First speaker was a ‘Kadima’ MP- he told us that there is a leadership problem, that could be also seen in the recent Kfir unit events (where recently a group of religious soldiers declared they would not evacuate settlements), a problem of authority, he explained that there was a problem with education- that the Zionism and IDF values (this might seem odd to some, but the IDF is regarded as a value by much of Israeli society) must be taught from kindergarten, and that all citizen must serve, either in military or civilian service; Next came the head of the National Student Organization, telling us their of the official position on the subject is that service should be mandatory for all citizen (though, it already is- the army itself is the body that exempts people from service) and that whoever fails to serve “[…]should be dealt with by the state”. My friend spoke last- extremely brave, in front of an extremely aggressive crowd who at times cut the talk off. Even though this talk was clearly the minorities voice (on the subject) it could not be tolerated, people in the crowd felt it as a personal attack, as voices that could not be given a place, a reaction that was a sign to what would come next. I have decided not to write more on New-Profile, or the talk, at this point but more will be available in an interview soon.
I’m writing this not to give some of these ideas more space than they already have, but so as to share what happened during the questions session-
During the questions a Israeli-citizen-Palestinian student was allowed to ask a question- ‘I am scared- I sit here and listen to you and I’m scared. First I hear my baby son will soon have to learn the Zionist and IDF “values” already in kindergarten, then, that he will have to “serve”— or be dealt with by the state. I am a citizen, an equal in a democratic state, and what you say scares me. I want equality’. This seems to me a straight forward question- regarding the right of a minority in a so-called democratic state not to have the majorities values and institutions forced upon them; but the MPs answer was more surprising ‘I will not apologize for my sovereignty. What you say is undermining my sovereignty’. It was surprising to the effect that rarely do Israeli representatives openly react to the demand of Israeli-citizen-Palestinians for equality as contradictory to Jewish sovereignty (as drawn up in the Israeli declaration of independence)- rarely is it openly-acknowledged that sovereignty means, de-facto, structure inequality.

It is so difficult sitting through such an occasion for me- I become immensely tense, like I often do in class when I have time to over-think a reaction and it starts boiling, and I start sweating. Here I can’t even formulate words, it’s a swelling of rage, speechless. Later I go through all the things I should have said. I write ideas, combinations of fragments going through my mind as it becomes responsive again- but this is not the place. What I feel so strongly now is how undisguised it all is, how clear, how open the hostility- the minorities voices cannot be tolerated, and are responded to as a threat, either shouts, jeers, a compulsive noise to blurt it out, or calm and direct re-utterance of the authority, of the position of power- these same reactions to both my friend and the Palestinian student, only in different ways. And at the same time how transparent this reaction is to most of the crowd, how natural, the inability see IT, even while it’s happening before their eyes, and what it means.

*After the first two speakers came someone from ‘Yesh Gvul’ who talked about the limits of obedience, and Israeli war crimes; then came someone from “Im Tirtsu” (‘If you want’- reference to Hertzel’s known words) who explained how during the attack on Gaza (now a year ago) while leftists were marching against the army, ‘Im Tirtsu’ was marching for the operation, sending soldiers gift-boxes, how they arrive at Bilin and Ni’ilin regularly to support soldiers “attacked” by leftist anarchists, and how Israeli authorities should start using administrative detention against leftists; next was a from an organization calling for ‘equal share of the burden’, started by saying her son (in reference to the comments by the speaker from Yesh Gvul) ‘[…] is a soldier, I have a war criminal, I’m proud of being the mother to a war criminal— because, of course, he isn’t a war criminal’ (not surprisingly, the female speaker assumes the role, not of the “expert” [or activist], but of the mother).

A day in my life – thoughts on non-violent Jewish resistance

A day in my life – thoughts on non-violent Jewish resistance I take the Egged bus to my university. The only bus line which connects my city and Tel-Aviv. Egged runs bus lines in settlements in the West Bank and is thereby profiting from the military occupation of Palestinian territories. When I hand the bus driver the 10 shekel fee to Tel-Aviv I think of the ways in which I am forced to cooperate with this occupation even in such a tiny and daily transaction. I enter the halls of the Humanities Faculty in which an artifact that was uncovered in the Gaza strip after ’67 is displayed. The expeditions in which such artifacts as this one were excavated honor a university benefiting from what its archeologists have stolen. Shouldn’t these be in a free Palestinian university?

