And that’s it. The program is over.

Only our farewell dinner tonight remains. It’s been an incredible, whirlwind, crash course in Israeli politics and society. We’ve scoured the country from the Negev to the Golan, speaking and listening to a broad representation of the Israeli polity. Each had their own take on the state of Israeli affairs and the future of any peace agreement with the Palestinians. These were juxtaposed with our site visits to give us context and impress upon us the meaning and actual size of the dispute. Physically, the dispute is over tiny tracts of land when compared to the actual surface size of Earth. Why it should be so drenched in blood is beyond logical comprehension. But maybe that’s the point? If there is anything that I’ve come away with it is understanding the contradiction of schizophrenia and cold calculating realism that guides daily life in this region. Allow me to explain.

Jerusalem’s mayor is a hard-line secularist who is bending over backwards to accommodate the religious Jewish population while making life increasingly unbearable for the Arab residents. In contrast, the last mayor – who was ultra-orthodox – did everything possible to ensure the status quo balance of religious, secular, and Arab was disturbed as little as possible.

Israelis have no stomach for the peace process, yet they understand that they cannot administer the West Bank indefinitely. Until something or someone forces them to confront their role in the future of the territory, they are content to live and let live, loathe to even discuss the matter. Yet, upon a little bit of prodding, they are energetic in their assessments of the situation and prescription for the solution. And no two Israelis agree on anything, even within in “right” and “left” political camps.

In the rest of the country, the security barrier is hailed for stopping acts of terrorism in the form of suicide bombings, shootings, and stabbings, for over four years now. Outside of the intelligence establishment, no credit is given to the efforts of the Palestinian Authority in their cooperation with Israeli security forces. As a result, most Israelis heartily endorse barrier’s completion. In Jerusalem, where it is largely completed as “the wall,” Jews must balance appreciation of the increased security with the visible scar that the wall creates as it divides Jerusalem de facto despite all of the calls for a “united Jerusalem as the indivisible capital of the Jewish State” heard from politicians.

If anything, the final contradiction that can be gleaned is that for all the contention and claims of holiness, Israeli is actually nothing more than a typical struggling country enjoying a certain amount of success in harsh geographic conditions. It’s challenges geo-politically are in part self-determined. People go about their daily lives trying to afford a decent living. They are concerned with illegal immigration from Africa, a travesty that the issue is even under debate considering how many refugees are fleeing horrible war conditions and genocide. The travesty is that Israel was founded on the ashes of the Holocaust under the mantra of “never forget.” Have we then forgotten that the great powers closed their borders to Jewish immigrants fleeing Nazi persecution in the 1930s?

As a Jew born in Israel I will always cherish this state as my second home. But one thing this trip has shown me is that I am American for all intents and purposes. I have no desire to move back here and deal with this headache day in and day out. I crave the trivialities of life in the U.S., not the constant state of negotiation that embroils this country, down to the minutiae of crossing a street. At least, I say that now. The other thing that I’ve learned on this trip is that the situation on the ground can change in a fleeting moment.