Palestine/Israel:

Ferrying Everyone Across to the Shore of Liberation

by Annette Herskovits

[This article, to be printed in the Fall 2006 article of Turning Wheel, was completed before the Israel/Hezbollah conflict began in July ’06.]

Since the beginning of this year, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have attacked the Gaza strip, a narrow corridor five miles wide and 25 miles long, between Israel and the sea, from every possible direction: with artillery from land, sea, and air (some 8,500 shells—about 50 a day—through June, punctuated by 150 missile attacks). The roar of Israeli jets and attack helicopters fills the sky. Jets breaking the sound barrier release sonic booms to keep people awake at night.

              According to the Israeli government, these attacks are to prevent Palestinian factions in Gaza from firing rockets into Israel. These rudimentary “Qassam” rockets mostly fall on open fields, but they have caused 10 Israelis deaths in the last two years. Israel has the right to try and stop them. But the brutal Israeli response hits 1.4 million Gazans, almost half of them under 15. That is collective punishment, a war crime.

              Israeli journalist Gideon Levy writes from Gaza, “Thunder after thunder. … the children scream in fear.” In a house hit by a shell, Levy saw a five-year-old child: “Little Meisa walks around barefoot among the ruins…stepping on a carpet of glass splinters. Her grey face expresses shock.…It is impossible to get even a trace of a smile from her.”

              In the fall of 1943, when I was four, I lived with my brother, then 17, in a hotel room in Paris. Four months earlier, our parents had been deported to Auschwitz. The Nazis were rounding up Jewish children, but my sister, brother, and I had escaped arrest, as our parents had removed us to shelters in the countryside some months earlier. I have no memories of those four months between my father’s last visit to us in the countryside and my return to Paris in the fall.

              The hotel was near a train station often targeted by Allied bombers, because German war materiel passed through there. My brother worked at night and spent part of his days looking through the city for food, friends, and news, so I was sometimes alone in the room during an air raid. I can remember the howling of sirens and the explosions. My brother did not believe in going to a shelter. “Better to die quickly,” he said.

              A bomb fell on the building next to the hotel—I remember walking past the rubble, holding my brother’s hand. It was quiet then, but I had overheard my brother say that people trapped below the debris had screamed for days. I cannot recall what I felt looking at the ruins, but I do know these events are deeply etched into my body and mind.

              Now, 63 years later, the state of Israel is using its military power to terrorize children in ways that will be deeply etched into their bodies and minds as well. There is a double irony in this. First, Israel was founded as a haven for persecuted Jews, and the violence to Palestinian children is done in the name of forever sparing Jewish children the kind of harm that befell me. Thus Israeli policies place a much higher value on the lives of Jewish children than on those of Palestinian children. Second, the policies are based on a premise that has proved wrong over and over again: that violence and oppression of a people can bring peace and security to the oppressors.

Pitiless force

              French philosopher Simone Weil, herself born into a Jewish family, wrote in 1940, as the Nazi troops were victoriously overrunning Europe: “Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates.” In the same essay, “The Iliad or the Poem of Force,” Weil notes “The victor of the moment feels himself invincible … he forgets to treat victory as a transitory thing.” The victors of the moment are not content with winning the victory they sought—“What they want is, in fact, everything.”

              Israel’s intoxication with military success started with their stunning victory over Arab armies in the 1967 Six-Day War, in which they conquered the West Bank from Jordan, Gaza and the Sinai from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. From then on, Israel chose to hold onto conquered territory, in contravention of international law, rather than offering it in exchange for peace with its Arab neighbors. For many Israelis, religious or not, security, was not enough. They felt that all the territory now held by Israel belonged to the Jews—whether as a gift of God or of History. Only a very few in academia and the press saw the danger ahead—that Israel would have to control and dominate 1.3 million Arabs who lived there, and that this would eventually shackle the Israelis themselves.

              Israeli confidence was shaken by the 1973 Yom Kippur war, in which Syria and Egypt attacked Israel, and Israel’s final victory came only after hard combat. In 1979, U.S. president Jimmy Carter steered Egypt and Israel into signing a peace treaty that gave the Sinai back to Egypt in return for Egypt’s recognition of Israel’s right to exist.

