David Project

            This morning I had an eight hour seminar with the “David Project” which is an organization for Israel advocacy. We learned the historical, moral and physical problems of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the attempts at different approaches to peace and coexistence between the Arabs and Jews of Israel. I learned the facts of the conflict so that when people blame Israel of being discriminatory or an apartheid state, I can easily refute anti-Israeli accusations. Of course Israel has made many military and moral mistakes (just like every country) but to be criticize Israel of committing war crimes and acts against humanity is very much exaggerated due to the media that is heavily biased and weighted towards the sympathy of the Palestinians just because it looks as though they are the “underdog” in the situation.

            The seminar began with a pro-Palestinian (anti-Israel) speaker. He presented us his side of the story and gave us a presentation of how corrupt and unjust Israel is with the Arab population. Speaking to a group of Zionist, educated Jews obviously created a lot of tension and anger in the crowd but everyone stayed very respectful and politely asked him questions to refute his arguments. His argument was very vague and hypothetical and he used emotional appeal rather than logic and factual evidence to support his allegations. He showed pictures of displaced Palestinian refugees, injured children, military officers searching ambulances at checkpoints and the security wall blocking people out of Israel but he didn’t give the context of the situation and explain why these things are happening in the first place. After his presentation, he left the room and at once, everyone’s frustration came out and people began arguing about what he said and two minutes later, he walks back in. “SURPRISE! I work for the David project!”.  The whole time he was pretending to be on the Palestinian side, when in actuality he works for the Israel advocacy program and was presenting to us so we get an understanding of the general Arab perspective. We then went through every point he made(well, pretended to make) and learned how to debunk the skewed information and biased evidence of his claims.

            After learning in depth about the factual history of the conflict and mistakes made on both sides, a Muslim, Arab-Israeli came to speak to us. He was a journalist for the PLO (Palestinian liberation organization) for seven years and then after going to a University, he decided he wanted to work for a legitimate newspaper instead because the PLO wouldn’t let him publish anything unless it was an article praising the Palestinian government or bashing Israel and the Jews. First hand, he witnessed the corruption of the Arab media and talked to us in depth about the lies and manipulation the higher authorities send out to their civilians in order to brainwash them into hating Israel, the Jews, and all Americans and the Western world. He then worked for the International Media and realized that they too only would publish bad things about Israel because it was more appealing to the public than supporting Israel and talking about the real issues that are going on in the Middle East. To this day, reporters all over the world will choose the stories of Israel acting as the “bully” and the “Goliath” in the situation instead of exposing what they are really doing in pursuit of peace and equality. He now goes around to college campuses all over the United States advocating for Israel. When people call Israel an “apartheid state” and says that Arabs are second class citizens and don’t get any rights, he explains to them that he lives in Israel, works at the Jerusalem post, has kids that go to a Jewish school and he votes and has full rights just like any Jewish person in Israel. This is first hand evidence of the democratic values that Israel holds.

            As soon as he finished his speech, a mass text message was sent out because twenty minutes before, there was a terrorist attack at the central bus station in Jerusalem. From what I know now, twenty people were severely injured. We were all sent back to our apartments and I’m currently on “lockdown” mode on campus and were not allowed to leave until tomorrow morning. The long history of terrorism we had just learned this morning seams so much more relevant and real now that I’m sitting in my apartment reading news about an attack that happened ten minutes away from me.