Milk Fed - Melissa Broder Page 0,70

conditions in Gaza and everything.”

“You’ve been to Gaza?” asked Mrs. Schwebel.

I shook my head no.

“No. I didn’t think so. You told us you’ve never been to Israel.”

“You’re right,” I said.

“Okay, then.”

Satisfied, she began eating again.

Just keep your mouth shut, I said to myself.

Fine, I replied.

“But what about the history?” I heard myself say aloud. “What kind of god would be happy with seeing hundreds of thousands of people expelled from their homes?”

“Rachel!” said Miriam angrily.

She had her pointer finger in her mouth and was biting her nail. I noticed that her thumbnail and ring finger were bitten too, up past the skin. When had she started biting her nails?

It dawned on me then that Miriam might not know how the Palestinians had been expelled—that she might never have learned about it. I wasn’t taught this in my Jewish education either.

Mr. Schwebel met my eyes. It seemed he was aware of what I was talking about. Then he looked back down at his plate quickly again and put his fork into a tender piece of beef.

“There’s something that the Palestinians call the Nakba,” I said. “It refers to when they were driven from their homes into exile—when Israel became a state. It sort of puts a different perspective on Israeli independence. I mean, I was taught that the Palestinians went to war with us. But I don’t think that’s true. If you’re kicked out of your home, I don’t think you’re going to war if you retaliate. You’re just defending your home.”

There was silence at the table. Adiv got up and went to the bathroom. Miriam was still chewing on her pointer fingernail. I wondered if I had somehow transmitted the habit to her, if she’d caught it from me.

“That isn’t true,” said Mrs. Schwebel. “I don’t know where you got that information, but it’s wrong.”

I’d never been a good debater, and I could not point to one place where I had gotten my information. The Internet, mostly. Students for a Free Palestine. Arguments between stoned people at college parties. Half an audiobook called Disputed Yesterdays: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Made Simple.

“What part?” I asked. “That they didn’t live there first? That they weren’t kicked off their land? That when someone attempts to reclaim what belongs to them, it’s not an attack but a defense?”

“All of it,” she said. “The land belonged to Britain. It didn’t belong to anyone else. It did not belong to the Palestinians any more than it belonged to the Christians who lived there. The British gave it to us. It was given as a reparation for the Holocaust, because we had nowhere else to go and we should never have nowhere to go again.”

“But there were Palestinians living there,” I said.

“So they were relocated,” said Mrs. Schwebel. “So what? That’s history. It’s just how it is.”

“Is it?” I asked.

“They had plenty of time to make peace. They were given land in the separation, and they chose not to accept it. They chose to always stay and fight. They brought the rest of the Arab world into it with them. And that’s the thing, if the Arab world cared so much about the Palestinians, why didn’t they give them any of their own land? If they cared so much, why didn’t Egypt just cut out a slice for them? Because Egypt didn’t actually care about the Palestinians. It’s purely anti-Semitism.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said.

“What don’t you know? That history belongs to the victor? How about you give up your apartment right now? That land once belonged to the Native Americans, but I don’t see anybody coming after that now. It’s only when it’s Israel and the Jews are involved that people raise a stink, because they like to have a reason to hate the Jews.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“The Arab world does not care about the Palestinians one bit or they would give up a cut of their land. Israel is only the size of New Jersey. Why should we be asked to give up what is rightfully ours?” she asked.

“But is it rightfully ours?”

She ignored my question.

“It’s only because people hate the Jews that they take the side of the Palestinians. That is the truth. It’s true of anyone who believes that Israel does not have a right to exist.”

Now I was silent. Adiv was still in the bathroom. Miriam picked up her glass and took a sip of water. Her cuticle was bleeding. She wouldn’t look at me.

“Let me ask you,” Mrs.