Digression and Day 8

I’ll take a second to respond to Mahmud’s post before continuing with day eight. Mahmud is right to say that the Golan’s strategic importance is no longer what it used to be. When it was first captured in 1967, the Golan was a very important strategic asset, especially because it seemed as though Syria was still bent on destroying Israel. In such a case, the Golan would an important staging ground for an invasion of Israel. Today, however, a full scale invasion of Israel does not seem to be in the cards for Syria because of its military inferiority. Thus Israel would not have to worry about the degraded soviet artillery in the Heights that would be easily dealt with today. The Scud Cs don’t really factor in so much because Israel has pretty good anti-ballistic missile systems. Even so, a militarized Golan would still be somewhat of a security threat no matter what intentions are, which is why any agreement would necessarily entail de-militariziation stipulations. In 1994 the two sides agreed on proportionally sized demilitarized zones on both sides of the border. Now, today that situation might be a little bit different considering the threat that Hezbollah would still pose to the Northern Israel regardless of a peace deal, so it might be a little less reasonable to expect Israel to agree to the same sort of demilitarization.

Now while it’s true that there is less parity now than there was in 73 between the Syrian and Israeli armies, it doesn’t mean that Assad can’t engineer a war to his advantage. Assad has a weapon today that didn’t exist in 73…Hamas and Hezbollah. Again, these two groups are very powerful tools as they pose a huge threat to Israel when you consider the sort of response needed to deal with them. They really do have the capacity to thin the Israeli army to the extent that Syria could make some gains and hold them in the Golan, at least for a short time. Of course this would still be extremely difficult considering the lack of air defense on the Syrian side. Nonetheless, Assad would wait until the international conditions are such that a military defeat would still yield political gains. This would only be possible if Syria really does make a sincere effort at peace and exposes Israel as unwilling to negotiate the Heights. Only then would the U.S.A. and Europe be able to exert the necessary pressure.

Finally, I don’t see much of a paradox…if I took something from you and you put up no fuss, I wouldn’t even consider giving it back. But if you cried and made me feel bad about it, maybe I would think about giving it back. It’s less costly for Israel to hold on to the Golan simply because they never have any problems there, why should they give it back? Rationally, you would want to be rid of something if it gives you more grief than benefits. All the Israelis have ever gotten from the Golan is benefits (wine, nice views, good camping) and no grief.

Challenges

Today was the long awaited day when we might have gotten to see a bit of the other side, and get a more balanced look at Israel. It was only half satisfying to me.

The first stop was a mosque in an Arab village along the Jerusalem quarter. We were to meet with the Imam of a mosque and some of his congregation. The village had been inside Israel since 1948 and all the town’s residents were Israeli Citizens. We got to the mosque, went inside, took our shoes off and sat in the prayer hall. The imam gave us a quick lecture about the basics of Islam (a brief history of Mohammed and the 5 pillars). I could tell pretty quickly that they were very moderate and very pacifist. I asked what his views were on living in a state that was built for a different religion. The Imam said that it was a Muslim’s duty to live with what God gives him until God changes it himself. He went on to say that unless it can be absolutely identified as divinely ordained, human agency in changing something like the Jewish character of the state was not allowed. The Imam even said that they would absolutely support a two state solution. The Imam also used language that indicated he was speaking for the whole of Islam. He refused to even acknowledge that any disagreement could even be considered Islamic. Now of course this comforted most of the people in my group… “oh how nice, finally someone who knows what Islam truly is! if only the rest of those pretenders could be so enlightened!” I was pretty disappointed because I had hoped to at least hear a more informed explanation of the thinking of some other Muslim groups on Palestine like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, al Qaeda, Iran etc etc. Instead of giving any explanation at all the Imam only said that those people weren’t really Muslims at all and that it was all politics. Again, everyone liked hearing that, but it’s bullshit. Nasrallah is Muslim because he says he is. His followers are Muslims and their thinking is Islamic. Of course it’s all politics, but those politics are inexorably tied to Islamic thought in every single one of the cases I mentioned. So this incident was a little disappointing because I thought that the theme of the day would be challenges and instead we were brought to a lecture by people who obviously don’t pose a challenge at all.

