Israeli Palestinian Conflict Argumentative Essay

During my first few weeks in Jerusalem, I found myself constantly getting into arguments about the conflict with my roommates and in social settings.

During my first few weeks in Jerusalem, I found myself constantly getting into arguments about the conflict with my roommates and in social settings.

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He believed in making peace with the Palestinians and “never missed a peace rally,” according to his son.

By contrast, his killers ‒ who came from a middle-class neighborhood in East Jerusalem and were actually quite well-off relative to most Palestinians ‒ had been paid 20,000 shekels to storm the bus that morning with their cowardly guns.

I felt horrible for having publicly glorified one of the murderers.

The man who’d been murdered, Richard Lakin, was originally from New England, like me, and had taught English to Israeli and Palestinian children at a school in Jerusalem.

Writing about the attack with the detached analytical eye of a journalist, I was able to take the perspective that (I was fast learning) most news outlets wanted – that Israel was to blame for Palestinian violence.

But when I learned that my friend’s friend was one of the victims, it changed my way of thinking.You support gay rights, access to abortion and gun control.The belief that Israel is unjustly bullying the Palestinians is an inextricable part of this pantheon.IN THE summer of 2015, just three days after I moved to Israel for a year-and-a-half stint freelance reporting in the region, I wrote down my feelings about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.A friend of mine in New York had mentioned that it would be interesting to see if living in Israel would change the way I felt.Most progressives in the US view Israel as an aggressor, oppressing the poor noble Arabs who are being so brutally denied their freedom.“I believe Israel should relinquish control of all of the Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank,” I wrote on July 11, 2015, from a park near my new apartment in Jerusalem’s Baka neighborhood.“The occupation is an act of colonialism that only creates suffering, frustration and despair for millions of Palestinians.”Perhaps predictably, this view didn’t play well among the people I met during my first few weeks in Jerusalem, which, even by Israeli standards, is a conservative city.At first, I’ll admit, I didn’t feel a lot of sympathy for Israelis. ” It seemed so obvious to me; how could they not realize that all this violence was a natural, if unpleasant, reaction to their government’s actions? In Jerusalem, and across Israel, the attacks against Jewish Israelis continued.IT WASN’T until the violence became personal that I began to see the Israeli side with greater clarity. My attitude began to shift, probably because the violence was, for the first time, affecting me directly.My friend probably suspected that things would look differently from the front-row seat, so to speak. Before I moved to Jerusalem, I was very pro-Palestinian. I grew up Protestant in a quaint, politically correct New England town; almost everyone around me was liberal.And being liberal in America comes with a pantheon of beliefs: You support pluralism, tolerance and diversity.