There are not ‘dual narratives’ when it comes to justice

Delegations to Palestine have provided an optimal way for committed individuals to travel to that country and witness firsthand the myriad ways Palestinians suffer under Zionism. Many groups organize such trips, frequently focusing on a specific theme: The American Friends Service Committee has been a leader in exposing Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinian children, the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) organized a fact-finding delegation for US-based academics around the Palestinian right to education, Eyewitness Palestine has run many excellent themed delegations, foregrounding culture, environmental justice, civil rights, and more, and in 2012, a delegation of indigenous women and women of color authors and organizers traveled to Palestine. The ultimate goal of these delegations is not so much to “show” participants how Zionism has oppressed Palestinians, rather, it is to empower the participants to share their critical reflections with their wider communities upon their return, and become change agents within the core of empire.

Indeed, most have done so with significant impact. The transformation—“shift” is beginning to feel too weak a descriptor—of the discourse around Palestine at the grassroots level is due in no small part to the ripple effect of these politically-accountable delegations and the report backs that followed them. Meanwhile, at the not-quite-grassroots, USACBI delegation members, for example, have organized many academic divestment resolutions since their return, and the members of the feminists of color delegation have helped shift the narrative around Palestine as a feminist issue in mainstream organizations such as the National Women’s Studies Association. And the change is rising up, all the way to the halls of Congress.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, international travel came to a standstill, leading some of the groups that previously took participants to Palestine to host “virtual delegations” instead. These may not be quite as impactful as the actual travel, but they are certainly very valuable, and I hope they will still be offered once the pandemic is over, as they allow a glimpse into Palestinian life that millions would not otherwise get.

But as travel restrictions are finally beginning to ease, in-person delegations to Palestine are about to resume, with some already scheduled for this Fall. As I browsed these, I noticed an increasing presence of propaganda trips to Israel being disguised as “progressive,” awareness- raising opportunities, which are clearly geared towards normalization, that is, “conveying a misleading or deceptive image of normalcy, of symmetry, of parity, for a patently abnormal and asymmetric relationship of colonial oppression and apartheid.”  This is all the more disturbing when the tour organizers themselves are Palestinian, yet complicit in Israeli propaganda.  One such organization is Mejdi Tours, which was promoting the fact that they were selected to be one of 20 groups to be a part of a trial-travel program “reopening Israel to tourism.” The pilot program, an initiative of the Israeli Tourism Ministry, reportedly closed within nine minutes due to receiving extremely high demand. 

Mejdi Tours claim that their “Dual Narratives” format is an industry first, and give an example of a  “Dual Narrative” tour of the Old City of Jerusalem they led with Alex, an Israeli Jew from London (that is, a settler, but he is not called that), and Nabil, a Palestinian Christian from Jerusalem, as your friendly guides. Another organization, “Political Tours: Travel Beyond the Headlines,” also has a trip scheduled for October 2021, led by Gershom Baskin. Baskin, we are told, “is a graduate of the Young Judaea movement. He made aliya from New York in 1978 and lives in Jerusalem.” In other words, another settler. The goal of this particular trip is to explore the question “Is there any hope of renewed commitment to the peace-process? “

These two trips, with their emphasis on giving participants the opportunity to know individual Palestinians and Israelis “beyond the headlines,” do more than convey the idea that “both sides” have equally valid stories to tell—an equivalency that has long been denounced as disingenuous and serving only to normalize occupation and apartheid. They also suggest that, if only people got to know each other as individuals, you know, break bread and sing kumbaya, then voila! The political differences would dissipate, as if due to a misunderstanding, lack of communication, rather than Israel’s virulently racist and violent settler colonialism.  

Thus Aziz Abu Sarah, co-founder of Mejdi Tours, says in a Ted Talk that as a child, he was “angry, bitter, wanting revenge” for Israel’s killing of his older brother. But that all changed when, as he signed up for Hebrew classes to improve his chances at employment, he met for the first time “Jews who were not soldiers.” I assume they were recent settlers, Israelis don’t need Hebrew classes. They connected over their shared love of country music. One of the more revealing statements Abu Sarah makes is “I decided that it doesn’t matter what happens to me, what really matters is how I deal with it.” In other words, having your brother killed due to internal injuries suffered during interrogation by a brutal settler colonial army “doesn’t matter,” what really matters is how you can “bring down the walls of hatred, of ignorance,” in his case by co-founding (with two Jewish Americans) a travel agency. Abu Sarah then shows us snippets of one of the delegations he led, which took participants into a refugee camps where they were offered maqluba, “the best meal ever,” then the “Palestinians and Israelis sang together,” then the tour participants even belly danced. Ted Talk pause for audience smiles. I am seriously not making this up, this would-be charming young man is a parody. 

I’d like to share a historical parallel with Abu Sarah. Back in the US antebellum years, some free states had resorts that catered specifically to slave owners vacationing with their favorite enslaved mistresses. The resorts were supposedly “health resorts” to which the slave masters would go for a retrieve, accompanied by their slave women, for a pretense of normalcy. Wilberforce University, the private historically black university in Ohio, is built on the grounds of one of the more notorious such resorts, namely Tawawa Springs

I would explain to Abu Sarah that knowing someone, even very intimately, does not erase power dynamics. Way too many slave owners had long-term relationships with their slaves, confided in them, vacationed with them. And even though some of the enslaved women were favorite “mistresses,” they were never, ever the equal of their “masters,” their owners. Thomas Jefferson had a four decades-long relationship with his slave Sally Hastings. Power dynamics? The relationship started when Sally was 14, and Thomas 44. Sally was pregnant at 16, and had six children with Jefferson, who never emancipated her. She was only freed by Jefferson’s daughter, after the president’s death. I assume Sally and Thomas frequently ate together, and danced together. 

Or I could point Abu Sarah to a much more recent example, closer to his home, that of the encounter between Muna el-Kurd and Yaacob Fauci which circulated widely on social media last month, where Muna tells Yaacob that he is stealing her house, an act he does not deny as much as he trivializes it, as he “explains” that if he doesn’t steal her house, someone else will. Muna addresses Yaacob by name, the two know each other well. They have been living in the same house, the el-Kurd house, for ten years now, since Yaacob moved into the extension the el-Kurds had built in the front of their house. The fact that these two live in close proximity does not change the fact that Fauci is stealing Muna’s family home. 

Would Mejdi Tours offer us an opportunity to learn from Fauci why he feels that he is as qualified as the next settler to steal a Palestinian home? Would we be encouraged to consider Fauci’s perspective, when he does not even hold himself accountable for moving into the el-Kurds’ home? No, there can be no “Dual Narratives” when it comes to justice, and any delegation that purports to offer that is today’s equivalent of the Tawawa Springs resort for “masters” and “mistresses.” 

So, for anyone considering an organized tour to Palestine this year, I would urge you to avoid any of the 20 that have been approved by the Israeli Tourism Ministry. Fortunately, a coalition of trustworthy organizations has compiled a list for “Ethical Travel to Palestine and Challenging Apartheid Tourism,” which serves as an excellent starting point for anyone interested in traveling, learning, and becoming a change agent for justice.  For while yes, of course there are (at least) two sides to every story, in Palestine, these two sides are the oppressor and the oppressed, the occupier and the occupied, those who steal houses, and the families being displaced yet again. Israel is the oppressor, Palestinians the oppressed. And political accountability, not belly dancing, is what will end that.  


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