              However, the belief in Israel’s right to the rest of the land conquered in 1967 remained strong. Prime Minister Menachem Begin expressed it most forcefully after signing the treaty with Egypt: “I have stated and reiterated that we have an absolute right to settle in all parts of Eretz Israel [the biblical land of Israel, said to have included Gaza and the West Bank], as this is our land.” Jewish settlers moved into the West Bank by the thousands, in flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

              There are now close to half a million Jewish settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Every Israeli government since 1967, no matter which party, has promoted settlement—taking land from Palestinian owners under various pretexts and making it available to settlers, and providing infrastructure, subsidies, and military protection for the settlers.

              In East Jerusalem, Israel used various subterfuges to reduce the Arab population and increase the number of Jews. For instance, the Jerusalem municipality systematically refuses to issue building permits to Palestinians but approves all requests from Jews.

              Israel now has the fourth largest military force in the world, in large part because the United States gives more military aid to Israel than to any other country—a total of $2.22 billion in 2005. According to the conditions of the aid, Israel must spend most of this money to buy military equipment from U.S. defense firms, in a noxious symbiosis. So Israel, with its population of 6.6 million, has 200 nuclear warheads, 15,000 tanks and other armored vehicles, three submarines, 600 jet fighters, 100 attack helicopters, ballistic and cruise missiles, and sophisticated computer systems—much more armament than any of the neighboring Arab states, and probably more than all of them put together.

              Israel may feel threatened by its Arab neighbors, but its defense forces have been used against essentially unarmed civilians to encroach upon Palestinian land year after year, to demolish houses, to destroy orchards, agricultural land, and wells, to restrict freedom of movement through checkpoints, closures, and curfews, and, recently, to build a Wall that completely surrounds some towns and often separates villagers from their land. Palestinians are now deprived of most features of a normal life: political and civil rights, economic activity, and free access to schools, health care, work, friends, and family.

              True, none of this legitimizes the attacks on civilians and suicide bombings committed by a small minority of Palestinians. Besides being war crimes according to international law, these acts have again and again been used by Israeli governments to sow fear among Israelis and to gain acquiescence for their increasingly brutal policies.

Some who stopped

              What can break this spiral? In fact, other voices are increasingly heard in Israel and Palestine.

              Chen Allon, a major in the IDF, is a founder of Combatants for Peace, an organization that brings together former Jewish and Palestinian fighters. At the group’s first meeting, in a Palestinian town, he spoke of serving in the Occupied Territories: “I feel emotional now …because I have never spoken about it in front of Palestinians until today.… In 1987-1988, when I began chasing Palestinians…throwing stones at us in the refugee camps, I was told, and also told my soldiers, that we were protecting the State of Israel.

              “In 2001, I demolished a house not far from here… Later the same day, we initiated a curfew over the village of Husan,” effectively turning it into a prison. “I could see Arab girls as I was speaking to my wife on the telephone.… It hit me profoundly that these girls are no different than my own daughter.

              “It was then I decided I will no longer take part in this situation, no matter what price I have to pay.”

              Suliman al-Chatib, a Palestinian member of “Combatants for Peace,” fought the occupation from the age of 12 by throwing stones and preparing Molotov cocktails. “At 14, I stabbed Israeli soldiers, with a friend.” Suliman was sentenced to 15 years in jail. “For the first two years, I was in the children’s section in the Hebron jail.… Settlers from Kiryat Arba [a West Bank Jewish settlement known for its zealotry] …on the jail staff enhanced the suffering.… For example, often there was a lack of drinking water.…Hitting prisoners, spraying tear gas into prison cells, and stripping prisoners were daily occurrences.”

              Later, Suliman was transferred to another jail, where he worked in the library—and read widely, “also about the history of the Jewish people. This is when I started having new thoughts about the conflict.” When freed in 1997, Suliman established the Abu Sukar Center for Peace with other Palestinians.

              Voices echoing Allon’s and al Chatib’s are multiplying. Refusers—Israeli soldiers and reservists who refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories—now number 1666. In 2002, they published a letter explaining: “We shall not continue to fight beyond the [pre-]1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.”

              And many Palestinians have become committed to nonviolent ways of resisting. In particular, Palestinian farmers whose land is being confiscated by Israel to build the Wall have engaged in nonviolent demonstrations, with Israeli activists joining in significant numbers. Israeli writer Tanya Reinhart says, “Along this route the story of the other Israel-Palestine is being born.”

