Blogging on the border

"For both sides today, war is easier than peace," Hannah Belsky '10 wrote on Dec. 30, 2008, posting on her blog. "My friends are walking around like zombies. Their faces are pale. Their eyes are puffy. They're slouching. They're having trouble looking anyone in the eyes. But I'm looking into their eyes. Jews and Arabs are crying together here. It might be the only place in the world where this is happening."Belsky, a Smith College student, spent a portion of her junior year studying abroad in Israel at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. The Institute brings together about 40 students from Jordan, Palestine, Israel and the United States to work simultaneously on environmental issues and peace-building. During the interim, Israel began what they would call a counterattack against Palestinian rocket fire in the Gaza region.

Belsky was in Israel at the time and created a blog for her family and friends so that they could know exactly what was going on where she was. That is how I came to know her. What follows is a recent e-mail interview with Belsky.

Could you talk a little bit about the Arava Institute and why you chose this program for your study abroad?

I first thought about studying in Israel last Passover when during the seder I said what Jews are supposed to say every year: "Next year in Jerusalem!" And I started to wonder, why am I saying this? Do I really mean it, and should I continue to say it in the future? However, I didn't want a traditional study abroad experience. I wanted to do something radically different, and that's when I came across the Arava Institute. At the Institute, we work on peace-building and the environment together because there is an understanding that environmental sustainability and a sustainable peace must go hand-in-hand.

The news states that 13 Israelis and about 1,400 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the attacks. How did this affect the Institute and the relations between the students there?

I think a lot of people in the region are numb to deaths. I read somewhere that over 90 percent of Israelis supported the war. At the Arava Institute, it was impossible for anyone to be numb. We were all reminded by our Israeli friends of what it is like for people in the towns near Gaza to live in fear of rockets or what it's like to see one's 19-year-old brother or sister or son or daughter leave home to join IDF in Gaza. And from our Palestinian friends, we were reminded all the time of what it is like to live in a place where the water and the electricity and the sewers don't always function, or what it's like to live in the shadow of an eight-meter high wall or to be humiliated in checkpoints or to watch one's father or friend be killed by Israelis.

How did this experience change you?

I think the biggest change for me is that I used to be quiet, and now I can't shut up about injustice in Israel and Palestine. In the past, people used to tell me that I didn't know anything, that I didn't have all the facts, so I should stop making such strong statements. But I went to the West Bank and saw the separation wall, and I spent nights crying with my Palestinian friends during the war, and I feel like I have a right and an obligation to speak up. I feel empowered after my semester in Israel.

Did you see a change in your fellow students as well?

I think that in some ways we're further apart - Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians, right-wingers and left-wingers - than we were in the first months of the program. Before we ever talked about the most difficult and painful topics, naturally, we all became best friends and stayed up late singing around campfires and smoking nargila. The war really forced us to talk about the difficult topics and to confront the pain head-on, and we didn't have enough time to work through all of our sadness and anger.

However, the emotional understanding, the solidarity and the passion to work towards peace are all more real today. I think the best gauge as to the progress made over the semester is to look at where we were before we came to the Arava Institute and how much we're going to bring back to our communities at home - in Amman, Northampton, Jerusalem or Ramallah. Even for those students that still don't fully trust "the other," now they have friends and faces that they will never forget.