My Enemy, Myself

Who's your enemy? Why fight? Over the course of three years, Belgian-Tunisian photojournalist Karim Ben Khelifa has traveled to both sides of the world's longest-simmering conflicts to ask these pointed questions. What he heard from combatants in the Gaza Strip, the disputed Kashmir region along the India-Pakistan border, and tribally divided South Sudan captures the futility of wars that never end -- and can't be won. Tragically, bitter rivals are often fighting for the very same reasons.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY KARIM BEN KHELIFA | JANUARY 2, 2013

GAZA 

"My name is Adi; I'm 22 years old, and I'm an officer in the Israeli army. Anyone who tries to cross the border illegally to do bad things is an enemy. The reason that I am doing what I am doing is to protect my country, first and foremost against terrorism and secondly there is also a lot of drugs and other illegal things that have been smuggled across the border, just things that corrupt society. I have never met face to face with an enemy in my entire three years in the army. I think mostly my fears [are] that something happened to one of my soldiers. Freedom should be global, and I think once there is no more wars between people and no more violence, that is when people will be truly free. Terrorism is one of the worst things invented by humanity. It is just an insult to everything that separates us from animals; it is an insult to democracy and an insult to everything we try to be. I want to educate people; I want to be a big part of a change. I hope that being a teacher will be able to make people think differently, be more honest, be nicer to each other, and to be more respectful."

Karim Ben Khelifa

 

Karim Ben Khelifa is a freelance photojournalist, CEO of emphas.is, and a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. He tweets as @KBenK. You can see more of his work at instagram.com/karimbenkhelifa.