Here's an opinion piece I submited to the Progressive, a liberal magazine.
________
After spending a year in the Middle East, most of it in Cairo, but a month in the West Bank and another month in Iraq, I returned to America. I would never call myself an activist, but I told people about what I saw: the oppression in Palestine, the poverty in Egypt, and the senselessness in Iraq.

My stories and photos affected some of my friends and family. They agreed the situation in the Middle East needed to change, but in the 2004 election many of them helped to re-elect George W. Bush, a man complicit in most of the Middle East’s problems. They voted for him because they were fiscal conservatives.

Last month I returned to the Middle East after being away for a year. The Israelis had finished building the separation barrier around most parts of Palestine, despite the Hague’s ruling against it. Egypt is still an impoverished nation and violence continues to escalate in Iraq.

I’d never tried to make a difference, but in the back of my mind I thought my experience might help in some vague way. Perhaps it did, perhaps change takes time, but I doubt it.

Now living in Palestine affords me with ample opportunity to watch activists who believe they can change the situation here.

A group of Westerners marched through the center of Tulkarm on a “Peace Pilgrimage.” Palestinians read the peace pilgrims’ signs, written in Arabic and English, made a few sarcastic comments and the peace pilgrims were gone. The next day checkpoints were still in place and posters of martyrs still hung on every wall.

A year ago in Jerusalem two American students made a documentary about the “oppression in Palestine.” Neither had any experience in filmmaking. They planned to show their work at local high schools and colleges in America. A year after they made their documentary the American government once again sent Israel, the oppressor, over $2 billion dollars in military aid.

In Bethlehem a group of internationals held hands and sang “We Shall Overcome” overlooking the 300/Gilo checkpoint that connects Bethlehem to Jerusalem. The checkpoint had been closed for nearly four hours. When it opened none of the Palestinians tried to form an orderly line to neatly overcome their oppression. Everyone mobbed towards the gate and trampled several people who were sent to the hospital with minor injuries.

Activists show solidarity, feel Palestinians’ pain, and eventually inform their friends and family. Despite their return tickets home, they believe they are an active part of the situation here.

I met Jim, a British graffiti artist, in Baghdad, Iraq. He'd made his sole occupation putting up stencil graffiti on bombed out buildings in Baghdad. The pictures featured ordinary people who’d died in the war: cigarette venders, families, old women, etc. He never called himself a graffiti artist, or an activist, or believed that his graffiti would enlighten Iraqis or alleviate suffering. Jim told people that he was a “war tourist,” checking out the situation in Iraq for himself.

It sometimes offended activists that Jim was just a war tourist. The human shields, who hid in the heavily fortified Sheraton and Hotel Palestine during the bombing of Iraq, believed they had a greater purpose than Jim. The same human shields started an orphanage when the situation calmed down. They didn’t have enough money to hire guards and street gang overran the orphanage. The gang sold the orphans new clothes, stole their food, and gave them drugs.

Eventually the human shields managed to place the children in a safe orphanage run by a large Turkish aid group. In the end they were lucky and nothing terrible happened.

Foreign activists in the Middle East involve themselves in problems they don’t fully understand and rarely make a difference. The people in Tulkarm could care less if every college student in the United States marched through their village. It wouldn’t fix their shattered economy. When it comes to the treatment of Palestinians Israelis openly break international law, as well as their own. If the Hague’s opinion doesn’t matter to Israel, the opinion of international peace activists “bearing witness” probably doesn’t mean much to them either.

If activists want to change something they can join humanitarian workers like the doctors in Medical Relief who volunteer their time and expertise to diagnose and treat medical problems in villages without medical facilities. They could help farmers in Gaza rebuild damaged greenhouses or create a trash collection service in the West Bank. But most activists don’t possess the skills necessary to conduct fruitful aid work.

Without these skills activists need to seriously reconsider their role in foreign countries. Good intentions don’t necessarily change lives for the better. Nations make peace when the people living there can’t stand the conflict anymore. An activist without a trade will make no difference.

If activists want to visit the Middle East, the vast majority of them need to admit that they’re just political tourists who’ve come for their own reasons. The locals will still enjoy meeting foreigners and sharing their situation, but they’ll also appreciate the honesty of a visitor who doesn’t believe his or her presence is the answer.