I walk up the steps and pass by the “Middle Eastern and African Studies” department, whose chair, considered all knowledgeable about “our neighbors,” still counsels the Israeli military intelligence as an ex-officer. I once made the mistake of going to one of
his lectures in which he informed us gravely that there was no Palestinian nation when the Zionists came here. Was there a Jewish nation when the Zionists came here? I left before I could ask. I continue to the Sourasky library where students still discover challenging writings on Jewish identity and politics or are moved reading accounts of Holocaust survivors reminding them of people, similar to you and I, who have been forgotten even by those who assume to follow them. The same library where they will find Palestinian novels and learn of other kinds of destruction and expulsion or enter, hesitantly, Arabic spaces and cultures, worlds so close to where they have been born though they are forced to remain distant from them in the name of their “security.” I look at the books wondering all the while if my university purchased them or other research materials through its connections with or donations from the members of the Tel-Aviv University Business–Academic Club. One such member of the 2009 Club is EDS (Electronic Data Systems) Israel. I think of Palestinian workers who have to undergo fingerprint recognition and are controlled by this company’s biometric “inventions” or stopped at a checkpoint to be looked down on by an Israeli reserve soldier who was yesterday sitting beside me in class and tomorrow will ask for my notes. Should I give them to this soldier? Knowing he will find the little comments on the margins written in haste in moments of inspiration when learning about colonialism and orientalism? Yes, we have such classes as well. Tel-Aviv University is home to many critical thinkers and writers who are increasingly being censored.

I walk past the faculty members’ club, aware that this beautiful house once belonged to a family, Abu Kheel. There was once a Palestinian village here, north of Yaffa city. Contrary to the myth of the barren land to which a people without a home came, Yaffa
was once a vibrant place and indeed still is but one has to know where to look. Yet the people who live here are constantly being harassed by the Tel Aviv-Yaffo Municipality officials causing them to move inwards to Ramle and Lyd, so that richer and whiter people may renovate the Palestinian local houses, raise the prices and gentrify the area. This usually happens following the so-called “illegal extensions” that growing families add to their houses which are subsequently demolished even though permits for building in Yaffa are scarce unless you are Jewish or well-off. We are all witnesses to the creation and re-creation of (internal) refugees. Indeed the occupation is always and constantly here and not, as some would like to think, over and beyond the by now meaningless Green Line. The Separation Wall and the unyielding siege on Gaza have made it all the more and painfully clear that the occupation has come to define the existence of all who live here but my Jewish hands are covered with its blood. How to resist when everything I touch is stained? I first must recognize where I am a participant, even if involuntary profiteer, as I sit on the green lawns of my campus grounds and know that in the Middle East someone could have put this water to better use and then ask myself – who does this water belong to in the first place? As I go to work and receive payment from a company which has offices in a settlement where it was cheaper to set them up and where Palestinian workers no doubt are being exploited, unprotected by the laws of minimum wage which our government bestows only upon the privileged citizens. As I decide where to go for holiday and am told by my friends how nice and inexpensive it is now to rent a place for the weekend on the Golan Heights. As I drink freshly squeezed orange juice, exported to the world without mention of where the fruit comes from – occupied land. As I drive on apartheid roads built on more stolen land because it will shorten the way and I am in a hurry to a meeting in Jerusalem.

And once I realize that even as I try to resist the occupation has engulfed everything, I understand that I am faced with a choice. Should I use my privileges as a Jewish citizen of Israel? As a Jewish anti-apartheid and a peace activist in this country, I can say and do certain things -necessary things – which would place me in danger, in prison, in the graveyard if I were Palestinian. Yet, I worry – if I do this for long, will I discover that the methods are stronger than the aims? Will I not actually deepen the divide between myself and fellow Palestinians based on the very privileges I still enjoy? I may try to ignore or disregard or justify my use of them but do they not grow in the faces of those I work with? Unlike international activists I cannot be IN solidarity with Palestinians for I myself am the perpetrator of the crimes committed against them. Or am I?

