Okay, so maybe it's not quite 120 degrees here (although I hear it's about that in Baghdad right now), but it certainly feels like it at times. Especially in Tel Aviv. That's right, I'm back in Tel Aviv for the day. I don't know how I went two months last time I was here with virtually no break, because now after only a month I'm desperately needing these few days I have before heading to Bethlehem.
The Salfit region has been relatively quiet recently, although I'm not sure exactly what I mean when I say that. Maybe it's just that there haven't been as many demonstrations, and most of the work on the Wall has temporarily stopped in our area, so when things do happen, I just don't know about them right away. The IDF invaded the village of Rafat last week, not far from us, but I was sleeping soundly in my bed in Hares. I went to take pictures and talk to families the following day, but by that time it was 'quiet.' Of course, the army came back every night that week to throw sound bombs from 11pm until 5am. Certainly not your typical definition of quiet, but I don't think anyone was injured or killed. Not there, anyway. Nablus and Gaza are a different story, of course. I think there were 17 Palestinians killed in one day last week. But I just read it in the news, like the rest of the world. It's amazing how close we really have to be, how much we really have to see with our own eyes, before true empathy can surface. Sometimes. I guess the pain might overwhelm us if the empathy were present all the time. But it does frustrate me. For myself, and for all of you who are out there reading and who I desperately want to understand aspects of my experience, of Palestinian experience, of Israeli experience.
I've been having more and more conversations with Israelis recently in which they've told me that they're completely depressed, that their country is suffering from a deep and unrecoverable psychosis, that they want to get out of here. These are people who have and haven't served in the army. Especially the ones who have served recently - kids whose political awareness and conviction were not quite strong enough at age 17 or 18 to stand against their families and their countries and refuse to serve. And I think of myself at age 17/18, spending a year in Israel before going to college, believing in peace as an abstract concept but not yet aware that the very things I'd been taught to love most were the things that most obstructed the possibilities of peace in this region. So these women tell me of their roles as commanders, training hundreds of soldiers to use weapons while they themselves are suffering nervous breakdowns and are heavily medicated for depression. One tells me that her brother used to come to all the peace rallies with her when she got out and he was still in high school. Now he's driving a tank in Gaza.
I think it will take longer for deep and lasting change from the Israeli side than from the Palestinian side. From what I've seen, the hatred is both deeper and more ideological. Palestinian hatred for Israelis gets expressed in very concrete and tangible terms of loss - my brother, my son, my house, my land, my job, my freedom of movement, etc. Israeli hatred for Palestinians gets expressed through fear, misconception, paranoia, racism. Not that Israelis have nothing tangible to fear, but I think the hatred comes from a different place and goes beyond reality in a way that I haven't seen as much from Palestinians. It's not easy to express what I'm trying to say. It's not easy to ascertain in the first place. And it's certainly not easy for me as a Jew to accept that the global representation of Judaism has strayed so far from any Jewish values I might want to identify with myself.
I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 last night here in Tel Aviv. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I have to say I wasn't impressed. Or let me say that a different way: I think the movie wasn't made for me. I think it was made for the 'mainstream American public' (whatever that might mean). The film plays on the same fear of terror in general, and Arabs in particular, as it tries to denounce. It could, however, prove to be an extremely useful propaganda tool; if Americans add Bush to their/our list of fears, maybe we really can get him out in November (now we just need a real candidate to run against him...). The point, though, is that Moore is a smart man who knows his audience, and he knows that the best way to affect the most people at this point is through fear. I personally would have preferred compassion - not only for the families of a few American soldiers (which he does quite effectively), but also for Iraqis, Afghanis, Saudis, etc. Compassion for 'the other.' Are we not there yet? When will be at a place where compassion can be as powerful and as effective as fear? Especially in America. Especially in Israel.
Still hoping somewhere deep inside that our creativity can see us through this,
Hannah
