On Observing the Gaza Conflict from a Jewish School

I was told recently that I work in the most secure location in all of Turkey.

“More secure than the American consulate?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” my department head replied.

Not only do we have no less than three Kevlar clad security guards outside our entrance throughout the day, as well as a large contingent of police that direct traffic past the school from morning to afternoon, but our in-house, 24 hour security guards check in and around the school grounds every single night for anything conspicuous or out of place. As a Jewish school in a predominantly Muslim country, one would expect high security. With the recent raid of Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces, our school is now a bit more on edge.

There hasn’t been too much talk on campus about the Gaza conflict. Everyone feels downright awful over the death of the children, but I can’t help but feel like most at the school have resigned themselves to accepting the circumstances of the Gaza conflict as a necessary evil. This, of course, is pure conjecture. Have I taken a poll to find out how everyone truly feels? No. I’m merely reading into what is not being said, rather than what is being stated outright, which isn’t much. And I try not to push anyone into conversation about the matter. For one, I don’t trust myself enough to respond calmly to any countenance of the incredibly heavy handed Israeli response. And two, I’m afraid that my questioning will be interpreted as a push towards argument. Everyone knows how the English department feels. “I just want to hang an enormous Palestinian flag from the Bulgarian consulate next door,” one of my British colleagues announced to us earlier in the year.

It’s all a bit surreal, this going back and forth between two realities. There is the reality of the Jewish State, of Zionism, of an attitude that all is well in the world because, unfortunately, might still makes right. If outright support of Israel isn’t stated, then it is ambivalence that you’ll find. We can’t support the Palestinians, but we sure can feel badly for them. Nor do we dare speak out against the injustice committed by Israel. Of course, when I say unjust, I’m not saying that the crux of the matter, that is, responding to terrorist attacks by Hamas, is unjust. But I am saying that the nature of Israel’s response is so nefarious that it easily warrants sending her leaders to a war crimes tribunal.

Then there is the reality that exists outside my school. When I go home, images of massive explosions, strafing fire, and bloodied children are broadcast into my living room. Protests abound and every single news channel is openly supportive of the Palestinians. As I walked down Istiklal Street the other night, the “Times Square” of Istanbul, I couldn’t help noticing flyers in the colors of the Palestinian flag strewn about the street, stuck in shop windows, pasted to the sides of buildings. Ben Filistin’liyim, they read. I am Palestinian. I took one back to my home and it is hanging up in my hallway mirror. I even bought a white and black checkered Palestinian scarf. But I would never dare reveal these items to my Jewish colleagues at school.

Today, the Turkish Ministry of Education announced that all schools in Turkey would be required to observe a minute of silence at 11:00am, out of respect for the “Palestinian children who have been killed by the Israeli military.” Our school, understandably, did not take part. For one, never mind the principle of the matter, nor what is morally right. For a school director to require a bunch of Jewish kids, some of whom are zealous Zionists, to observe a moment of silence for their enemy, be them children or not, would be political suicide. It is awful, but it’s true. Secondly, this moment of silence was political in nature. Where were the moments of silence for the 650,000 Iraqi dead? For the wedding parties bombed in rural Afghanistan? For the victims of the Rwandan genocide of the 1990’s, or the ethnically cleansed in Darfur? If we are going to observe a moment of silence for the victims of war, we must account for all of the victims, not just those that align with us politically, socially or religiously.

Beneath a picture of Ataturk, the heads of department and admin placed a clock on the wall, turned it to 11:00am, and sat silently for one minute. This was the best they could do, and understandably so. But it is only a superficial act of the most minor proportions. It will not bring back the civilian dead—those who have been reduced to numbers in the context of “collateral damage,” a reprehensible, nauseating term. It will not heal. It will not do anything pragmatic. What it will accomplish will only exist in theory. Yes, we remember the Palestinians, the poor Palestinians. What has been done to them in Gaza is awful but…