I have been exchanging some rather heated e-mail messages with a member
of my family. (E-mail is really the best way for us to communicated,
since
my apartment has no phone, and to make a collect call on a pay phone
via
AT&T, I have to go all the way to Jerusalem.)
This family member was concerned–perhaps overly–about my
attending
a few clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian youths in
Bethlehem
and Ramallah. But there was more than that. It seems that some of our
family’s
Jewish friends have made the conclusion that, because I support
Palestinian
rights, I am a somehow neo-Nazi.
Perhaps I should quote the closing e-mail in our
correspondence:
"It’s very difficult to find any friends here who
just let
me be proud of you. Most of them suggest that I’m nuts that I can even
sleep at night… Jewish friends’ first reaction is some comment like
‘Does
he hate Jews?’"
It’s hard for me not to respond angrily to those accusations. I want to
be childish. I want to get angry and sarcastic and give my long list of
Jewish acquaintances and friends and say that you better warn them
because,
really, I’m an anti-semite and I’m plotting their demise. But I have to
get used to answering calmly, rationally, because for the rest of my
life,
some will slander me because I studied Arabic and spent time in
Palestine,
Jordan, Syria…
It is an interesting conclusion, that I am an anti-Semite, but
it is
a fallacy that reveals a certain shallowness of thought, a certain
level
of naivete that exists in the political attitudes of my fellow
Americans,
Jewish or otherwise. The problem exists on several levels, and is
intimately
tied to the way we view history and to our understanding of the
Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. The two basic assumptions, though, are 1) all Palestinians
(and
Arabs) are terrorists, and 2) it is a sine qua non
that supporters
of Palestinian aspirations must hate Israelis since, well, the two are
enemies, right?
Palestinian Equals Terrorist
On the Palestinian side, media coverage and political rhetoric have
conditioned
us to a few stereotypes of Palestinians. This modern stereotype begins,
perhaps, with the 1972 kidnapping and subsequent massacre of Israeli
Olympians
in Munich by Palestinian terrorists, and has been reinforced by a
series
of hijackings and bombing throughout the past twenty-five years. Add in
the Lebanon war and the Iranian revolution, and the scene is ripe for
the
basis of our modern stereotype: the Hamas suicide bomber. Palestinian
equals
terrorist equals Muslim fundamentalist equals Hamas suicide bomber.
[Historical side note: Hamas is a fairly new organization, just as
Islamic Fundamentalism is a relatively recent phenomenon. Prior to
1978,
Middle-Eastern terrorism was a mix of nationalism and socialism. Hamas,
in fact, was quietly supported by the Israeli government in the
mid-1980s
as an alternative to the PLO. Sort of like the U.S. supporting all
sorts
of dictatorial bullies like the Shah of Iran–it seemed like a good idea at the time.]
Unfortunately, it is always the extreme examples that are used to
define
people who are different, and it is only those extreme examples that we
are familiar with, that are reported on the evening news. But
Palestinians
are people too. One good example is the argument I overheard in a group
taxi the afternoon of the recent suicide bombing at a cafe in Tel Aviv.
The argument was in Arabic, so I missed many of the nuances, but the
general
drift was pretty clear. One passenger was asserting that violent
struggle
and the murder of innocent Israelis is required in the Qur’an. The taxi
driver thought that this guy was full of it, and that murder was not
sanctioned.
In any case, at the end of the argument, the Hamas guy was accusing the
taxi driver of being a bad Muslim, while the driver was asserting that
he damn well was a good Muslim, and that the other fellow was a bad
Muslim
for wanting to kill women and children indiscriminately. Most of the
taxi’s
occupants, it seemed, allied themselves with the taxi driver, and the Hamas guy sat
in sullen silence for the rest of the trip.
My point is this: There are Muslim fundamentalists and
terrorists among
the Palestinian population, but there are also normal people. And there
are a lot more normal people than the wackos. People who want the
Israelis
to leave the West Bank, but abhor the violence as much as we do. We
have
to recognize that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not
the mainstream.
Not that this adds much to the debate, but it should also be
noted that
not all Palestinians are Muslims–there are over 150,000 Palestinian
Christians
here from families that can trace their Christian roots back to the
second
century after the death of the Christ.
Supporter of Palestinians Equals Hater of Israel
Aharon Kleiman–a visiting professor from Hebrew U. who taught a course
on the Arab-Israeli conflict at the U of C–introduced an extremely
useful
term on the first day of class: "zero-sum." The meaning is simple. A
zero-sum
situation is where victory gains all and defeat loses all. You get
zero,
or you get the sum. It is also used to described the outlook of parties
in a political conflict. In the past, many Arabs and Israelis viewed
the
conflict as zero-sum. Some Arabs advocated "Pushing the Jews back to
the
sea" (some still do). Some Israelis refused to cede one inch as long
as
Arabs wished to destroy them (perhaps rightfully so), and some
advocated
expelling every single Palestinian from territories which comprised
former
Britsh Mandate Palestine (a few still do. Just talk to a Hebroni
settler).
