As an American Jew I am appalled at the lack of reasonable discourse over the occupation of the West Bank & Gaza. Ironically there are move voices heard in Israel than there are in America and their voices are not silenced by accusations of Antisemitism and self hatred.
Let me clarify one thing at the get go I do not question Israels right to exist - I was raised in a very pro Israel family and have spent over 2 1/2 years of my life collectively in Israel in addition to day school, Camp Ramah etc.... please read on knowing that...
What I do question and feel free to question despite the onslaught and charges of disloyalty etc from the right leaning reactionary Jewish establishment is the behavior of the Likudniks and the Right Wing government currently controlling Israeli policy.
I also question the treatment of the Palestinian people, the conditions they live under are invisible to most Israelis and Americans but one can get a really interesting perspective if one read the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and looks for pieces by Gideon Levy or Amira Haas both cover the occupied territories.
This past week did an excellent piece giving a glimpse at how difficult life is made for all Palestinians by the occupation.
He writes:
There's no question about it - everything was done by the book. The gate was locked at 7 P.M. and 16,000 people, residents of the villages of Beit Furik and Beit Dajan, were imprisoned behind it until 6 A.M. That's the procedure. A woman who wants to cross the checkpoint at night has to go on foot, to wait until a female soldier comes to do a body check, even if she is about to give birth; that, too, is procedure. And only cars with permits are allowed to enter Nablus, even if dying people are sitting inside them; that is also according to procedure. No soldier deviated from the procedure, everything was done by the book, the book of the occupation.
Who else was obsessed with procedure and rules by the book -where did we as Jews learn to be so bureaucratic and forget what it's like to be not treated as human beings?
What would we think if our loved ones were to die or suffer labor pains at a checkpoint separating the city and the village? Life and death are in the hands of the checkpoint: The story of the death of Taysir Kaisi and the birth of Raghad Hanani, between the Hawara checkpoint and the Beit Furik checkpoint, during an easing of restrictions at the checkpoints, less than an hour's drive from Tel Aviv, is a story that should disturb our equanimity
The entire work can be read at The Twilight Zone / By the book
As Gideon Levy said during an interview in PBS documentary on Freedom of Press - that the reason he wanted to get out what he saw on the West Bank - was not for his concern for the Palestinians but for concern of what he saw as the cost to the soul of Israelis.
And Amira Haas wrote in her column REVENGE IS THE WORD IN THE BACKGROUND
There's no need for"assessments" by intelligence experts and orientalists of varioussorts, to know that he did not act at the behest of others.The attempt to explain to Israelis that such acts of vengeance arepuny compared to the intensity of the Israeli assault on everyindividual, and against the entire Palestinian community, is doomedto failure. On a daily basis, Israel attacks every Palestinian withsystematic variety.
The aggregation is lethal, even if the killing of a nine-year-old girl or setting a dog on an elderly woman are not daily occurrences. It's that aggregation that undermines any attempt to conduct a normal life. It's being locked up in the WestBank's enclaves, so that simple routines like going to school,work, or visiting family are impossible. There's the unceasing expropriation of land for roads and security fences for settlements; the trees uprooted by the army, livelihoods that are cut off daily, and the insult of that; the army's prohibition, onsecurity grounds, against accessing farm and grazing lands; thebreak-ins to houses in the middle of the night, which the Israeli public rarely if ever hears about; the hours of waiting at checkpoints; the frightened children; the aimed rifles.
She goes on to say:
The personal urge for vengeance and the understanding that people have for the avengers intensifies the more it becomes clear that there is no unified Palestinian plan .......Unlike the political organizations, the personal avenger does not need to take into account the influence of his actions on the failed Palestinian ambitions for independence. The avenger "solved"his own personal crisis.
Therefore, there should be no expectation from the personal avenger that he be interested in knowing that his act of vengeance does not teach Israelis a thing about the motivesthey provide for vengeance. On the contrary, it only strengthens among Israelis the sense of victimhood, and their natural tendency to prefer ignorance of the occupation.
What does occupying another people, dominating them, acting like bullys do to the soul of a people. I think it brings as great a cost to the soul of the occupier as it does to the occupied.
I think the powers that be in Israel are working on the self image of Isreal as a small underdog in the region when in truth they are the strong kid who does not know their own strength - people who are bullied early very often become bullies and very often they do not recognize themselves as a bully be feel themselves in the victim roll.
Often when I raise the suffering of the Palestinian people to fellow Jews here in the USA the reaction I get is but suicide bombings - Jewish suffering etc etc - it's the old my suffering is greater that their suffering and there seems to be a unwillingness to look at the behavior of the Israeli Government and admit that all the Israel does is not right and all the Palestinians do is not wrong and visa versa. All Israelis are not saints and all the Palestinians not sinner and visa versa.
The truth is always more gray than that...
Now I do not condone violence from either side - but is a helicopter attack on a village not equally terrifying as an attack by a suicide bomber?
You cannot condemn violence when used by one group and justify its use just because it's state sponsored - Violence only breeds more violence. period..
All of this needs to be discussed freely without resorting to name calling - it does not help !! Everyone has the right to their opinion even if you do not think their opinion is right. We all need to be more open and listen to each other- Really listen!!
Education, empathy and understanding are paths to peace and justice - competitive suffering is not.......
Food for thought would love to hear what you think- no name calling please!! intelligent discourse welcome!!
PEACE