A Story To Be Told
It’s fifty years now since Ibrahim was a free man, on a free land. Ibrahim knew then, and knows now, that it was and will still be a long struggle for freedom. Ibrahim is 90 and might not live long enough to see his people free in determining what to do and how to live. If you visit Ibrahim, he will tell you about Samara his neighbour; how she lost her husband and four children to the Intifada. He will tell you “if she still has hope for peace, then everybody should.” If you go another day, he might tell you how the Israelis won’t let him expand his farm on his own land using his own money; how the community members of his village recently got together with the aim of paving his driveway in a bid to make this elderly man’s life just a bit more bearable. Even this was too much for the Israelis. Troops rushed to the site and confiscated the equipment that had been donated for the road work and threatened the contractor on the site with arrest unless he removed the asphalt base he laid down. Ibrahim would ask what harm is it to anyone if he builds a drive way on his own land for his own private use? He will ask you “what do they want from me?”
Last August while visiting Berlin, I decided to take a friend to visit Schonhausen, a German concentration camp where a lot of innocent lives were lost during Hitler’s quest for glory. This was my friend’s first time she knew nothing about it and I had to comfort her, explaining that humans have done and will continue to do inhuman things. Things future generations will not comprehend; not that this was any comfort to her, not surprisingly. We went back to the hotel filled with sadness and guilt. We couldn’t understand how could someone deny people the basic rights of living! Then I remembered Ibrahim and was even more saddened. Could it be that the same people that were oppressed are today being the oppressors? I wanted to understand … I needed to understand. It wasn’t until I got to Israel later that year that I began to understand…
We landed in Tel Aviv on a flight from Zurich. Security agents were all around the airport. Tourists were being searched thoroughly, sometimes for hours. Amazingly, I passed through without even my bag being opened. I’m always told I look 100% Israeli. My friend Shira was waiting for me. I stayed in Tel Aviv for a few weeks, where I met many Israelis through my friend. Shira told me that her parents are ultra-orthodox Jews and would not understand her being with me. It was time for me to head east. Next day I was in Ramallah. I spoke to both sides, Israelis and Palestinians, remember? I wanted to understand…
Maybe I do now, or maybe I don’t. Maybe I want to understand, or maybe I can’t. Israelis and Palestinians, young and old, Muslims, Christians, or Jews, want to live in peace (most of them, anyway). I’d walk the streets of Tel Aviv. Shalom, shalom. ‘Oh sorry, I’m not Israeli.’ You look it. I’d ask young and old, on the beach, in the bars, in a coffee shop: if you want peace why don’t you give the Palestinians their land? Yes, we believe we should. It’s just we need to be sure that they won’t turn on us. I’m walking the streets of Ramallah. A young Palestinian says to me: ‘Are you crazy? No Jew can walk here, they’ll stone you!’ ‘No no, I’m not Jewish,’ I answered. I’d ask people on the streets, in the markets, in the coffee shops: Do you want peace? Yes, we want peace, we want to be free. But we don’t believe in what’s happening now, this peace process. Look what happens to us. What do you expect from us? You’re from America? ‘Oh no no,’ I defend myself. Look what the Americans did to us…
I want to understand … but I can’t. How could the Israeli government refuse to give the Palestinians their land back. For Israel, the Palestinians can’t be integrated with Israel, they can’t vote and they can’t even hold an Israeli passport because they’re not Israelis. Yet, Israel won’t let the Palestinians rule themselves. No, they can’t. It’s a matter of national security. If the Palestinians get the right for their land they will pose a security threat! Israel is one of the strongest countries in the Middle East and the world. They are surrounded by many ‘hostile’ countries (that might not be, if there was peace), and yet has the supreme power to defend itself. Why would they be scared of a small new country? Everybody knows (including Netanyahu) that the suicide bombings and trouble are only there because people are desperate and despair causes people to act. Netanyahu knows that if the Palestinians get their freedom there will be less threat on Israel. Instead, he says that he can’t give the Palestinians partial ruling of 13% of their land a long overdue part of the ‘peace process’ 9% is okay, 13% is a security threat. What a load of shit. The facts: this is the politics of the strong. Israel have the backing of their friends in the congress (US congress, that is), and there is a right wing government in Israel that doesn’t think peace is good for security and interests of Israel.
Yes, I understand. Israelis want peace. Palestinians want peace. It’s the minority of ultra-orthodox Israelis that don’t want peace because they feed from fear. They exist because of fear, and they managed to deceive some 51% of Israelis to vote right, using connotations to the sad past (security of small Israel). How unfair is that? To use suffering of your ancestors to fulfil your amoral goals.
If I wasn’t Palestinian, and I was asked to take sides, I would take the side of the weak, the oppressed, and the occupied. But I am Palestinian, so I’m already on a side. I can’t ask you to take sides for you might be Palestinian or Israeli or I ask you to voice your opinion and tell others about the plight of the Palestinian people, people that are deprived of their basic right to self determination and to live free in their own land. They are lost in the battle of fear, guilt, and illogical idiosyncrasies. Only the same conscience that saved the Jewish people from being denied the basic rights can save the Palestinians. Where is that conscience now?