My journey from West Carrollton to the West Bank began early this year, when a friend and I founded Bina Kehilla (Hebrew/Arabic for building/understanding community). Our purpose was to educate ourselves on issues of global importance while building community with college-aged youth from different socioeconomic, spiritual, and ethnic backgrounds in conflicted parts of the world, and then come back to the U.S. with the goal of achieving the same in our own communities.

Our group would be traveling throughout Israel and the West Bank in mid to late August as the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip was unfolding, a time when regional tensions would be exceptionally high. Touching down in Tel Aviv can be an alarming experience for someone who isn’t expecting the eruption of cheers and clapping from elated passengers, thrilled that we weren’t blown out of the sky by any number of individuals or entities hostile to the state of Israel. There is scarcely a juicier target for Al Qaeda or any other extremist organization than an Israeli jetliner full of Americans and Israeli Jews. Thankfully, we made it into the country without incident, and made our way to a hotel to sleep off the jet lag.

Awaking to the blazing Middle Eastern sun after an exhausting full day of travel, I was able to look out my hotel window and see how strikingly similar in appearance the state of Israel is to many parts of the U.S. One could be forgiven for thinking they were greeting the new day in a trendy Southern California suburb, as my friend from San Diego assured me. Much of the housing was new or under construction, shops lined the streets of Haifa and Tel Aviv, loaded with Diesel jeans, Puma shoes, and all other manner of hip, Western-style clothing and accessories. How could one be certain that they indeed weren’t in America? A glance down the sidewalk was all that was required. The streets were policed by smug-looking civil and military authorities prominently toting American-made (and likely American-purchased) M-16 assault rifles, many riding inside Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs). Anti-disengagement protesters were on nearly every street corner, and the symbol of their movement – the color orange – was ubiquitous.

While a slim statistical majority of the Israeli public was in favor of pulling out of Gaza (about 51 percent according to many news outlets there), I’ve never witnessed a more vocal minority. Orange ribbons were tied to car antennas, orange rubber wristbands were worn by young and old, Orthodox children and babies were clad in little orange T-shirts. Even solid orange flags with the blue Star of David in the center were unfurled on building facades and from highway overpasses in Jerusalem.

The counter-movement to the anti-disengagement bloc is known as Shalom Achshav (Peace Now). Although this movement has far less street presence, it was symbolized by solid blue ribbons, wristbands, etc. Our cabs would often be deluged by competing factions seeking to provide our driver with either orange or blue ribbons for his antenna. Much to the annoyance of the protesters, the drivers would rarely accept a ribbon from either side, citing a complete and utter ambivalence. A position, it seemed, most average Israelis shared. After spending four days in Israel proper — West Jerusalem, Haifa, and Tel Aviv, among other areas — we stepped into a cab and instructed the driver to take us to the Bethlehem checkpoint, which is the entrance into the West Bank nearest Jerusalem. To me, the fact that we were able to get into a taxicab and say to the driver, “West Bank, please,” seemed a ridiculous notion, but that’s all it took to get us to the entrance of an internationally notorious war zone.

Unloading our bags from the trunk of the late-model Mercedes, I couldn’t help but feel stunned and ashamed by the harsh reality around me. Arab women and kids were being frisked by Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers, as others were baking in the brutal sun, waiting to cross from Palestinian Bethlehem into Israeli Jerusalem. I was blown away when we stepped up to the checkpoint, surrounded by razor wire, military jeeps, and heavily armed 19-year-olds, their fingers on the triggers of their M-16s, eyeing us with suspicion and a look that said, “You guys must be stupid to want to come into this place.” What shocked me even further was the fact that we didn’t even need to open our passports upon entry. The soldiers looked at us, looked at the cover of our passport, saw “United States of America,” and waved us through — setting off the metal detectors one after another as we crossed into the West Bank.

For a long time, Palestine was separated from Israel only by imaginary lines in the sand. Now, the West Bank is separated from Israel by what the Israeli government likes to call a “Separation Barrier,” and what international law likes to call “illegal.” Although the Wall is impressive in its sheer grandeur (35 feet high and two feet thick in many places), one still cannot help but be amazed by how starkly different life can be for two peoples separated by this simple mass of concrete. Crossing through one of the heavily patrolled and fortified gaps in the Wall, one can only liken the transition to casually turning down the wrong block in any major American city. In just a few steps, one is able to cross from the First World into the Third World; from potable water to stagnant sewage, from well-tuned modern vehicles to diesel-spewing early-seventies jalopies, from newly built and well-maintained highways to dirt roads full of potholes, and from large and well-kept homes to U.N.-administered refugee camps. Once inside the West Bank, we were able to trek around cities such as Hebron on foot. One of our local guides, Hisham, showed us the placement of a Jewish settlement (exactly in the middle of a Palestinian town of 200,000). The effect of these 450 Jewish settlers and the over 4,000 Israeli soldiers put there to protect them is chilling. Our group witnessed a routine Israeli military patrol in a crowded Arab market keeping their machine guns at eye level and demanding to search through shoppers’ belongings.

Moments later, we walked beneath the metal fencing that was erected by Palestinian businesses (directly below the settlers’ apartment buildings, above the Palestinian shops) to protect them from items settlers are fond of throwing at the Palestinian shoppers below — glass bottles, waste water, even a lawn chair — in the hopes that these Palestinians would become fed up and abandon their shops indefinitely, as many have already done.

