Confidence-Building in the Middle East
Andrea Weissfeld
Middle East Studies Major - North American Center

September 28th 2000. Unlike most days, this was the beginning of the demise of the latest peace process in the Middle East, and of my fading confidence in it. That was the day Ariel Sharon, Israel's Defense Minister, decided to exercise his muscle by walking on the Temple Mount ground claiming that that sacred area could never be divided. It would have been divided in the peace process that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat discussed in a summer meeting at Camp David.

Yet on that day in September I was in Jerusalem learning about the stunt through an English-language news station, CNN, this while I was less than 15 minutes away from the site itself. Class was about to begin that morning at the Friends World center in the German colony in Jerusalem. However, people sitting around the television in shock delayed the class. I was no more shocked than by any other incident that had ever happened in Israel, and no more so by a man walking up on an area I had visited many times, but I was shocked by the fact it was already on the news.

It is always a bad sign when anything is documented on international news before people in the area even know about it. Yet, even at that point, my confidence was intact because spouts of violence happen. I knew all this was more of a reaction to the politician Sharon, himself, and not a new conflict, but I was very much mistaken.

I spent the weekend of Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, in the old city of Jerusalem. I prayed in the area where in previous days conflict was continuing. However, my prayers were not offered in silence, but against the background of Israeli soldiers' rubber bullets flying around, and were cut short. I had to move, because stones were being thrown over the Temple Mount onto the Wailing Wall, where I was. I knew in my heart, though, that the violence would not spill into the next weeks of Jewish and Muslim holidays, that it would end before the following week.

However, the conflict was not short-lived. That "tradition" had been broken and it flowed into the next week, and the week after, growing worse and worse. The burial hole of past problems was resurrecting itself, creating new monsters. The peace process was disintegrating, and more problems were to follow.

The students were now told by the professors to take much precaution when going around town. They were getting over-excited, fearful that war would erupt. I was living away from the school, in the center of Jerusalem, and had to take the most precaution, aside from the students living in the old city itself. I was told where not to go, and not to take the city bus. Though I had previously lived in the Middle East and knew how to take care of myself, I was becoming disturbed by all these new commands. I became more despondent because of the other students, hearing their frantic talks about a country they had only been introduced to a month earlier. Although even then, I never swayed from my view that the violence would end, and that people could get back to business as usual - until we were evacuated from Jerusalem.

We left Jerusalem, as recommended by the school because Jerusalem had become "too dangerous." Now, when I saw images on the television, and being away from there, my confidence began to suffer. I started to see the Middle East as outsiders would have seen the situation. When we left for Turkey, on an area studies trip, and even when I went back to the United States, I became even more disillusioned by the process. This was because I was now completely outside the situation. Having only the news to rely on, and knowing how the news sometimes portrays certain angles of the stories, I knew I was not getting the whole story. And this added to my discomfort.

Now betrayed by the whole picture of things, and by how the media was making the Israelis look, as a person who is for the Palestinian cause I felt I had to defend the Israeli position, because an insult to them was an insult to me for I related also with the Israelis because I am Jewish. That is the problem with studying this subject: No matter how dedicated you are to your opinions, if you are Arab, Muslim, or Jewish you tend to lean to one side of the political center, especially when it comes down to this type of conflict. Yet, I still believe peace is possible in this region.

What I am constantly being asked is if my confidence has faded so much in the process that I believe peace can never happen. I believe that peace is possible, but it takes time and reparations from the last 14 months must be made before trust is restored enough to bring the parties together. Then, and only then will the peace process be successful. Until that time, I must wait for my confidence to be restored by both Israelis and Palestinians, by their confidence-building actions in the Middle East.