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Israeli journalist addresses conflict
By Geof Wollerman
gwollerm@mscd.edu

Archive photo by Chris Stark Herb Keinon addresses a student during his last discussion on campus on Nov. 4, 2004. Keinon was on campus this year to discuss the latest developments in the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict and the pressures of raising a family in war-torn country. He spoke for about an hour and then fielded questions from students.

Despite a blanket of wet early morning snow on Denver’s streets, dozens of students and faculty gathered in the Tivoli Multicultural Lounge on Oct. 26 to hear Jerusalem Post journalist Herb Keinon talk about the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict.

Robert Hazan, chair of Metro’s Political Science department, gave a brief introduction. Keinon was raised in Denver and received a political science degree from the University of Colorado. Then, 25 years ago, he packed his bags and moved to Israel and became a Zionist.

He returned to the United States to get a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Illinois, moved back to Israel, and is now a diplomatic correspondent raising a family in one of the most violent regions on Earth.

“In order to understand Israel today, in order to understand what the government does, its policies, you have to understand the strains and the pressures that the people there have been living under for the last six years,” Keinon said.

Keinon explained he has lived through many waves of regional warfare, but the recent violence has been particularly difficult to deal with.

“I don’t remember a time when I felt insecure for myself and my children as much as I have over the last six years,” he said.

He described the issues his kids deal with in relation to the violence, such as not wanting to catch the bus to school or not being allowed to go out at night.

“A lot of our time as parents, my time, my wife’s time … (is) spent trying to ensure our kids are not consumed by fear, or by hatred. And it’s a difficult sell.”

Israel is in the throws of a major transformation, but that transformation has been made more difficult because of Israel’s ambiguity and unwillingness to clearly define what it wants its borders to be, Keinon said.

“This is one of the cardinal problems that Israel has in dealing with the vagaries of the Middle East,” Keinon said.

After he spoke, several students had questions for Keinon.

Mikkel Christensen, a Metro student who moved here from Denmark five years ago, wondered what it was that made Keinon and other Zionists so passionate about defending Israel’s right to exist in the region.

“I don’t see why this Holy Land is worth staying,” Christensen said. “All this violence, is it worth risking the lives of your wife and your four kids?”

Keinon responded by saying he made a choice to become a Zionist and he believed in what he was doing. He said he didn’t want to feel bullied out of the conflict.

“I believe that the Jews have a right to be there. If I was going to get up and leave because someone was going to punch me in the face, I just couldn’t live with myself,” he said. “There are certain ideals that are worth dying for … and Israel’s one of them.”

Leticia Rezende, a Metro student from Brazil, asserted that Israel, the United States and other Western countries were creating extremism through their own policies that were more violent than diplomatic, and this was the reason Israel was facing so much conflict in the Middle East.

“How can we stop that,” Rezende asked, “and return to diplomacy?”

Keinon said there is one basic notion that needs to be kept in mind when addressing that issue.

“I think most objective people in the world, when they look at the conflict, they can say, ‘If the Arabs were to lay down their arms tomorrow, there would be peace. If Israel were to lay down their arms tomorrow, there wouldn’t be an Israel.’ And I think that’s the fundamental difference,” he said.

Keinon said that diplomacy is difficult when dealing with someone like the president of Iran, who has vocalized his desire to see Israel gone and is on the cusp of acquiring nuclear arms.

“Diplomacy is all well and good,” Keinon said. “But the world is a lot crueler out there, and you feel this when you’re living in the Middle East.”

After the question-and-answer period, Hazan offered his own thoughts on the conflict, pointing out that it is not just an Israeli issue.

“I do not want any nation-state that exists to be dismembered. That may make me, in the case of this world, a Zionist. And I’m Jewish,” Hazan said. “But when I think about the Palestinians, I become Palestinian. When I look at the 99.9 percent of Muslims living in Gaza, I feel I am Muslim.”

An organizer for the event, Zinat Ismael, said she thought Keinon’s perspective was interesting, but she wished another panelist had been able to attend.

“It is a very conflicting issue, and so I respect his opinion. I understand that he’s been there and he lives through it, but it would have been nice to get the opposite side, and see what their feelings are,” Ismael said.