The view from here

I've been thinking a lot lately about how different the political situation looks from here than it did in the states. I'm not a very political person, and I don't really enjoy reading the paper that much about all the petty bickering between all the politicians here, both Israeli, Palestinian, and from other Arab nations. So I'm not going to try to give any over-arching analysis, but just a couple of things that have really stuck in my mind.

- Missiles - It's an almost everyday occurrence that the Palestinians in the Gaza strip shoot missiles into Israel. The only thing that keeps Israel from responding severely is that their aim is really bad and so the damage has been limited. But it means that in several southern Israeli towns, the kids don't play outside anymore. A missile hit an elementary school recently so one of the big issues is why the government is not responding more and how to fortify the school. I'm sure that's the issue that everyone wants to be talking about at their school committee meetings. Since we've been here, there has only been one or two missiles that hit military bases (which are all over that area). The Palestinians seem to be aiming for the civilians, not the military, which is disturbing. Another issue is what this does to the peace process.

-I saw a sign here the other day with a picture of a Native American and the sign read: "ask me about land for peace." It's an incorrect sign for many reasons, but it kind of sums up a view of the right: like the European settlers in the states, the Palestinians are actively working for the genocide and destruction of Jews and if we make any concessions to them, they will work even harder to that end. And these days, it's hard to argue with them. We gave them Gaza and they use it as a staging ground for attacks on Israel's civilian population. What will happen if we return the West bank to them, which has a long, jagged border with Israel, and is near many, many population centers of Israel? Will it mean peace or will it mean constantly sleeping in the bomb shelters? If you look at an earlier post (http://askablog.blogspot.com/2007/06/tourist-pictures.html) you can see the security fence where the border might be. That was takenabout a fifteen minute walk from our apartment. This would mean that we would be the ones sleeping the shelters, which is a very sobering thought.

-Another aspect of the missiles from Gaza is the humanitarian crisis that is looming there. Israel closed the border with Egypt when Hamas took over the Gaza strip, meaning that no supplies are able to get in. Why? Because they are constantly trying to smuggle in weapons such as more accurate and more powerful missiles. It's a trade off, do you give them food and medicine so they don't starve and die, which is the right thing to do, if it means that they will get weapons that they will use to kill Israelis? From a governmental point of view, it's hard to make concessions when it means the death of your own citizens. It seemed, in the states, that Israel was always condemned for it's military actions in the West Bank and Gaza, but when you are here, the reasons for those actions are very, very clear.

- The other countries in the middle east are constantly working for our destruction. Over the summer, the papers were full of stories wondering if we were going to war with Syria, who has been controlling Hezbollah for the past thirty years and is an active state of war with Israel. At some point, the articles suddenly shifted and basically said: not this summer, but maybe next.

It's hard to escape the security issues these days. People in the states make a big deal about evil the fence between Israel and the Palestinians is. Here, people make a big deal of the fact that since it was built, there are no longer daily suicide bombings. It is clear to me that there will be a Palestinian state, it's just the details that elude me. Lately, there have been reports that Israel is going to turn over some of the outlying Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem to the Palestinian authority, and in response, the Palestinian authority has started publicly stating that it wants all of the old city and a return to the pre-1967 borders. It seems that as the Israelis make more concessions, the Palestinians get more demanding. Israel is ready to make concession for peace, but it doesn't appear the Palestinians are.

But it's also clear to me that this occupation is destroying the soul of Israel. There is a concept that when you are involved in doing one Mitzvah (commandment), then you are exempt from doing others. It seems that we've forgotten the value of human life in the process of doing the Mitzvah of settling the land of Israel. There seems to be a fervor in the settling of the occupied territories that blinds people from seeing this. That somehow the oppression of the Palestinians justifies all the violence that supports it.

But the alternative, right now, is war. In some ways, it might be better to continue the occupation than to have all out war. For me, I'm still in favor of a Palestinians state. If they then want to continue the war against us, then it's an external conflict and our military can do what it's best at: fighting a war. And then the PR battle also changes: we gave them what they wanted and they attack us. So if we shell them into oblivion, it's clearly their fault. The Palestinians need to want peace more than war, but I don't know how to bring that change in their community.

Israel has made a lot of mistakes over the past 40 years. We've missed a tremendous number of opportunities, so for me, the question is how to stop making more mistakes. But there is no clear solution.

I think that people here think about it like Global warming: It's this amazing terrible thing we've done to ourselves and even if we do all the right things now, it's unclear if we can avert the coming crisis. So most of us don't think about it in our day to day lives. The situation here feels like that: there is no clear solution, everyone is to blame, and even if we do everything we can at this point, things are probably going to get messy in the end.