotypes of the Israelis. When people place labels on others because of differences, they look cold and extremely disrespectful. When a person places a label on his own kind however, one questions the support behind the stereotype. Stereotypes exist for all groups of people; white, black, catholic, Jewish, Asian, American, etc. We’ve all heard the Jewish stereotypes before, and we all know that they are gross fallacies. Horwitz however, a Jewish man, goes straight to the Jewish capital of the world and describes the Israelis as being the rudest out of all of the Middle Eastern peoples he has encountered. I have never met anyone who proves this stereotype to be even remotely true. It is not at all fair to place this label on Jewish people as a whole. The bitterness of the Israelis could be drawn from their conflict with Palestine. Their bitterness could have been forced upon them.
BCD
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