One of the most fascinating things about my journey to the region was a special opportunity I had over the course of several evenings in Bethelem, just inside Palestine. Each night, a handful of folks from Europe and the U.S. would gather around the only televison in our hotel to watch live footage and commentary on the Gaza withdrawal on CNN International. We were sitting in Palestine and watching these events with Palestinians.

To hear them talk about what they were seeing was fascinating. As we viewed the images of Israeli settlers crying and singing with the Israeli soldiers who had come to remove them from their homes, the Palestinians reminded us about their own experiences some 50 years ago, when they were removed from their homes. A few things CNN and some of the other major U.S. news outlets may have neglected to mention quickly came to the lips of the Palestinains with whom we were sitting. Most of the settlers in Gaza had been paid to come and live there, and were given massive tax incentives to move into the now vacated settlements. As a result, many Israelis joined the ranks of the middle class overnight. When the settlers were being removed during the Gaza withdrawal (kicking, screaming, and in some cases attacking Israeli troops) they were given white glove treatment, relocated by the government, and given the opportunity to collect up to $300,000 USD as compensation (over 1.3 million NIS), now turning them into millionaires.

By contrast, at the creation of the state of Israel in the late 1940s, many Palestinians went from living normal lives in places they and their families had lived for several generations to becoming refugees overnight. They were often provided little to no compensation whatsoever, and many were forced violently from their land. One family we met with near Hebron has had their home demolished three times by Israeli authorities for “building illegally” on land the family has owned for more than seven generations. If a Palestinian protesting this kind of treatment behaved half as wildly toward an IDF soldier as many of the settlers did at the time of the Gaza disengagement, they would very likely have met with a different end. Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and Gaza for far less than hurling things at Israeli soldiers. In many ways, the most difficult aspect of the journey was the knowledge that U.S. tax dollars, sent to the Israeli government in the form of military aid, are enabling some of the worst things I witnessed. Compounding this sad fact is the reality that many Americans have no idea what’s being done with their money, which is arguably helping to sow the seeds of hatred and creating a mentality in this region that encourges terrorism against Israel and the United States itself.

Over the course of my time in Israel and Palestine, I encountered everything from massive piles of rubble that were once inhabited buildings to the shining metropolis of Tel Aviv. I slept in comfortable, air-conditioned lodgings with security guards and in a building riddled with bullets situated across from a battered, tank shell-peppered refugee camp where the United Nations is responsible for garbage removal. I have driven through gated communites, past lush gardens (in the desert, mind you) to speak with settlers in the West Bank who were suspicious of me for my willingness to acknowledge that the other side even existed. And I’ve walked across Israeli checkpoints to speak with Palestinians who haven’t been able to cross through those same checkpoints to the Israeli side for years. Each side is passionate about their stance on the issues. Each side is right in many different ways. Perhaps future generations can look forward to a co-habitation built on mutual respect, understanding, and a reciprocal acknowledgement of legitimacy. It seems clear that nothing less will do.

There were many comments that I found offensive in this article, “Behind the Media Curtain” (DCP September 14-20, 2005). Let’s begin with the author’s description of the airplane landing in Tel Aviv. He claims to have had an “alarming experience” when the passengers erupted in cheers, “thrilled that we weren’t blown out of the sky” by terrorists. In fact, the reason passengers erupt in cheers when landing in Israel is out of gladness and excitement to have finally landed in the Holy Land of Israel.

I was happily surprised, not alarmed, when I experienced this spontaneous joyous reaction, and it is something that I have never experienced upon arriving back in the USA. The use of these violent adjectives set the tone for the rest of the article, falsely creating a sense of Israeli violence where none exists. The author continually paints a horrid picture of the Israeli military, who work the many security checkpoints throughout the country, stating that he was “blown away” by the treatment received. What a poor choice of words, and yet more use of violent language. Actually, it is due to the perseverance of the military and border police, both men and women, also standing in the “brutal sun” at these checkpoints that directly prevented him from being literally “blown away” at all.

Instead of debating the rest of his anti-Israel diatribe, I will remind your readers that Arabs in Israel have never faced the institutionalized hatred that Jews receive in many Arab nations, that Arabs occupy many high-level government posts, such as Israeli Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran and Deputy Foreign Minister Nawaf Massalha, that Arabs are permitted to serve in the Israeli military and police forces, such as Major General Hussain Fares, Commander of the Israeli Border Police, and Major General Yosef Mishlav, who was, until recently, head of Israel’s homeland security as Home Front Commander. Yes, an Israeli Arab in charge of Israeli homeland security. But most Israeli Arabs — Muslim or Christian — are not subjected to Israel’s compulsory military draft. The author missed knowing that Israeli Arabs who lost land during the war can file for and receive restitution from Israel’s Custodian of Absentee Property, despite the fact that there has never been any compensation paid to any of the more than 500,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries who were forced by their Arab governments to abandon their homes and businesses. Surprisingly, Arab Christians in Israel have a higher standard of living than many ultra-Orthodox Jews.

This article certainly was “behind the media curtain,” because it was simply telling a personal story from an undereducated and biased American tourist’s point of view. And, by being a non-Jewish American tourist, the writer was assured of access to areas that Jewish Americans would have been prevented from seeing because they were Jews.