I spent Thursday afternoon in Ashkelon, Israel, just a few kilometers from the border with Gaza. It’s a city that has lived under the threat of rocket attacks for many years. That day, by 4 p.m. the streets were empty. The mall was closed, and the few people I did see were glued to a newspaper, television or smart-phone. Not far away, people were killing one another and dying. People were running for cover, and many weren’t finding it.
During my minibus ride back home to South Tel Aviv, I heard the city’s first air raid siren in over 20 years. Dusk fell, and the highway was much emptier than it ought to have been at that hour. Within five minutes of that heart-wrenching noise my fellow passengers were yelling at one another. “All Arabs are the enemy, because they are all Hamas,” one of them cried.
The educator in me took over. I tried to suggest to the others that what they were saying was racist, and as I did I wondered whether they would kick me out of the vehicle right there on the highway or if they would at least let me off at a junction.
In the end, they dismissed the charge of racism based on the driver’s rationalization that “they’re the enemy, so it can’t be racist.” They let me stay on board until my stop.
These kinds of debates are taking place all over Israel and Palestine, not to mention on my Facebook feed.
Soon, I was in central Tel Aviv, where hundreds of locals and activists were coming together for the second peace rally of the night. There was a counter-protest, too, with about a quarter as many people. It meant a lot to me to know that there were others who, like me, saw that more fighting is not the way to end this war. There must be real equality — in political rights, in the value of life. This war won’t end, not completely, until the occupation and the siege are ended. It won’t end until the right to self-determination is a given for all the inhabitants of this land.
Standing up for peace in a time of war is not an easy thing; the jingoistic memes that I see floating around on the Internet make this loud and clear. Hate and dehumanization are the norm. The images have maps with false histories embedded in them, or claims that photos of dead Palestinian children and bombed-out lots are not really photos from this campaign. This is all beside the point, and it only serves to make “the conversation” regress.
There is a real conflict happening here, but it certainly didn’t start last week, and it isn’t even close to an even match. The current escalation of violence exists within the context of occupation, not simply self-defense. Israel has vastly superior weapons and controls the majority of Gaza’s borders. Palestinians don’t have the sovereignty necessary to ensure their civil and human rights.
I am not suggesting that this or anything else makes shooting at, hiding behind, injuring or killing civilians acceptable. I don’t think anything could. It’s true that living under rocket fire is terrifying, and so is the daily experience of occupation and the denial of basic rights that Palestinians have endured for decades. Both can be deadly, too.
Despite being far from the worst of the fighting, the air raid sirens are now to be expected in Tel Aviv. These sirens are not something that I am used to, and each time I crouch to take cover I remind myself not to let myself get too used to this situation. I don’t want war to become normal for me, and I want it to stop being normal for others.
The likely outcome of this fighting is that things will return to some version of the precarious situation of before, with southern Israelis fearing rockets and Palestinians in Gaza living under siege, or worse. The IDF claims that the goals for Operation Pillar of Defense are to destroy the military capacity of Hamas and to end the rocket attacks. Even if it succeeds in doing these things in the short term, however, in the long term no one will be safer.
The rockets coming from Gaza and the bombs coming from Israel are being guided by people with power, but no vision. These are political leaders who are only thinking about security in the next few months or years, at best. At worst, they are only maintaining their own power by cultivating an environment of fear.
A friend of mine recently reminded me, “One can only make peace with one’s enemy.” It’s a simple truth. We need action toward justice and peace. We need leaders who care more about the future than the past and who can see that the only way out of this violence in the long term is to focus on the core issues. We need leaders who are bold enough to talk about the Palestinian right of return and about Jerusalem, water and borders. We need to support those who refuse to fight. We need to educate ourselves to think critically. All of us have the right to self-defense, but, as Noam Sheizaf of +972 Magazine put it, everyone also “has the right to freedom, dignity and justice.”
The mood in Ashkelon is full of fear, anger and uncertainty, and for the first time in a while that mood made its way to Tel Aviv last week. I can’t even imagine what the mood is like in Gaza. Still, each of us has power in this. Some of us have the power of Internet memes, while some have money, and others have their fingers on triggers, and still others represent millions in political bodies.
Hate runs deep around here, but the real enemy is the refusal to recognize the right of all people to self-determination. An assault against that enemy could end this war at last.
>We need leaders who are bold enough to talk about the Palestinian right of return
Are you suggesting that at some stage of peace-making Israel will have to grant the RoR?
If you are indeed than you are gravely mistaken, for such right won’t ever be granted.
http://english.alarabiya.net/views/2012/11/06/247926.html
Violence will continue until Palestinians accept the fact that Israel will continue to exist in adjusted 1967 borders and refugees won’t be admitted inside her territory.
I agree with the trespasser. Thanks Daniel for your idealism. I wish it were so easy and simple to deal with fundamental islam. When I was 13 years of age I thought like you. Bless your heart.
