My Senior year in High School, I applied for and received a scholarship from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to study Psychology and English Literature. The first three years of my education I lived in the student dorms on Mount Scopus.
It was a remarkable experience in many ways, in part because it brought together under one roof foreigners, Israelis and Palestinian Israeli Arabs, many of whom were scholarship students like myself. We shared the common areas like the kitchen and shower stalls on a daily basis. We lived beside one another.
A couple of times during my studies, my parents came to visit from Guatemala. Those were the days before cell phones and 24/7 connectivity. So when they wanted to visit me on campus, we would just agree to meet in my dorm room after class. Jerusalem being Jerusalem, we would spill out from the classroom, walking together, arguing and laughing, continuing lively academic conversations and debates. It was not unusual that I lost all sense of time and arrived late to meet my parents. Whenever that happened, I knew where to find them: one of the Palestinian students on my floor would surely have welcomed them into their room and offered them tea or coffee and cookies while they waited for me.
Among Palestinians, the process of brewing coffee is very similar to that of Turkey. There’s a whole ritual involved. Coffee is brewed in a small copper pot, mixed with sugar and cardamom. It is allowed to rise, cool slightly, and rise again repeatedly until it reaches the desired consistency. My floor mates knew that I loved to share a cup with them and they sometimes asked me to join them in one of their rooms.
On one of those occasions we got onto the subject of the history of Israel. A chasm seemed to open up before us. Their narrative of events had nothing to do with mine. It contradicted every historical account I had ever read. For instance, I asked what they thought of the 1948 War of Independence. I said that on the very day of its creation, following a vote and mandate by the United Nations, Israel was invaded by the combined armies of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. I was told in reply that it was the exact opposite, Israel had declared war on its neighbors and expelled Palestinians. We talked for the better part of an hour. We could find no common ground.
Finally, visibly exasperated, one of the guys took out his wallet and showed me an ID. It was his membership in the Palestinian Liberation Organization. He then told me that were his commanding officer to order me dead, he would not hesitate to kill me. I looked into his eyes and saw this was no empty threat. There were at least five or six others present. I glanced at their faces. Nobody spoke. The silence was deafening and I felt like I was staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. I drained the last of my sweet coffee, suddenly bitter in my mouth.
I rose, left the room, and never went back.
