“100 years of history in 45 minutes.” Not an easy task. But for a man like Guy Ben-Porat, a political science professor at Ben Gurion University, it’s just another day at work.
We were honored to listen to the second part of his two-lecture series tonight before going to bed at Bayit Vegan, and it was just as intriguing and fascinating as the first. After seeing all the spiritual sights in Jerusalem and seeing the Security Wall between Israel and the West Bank, it was nice to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
He started off with a disclaimer, that people tell different stories based on the same facts, which makes history messily subjective. We talked about both the Israeli and Palestinian narratives of the past few decades, where they split, where they combine, where they differ, and where they agree. In the end, he identified 3 major problems Israel is facing: Settlements, Refugees, and Jerusalem.
As advocates and problem solvers, we wanted to know how this long-running, but ultimately unsustainable situation could be resolved. After all, we had been presented with a quite negative view during our last session with him, that sometimes problems just go unsolved for years. He told us his viewpoint on the matter, which was honestly the last thing I had expected. He told us that while most of the opposition to Israel is unfair and untrue, the country does need to take action to fix the problems that it is actually facing, the problems it had in some regards brought upon itself. It was interesting to hear this viewpoint from such an advocate for the land, but it rung well with me, and is a point which I will definitely consider further as I journey down my long road of Israel advocacy.
B’Ahava v’simcha,