|
Israel - The Frontline Is Everywhere, page 7
by Lloyd Howell
Before we had much time to dwell on that grim possibility Mr. Halper of the Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolition appeared and off we went to his office. Mr. Halper was a Jew from America and was about my age. We had both passed through that unique and idealistic period of American history - the ‘60s. I could relate to him. He too, like me, had put aside the lure of financial success and immersion in the ’system’ to seek a dream. For me it was a unique religious path. For him it meant an exodus from America to participate in a dream called ’Israel’. Now he was worried where the dream was headed - he knew it had become a nightmare for many - both Jews and Palestinians. He was concerned that his own people were making a great mistake in not understanding and finding a way to live with the previous occupants of the land – whether it is a one or two state solution. His efforts were to educate others, chiefly in Israel, but also abroad about the blunders that he felt were being committed – ones that, he feared, would come back to haunt Israel.
He had written a number of essays that had been compiled in a booklet. In brief he elucidated how many in Israel, government notwithstanding, had a long range plan to never let the Palestinians obtain true national sovereignty, just some semblance. He explained the ’bypass’ roads the Israeli government had built throughout the West Bank in essence establishing highways that skirted the Palestinian roads. He showed how Israeli settlements and zoning restrictions were dividing Palestinian control of their land into what resembled ’Bantustans’ - the sort of quasi but harmless self-governing states South Africa once sought to establish so as to relegate their unwanted Black population into ’manageable’ territories not altogether unlike the moving of America’s Indians on to reservations. According to Mr. Halper, there was being established a ’matrix of control’ through which even with statehood the Palestinians would never be able to stand as a nation in the sense that others, including Israel, could.
There were other Israelis also not pleased with the way things were going. One that our team met was Dr. Prinz, an educator, who as a young boy had been through imprisonment for being a Jew in Nazi Poland. He no longer believed in God but he believed in Israel and goodness and invited our team to come to a rally against the Wall organized by peace groups and leftist organizations. Benedicte, I and a volunteer named Claire went to see what that was all about. It took place somewhere in the West Bank and the protestors were brought there by buses to join in smashing a styrofoam replica of the wall together with Palestinian participants.
The event was relatively brief and managed to garner only a small amount of media attention. However what was interesting was despite the fact that some hormones were raging not too far away, as the effigy of a wall was smashed, there grew a group of some fifteen or so Palestinian teenagers around Claire. They were so curious to talk with this American woman, to look at the photos of her teenage children. They enjoyed her telling them not to smoke and so forth. They were like teenagers anywhere - needing guidance to direct their lives to a better state. Palestine I hope you can find that leadership!
Now it is about two months since I returned. For me it is rather clear that there is some cause and effect relationship between the occupation & Israeli settlements in Palestine and the phenomena of suicide bombing. Thirty plus years of losing control over one’s destiny, of seeing the dream of statehood seem to vanish into nothingness, to experience continual humiliations results in a state of absolute despair that can not help but produce a totally irrational phenomena such as suicide bombing. It is something akin to the pressure created in the earth by the accumulation of hot boiling magma. It builds and builds until it finds some weak point out of which it can erupt. As long as that pressure [of occupation] exists there will be eruptions somewhere somehow.
|