I too was born into and am a product of a Zionist-separationist system and so I too am part of the struggle. Indeed it is also MY struggle, to be liberated from the horrifying task of oppressing others and so I should not wait to be asked to join. Yet when I join, how do I do so not from an imposing position? How do I shed away that which I have that others do not, that which they are deprived of so that I may continue to prosper on their backs? As a Jewish person living here should I “give up” and speak out against the quotidian “normalities” which help fuel the occupation by my very collaboration and tacit cooperation? Sometimes I cannot because it would mean practically ceasing to live/function. Other times I am trapped as the occupation has entered even the most
private and intimate of spaces, as when my beloved brother came home in his uniform and my mother asked me to help her wash it and hang it out to dry. Nonetheless, I simply CANNOT divest from the occupation as long as I help to maintain it and as long as I benefit from the power it has given me individually as well as collectively, even as I am critical of it. By attempting to do this I contribute to breaking away with static binaries which have placed me on a certain side of the walls the Israeli government builds even when I oppose the building of these walls. By exposing and refusing to go along with the binary and aggressive “normalities” that allow the occupation to continue I can take part in the struggle in a political, non-violent form of Jewish resistance.

Yet as I reach the conclusion of these thoughts I find I have fallen trap into the very dichotomies which I claim separate us from each other by imposing an oppressive order of different yet connected occupations. Dichotomies that coerce us into being only Jewish as opposed to Palestinian, or Palestinian of ’48 as opposed to Palestinian of ’67 and these as opposed to Refugees and then Jerusalemite as opposed to West Banker as opposed to Gazan etc. It is not “simply” the occupation which we must resist but rather a whole regime of divisions set in place treating the people of one land differently based on their ethnicity or race. I end with the understanding that I am looking to re-define my place here. Although I take responsibility for my role in maintaining oppression, I am more than “the occupier” and even more than someone resisting being one. As a person struggling for justice and for the end of (the) occupation(s) I too can hope for liberation by re-thinking and re-imagining myself and my place here. I join the struggle then, also because of the personal silencing I experience on account of my beliefs and because of the shared pain born out of friendships with people I hold dear who pay heavy prices for their actions and stands; although not considered “the chosen people” they are my people nonetheless.

R. B. Green
May 2009

I immigrated to this country 12 years ago, as an adult, with 2 babies. I did it for “Zionist” reasons – not to “settle the land” beyond the Green Line, but because I wanted to live in a Jewish environment and saw many advantages in living here, concerning this goal.

So, for ten years I lived here as a completely “regular” Israeli, having doubts about my governments policies, but no big contestation or no big questioning. Essentially I believed what most Israelis believe: That we were “only” defending ourselves against Arab/Palestinians aggressions. That our army was doing it’s best to be “human”, despite all the adversity and all the atrocities committed by the enemy. That our Secret Service was here to protect us (Israelis) and doing it’s best as well to be as “human” as possible.

I was proven wrong.

By whom?
By the Secret Service itself.

I cannot enter in detail into what happened to me in a completely surprising and unexpected way – you’ll have to take my word for what I say about this.

On a bright summer morning in June 2006, I woke up unusually early, and more unusually, I got up and went straight to my computer. From one minute to another (actually it took about half an hour) I, who until then was a completely “innocent”, “naive” and good willing Israeli mother, was thrown right into the middle of the conflict in a way that very few people are able to grasp.

I did nothing wrong, nothing at all. In my own eyes – and in the eyes of all those who know about it – what I did was something I just had to do and was good for both sides (not kidding).

What I had found on my computer made me see immense humanity in my “enemy”. This has forever changed my life. I did a lot of personal inquiry about who and how and why – sometimes even in anger, because this event has had many very serious and very unpleasant consequences for me. Nevertheless, I’m forever thankful for what happened – it made me see the deepest humanity I ever saw in my life – except for history books and accounts of events that didn’t touch me directly.

Naturally I was questionned how and why and so on – how I came into this position – and truly, I was warmly thanked for the tiny little thing I had done, that finally didn’t matter very much in the course of history. Yet, I was told that my action had been good and courageous.

Fine – but what happened next was that my privacy was violated completely and the real “thank you” was nothing but abuse.

It was then that I realized that “something was wrong”: That if I, the perfect Zionist Israeli citzen, was “thanked” in such an abusive way (although what I received as “abuse” was tiny compared to what Palestinians usually get), how must it be for a Palestinian “suspect”?

It was then that I began to investigate and have a closer look into what was going on, as I call it “on the other side of the Wall”.

