My Jewish Teacher

One of my major is Palestinian and Israeli conflict, taught by Dr Colin Shindler who is Jews. He is pro-Israel and will present Israeli side's story more obviously.

At the first beginning, Dr Shindler quoted Professor Mark Tessler's saying :

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a struggle between good and evil but rather a confrontation between two peoples who deserve recognition and respect, neither of whom has a monopoly in behaviour that is praiseworthy or condemnable."

Afterward, he raised a question: Were Palestinian forced to leave their home during the war in 1948? How many Palestinians left actually? Then he quoted 3 different statistics from Isreali authority and some scholars...

Finally, his anwer is: No, because Palestinians were not forced to leave, most of them left before the war broke out voluntarily. Or Yes, because lots of Palestinians escaped after Israel got independence!

So, the most important thing to look at Israeli and Palestinian question is: don't be cheated by political slogan.

Surely, it is the correct attitude of conducting research. However, discuss whether Palestinian were forced to leave, is just like: discuss how Japanese occupied Nanjing? Japan "entered" Nanjing or massacre happened in World War 2?

The solid fact is, several millions of Palestinian lost their home after Israel gained independent! Arguing how many people are forced to leave, how many people died in Nanjing is relatively meaningless! When you go into such kind of details, fact will be blurred and forgotten.

A few Middle Easterners in my class and they definitely don't agree with Dr Shindler. I expect this will be an exciting class.