Earlier this week we have the pleasure of going to the Aronoff's residence for dinner. We got to enjoy a nice walk around a park and look over the city of Jerusalem before eating and hearing two very special guests speak. Professor Aronoff set it up for two members of the group The Parents' Circle to join us for dinner. After seeing the movie State 194 at the Cinematheque, I already had an idea of what the Parents' Circle was about. I enjoyed that following the film we were able to to hear the man who started the group give us more insight on what they do. I knew that they go in pairs, a Palestinian and Israeli, usually to schools and talk about how their lives have been affected by the conflict, but I never fully felt the emotion of their experiences until getting to hear one in person.
At the Aronoff's we hosted a Palestinian woman who lost her husband to the IDF, and an Israeli man who lost his 14 year old daughter to a suicide bomber. The Israeli told his story first. He talked about how they had been shopping on Ben Yehuda when he lost his daughter in a crowd and then didn't find out until later that one of the victims was his daughter. The Palestinian women then told her story of how she met her husband who was an Arab from Israel in Barbados. They married and she converted for him and then they moved to Israel. Her husband was coming hom from work when there was a protest going on. He tried to go around some cars but IDF soldiers thought he was a terrorist and shot him. Hearing both stories about the atrocities both sides commit and the effects they have on individuals really opened up my eyes to not just seeing the conflict from the news at home on the surface level anymore. It was amazing that even though what has happened to each other, these people in the Parents' Circle are still able to put aside any hard feelings and connect with on another through the pain they have endured. The Israeli man said how pain is one of the most powerful things, and I believe that is true especially after seeing how strong it was to bring total opposites together.
Even though I respect everything they do as an organization, and truly appreciate them, I do not neccessarily agree with all their politics. I was cringing everytime they knocked the Israeli security or Israeli society. There were surely some biases between the two of them. I could understand why the Palestinian woman would be bitter about the IDF, but since the Israeli had served in the IDF in the Yom Kippur War, and his daughter was killed by a terrorist not the IDF, it was hard for me to understand why he was so against the IDF. He called the IDF terrorists multiple times and I felt like covering up my t-shirt which had IDF branded on the front of it. I was hoping for a more unbiased account, or atleast to hear a counterargument, but it was not the right environment after hearing all they've been through.
However, I was happy to hear Prof. Aronoff tell us the other side after they left. It just goes to show that even though when people are sharing personal stories you still have to question what they say and take into account that their emotions might make them heavily biased in the way they talk.
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