While the American media and American Jewish point of view -- that Israel's security is threatened by Arabs -- is well known, the purpose of my July 2011 two-week trip to Israel/Palestine with Interfaith Peacebuilders was to learn first-hand about the effects of the 64-year old geo-political conflict on the Palestinians/Arabs, as well as to meet Arabs and Jews alike working to find peaceful solutions.
What I saw/heard/learned was very disturbing and difficult -- particularly in terms of how I feel about what minimal Jewish identity I have (both my birth and adoptive fathers were Jewish), and how I would discuss with Jewish friends and family. I also felt too confined on a tour, and 20-somethings who made up the majority of participants were getting on my nerves. I left the tour 3 days before its completion, and the country a day later.
This blog entry is part of my need to decompress and process.
A very brief and simplistic historical context, particularly for my grandbrood: Judaism is several thousand years old. For some reason unknown to me, Jews have suffered from irrational hatred and persescution -- known as "anti-semitism"-- throughout their history. The Old Testament of the Bible is to a great extent the story of the Jews who were the first religious group to believe in a single god. Jesus was a Jew. Numerous scholars, writers, artists, scientists and statesmen have been Jewish. Jews come from all over the world and identify themselves according to both their geographical origin [e.g., Ashkenazi, Safardic, Mizrahi, Ethiopian, etc.] and degree of observance of Jewish laws and customs (e.g., Hassidic, Orthodox, Conservative, Reformed). The apex of anti-semitism was when Jews were forced to live separately -- in "ghettos" -- and were discriminated against and persecuted in every walk of life. The insane culmination of this racism was genocide -- the abhorrent "final solution" designed and executed by Hitler that incarcerated millions in German concentration camps and sent 6 million Jews and another 6 million [homosexuals, gypsies, etc.] to be burned alive in ovens. This is known as the "Holocaust".
At the end of World War II, when Hitler and the Nazis were overcome and the concentration survivors were freed, Jewish nationalism -- the creation of a state where Jews could enjoy freedom and citizenship without fear of persecution -- became an urgent international priority. The land identified for this state was in the Middle East, in an area to which the Jews had a strong Biblical connection. The United Nations designated a portion of this land to create the Jewish state of Israel. However, Arabs claim they've occupied that land for hundreds of years and they resented being forced out and having their land and homes overtaken, especially since they hadn't had anything to do with the Holocaust.
Additionally, there was the issue of Jerusalem, a holy city for Jews, Arabs and Christians that had been fought over for centuries. The original U.N. plan was for Jerusalem to be an international city.
From 1947 to 1949 there was a war between Jews and Arabs over this land. The Jews won the war and created the state of Israel. For them, this was independence. For the 700-to-900,000 Arabs, known as "Palestinians", who were expelled, forced out, or fled to refugee camps in neighboring Arab countries, and whose more than 400 villages were destroyed, this was their "Nekbah", their "catastrophe." While for some, Israel's "right to exist" is a major issue (denying it, asserting it, questioning its form, etc.), for others, the Palestinians' "right to return", is (where would they go, how would they be assimilated, whose property is whose, etc.).
Many wars and failed peace talks later (amid the controversy of a "one state" or "two states" solution), with significant US military aid and diplomatic support, Israel has expanded its borders and exercises both military and civil control (to greater and lesser degrees) over Arab Muslims in the "West Bank" (formerly the part of Jordan west of the Jordan River), as well as in other contested areas. There are also Israeli Arabs who remained after the 1948 war and understand both prevailing cultures, as well as Arab Christians who are caught in the middle. Jerusalem was divided into Jewish "West Jerusalem" and Arab "East Jerusalem." Israeli Jews, however, continue to create settlements both in the West Bank and East Jerusalem that both frighten and anger Arabs, and appear to be making a move on Bedouins in the Negev Desert.
Although it's painting with a broad brush, for the sake of simplicity when I refer to "Israelis", it's predominantly Jews. When I refer to "Arabs", it's predominantly Muslim Palestinians. But the conflict is not about religion. There have been periods in history when Jews, Arabs and Christians co-existed peacefully, and probably could again. This conflict, though, is about land and demographics: which ethnic group -- or tribe -- or profile -- has the "right to....".
The geography and politics of this situation are too complex to go into detail here, but Arab resentment over the takeover of "their" land and suppression of their rights has produced extremists who for many years terrorized Jews (as well as Israeli Arab Muslims and Christians) with suicide bombings. In response, Israel has created an extensive and complex system of checkpoints and military controls, and built a barrier wall that cuts off Arabs from each other and from health care and jobs, which futher angers the Arabs. Each side's fear of the other creates a very unstable situation, though Israel has the money, power and weapons. It remains unclear, however, whether the restrictions Israel has imposed truly represent "security measures", or is an effort to take over more land and, as some believe, "ethnic cleanse" the land of all Arabs and non-Jews.
