laura.fo

Laila at Raising Yousuf and Noor writes about the Alternative Tourism Group, an agency committed to social justice tourism in Palestine:

The group is a Palestinian NGO that specializes in Fair Trade and "justice tourism", focusing in tours and pilgrimages that include critical examinations of the history, culture, and politics of the Holy Land. In so doing, they try to support the local community through the creation of economic opportunities and positive cultural exchange between guest and host, the protection of the environment, and political/historical education.

I've never been to Palestine, and the politics of tourism are part of the reason why. In college in Cairo I had a Palestinian friend whose girlfriend was American. I remember her going to Jerusalem for a week or two during one of the school breaks. My friend could not go with her. In fact he'd never been there, and probably still hasn't. He couldn't go to visit his grandfather's grave, while she, with her American passport, could come and go without incident. Even my Egyptian friends, who were less likely to be blocked outright at checkpoints, said the surveillance they'd be under wasn't worth whatever they'd get out of the trip. It just didn't occur to them to see Palestine as a tourist destination.

I'm still not sure how I feel about this. I have several American friends who've gone to the West Bank, and somewhat fewer to Gaza, on social justice trips. They usually went by invitation of Palestinian activist groups or individual Palestinian friends. They stayed in Palestinian homes, came back with notebooks packed full of information, and used the experience to educate Americans about the occupation. In some cases they'd set up exchanges with Palestinian schools and NGOs and had helped fund those organizations. These are all good things, things I support. But the politics of going in the first place rarely came up for debate, and that does bother me.

On the other hand, I say this as someone who has been to Germany many times, and never thought twice about it until two friends told me their mothers would not step foot in the country that had killed one's parents and tortured the other's father. It was a matter of principle.

But Germany is different, one could argue; it's taken active steps to come to grip with its past. Israel: not so much. It hasn't even come to grips with its present. Yet I also remember one friend criticizing a musician with progressive politics for touring in Israel. "There are some places you just don't play," he said. "Yes," another friend said, "but if you're going to make that argument, the first place you'd boycott would be the U.S." Touche.

So, I'm conflicted.