hatred and lies

Life in Ramallah is so comfortable that it makes me uncomfortable. My beautiful apartment has laundry and internet, I eat whatever I want, and I even have membership at a gym. I could almost forget about the very existence of the occupation. I could almost go home today unchanged.

But there are two ways in which this conflict has permeated my personality, aside from politics. It has elicited half-truths and untruths from my usually honest mouth, and it has given me a taste of blind hatred.

I have lied to Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians alike.

On the Egged bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem weeks ago, I sat with a girl from Jerusalem who was about to start a job at a school in Tel Aviv for students with learning disabilities. She was friendly and likeable. She asked where I was staying, and I told her Kikar Zion hostel in West Jerusalem without blinking an eye. I couldn’t tell her I didn’t know, because she’d heard me at the beginning of the ride call to check availability at the Faisal hostel in East Jerusalem. I am usually the one friends have to prod to remind me to lie when its convenient, but it slipped out easily.

More recently, I was staying with Hannah at the house of a lovely family of eight girls. We sat cutting cucumbers into strips and putting them into plastic soda bottles to make pickles. Lana and I were talking about all manner of things, and at one point she said “So you’re Christian?” Not yet having figured out a policy, I nodded meekly. The moment passed, and I hoped the subject was gone. But I was to have no such luck. When Hannah returned from a visit next door, Lana said to her “Isn’t this great? We have all three religions represented here. Hannah, who is Jewish, I am Muslim, and Shira is Christian!” She was so genuine, and I could not meet Hannah’s eyes over the bowl of cucumbers.

When I omitted information on birthright, it was with a purpose. I didn’t want to get kicked off, though I might as well have been- I’m not using their ticket for early November tucked away in a folder. In Israel, I lied about being anti-Zionist because I didn’t always want to complicate things. In Palestine, I lie about being Jewish because I don’t always want to complicate things. These lies I think are counterproductive, but I’m unsure how to quit.

The hatred I know is unproductive. I feel it when I see settlers in the West Bank, soldiers in a market, side-curls through a car window. The features that used to make me smile inwardly at familiarity in airports and unexpected niches are now the other. I even sometimes resent Israelis at demonstrations for their cavalier manner. It’s an alien emotion to me, and I want it to remain such, but again I am unsure how to quit.