Peace, or war without end

              As ex-president Jimmy Carter said: “The preeminent obstacle to peace is Israel’s colonization of Palestine”—not terrorism and not Arab refusal to accept the existence of Israel. There is a consensus in the international community about the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The main obstacles to its implementation are Israel’s expansionism and U.S. complicity. These facts are hidden in the fog generated by the U.S. press and Administration.

              The solution involves a two-state settlement; Israel’s withdrawal from all lands occupied in 1967; and the creation of a Palestinian state that includes Gaza, the West Bank, and, as its capital, East Jerusalem.

              In 2002, the Arab League assembled in Beirut and adopted a peace plan with these very provisions, guaranteeing Israel’s security if it withdraws from all territories occupied in 1967.

              The Beirut plan also calls for just treatment of Palestinian refugees. According to international law, refugees have the right to return to their homes after a conflict. About 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled their land in the 1948-9 war that followed the founding of Israel. About 4.6 million Palestinians—survivors and their descendants—still live in refugee camps in neighboring Arab countries and the West Bank. While Israel must acknowledge this right of return, all Palestinian leaders say they are flexible about the actual number who would return to Israel itself.

              More than 83 percent of Palestinians support the Arab League plan, even though it assigns less than a fourth of historic Palestine to their state. They accept that the past will not return and cannot be recovered by violence.

              In sharp contrast, current Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s “convergence plan” seems to be a prescription for lasting war. When he spoke to the U.S. Congress in May, Olmert said: “Our deepest wish is to build a better future for our region, hand in hand with a Palestinian partner.” But in truth, the plan would complete the dispossession of Palestinians and leave them in barren and disconnected enclaves, with Israel controlling borders, skies, and all resourcesmaking economic and community life impossible.

              Omert’s plan does involve evacuating Jewish settlements scattered beyond the Wall; but Israel would annex “greater” Jerusalem and all the West Bank’s best agricultural land and water resources, and would control a wide security zone along the Jordan river. Olmert is among those who believe Israel has an inalienable right to all of Palestine, but who also realize that Israel cannot annex all the Occupied Territories without becoming an Arab-majority state, as the Palestinians’ birth rate is much higher than the Israelis’. Most Israelis fear this “demographic time bomb.”

              Olmert proposes to impose his plan “unilaterally,” that is, without negotiations with Palestinians, claiming Israel “does not have a partner for peace,” although time and again Palestinian leaders have asked for talks with Israel and have been refused.

Dangerous times

              Last summer, then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon evacuated Israeli soldiers and settlers from Gaza, claiming this was a first step toward ending the occupation (though in fact he was promoting the growth of settlements in the West Bank at the same time).

              Although pleased at first that they could travel across Gaza without waiting hours at checkpoints, Palestinians soon realized that they were essentially living in a large prison. With no airport or seaport, goods and people could only move into and out of Gaza through crossings controlled by Israel. Israel opens the gates when it pleases.

              In January, Hamas won a majority in the Palestinian parliament. Hamas is responsible for attacks against Israeli civilians that have cost hundreds of lives. Its charter calls for “armed struggle” and for establishing an Islamic state in all of historic Palestine and refuses to recognize the existence of Israel.

              But most Palestinians did not vote for Hamas because they approve of its program. Rather, they wanted to remove Fatah, long in charge of the Palestinian Authority, which they see as corrupt, a bad manager, and so weak in negotiating with Israel that the chances for a two-state solution have been all but destroyed. In addition, Hamas runs a broad network of desperately needed social programs—schools, clinics, orphanages, etc.

              Hamas is not a monolithic group of fanatics; its political wing is flexible and realistic. Some of its leaders have said repeatedly that they are ready to recognize Israel, but not without reciprocity; Israel must on its part commit to withdrawing from the Occupied Territories, stop its violence against Palestinian civilians, and free Palestinian political prisoners (numbering now 9,000, many held without charges).

              Moreover, it is with enemies that one needs to negotiate, not with friends. Many former “terrorist” groups have eventually joined legal governments, including the Jewish Irgun and Stern Gang, responsible for many civilian killings before Israel’s creation.

