Last
night, we met with a Palestinian man (whose name I unfortunately do not know),
and it was very interesting. I had never met a Palestinian before, and it was
really cool to hear the other perspective. There were a few things in
particular that he said that stood out to me.
The
first thing that he said that made an impression on me was that he is against a
two-state solution, and believes that the best solution for the conflict is to
establish one, bi-national state. It seems to me that most Jews believe that a
two-state solution would be in the best interests of both Israel and Palestine.
I did not, however, have any idea what Palestinians want. Now I know that he
does not represent all Palestinians, but even hearing just one perspective was
really interesting. He believes that having one state would work because all
both sides want is peace, and if we had one state, there wouldn't be violence.
If only.
His
other point was about Palestinians’ views of Israel and Jews. I asked him if he
sees a difference between being anti-Israel and anti-Semitic in the Palestinian
community, because I’ve noticed that especially in America, the two get blurred
together quite often. He answered with a resounding no. He said that
Palestinians do not understand that being against Israel and being anti-Semitic
are not the same thing, and that the hatred for Israel and Jews is often one in
the same.
Overall,
hearing the man speak was very interesting to me. I don’t know if I’ll ever
have the opportunity to meet a Palestinian again, so I’m grateful for this
experience, and I definitely learned a lot!
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