But there was still more to come and I at least hoped that we would get to hear some more contentious opinions. We walked up into the hills around the town and we eventually came to a clearing where a Muslim woman and an Arab man were waiting for us. We all settled and they started to speak about some of their experiences. They started out by saying that it is a constant struggle to keep their culture and their way of life alive. Arabs, they said, were proportionally much worse off than Jews in Israel, and everything in the state revolves around Judaism; holidays, state symbols, the teaching of history is all Jewish centered. In such an environment, they said, it is extremely difficult to maintain an Arab or Muslim identity. The woman was translating for the man, who was speaking in Arabic. His Arabic was very difficult to understand and I realized that he was using a lot of Hebrew words and some Hebrew affected pronunciations. One of the things that I liked so much about Israel up to this point was how diverse and dynamic it had allowed Jewish life to become. Now, hearing this man speak Arabic I was seeing some of its side affects.

The next topic they spoke about was the de facto discrimination built into the Israeli system. It was good to hear this considering Jesse’s rant the other day to a bunch of us that arabs were “completely equal, full citizens of Israel entitled to anything and everything that any Israeli is entitled to.” On paper he is correct, but in reality, that’s not how it works. The man told us about how so much of one’s success in Israel is contingent on serving in the IDF. Technically, Arab citizens are allowed to join, but they are nearly always rejected for “security concerns.” Now the man didn’t mention this, but polls have shown that between 7 and 10 percent of Israeli Arabs support attacks against Israel and Israeli citizens. So as far as I am concerned, these security concerns are completely legitimate. Nonetheless, it does not mean that Arab citizens should be systematically denied opportunities for success, especially with the level of education many have gotten…it’s just a waste otherwise. So the man mentioned, like I expected him to, the position that there should be some other sort of national service that Israeli Arabs can perform, that does not affect security, and by which they can still accrue the same benefits as any other Israeli who has served in the military. If Arab citizens were allowed to participate in the state, then maybe the percentages in the aforementioned survey would eventually go down.

Now much to my dismay, some in the group reacted to the man’s speech by scoffing and saying “well you live in Jewish state.” I couldn’t believe it. These people were Americans! We live in a country for all of its citizens and I’m very proud of that. Sure there are problems and yes they need to be addressed, of course racism is still alive and well and the lasting affects of slavery have not yet even come close being ameliorated, but nonetheless, we live in a country that is for everyone. I cannot imagine scoffing at anyone and saying, pff well you live in a Christian state, deal with it.

Our next stop was the security barrier. We met up with Rabbi Michael Schwartz at a lookout over east Jerusalem. We could see the wall very well, including an abrupt loop that leaves an Arab village completely encased by concrete save for a 25 meter opening on its eastern edge. The rabbi gave us run down of the problems that the wall has caused. He told us that Arabs who used to come to work everyday in Jerusalem are now unsure every day if they will be let. For the ones that get in, they now have to make a trip of several hours every morning to get to the right checkpoint instead of walking or taking a 10 or 20 minute bus like before. Thus, many workers have lost their livelihood and so now their families are suffering. The Rabbi also told us about an interesting phenomenon caused by the wall. Today, many west bank Arabs without Israeli citizenship would prefer to be included inside the wall so that they can continue to work while many Israelis are lobbying to exclude more land from the state.