This was more than 2 years ago. I slowly got in contact with “real Palestinians” – meaning that I met and talked to Israeli Arabs and Palestinians and learned to understand their perception, their feelings and what actually was “going on” on their side.

I found out that Palestinians where not the “devils” as they are seen in mainstream Israeli minds. I naively thought that by telling my friends and colleagues about my “discovery” I would bring them “good news”.

The complete opposite happened.

While these people had known me for 10 years, liked/loved me and trusted me, in very little time I was categorized as “crazy”, “manipulated” and the like. Most friends dropped me completely. One of my bosses, a very educated and intelligent man, officially left-wing, told me (I quote, because I’ll never forget that sentence!!): “But Eva, what happened to you? A normal Israeli doesn’t know any Arabs!”

In the meantime I have learned that indeed, I’m not “normal” any more.

About 95% of all Jewish Israelis never talked (deeply and on a basis of mutal respect) to any Palestinians in their whole life. Palestinians almost don’t exist in the life of “regular” Israelis. “They” are somewhere – in Gaza, in Jenin – just thinking of how best to kill us. I’m barely exaggerating – I’m talking about what “regular” Israelis think. (I’ve written a report about this matter, called “From Jerusalem to Auschwitz”).

Yet, as Israeli living where I do, I am subjected to exactly the same conditions as all my Israeli neighbors. Terrorist do not distinguish between a “good Israeli” or a “bad Israeli” when they’re out to kill.

I, my husband and my children travel on public busses in Jerusalem every day. We go to malls, we go to the pedestrian streets, we go to movies – we live here, every single day. Many people I know have bought cars just to avoid to take busses. I never could afford a car, and will not be able to buy one in the near future.

My and my husbands bus line goes through ALL the main and “favorite” spots for terrorist attacks. Even the next to last “bulldozer attack” was on a bus station I use many times. It’s been more than once that I’ve (Thank God!) escaped a bombing by a minute – once it was not more than 30 seconds. Our bus left the station at French Hill station, moved away, and right behind us, a young woman blew herself up in the remaining crowd.

French Hill Junction has been the target of at least 15 attacks in the 12 years I’ve been living here, and I have to go with my bus line EVERY DAY through that junction.

The father of a friend of mine was killed in a bus bombing at French Hill Junction in exactly MY bus line – the one I need to take to get to town at all. My bus goes through Jaffa road, through the spots where 4 busses have been blown up within a few weeks in 1996. My bus passes Machane Yehuda Market, where I often stop to do some shopping.

If I would make a list of people I know who have been killed or wounded in such attacks, and of friends of friends I know very well, this list would be long.

In not many years, my two children will have to join the army. I would love to stop this war as soon as possible. I would say that I would love to stop it “yesterday”.

So – when someone on mepeace or anywhere else tells me that in claiming for basic Justice for Palestinians to obtain the Peace (means non-violence) that Israelis need I’m inciting and calling for War, I slightly get “mad” (sometimes ).

In these two years of investigating what is going on “on the other side of the Wall”, I’ve seen too many almost unbelievable abuses of basic rights of civilians (not “fighters” in any way). I’ve learned about incredible injustices, witnessed never imagined racism and more and more.

While I can’t judge what has been done or not in the past – I admit that this whole issue is way to complex and complicated to come to any clear conclusion – I can see what is going on now.

And whatever others say or believe – and while I am totally aware of Quassams falling on Sderot and all other violences committed – even among Palestinians themselves – I came to the conclusion that there is – now – a very clear inequality of power.

That – now, at present – there is, as someone said in a discussion, a bully and a victim, that there is an abuser and an abused. The abuser may have all the reasons in the world for having become what he is – he’s still an abuser.

I believe that Israel is the “one” in power – much more in power than Palestinians. That Israel must do the first step to stop this completely inequal situation. That the human rights abuses must stop. That justice and basic rights for Palestinian civilians must be restored.

I never claimed that Israel should stop to defend itself against real aggressions, but it must stop to aggress those who do NOT aggress us.

There is extremely little knowledge within the Israeli public about what is “really” going on on “the other side of the Wall”. As I said before, only about 5% of all Israelis ever had any serious contact with a Palestinian. (I’m quoting Gershon Baskin from his introduction to the first IPCRI work-shop I attended).