As an American student with little knowledge of Israel or Jewish culture, I boarded an airplane on Dec. 27 to participate in the Project Interchange’s campus media seminar in Israel, an educational program through the American Jewish Committee.

Before leaving on the trip I knew little and had no opinions about Israel. I knew that Israel was created after WWII to give the Jewish people a place to call home and to prevent anything like the Holocaust from ever happening again. I knew my grandma ferociously defends Israel, explaining that the Jewish people have faced ill fortune after ill fortune throughout history; that in a place where they are surrounded by countries who hate them, they are forced to defend themselves. I had also seen a documentary from a Palestinian point of view on the Gaza strip.

I half expected to land on the tarmac to find tanks pushing rubble and skinny Arab boys throwing stones.

I was shocked to find Israel is a westernized country that looks as if it were never struck by missiles. It is culture rich, peaceful and much like New York City hyped up on Turkish coffee. Everyone has a function, a place to be and an opinion.

People may get along in their daily lives without any catastrophes, but Israel is a conflicted place, the threat of missiles is a daily concern, and times of war are the norm. However, hate is not the driving force. The complicated bouquet of issues that plagues Israel is more mundane. While many Israelis aim to preserve their culture and keep Israel as a strictly Jewish state, conflict with the surrounding countries boils down to civic issues such as water, immigration and urban sprawl.

Looking down on the West Bank the Jewish settlements inch their way closer to Palestinian territory. It looks as if the buildings themselves are having a standoff; in some parts only the wall separates them. The white-washed suburban settlements twist toward the rickety buildings of Palestine racing slowly to the few small hills that separate the two.

I had imagined a fast paced, high-stress battle constantly raging in the West Bank , with daily missiles and stones being thrown over the wall. School children do throw stones at cars over the wall and sometimes the settlements are struck with missiles, but in times of peace Israelis living in the settlements and Palestinians just across the border coexist in a civil fashion, says Bob Lang on the future of Jewish settlements. He believes in a two-state solution where Palestinians and Israelis can cross the border freely yet remain living in their respective territories. Some Palestinians already do cross the border daily to go to work in the settlements and, according to Rulah Salmeh, a journalist in Palestine, there have been instances where a Palestinian and an Israeli fall in love and marry.

Although a tale of love and a planned solution lends some hope in the Middle East, conflict is a daily stress in the settlements. Also, conflict between Israelis and Arabs is not the only conflict in Israel. Several elements of Israeli life compete with one another constantly, says Jossi Shan, professor of political science at Televiv University. Israelis are conflicted about the settlements and Israel’s sheer existence. Orthodox Jews don’t believe in the Zionist movement because it goes against the basic rules of Judaism. Orthodox do not serve in the military and do not live in the settlements. The rules that Orthodox Jews live by emphasize not pushing into a society where they are not wanted.

This train of thought makes sense to me. Israel continues to build settlements to accommodate the huge influx of immigrants from all over the world. Wanting to live in a place where you are surrounded by your culture and like-minded individuals is understandable, but not at the cost of another person’s wellbeing or at the cost of your own and your children’s. Although many of the immigrants come from Russia or Africa, where life makes braving missile attacks and mandatory military service a piece of cake, many come from democratic countries such as Britain and the United States. A Jewish cab driver in Jerusalem, born and raised in Israel, passionately gave me his opinion that the Zionist movement should stop encouraging immigration to Israel. He empathized with the Palestinians and assured me that Israel was becoming overcrowded.

In Sderot, the closest city to Gaza, people are often struck by missiles. Playgrounds double as bomb shelters. When an alarm sounds, seven seconds is allotted to find shelter. At the Lebanese border, Israeli soldiers are constantly in the line of fire from Hezbollah. Looking out over Lebanon, I was informed that Hezbollah probably had a target on me. Ramallah is scattered with rubble and people stand on the garbage-littered streets with grim faces.

When in such close proximity to human realities, it is hard to say who actually belongs on a piece of land. All I can say is that the reality is too much to pay for space. I still don’t have a solid opinion about Israel or the Arab nations, and I certainly don’t have an answer. After a week-long intensive seminar in Israel, the only idea I can agree to with conviction is something that Tal Becker, former policy advisor to Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, says, “Peace is a very annoying word.”