Of course, the question then becomes, how does one define safety? And safe for whom, from whom or what? And in calling it a "safe country," by what measure am I defining it as a country?
Ah. It's complicated. (No, I am not trying to pull a Bill Clinton and hide behind semantics!)
I'll confess that I am being a little deceptive by leading with my own assurance that Israel is a safe country. Not that I'm lying. I simply am leaving out the part about my phone being stolen yesterday in the Old City. I suppose I was an easy target - it was just hanging out in the pocket of my big baggy pants - easy to spot, easy to swipe. And I'm pretty upset about it. Still, I insist Israel is a safe country. So is Jordan, and, from all I can gather, so are the Palestinian territories.
But of course, it's complicated.
That was the byword of the recent Summer Institute for Israel Studies. Every scholar we talked to, every place we visited, every issue we discussed, in the end, all that one could say was, "Well, it's complicated."
One of the ways, of course, in which this notion of safety is complicated is in its definition. True, it's far less likely I'll be attacked, raped or otherwise hurt here (assuming my ankle doesn't go looking for just the right rock or hole). That's true for pretty much everyone here. When you abide by the rules. Those include segregation. Everyone, including, perhaps especially, the Israeli Arab population insists on social segregation. That almost certainly makes my American readers uncomfortable, but there are understandable reasons for this segregation.
From day one, Israel's leaders, in order to hold the vastly disparate country together, embraced the principle of compromise. One of those compromises was, in effect, on the principle of segregation: allowing each community to maintain and pass on its own identity. Thus, Israel's education system is entirely fractured along four lines: State religious (subsidized by the state, but run entirely by religious leadership); state secular; Arab (also subsidized by the state, but likewise run by the local Arab community); private. Likewise, Israel has always maintained three national languages: Hebrew, Arabic, and English. Most Arabs speak Hebrew, at least to a basic degree, but few Jews speak Arabic. (There are certain movements in Israeli society and government to change that - to force everyone to learn all three languages at school - but of course, that's complicated when each of the four tracks insists on its own curriculum and there is no central authority to enforce basic educational standards. Education, by the way, is one of Israel's greatest challenges - the gap in educational achievement is rather shocking and quite a frightening omen for Israel's future. Israel's Ultra-Orthodox, the Haredim, for example, rarely achieve higher than an elementary school level of math and science, no history or other social science, and the boys spend their teenage years exclusively on Torah study. Likewise, Israeli Arabs often get a much lower level of education, simply because of the cultural differences. Again, movements are underway to begin to implement and enforce some basic standards, but that means wrenching away some of that autonomy, and that becomes, well, complicated.)
Israel's cities, villages and neighborhoods are likewise segregated - by choice. Part of maintaining and passing on a national or religious identity includes being surrounded by people like yourself. For better or worse, Mormons (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) understand this concept very well. (In case you are wondering, I tend to think this emphasis on separateness was a necessity historically to form a strong base for the fledgling early LDS Church, but that it is rather an unfortunate cultural legacy now.) Some of the shared spaces are, as you might guess, public transportation, Jerusalem (although, anyone familiar with the Old City can tell you how segregated even that little space is), and a precious few villages, mostly in the north.
Now if someone wanders into the space of the Other, generally he/she will not encounter any physical harm. I have seen Palestinian Israelis wandering the streets of West Jerusalem without being bothered. They often get looks (so do I, for the record - staring is apparently not so culturally rude here), but generally no more. However, I talked with a young Palestinian woman who works in West Jerusalem, and she explained to me that, while she has never been harmed, she has had ugly things said to her. I know that Jews will rarely enter East Jerusalem - although those that have think this fear is ridiculous. (I agree.)
And I have not even mentioned the Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) neighborhoods. Israel has been plagued with disagreements, even violent outbursts, centering on culture and identity in these areas. We visited Bet Shemesh, an Israeli city between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, that has essentially been taken over by Haredi families. (These families are quickly becoming a significant demographic factor, as they have many more children than other Israeli families, so their numbers are growing quickly, and their power in government, even though they theoretically don't support the existence of the State of Israel (it's complicated), far outweighs even their growing numbers.) One particular street acts as the dividing line between Orthodox Jews and Ultra-Orthodox. Recently, a young girl from the Orthodox community made headlines for walking to school. She was harangued by several Ultra-Orthodox men who told her she dressed indecently, and even threw rocks at her. (Bear in mind that an Orthodox girl will wear a skirt to the knees, generally with stockings, shirt to the elbows.) Rocks are rather commonplace - if you drive on Shabbat in these neighborhoods, your car will not leave unscathed.
That brings up the question of what we mean by safe. Safe from physical harm? Emotional pain? And what about the emotional pain of losing one's home? Palestinian families have kept, for generations now, the keys to homes either no longer standing or long-since occupied by Jewish families - homes they left (most were forced to leave in the war of 1948) and hoped to return to. They have not been allowed.
Even more to the point, what about the West Bank, where a home may be ransacked by Israeli soldiers, based on the suspicion that it is harboring Palestinian terrorists? What about Gaza, where the Israeli and Egyptian (for goodness sake, let's not forget that Egypt also blockades Gaza's borders!) militaries prevent people and goods from coming in or going out - at least, not without significant difficulty. Is this safety? Add to that the terror of Israeli soldiers storming streets and homes - or perhaps worse, targeted missiles, demolishing homes (which, usually, harbor Hamas militants or are unfortunate enough to hide missile launching machinery), in which, all too often, civilians are killed. (This is perhaps the most complicated issue of all. Who is ultimate bad guy here? The short answer is, I don't know. But I have a lot to say on the matter, in a future blog post. I know you'll be waiting with baited breath.)
