After spending a night with a Jewish Israeli family, discussing about their lives here in Israel and about the conflict, this morning we met up with Niel Laszarus who is assumed to be a Jewish Israeli centrist to further discuss about the conflict and give his point of view. Since the first day we have been here in Israel, we have been meeting up with Palestinians and hearing their side of the conflict. We saw how they have been oppressed by the state of Israel with the walls that divide them and cage them in and we have heard their sad stories of how their lands were taken from them and their houses destroyed. There is no doubt that the Palestinians are being oppressed. But last night and today, the Jewish family that I stayed with and Niel showed me their side of the story. The Jews, too, also suffer from this conflict. The Jews have been oppressed for such a long time in history from the Holocaust to this recent day where they feel they are not accepted in other countries due to their religion. Thus, these people desired for a country of their own where no one can oppress them again. They argued that the reason why they built the wall and why relations between the Jews and Palestinians are not going so well was because the Jews fear that the Palestinians would attempt to bomb them or shoot at them if they were given the chance.

After hearing both sides of the story from the Palestinians and Israelis, I have realized how deep and complex this conflict is and am just lost and confused of what to do with the information I have obtained and where I stand in this conflict. I am an outsider and I will never be able to understand what these two sides have been through and are going through. I only hope that my presence here and offering a listening ear helps console them and ease both sides pain. Even after all of what we have done, I feel I still have so much to learn about the conflict and the people.

-Chong