Israel is about "affiliation" and I don't have one. I don't belong to any "tribe", and while that absence often leaves me at loose ends and feeling alienated, it has also served me well in a broad acceptance of all people, and a need to connect to, learn from, and embrace all, rather than to generalize about or demonize the other. I believe that there are many sides to any conflict: those directly involved, those peripherally involved ("stakeholders"), those who can have an influence in resolving the conflict, and observers. (However, when I mentioned this to an Orthodox Jewish college friend in Jerusalem, she claimed my thoughts were "poison" and demanded I apologize for questioning Israel's right to exist!??!)
Note to grandbrood: Grandpa was an exceptional person in this regard. He always wanted to hear someone's "side of the story." He accepted or judged people as individuals. I always said that he had the purest soul of anyone I ever knew.
Israel is for Jews, religious pilgrims and archaeology enthusiasts. I don't fit any of those profiles, except for a superficial interest in and desire for limited exposure to all those areas. Upon arrival, I was pre-occupied with my lack of definitive associative identity. Then, I began to feel that Israel is about "othering" and exceptionalism: no other life is as important as a Jew's, no one deserves land except the Jews, no one's quality of life matters except the Jews', and no one's human rights matter except a Jew's. This is reflected in public policy and enforced by a pervasive militarism that is executed by 20-somethings you don't want to upset because they have authority, emotional immaturity, and carry machine guns. (I saw this first-hand at one Israeli/West Bank border crossing. One or more of our tour members stupidly took pictures and pissed off a young Israeli soldier. He sent a team of three -- one wearing a bullet-proof vest, one carrying a very big gun --on to our bus. They confiscated the passports of 20 of our 24-member group and ordered them off the bus to go through more rigorous questioning. I was one of the 4 left on the bus; I didn't fit the profile -- whatever it was. Fortunately, our group didn't have to wait in a long line the way the Arabs have to.)
From the Israeli perspective, if an Arab resists or attacks, it's "terrorism"; if an Israeli (Jewish) invades an Arab village or demolishes a home or injures nonviolent protestors (e.g., against the barrier wall) with huge hard-rubber bullets (and sometimes live ammunition) or a fiery brand of tear gas, that's "defense". "Defense" and "security" trump all -- which is apparently why Israel feels it can ignore all the United Nations resolutions and international laws that condemn and prohibit its actions.
It is impossible for me to see Israel as a "democratic state", as it is constantly referred to in the media, or to find credible Jewish support of victims of genocide (e.g., Darfur), when I see it treating its own residents and neighbors so heinously. Rather, I see Israel an apartheid state, in which there are different laws for different people, and it breaks my heart.
Israel has built a barrier wall around the (Arab/Palestinian) West Bank which rather than following the internationally accepted "green line" border, encroaches on Arab lands to divide them, take in Jewish illegal settlements, and "own" the water. The settlements have been ruled illegal by a variety of international bodies and laws, but still they exist and flourish, all with government assistance, including military security. There are even roads only Jews can use! Meanwhile, the Palestinian villages are divided by land grabs, homes are demolished (over and over again), settlers harass the Arabs. When Arabs protest the wall nonviolently, they are met by soldiers who have an "emergency military order" and respond with tear gas and rubber bullets -- both of which have caused fatal injuries. Palestinian youths are discouraged from throwing rocks at the bulldozers by their elders, who know it will only prompt harsher retaliation.
For me, the bottom line was the despair I felt at seeing Israeli public policy turn Jews -- whom I had considered my entire life as victims of persecution -- from being the oppressed, into the oppressors, using 1930's German tactics to "de-Arabize" and "Judaicize" (a word used in Israeli public policy) this "holy" land. I do not see Israel as responding to a threat, but rather causing the threat, and thus creating insecurity. According to the right-wing majority, every Arab is a "terrorist", or potential terrorist, which apparently justifies the following:
Barrier walls and fences; innumerable checkpoints where Palestinians are delayed and harassed; identification numbers based on ethnicity; invasion of villages; curfews; "administrative detentions", which allow Israeli soldiers to stop/pull out of their homes/arrest/jail people for months and sometimes years, without formal charges or trial; restrictions on movement (and thus access to friends and family, jobs and health care); disproportionate allocation of municipal funding and services; illegal occupation of land; destruction of property; segregation in land rights, housing, zoning, land purchase and occupancy; restricted transportation (e.g., trains run past Arab villages but don't stop there); unequal education (in terms of funding, building and maintenance, scholastic materials, and cultural content), resulting in high dropout rates, unemployment and crime; closures of schools/ universities and arrests of professors and administrators; a conflict between the judicial system and legal systems that results in lack of implementation of Israeli court rulings; and always, always, the threatening, stress-producing military presence.
Despite all the above, I found the Arabs I met to be stoic and peace-loving despite their hardships, warm, kind, family and community-oriented, and very welcoming. I felt safer with them.
Israel is not a country I want to support. I don't fit its profile.
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