Unfortunately Israel will continue to be an outlaw nation until it recognizes the right of return. The Palestinians were refugees from a war zone and the Israeli’s bulldozed their villages and kept them from going back. In 1967 they took control of refugee inhabited land but refused to make the residents citizens of Israel or create a sovereign entity with all the rights of any nation. The current situation may stem from historical events but it is all on Israel at this point.
Israel will be majority Arab in about 20 years by dint of inexorable demographics and the concept of a Jewish state will rendered moot by history. They choose to evolve or not but as it stands they are an annoying distraction with no positive input to progress towards a better world.
This is the biggest load of hippie shit I have ever read!
ARE you kidding me !?
Hamas is a militia that is saying it very loud and clear! they dont believe or recognize Israel has a right to exist and they want to come kill us all. on top of that they are sponsored by IRAN which is also very clear about what they think of us Jews. and you want Israel to open all their borders and let ships with weapons come in?? they have a border with Egypt aswell you know! How come Egypt never gave them free access eaither!?
How can Israel just let them get ammunition from Turkey Syria Iran and so on..? Cause thats what will happen!
Israel supplies food and care of the Gaza strip constantly! most of the time Hamas takes over these deliveries and doest always give it to the people…as they have to let the world see how poor and miserable they are… the same reason they publish fake photographs of dead women and children and were caught many times doing so ! If things were so devastating there they wouldnt have to fake photos believe me !
You people in Europe and America are blind. As no one is shooting on your town for 12 years straight!
But just wait… Muslims are living up in Europe and are multiplying by the dozen. and they hate all the Europen Democracy aswell I cant wait for the rest of you to get a little taste of what Israel has to deal with !!
Well said.
There is a difference between allowing people to naturally exist in europe, and simply taking land. I wonder what the circumstances would be if the Palestinians owned what is rightfully theirs.
I can only guess that you have experienced a very unhappy and cruel life for you to have developed such hated filled feelings towards other people. I too experienced a lot of violence, abuse and terror growing up as a child and living as an adult, but to me the expression NEVER AGAIN, means I will never do onto others what I perceive they may do unto me. Perhaps some day, walking down the street, some stranger, perhaps somebody with skin a different shade as yours and speaking a different tongue, will perform some small but genuine gesture of kindness toward you, and you will have a change of heart. –MIKE LEVINSON from New York
Israel helped to create Hamas to split the Palestinian community into refugees and ex-pats represent by the PLO, the basis of the current Palestinian Authority, and to keep the Egyptians from supplying people aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Be careful what you wish for!
Good piece exemplifying the mind games that work on people, as they work on the author, when shit starts hitting the fan.
If this is hippie shit, talk about the shit that is coming out of the mouth of those calling for a new holocaust on the palestinians, talk about the shit that comes out of the mouths of those that want to kick out leftists from their country. This is reasonable, if there was a bit more of that around, and not as much reductonist propaganda, mind you, on both sides, we wouldn’t be here.
from where I live (sderot), I am glad that daniel is expressing the wider and longer view. his opinion is radical, maybe not worked out in every detail (as it shouldn’t and can’t be), but provides necessary pause for thought.
it is all too easy to be sucked into a violent mood – as I dash for shelter yet again, I feel huge anger against people who are trying to kill me. as I return to my house and my shattered routines, I think again: my anger needs more focus. it must relate to causes. it must take into account that while the mentalities of the protagonists are quite different, all are ruled by human needs.
unless we have the courage to reject the obvious, we will never have a true peace… this would be a betrayal of all hope, all decency. if we don’t have the courage to cling to decency and hope, what the hell are we? daniel, well done.
I agree with almost everything you wrote, though the way you wrote it, in my opinion, means it’s either not meant for Israelis to read or you think antagonizing the majority of Israelis is a good way to make them listen.
Again, I agree with the idea behind what you wrote. I also think that this operation is a step backwards and that we need brave leaders on both sides who are willing to sit down and talk to their enemies despite of the hate and the past. But in order for that to happen we need to lower the hate levels on both sides. That is why I think the memes you were dismissing as “beside the point” are actually pretty important. Using pictures of dead children from Syria(NOT old photos from Palestine as you suggested) is a horrible way to try to increase the hatred towards Israel and I believe we must fight it.
If we want people to listen, if we want them to understand that war is not good for anyone, we can’t allow ourselves to be one-sided. not ever. Racism against Jews or supporting Hamas is just as bad as what you described on the Israeli side and can not be overlooked simply because ‘they are week, they are oppressed, they are suffering’.
I’d be curious to hear more ideas about what you think might be the avenues for sparking a productive discussion about long-term conflict resolution and Palestinian rights among Israelis. What issues and concerns do you think would be most effective to raise?
It amazes me that on a website devoted to waging nonviolence how an article on the possibility for peace in the Middle East can arouse such violent hate-filled responses. I can only wonder if the responders are regular readers / participants or just temporary one issue participants.
We wonder why UNO or any other so called International Organization sit together and save these children from Smartly Developed Weapons from super powers …. Is this killing is only to earn money by selling all these Mesiles and Nukes???
we now think YES.