After he talked about the Palestinian perspective for a while, we went to a bus stop where a suicide bomber had blown up a bus in 2002. The bus stop had become a sort of roadside memorial of the people who were killed, with pictures and collages and flowers that someone always replaces. The bus stop was also covered with a lot of different kinds of signs and slogans including the infamous "No Arabs, No Terror" bumper sticker. The Rabbi then talked about Israel's right to defend itself and about how The Hague acknowledged the legality of the wall, if not its specific course. He also told us that the wall has undoubtedly put a near complete stop to suicide attacks within Israel in general and especially in Jerusalem. There is testimony from members of the PFLP and Hamas that confirms this. What he didn’t point out, which I thought would have been a good point, is that the barrier also saves Palestinian civilians the grief of becoming collateral damage when Israel retaliates for a suicide attack. So basically I thought it was a pretty good, balanced review of the issues with which I mostly agreed.

Afterwards, we visited Har Herzl. Har Herzl is the Arlington National Cemetery of Israel, so this trip was going to be very serious. We started at some of the Graves of the Heroes of the Jewish Underground who fought during the 1948 war. After that we visited the graves of some Israeli paratroopers who were captured and killed during the same war. Throughout the tour Ronnie stressed the point that these men and women (there were women who fought) died not just for Israel, but for all Jews, past present and future. Next we visited the grave of the 22 year old American who made aliyah when he was 18 and died last summer in southern Lebanon. While Ronnie was telling us about him three of the soldiers in our group walked off to another grave 15 meters off and took of their hats. One of their friends had also died last summer in Lebanon. We also visited a memorial for all those who died in terrorist attacks. Ronnie read us the letter that one 12 year old American girl wrote to her mother as she was being held hostage in nineteen seventy something. She knew very well that was going to die and expressed a desperate willingness to accept it. Ronnie showed us a picture of the original letter, and you could tell that much of it was blurred by tear drops. Then he pointed to her name on the wall.

After that we went to the grave of a soldier who died in 1982. His mother wrote a children's book and named it after him: Guni. Ronnie read us the book. The book starts in Guni's childhood. He was an active child, and had decided from a very young age that he wanted to be an officer in the military. Guni eventually becomes an officer, serves and goes and is relieved of duty a few weeks before the start of the 82 war. Once the war starts, Guni is not required to go, but he does because he feels an obligation to his men. He died in the very early stages of the invasion at Beaufort Castle. The book concludes with an explanation for Guni's death: he died for the Jewish people, he died for his country that he loved so much, he died because he had to to protect his country and his people. All I could think was "my god, it was Lebanon…fucking Lebanon for Christ's sake. No one dies for anything in Lebanon." That war was a complete disaster and caused nothing but 15 years of unchecked and pointless misery for anyone involved. Today and yesterday, France can sit back and be indignant at Israel for its 82 mishaps completely forgetting that such a war was only a result of its own greed. Today Israelis look at the war and find heroes in what was only a shameless attempt to exploit the unjust system that the French had forsaken. And now Americans can rant and rave about Hezbollah the terrorist organization, the fucking crazy Palestinians in those disgusting refugee camps they live like animals after all. They're all heroes, Gameyal, Nasrallah, Guni, Habash, fuck it. They're dying for their people, dying for Lebanon, for shiism, for palestine, for the watan. Everyone has a flag. People were crying after Ronnie read the story, including Ronnie and some left rocks on Guni's grave.

So I calmed down a bit and finally we made it to the top of the hill where Theodore Herzl is buried. It's interesting, these graves, because they are really treated different than in the U.S. We can go to Washington's grave in the U.S., or Hamilton's or Franklin's and we acknowledge their greatness and the significance of their personalities in the birth of our country. We can talk about them a great length and list off all of their great achievements, respectable humility or general brilliance. But we always emphasis the ideas that drove them, that the ideas were always the most important thing. These men worked their entire lives for principles that went beyond race, religion or sect. That is what we are told. In Israel these men a revered for what they did for the Jewish people and not necessarily the ideas for which they struggled. So there is a sort of air of ancestor worship around Herzl's tomb which is, for me, different and a little strange.

So it was a pretty heavy day, everyone was exhausted and the Guni story was still thoroughly screwing with me. Yad Vashem tomorrow. It's designed by Moshe Safir, so it should be interesting. Time to get some sleep.