On Oct. 8, 2023, my family hung an Israeli flag outside our house on 16th Street in Washington, D.C. Ten times since then, someone has vandalized or ripped it down.
Since Oct. 7, my neighborhood had been filled with pro-Palestinian protesters and I was wary about how our flag would be perceived. That first act of vandalism confirmed my suspicions, filling me with fear that my community might no longer be safe. I felt pride and fear in equal measure—pride in what the flag meant to me, fear of what it meant to my neighbors.
The attacks escalated. Scissors to cut zip ties. Spray paint screaming “GENOCIDE” and “FREE GAZA” up our walkway to our front door. Each time, I thought about the person walking up in the dark, so certain of what our flag represented that they never considered knocking to ask.
Then one Saturday afternoon, as my family sat down for Shabbat lunch, someone finally did.
I opened the door to a man wearing a keffiyeh asking if my parents were home. My body tensed. But when my mother came to the door, something unexpected happened.
He asked how she felt about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and she responded that it was probably the same way he felt about the Israeli babies murdered on Oct. 7. “War is terrible,” she said. “I think we both can agree.” And thus began my first real experience of civil discourse across deep disagreement.
We invited him in. He told us about his family in Palestine. We told him about our relatives serving in the Israeli army, about our great-grandparents who survived Auschwitz and dreamed of a place free from persecution. For half an hour, we sat at the table and learned why this conflict mattered so deeply to all of us. The conversation didn’t resolve anything. We didn’t change each other’s minds. But we understood each other in a way that felt almost revolutionary: as people with legitimate pain, fears and reasons for caring.
Here’s what struck me most: I’ve lived in D.C. my entire life—supposedly the center of American political discourse—and this was my first experience with true dialogue across political differences. How is that possible?
According to a 2024 study in the Review of Economics and Statistics, the U.S. has experienced the most rapid growth in affective polarization—the growing animosity partisans feel toward the opposing party—since 1980 among countries studied.
Extreme positions force Americans to pick a side and march to the furthest end of the spectrum. My neighbor saw our flag and saw genocide. I saw his keffiyeh and saw someone who wanted to destroy Israel. Neither of us saw a person.
The stakes of this emotional divide are real. When partisans view each other with such animosity, we lose the ability to solve actual problems together. When we assume the worst about each other—when someone can walk up to my house with spray paint but not knock on the door—we create a society where symbols matter more than people.
Studies from the Civic Health Project show how brief conversations between people from opposing parties can produce large declines in affective polarization, even without changing policy views. The issue is these conversations aren’t happening.
Americans shy away from political discussions, especially when they anticipate conflict. When we encounter opposing views, they come through social media algorithms designed to inflame. The conversation that reduced my fear required my neighbor to knock on my door, but how many people are willing to do that?
As a junior in high school, I’m watching my generation inherit a country that has forgotten how to talk to itself. We know how to identify enemies but not how to recognize the humanity in people who disagree with us.
The man who knocked on our door didn’t solve the conflict. He didn’t change our minds, and we didn’t change his. But he did something more fundamental: he reminded us that behind every flag, every symbol, there’s a person with a story. Someone’s great-grandparents. Someone whose family is in danger. Someone worth listening to.
National interventions start with individual actions, with someone deciding to knock rather than vandalize, with someone answering the door instead of assuming the worst—with someone saying, “Tell me why this matters to you,” and actually listening.
Ten times, someone tore down or vandalized our flag. Once, someone knocked on our door in daylight. The difference between those two approaches is the difference between a country at war with itself and a democracy that might actually function. We desperately need more people willing to knock.