But things have changed, haven’t they? The PNA isn’t asking
for Tel
Aviv anymore, they don’t demand the return of Nazareth. Most right-wing
Israelis have given up the Likud dream of expelling Palestinians from
the
West Bank. So why can’t I support Palestinian statehood and a strong
Israel
at the exact same time? Frankly, I think the two are complementary. As
long as Palestinians have no hope for the future, as long as they are
subject
to military occupation and military justice, there will be suicide
bombers.
As long as Palestine remains under occupation, Israel’s security will
be
threatened by the strident nationalism of some of their neighbors. With
freedom and independence, the impetus for terrorism will, I hope,
disappear.
With a Palestinian state, general Arab nationalist hostility toward
Israel
will barely have a leg to stand on.
Good God, what a thought! Hell, the Germans and the French are
good
friends now after hundreds of years of war (say from Charlemagne’s
death
to the formation of NATO). In the Crimean War, British naval officers persisted in calling their French allies the enemy, but that alliance marked the end of nearly 800 years of war. Why can’t it happen in the Middle-East?
Of course, there’s more to the conclusion that supporting
Palestinian
rights means destroying Israel. One of the raisons de ‘etre
of Israel
is the Holocaust. I don’t view this as a point of discussion, as an
opinion
to be debated. This is simple fact. But if you don’t think about it,
you
can try to argue that by supporting the aspirations of Israel’s
adversaries,
you support the Holocaust. Sorry. Doesn’t work that way.
Besides, as I said before, it’s possible to support both
sides. I know
this is going to make me a lot of enemies here, but I even support the
U.S.’s recent double veto in the U.N. (though not for the same domestic
reasons as Clinton). My support is based on one single concept: Israel
has been ostracized and villified for so long by the international
community
that a unanimous international condemnation might have the opposite
effect
and further cripple the peace process by aggravating already sensitive
Israeli nerves.
Consider for one moment a short letter written to The
Jerusalem Post
a few weeks ago:
Sir–If the whole world is angry at us, we must be
doing something
right. The world usually applauds Israel, when Israel is dismembering
itself.
L. Beame
Jerusalem
I’m not sure if I made my point, and I doubt that I’ll convince anyone
that it’s possible to support Palestinians without hating Jews and
Israelis,
but that’s the wonderful thing about free speech. While it hurts, you
have
the right to think whatever you like about me.
All this has made me thought a lot about where I grew up, and
who I
grew up with. New Jersey in general, and Princeton in specific, has a
fairly
large Jewish population. I grew up with Jews–not that it really
mattered
to me whether someone was Jewish or Protestant or Zoroastrian. I was
just
generally oblivious.
My life-long friend Eric P. regularly makes fun of how I
always fall
for Jewish women. To be honest, I’ve got an awful record when it comes to successfully
dating
Jewish women, but I have serious attention issues during Hillel
gatherings
in the States and while wandering around Israeli cities.
I think that I’ve been to synagogue more often than I’ve been
to church.
Perhaps I shouldn’t count all the Bar and Bat Mitzvahs I went to…
It’s
funny, I think I still have all the kipas (or yarmulkes–I’ve never
been
able to get a straight answer as to what the proper term is) that were
given out at those Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. They’re just sitting in my
dresser
drawer at home
Every time I visited Eric at Harvard, Friday night and
Saturday morning
were invariably spent at Hillel (I got pretty good at faking the
consonants
during services. I always feel like such a sore thumb when I don’t
participate
in religious ceremonies). It was part of him, and it was something that
I looked forward to every visit–the feeling of community (even though
I was an outsider).
I’m going to bring this to a close, but I want to end with
something
that I wrote on 9 February of this year. It’s the beginning of the
Sabbath
ceremony at Eric’s house.
I’ve known the P. family for years–since I was in the first
grade. The
first thing I remember about Eric being sorta different was that he
couldn’t
come over to my house to play on Saturdays. Our solution was simple.
Most
of the time, we’d just play during the other six days of the week. Or
I’d
just go over to his house to play on Saturday. I can’t begin to sum up
my friendship with Eric. It’s been seventeen years now. But whenever I
think about Judaism, I always think of this little ceremony at the his
house:
The P.’s have a little brass candelabra in the kitchen between the
toaster oven and the basket for the mail. It’s the same counter that
has
the sink and the cutting board. Anyway, this candelabra has three
candles,
I think, and under it is some old tinfoil, kind of crumpled up, to
catch
the wax. It’s an old candelabra, and not one that would attract your
attention.
It just sits there in its place on the counter. Andy gets Jason and
Eric
and Lily to come into the kitchen. It’s not particularly bright, but
the
lights are on. Lily–Eric’s mom–generally leans against the doorway to
the living room, right next to the phone. I take a half-seat on one of
the wooden folding chairs at the kitchen table. Andy–Eric’s
dad–stands
in front of the cadelabra, and Eric and Jason–Eric’s older
brother–stand
just behind him.
And then Andy leads a short prayer with Jason and Eric joining with
that haunting Eastern harmony of Jewish prayer. Then Andy lights the
candles,
and it’s over. I mean, it’s so simple, so quiet and private… not
taken
lightly, but not too seriously. A quiet, sincere, family prayer that is
just part of the normal routine of life.