              Israel refuses to talk with Hamas, has been shelling Gaza continuously, and is strangling its economy. The U.S. and European Union have cut aid to the Palestinian Authority in an attempt to bring down Hamas—further impoverishing the people of the West Bank and Gaza, including 1.6 million children under 15. They also called on Hamas to recognize Israel’s right to exist, forswear violence, and accept previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements. Reasonable enough, but no parallel demands are made of Israel: to stop its violence against Palestinian civilians and commit to the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

              As I write this, in the summer of 2006, the IDF has invaded Gaza in force, destroying waterworks and power supplies—seeking the release of one Israeli soldier and an end to the firing of Qassam rockets. The Palestinian factions who captured the soldier are calling for the release of women and children held in Israeli jails. Hamas’ military wing participated in the capture, some say without the knowledge or consent of the political wing.

              The liberal Israeli daily Haaretz titled an editorial “The government is losing its reason,” calling its actions those “of a gang, not of a state.”

Traumas

              While some Israelis, especially in the government and military, have become intoxicated with power, many ordinary Israelis are just afraid, and are swayed by fear-mongers like this Jerusalem Post writer: “Israel is openly threatened with annihilation—not just physically, by a potential Iranian nuclear capability, but demographically by Palestinian claims of a right of return.”

              For Israeli Jews, annihilation is not an abstraction. Jews live with the knowledge that a nation and maybe the entire world willed them all dead. There is something staggering about that, something many perceive as an attack on life itself.

              This came to me forcefully when my brother’s daughter gave birth to a son. I visited her in the hospital, and to my surprise, at the sight of the newborn boy, sobs welled up in my chest, their meaning perfectly clear: life had gone on after all, my mother and father had a descendant, even though the Nazis had killed them and had wished to extinguish their children and their children’s children.

              It is not surprising that many Jews have felt cut off from the rest of humanity, a people apart. There have been genocides in other times and places, but arguments about whether the Holocaust was the most barbaric, or about whether colonialism or slavery were “worse,” are a waste of time. The horror of each must be acknowledged and we must focus our energy on ending every form of violent subjection and bloodshed.

              The Palestinians too have suffered deep trauma—a massive expulsion in 1948-9, which they call the Naqba, or catastrophe, remembered in particular by two atrocities: the massacre of 115 men, women, and children in Deir Yassin by Jewish militia; and the “Death March,” when about 40,000 Palestinians were forced out of the towns of Ramla and Lydda and marched toward the hills in the direction of Ramallah 20 miles away, in the heat of July. Many died as water ran out, especially the old and the children. During that war, Jewish armies razed 400 Palestinian villages to the ground to prevent people from coming back to their homes.

              In 1967 again, some 200,000 to 300,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes. The occupation that followed is now in its 40th year.

              But rather than dwelling on trauma and sowing more seeds of hatred, we must all strive to imagine how we can rescue the future.

Hope

              Suheir is 15 and came from Gaza to the U.S. recently to stay with her cousin. Suheir, who gets nervous every time a plane flies overhead, did not believe any Jews felt compassion for Palestinians; her cousin arranged for her to meet me. Suheir asked:

              “You were in hiding: the Nazis were looking for you to kill you?”

              “Yes,” I said, but, I explained, “hiding” did not mean I was in a hole or cellar, although that did happen to some children—I lived in the open under a false identity and I was moved from place to place for protection—to foster homes and orphanages.

              “And what happened to your parents?”

              “They were killed,” I said. She looked at me with her full attention, eyes wide open, trying to grasp the full meaning of what I said, to integrate it into a new understanding of history and her picture of me, a Jew. A deep current of love passed between us.

              We must have faith in the multiplication of such moments of deep connection. Dr. Eyad El Sarraj, a psychiatrist and the founder and director of Gaza Community Mental Health Program, tells of another such moment. He was driving with a friend to a Gaza border crossing. An Israeli soldier in the concrete fortified post called him over and asked, through the narrow opening, “Your friend says you are a psychiatrist. Can I ask you something?”

              “Yes,” replied Dr. El Sarraj warily.

              “I have a problem, doctor. I live in a settlement in Hebron, and I want to leave.”

              Dr. El Sarraj replied after a moment’s reflection: “I think it is best if you talk about your feelings with your mother and father. It will be best if you convince them of your decision. But I want to tell you something else, my friend. … By choosing to talk to me about yourself, you made me feel proud of humanity and sure of its future.”

              The soldier stretched his arm through the hole to shake the doctor’s hand, saying, “I trust you.”

Annette Herskovits, a longtime BPF member, writes regularly for BPF's journal Turning Wheel about politics and human rights.