While we're on Gaza, what about Israeli citizens, Jewish, Arab, and those of various other ethnicities (yes, they exist!), simply living their lives, running frightened into bomb shelters once or twice a day - sometimes more, if they live in the southern region. Even with Israel's tremendously effective Iron Dome system of shooting Gaza rockets out of the sky, one cannot dismiss the sense of fear and insecurity this kind of life engenders.
And children, on both sides of that border, grow up in this world of uncertainty, of unknown enemies. Well, perhaps a major chunk of the problem is, they feel that they know those enemies all too well, when the reality is, the deep segregation I spoke of early makes that "knowledge" impossible.
A final element that complicates the notion of a "safe country" is trying to define what "country" I'm talking about. What is Israel, anyway? I mean, where are its borders? Yes, you know the answer: it's complicated. Most international observers, including many Arabs, insist on the 1949 Armistice lines that ceased the fighting. At that point, Jordan had control over the West Bank, Egypt over Gaza. Jordan attempted to annex the West Bank, but the Arab world threatened it with expulsion from the Arab League if it moved forward with so bold a move. So, it remained in limbo. Egypt never wanted Gaza - it had no historical claim, and with all the Palestinian refugees using it as a launch site to continue a kind of guerrilla warfare on the newly-created imposter Jewish State, it became little more than a thorn in its side. Both Egypt and Jordan felt they had lost little when Israel occupied them both in 1967. Oh, the rhetoric of occupation never went away - it's a useful rallying cry in a region so fractured along identity lines that the evil Jewish State is just about the only (and very effective) point of common consent.
But the issue is - how can we say that Israel is occupying a country that was never a country? It never had definable borders. Neither has Israel, for that matter. Palestine never had an autonomous government - prior to the British Mandate that began in 1919, it was a part of greater Syria, under regional government within the Ottoman Empire. But it cannot be argued that Palestine does not have a national identity. It very much does, and Palestinians feel that identity threatened regularly. Thus, as settlers snatch up more and more of their potential state (which is less than 22% of the original territory of Palestine), with the tacit approval, even, often enough, assistance, of the Israeli government, how can Palestinians feel that their national sovereignty, their national identity and national aspirations, are at all safe?
And so the blame game continues. Everyone is to blame, and everyone is the victim.
Yeah, it's complicated. But still, I continue my evening walks, because, despite it all, people here just want to live and find peace. They really do. And they want to feel safe. I want them to as well. For now, I will enjoy the feeling of safety I enjoy in both Palestinian and Jewish towns. Walking in the beautiful Land.
Now, for some photos.
Since I no longer have my phone (camera included), you'll have to forgive that most of these are from the last few days of the Summer Institute, and none are from this little neighborhood I'm living (and walking around) in. But I think they offer some visual representation of what I have been talking about.
Palestinian keys.
My friend Guilherme overlooking the West Bank development city, Rawabi. This is a fascinating case - a wealthy Palestinian investor who decided to create a new, advanced, affordable city in the West Bank - to attract growth and development in a land stagnant and without a great deal of leadership. I think it's very exciting.
Our Israeli guide, Ariyeh, showing us, from a safe vantage point, the borders of Gaza and surrounding Israeli towns.
One of the Holocaust monuments at Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. I think its significance is self-explanatory.
A little treasure I found in our very own hotel, Mount Zion Hotel. A tiny museum of the 1948 war and the cable car that ran from that building (then a makeshift hospital) to the actual Mount Zion, over the Hinnom Valley, which was a kind of no-man's land during the war. This photo is of some of the Israeli soldiers.
This is the remnants of the cable car.
In the Palestinian Israeli town of Kfar Qassem, this monument memorializes a massacre that took place in 1956. After the 1948 war, many Palestinian farmers still had crops and land they considered theirs on the other side of the armistice line, and would frequently come across to harvest. In the fall of 1956, Israel invaded Egypt. (This was part of a plot that Britain and France goaded them to participate in - both countries were trying to retain their presence in the Middle East, and Nasser in Egypt had just nationalized the Suez Canal, which had negative ramifications for both Britain, who wanted to maintain control over it, and France, who was tired of Nasser supporting Algerian nationalist fighters. The idea was that Israel would attack, and then Britain and France would come in to make peace, and reassert their military presence. When the world community uncovered the plot, they were furious, and both countries lost their holdings in the Middle East anyway.) As part of a decoy, Israel sent soldiers up north to act as if they would attack Jordan, and this border town was on curfew. But the villagers across the armistice line knew nothing of the curfew, and came in at night to harvest. Dozens were killed in a senseless military reaction, many of them women and children. For years Israel denied it, and although the soldiers spent four years in jail, they were later released with no further consequences. The Palestinian families claim they were never compensated, nor did they ever receive an official apology. It is, understandably, a very sensitive part of the history here.
On top of Mount Carmel, where reportedly Elijah battled it out with the priests of Baal. An amazing view of the Jezreel Valley.
The view of Tel Aviv from Jaffa. To emphasize how safe I feel in this country (and the segregation), I walked with some friends from Jaffa to Tel Aviv (approximately 3.5 miles) well after dark. We passed various Arabs celebrating Ramadan (in which Muslims fast during the day, for an entire month - making the times after sundown a joyous time of eating and gift-giving). It was beautiful - I highly recommend spending time in Jaffa! Somewhere along the walk, we didn't notice exactly when (no actual line of demarcation, of course), the faces became Jewish faces, and the language Hebrew. And the two did not mix.
An evening walk along the beach. You can guess where. It is hard to see in the dusk light, but the letters are colors of the rainbow. So fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment