A Day Up North

I haven't posted in a few days, largely because of the events here in Israel. Things are getting pretty intense here. Frankly, a ground incursion into Gaza seemed like only a matter of time after the barrage of rocket attacks against Sderot and Ashkelon. The Shalit kidnapping was just the spark. Yet, it is still an ugly situation. I think the most damaging effect is on the hope of separation. After the 90s peace talks collapsed, many hoped that separation would be a route to security. Israel made great sacrifices for this security, uprooting Jewish families from Gaza last year. These sacrifices were made with a peaceful future in mind. The Palestinians claimed they were fighting an occupation, so many Israelis thought that giving them their own state would end the bloodshed. That has not been the case. After disengagement, the problem of Gaza did not go away. Now, Israeli troops are back in Gaza. Nobody knows how long they will have to be there. But after this, it will be hard to sell Olmert's pullout of the West Bank. Why has disengagement failed to pacify the Gazan Palestinians? I gained some insight into that this Tuesday travelling up north.

On Tuesday, I took a trip all the way up to the Lebanese borders. Here is a look into Hezbollah-run southern Lebanon.



After driving through the Golan, I went to the Israeli Arab village of Arara, very close to the West Bank to meet with Israeli Arabs. We met at a women's center, so it was mostly women involved in the discussion. Most wore western-style clothes, albeit more conservative, and spoke fairly good English, thanks to Hollywood, as some of them pointed out. They provided my American colleagues and I with drinks and cookies and seemed very happy to meet us.

The conversation started on what it's like to be an Arab Israeli. Each felt like a second class citizen, although they wouldn't specify what that means in every day life. One compared their plight to that of blacks in America. It was hard not to sympathize with this. While Arabs in Israel have it better than many of their Arab brethren in other countries (they all participated in the last Israeli election, something very few Arab women in other countries could probably say), they do not enjoy the same status as Jews in the Jewish state.

When asked how they referred to themselves, most said Palestinian living in Israel, rather than Israeli Arab. All of them would prefer to raise the Palestinian flag, rather than the Israeli one and all of them felt that they deserved their own state, although not if it meant moving from their homes into the West Bank or Gaza Strip. They all seemed to have a strong connection to their land. The one male in the group said that he would not take a million dollars to move into another city.

It became very clear early in the conversation that these people had been taught a different narrative than I had. According to the narrative they had learned, the land of Palestine did not have Jews in it before 1948. In 1948, a Zionist wave hit Palestine and the Jews, who had hijacked world opinion, stole what was Arab land. When asked about the fact that most of the Jews had legally bought land, one said that that was not possible because the Arabs never would have sold their land. When asked whether the Holocaust was a justification for Israel, one said that they should have gone somewhere else, like Holland. When asked about the fact that Jews were oppressed in other Middle Eastern countries, one said that there is an enormous Jewish population in Syria and that they are treated very well. All of them denied mistreatment of Jews in Arab countries.

Victimization was a strong theme throughout the meetings. The Arab world sold them out and the Jews oppressed them, as evidenced by the security fence. The oppression of the Jews, as their narrative goes, is protected by the media. One pointed out that you hear about suicide bombs, but you never hear about Israeli soldiers maliciously killing innocent women and children. You hear about Muslim terrorism, but never about Jewish terrorism. To most, terrorism and the actions of the Israeli army were the same. While none of them "supported" terrorism, they all claimed to "understand" it. Two of the girls even mentioned that they respected Osama bin Laden. When I asked them about it, they reverted to "understand."

The key concept is that they saw "the occupation" not just as the occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but all of Israel. To these people, the Jews stole their land and started a war. Often generally mentioning the American invasion of Iraq, there was a belief that there are no rules in war. Therefore, in response to an unjust occupation of their land, the Israeli Arabs believe that they must do what they can to fight and get it back. As the "victims," they believe that terrorism is their means of fighting back.

This was very upsetting to hear. I have come to believe that the problem of terrorism can only be combatted from within communities. Muslim communities must denounce it. Even if they believe that Israel is an unjust occupying force, they must draw a line saying that civilian casualties are unacceptable. This group of Arabs was not willing to draw that line. Until they are, and until they are willing to recognize that Israel is not going to disappear, there will be no peace.

From that experience, I went up to Haifa to meet with Yossi Zur and Ron Kehrmann. They are pictured below.



These are two men who did not know each other prior to March 5, 2003. On that date, however, their 17-year old children were killed when a terrorist blew up Bus 37 in Haifa. On that date, Asaf Zur and Tal Kehrmann, along with many other children, had the bad luck of riding home from school at the wrong time. Now, the two meet with journalists and politicians about terrorism.

We met them in Haifa, just off the coast, in a cemetary. Unlike other cities, Haifa decided to bury its terror victims in one area of the cemetary. While other gravestones in Israel all look the same, these gravestones were more like memorials. Each was customized by the family of the victim. Here is Asaf's gravestone.



He was into surfing and that is why it is shaped like a surfboard. Here is Tal's gravestone. Included on hers are reproductions of rocks with Hebrew written on them. The messages on the rocks were copied from a place in which Tal used to hang out where kids would write on the stones.



Obviously, this was a powerful experience. Ron and Yosi have made a decision that talking to journalists and others about their children is the best way to heal. Yet, I couldn't help but wonder whether they were thinking about the fact that their children would be my age if they were still alive.

You don't understand how formative the intifada has been for Israeli society and culture until you've talked to the people here. I remember watching story after story, in which I would see an ambulance in the middle of the night with a reporter saying standing in front of it, saying what happened. These reports were just news. They had almost no emotional impact.

Here in Israel, the emotional impact is present in everyone's life. Even those who were fortunate enough to survive with their families intact were affected greatly. I talked to one former police officer who is now suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He described to me how one day he just came home and cried and couldn't stop for days. I talked to another man who described to me the procedure his family would use when getting on a bus during the intifada. The four of them would spread out to all four corners of the bus. The reason? In case of a terrorist attack, they wanted to increase the chance that at least one person would survive.

Life is much better today in Israel than it was in 2003. Whether it's from the increased security at stores, the security fence, targeted assassinations or Shin Bet operations in the territories, terrorism has decreased. Yet, it is still one of the most powerful forces in Israeli culture.