I can’t believe that the first week of my Israel program is over. It’s been everything I expected and more after over six years away from the country of my birth. It’s also the first time that I’ve returned to the country wearing “political science glasses.” This seems strange to say since the entire place is one big roiling political cauldron. More has changed than I dared imagined; in how developed the country is now, and by the altered approach to politics here. One of the main purposes in coming to Israel this summer is to explore what has happened to the peace movement since the abandonment of the Oslo process by Israelis and Palestinians. The peace process is no longer the defining issue in Israeli politics. Indications are that it may be as low as sixth in priority for Israelis more concerned with economic security, social parity and well-being, and the threat (real or exaggerated) posed by Iran’s nuclear development. No one seems to care about the peace process anymore. What I’ve noticed concurrent to this is the increasing integration of lands conquered by Israel in the June 1967 Six Day War into the fabric of Israeli society.

            The first indication I received of this was on the drive down to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem on May 24, the first day of the program. Rather than taking Highway 1, the main route between the two cities which winds its way as it connects the Judean Mountains to the Plain of Sharon, my parents and I took the alternate “Modi’in Highway,” so named because it exits Jerusalem from the North and curves around to terminate in the city of Modi’in. (I should mention here that I actually arrived in country ten days early to better acclimate to the country, recover from jet lag, reacquaint myself with my family here, and spend a few days with my parents.) For those not familiar with this route, as I had not been, it cuts straight across the West Bank. It is a modern divided four-lane highway. There are no signposts along the way demarcating when one has entered or exited the territory, only a checkpoint at its exit point from the West Bank – one of only a handful of checkpoints that Israelis must contend with when entering or exiting the Territories. The only indications are derived from the locational signs noting the Palestinian towns and cities, and the Israeli settlements along the way. On the ground, the term “settlements” becomes an esoteric concept. These Israeli towns and cities are all connected to this highway. They are integrated into Israel’s infrastructure. They are slowly being woven into the fabric of Israeli sovereignty, while simultaneously being bluntly separated by fence and wall from Palestinian neighbors. For stretches the highway runs right along walled portions of the security barrier, obscuring the Palestinian settlements on the other side, reinforcing the foreignness of “the other” to Israelis.

            And it seems that as long as Israelis feel secure and relatively stable financially, they are content to forget the difficulties faced by their Palestinian neighbors. Gaza is hardly discussed anymore in the news. Israelis are slowly returning to Palestinian-run business alongside highways, but don’t dare enter into towns and cities; both because it is illegal for Israelis to enter the territories and because Israelis are taught to fear “the (potential) terrorists.” With absence for concern for the Palestinians in everyday life, talk of peace has evaporated like the water from the Dead Sea. I came here with the working assumption that the cause of this national pathos was a sort of “peace weariness” after years of discussions and negotiations with little to show, a sort of flipside to “war weariness.” I’m already questioning whether this is the cause or yet another symptom of something much deeper after having toured Jaffa, Jerusalem, Gilo, and Har Homa, and the Golan Heights; scratching the surface of Haifa, Nazareth, and Tiberias; speaking with representatives of different faiths and communities such as the Ahmadis, Bedouin, and Ilm alWahidiyyun (Druze). Should I alter my original question? Perhaps it isn’t only Israeli Jews who no longer care for peace? Maybe the more appropriate investigations should be, “Does anyone in the Eastern Mediterranean care about peace?” and “With no suicide attacks in Israel in over four years, is Israel already experiencing peace? And is it sustainable?”