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Hippie = Hating the UN?

I’ll preface this post with admitting that I really don’t know that much about UN relief agencies overseas or general stereotypes about the work the UN does. However, I’ve always thought that, while it has its flaws, it’s generally a good organization that does meaningful work in really difficult places.

Yesterday morning I met up with a 30-something year old whose parents live on the same street that my mom now lives on. They got to talking on day in the spring about me coming here and exchanged emails saying that we should be in touch. We finally met up at an adorable coffee shop in the German Colony, which I’ve heard is a relatively hippie/secular area. There’s a cute little farmer’s market with lots of samples, endless coffee places, small bookstores, etc. He chose one that reminded me so much of NoHo – the walls were literally covered with old New Yorker magazine covers except for one wall that was totally covered with maybe 100 different flavors of coffee beans, of which you could chose a couple to grind into your own personal blend.

Adam explained that first worked at the UN in Iraq and just moved here 4 months ago. When I asked him what exactly he did here he said something like “we are here to work on reconciliation between the two groups and the Middle East peace process. However, there’s no reconciliation happening and there’s not Middle East peace process. Soooo….” and he chuckled with a strange mix of laughing at his own joke and sadness that this was the case. When I was asking him if he saw hope for the future, if those who had been there for a while got burned out at the immense mess this whole situation is, he said that a lot of people do feel something productive can happen for both parties but it will not happen anytime soon. He also was explaining how, at least his office, works more in short term projects reacting to things that are happening – and not necessarily planning out future ideas of a peace agreement or trying to visualize what the area will or could be like in 100 years.

When I asked him how he liked it here or if he felt overwhelmed at the tension in the city he, again, laughed and said that he absolutely loves it here, although he’s always been kind of an adrenaline junkie. He absolutely loves the city, though of course he does feel the tension in the air. He was explaining that since he drives a car that has a big blue UN on the side, he will often find notes on his windshield saying things like “get the f* out of this country” or “we don’t want you here.” He has said that co-workers who also live in the German Colony (reminder: I think this is a pretty funky/liberal/hippie area, or as close as you can get to one in Jerusalem) that they have often come out to their UN cars in the morning to find swastikas drawn over them and have eventually had to remove the U and the N to escape this harassment. So, he said with a sigh, he has to kind of pump himself up even getting out to his car in the morning because there could be something waiting for him. I was shocked that this happened in a more liberal area of the city – again, I’m not familiar with UN stereotypes but was surprised to hear of such hateful messages in a section of the city that doesn’t seem to be particularly radical (and thus demand that the whole area should be theirs, on both political sides, and the UN has not business being here). In any case, he didn’t seem too phased by it and seemed to be bringing fresh energy and a fresh vision to this conflict. Let’s hope he can help…

-Julia

1 comment to Hippie = Hating the UN?

  • Vandalism can occur anywhere. It does not mean that the people who live in the Moshava are responsible. The UN is bathed in anti-Israel rulings and condemnations. Israeli actions are on the permanent agenda of the Human Rights Council whose membership has often consisted of the most flagrant human rights violators in the world–Sudan, Libya, etc. Israeli actions in the medical area, education, gender relations are condemned on a daily basis in these organizations. The UN has also been heavily involved in helping to provide jobs and resources for individuals affiliated with groups most Israelis believe are engaged in terrorism–Hamas, al-Aqsa Briages, etc.