From Scar to Allyship: A South Korean’s Reflection on Israel-Palestine
By: Minji Ko
While all the memories from traveling have become more precious ever since the Pandemic started, my trip to Palestine, Paltrek, organized by SIPA’s Palestine Working Group, is arguably the most unforgettable and cherished one. Being in Palestine made me feel like I was traveling in a history textbook. I had believed that occupation and colonization were ugly features of the past, but it did not take me a long time to realize that occupation is a present-day reality for Palestinian people. During the trip, I saw how Israeli government’s domination is embedded in every single layer of Palestinian’s lives: Palestinians must pass through checkpoints every time they commute to school or work, armed soldiers come to their doors in the middle of the night, and Palestinian’s access to water and land is limited because the Israeli government is in control of the natural resources in the Palestine territories.
Coming from South Korea, a country that was brutally colonized by Japan for over 30 years, the sorrow of the Palestinians did not feel strange to me. Just like Palestine, under the Japanese occupation, people and resources on the Korean peninsula were exploited to uphold Japanese imperialism, and Korean language and culture were erased by the colonial power. After coming back from Paltrek, I got myself engaged in the Israel-Palestine discussion, reflecting on my own country’s history. I went to events, read articles, raised funds, and talked to a variety of people. While doing so, I noticed that, sometimes, Israel-Palestine discussions come with bigotry against Israelis (or Jews) or Palestinians (or Muslims). Whether intended or not, criticism against the government of Israel is sometimes misconstrued as resentment against Israelis or Jews. The false equation of pro-Palestinian activism being anti-Semitic is commonly observed. For example, earlier in the semester, addressing Israeli government’s pinkwashing, the act of using LGBTQ+ movements to promote political agenda, were labeled antisemitic. On the other hand, including a scholar studying antisemitism in a Palestinian activism event was equated to inviting a white supremacist to a Black Lives Matter event. (I think inviting the scholar to the event was not a good idea because it could have made the event less cohesive.) The prolonged conflict has influenced some people to attack other people’s identities or defend their own, and prejudice directed at individuals distracts people from seeing systemic or institutional problems. While these emotional tensions are understandable, they have hindered us from differentiating between governments and individuals, making it difficult to promote understanding of one another on a personal level.
National conflicts can dehumanize people on the other side. In South Korea, bitter sentiments against Japanese people intensify whenever historical disputes arise. For example, it is often falsely claimed that Comfort Women, women and girls conscripted as sex slaves by the Colonial Japanese Army during World War II, were voluntarily employed. Even recently, a Harvard professor, who has strong personal and academic connections with Japan, made such a claim in his recent paper. Such disheartening narratives, repeated often, have only reinforced South Korea’s deeply-rooted animosity towards Japan. I had internalized this national resentment, and it once even prevented me from making Japanese friends, assuming that they would not listen to nor empathize with me regarding the historical issues. Even after becoming friends with Japanese people, I have not found it easy to discuss colonial history, because in my mind, to a certain degree, Japanese people were once cold-blooded colonizers.
Is this assumption correct? Stepping back from the current tensions, Japan and Korea are both victims of colonialism and World War II. While Japan colonized many Asian countries, it is also the one and only country that experienced atomic bombing, not once, but twice. The horrific bombs took hundreds and thousands of civilians’ lives, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered decades of aftermaths. As a South Korean, I have never contextualized what Japanese people had to go through as a result of the nuclear attacks and to be honest, growing up, it even felt to me like they deserved it. And I regret thinking that way. Just as I was ignorant about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, maybe some Japanese people have not had opportunities to reflect on how Korea suffered during the colonial period.
In one of the SIPA courses I took, Gender and Development in Southeast Asia, taught by Professor Kristy Kelly, a German, a Japanese, and I, a South Korean, were fatefully assigned in the same Zoom breakout group to discuss how the colonial past had influenced post-war frameworks. Our conversation started as a shy analysis on assigned readings. As the conversation continued, we started asking bold questions to each other: how did colonialism and World War II affect your country? How does your country teach histories of those times? Feeling warm gazes through Zoom rectangles, we listened to each other without prejudice and thought about how to move forward from the colonial past. This honest and difficult conversation with SIPA friends, future policy makers, made me hopeful that Japan and South Korea can grow from the hateful past to a new relationship where we can reflect on painful histories together, grieve for each other’s losses and wounds, and be allies for one another. In this twisted world, pointing fingers at each other will only hurt, like touching scars that were never healed.
I understand that the Japan-South Korea relationship is not the same as that of Israel-Palestine. Also, Palestinian people’s sentiments to Israel (or Jews) would never be the same as how I feel against Japan (or Japanese people), because, again, what is happening in Palestine is not just history, but a current reality. It is not easy to have the compassion to understand the oppressors when one’s brothers and sisters are being oppressed, discriminated against, and murdered. More importantly, the power imbalance between Israel and Palestine makes it incredibly difficult for Palestinians to vocalize their narratives abreast with Israel. Palestinians need to shout louder with their bare voice, because they are always restrained by the Israeli government, and by the global community: Palestine is not even recognized as a Member State by the UN.
During Paltrek, I was humbled and touched by Manal Tamimi, the aunt of Ahed Tamimi, who was a child arrested and detained by the Israeili government for her activism. She joined Paltrek as a speaker and said she teaches her children not to hate Jewish people, even after having her family members arrested and injured by Israeli soldiers. While listening to her speaking, I could not stop crying. The anger that I held to Japanese people became so little, and I was embarrassed by how narrow-minded and immature I had been. Hatred will only beget hatred. She taught me that hatred should never be a strategy to build allyship for one another.
Some may think that it is naïve to preach understanding and respect on such a politicized and contentious matter. However, it is precisely because the conflict is so politicized and contentious that we need to sympathize and listen to what the other side has to say and be aware of how the listeners could feel when telling our stories. After over 50 years of struggles, listening to one another must be a difficult and relentless task for both Israelis and Palestinians. If I can be of any help, I want to hold their hands to put an end to this endless pain.
Minji Ko is a second year SIPA student MPA-Development Practice. On her blog, Text and the City, she publishes essays reflecting her identity as a South Korean woman.