Hubby had a free day yesterday and had his buddy Abed help him in our garden which is really tiny. We have a tiny olive tree and a larger lemon tree and there's not much room for anything else. They were going to pave it with some decorative stones. Hubby was just going to trim the olive tree but Abed felt the branches and said that it has alot of oil in it and it shouldn't be trimmed until the Fall. Of course he would know that, most olive trees are grown and cultivated by Arabs. Jews can learn alot of very simple but beautiful things related to the land from their Palestinian brothers. Like the time Ibrahim came over and peeled a pomegranate in the shapes of several pyramids. I just take a knife and cut it into quarters, but he had a whole story behind the pyramids. Getting back to the point, this separation wall is affecting Abed who is married with 4 children. It is being built right in front of his house. It will be really difficult for him to travel to Jerusalem to get to work. It will probably take him hours to get through. He has an Israeli ID card and asked us for help in finding him a place outside the wall before the wall closes in on him.
On the one hand, I understand somewhat why the wall is being built, but on the other hand I figured the only people who deserve to be behind this wall are the people like Hamas, Al Aksa Brigade, Hezobolla, Al Qaida, religious and community leaders who incite people to violence and murder, etc. and any of their ilk. But not Abed. And not his family. And not others like him. And I believe there are many of them. I am trying really hard not to make comparisons to World War II, but Jews were put in ghettos behind high walls - my relatives included - and maybe, MAYBE if they had a non-Jewish friend on the other side who was brave enough to risk his/her life - they had a chance. I feel like I have a responsibility to help Abed find a way out of this mess. But how? If I find a moment, I can demonstrate with Taayush. I can make calls for Abed. But with the rest, I feel so helpless. Of course we Jews did nothing to deserve the horrible treatment we got during the 1940s. And Israel has terrorism it has to fight. But I hate this kind of collective punishment and believe it creates even more animosity towards Israel where there may not have been before. Sometimes I think the Wall is the easy way out. The more difficult way would be to set up education systems for both peoples, where tolerance would have been the norm, and every Israeli child would have to learn Arabic and every Palestinian child would have to know Hebrew and actually use it. They'd begin by playing together. Or perhaps have more integration in the cities with a real democratic system in place - not a selective democratic one. There wouldn't be this "this is yours and this is mine" attitude - it would be shared. The land would be shared with all its resources and holy places. And the more difficult way just may have been worth it in the long run.
Monday, June 14, 2004
The Wall
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8 comments:
How come those kinds of comments are always anonymous?
It's the ones like Anon-UK that the wall is being built.
As far as giving the land back GREAT, but do it God's way. Go back in the bible where ALMIGHTY GOD set the boundries for the promised land for ISREAL, then GIVE IT BACK!!!
Christians in the Philippines pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
What can you do. You cannot allow the terrorists to continue to do their thing without some taking some kind of measures.
Sharon cannot make this happen by himself, he needs a partner and Arafat has proven that he is a one trick pony who hasn't the balls to do the right thing ever.
I used to think that Oslo was meaningful, but now I am no longer certain. I remember walking through the Old City in the Summer of '85 oblivious to any possible trouble, how different I was then from now. I wonder if I could have believed that my happy go-lucky attitude would be so different.
Age and responsibility have made their impact upon me.
An Israeli and Palestinian discussing an olive tree...
AR
Israel is the most emigrated-to nation in the entire middle east, because of democracy and a thriving economy. Israel should be giving everyone hope, just by its existence and its success and its (until lately) tolerance and acceptance of Arabs.
But this wall is sadly necessary, because sadly the Palestinian people either tolerate or encourage or at very least are unable to remove or negate the (dare I use the word) evil force of terrorism. And as long as people wear bombs to border crossings, those border crossings must be slow and arduous. The other choice is complacent acceptance of one's own slow and painful annihilation.
Well, there is a difference choice, but I don't think Israel will ever undertake a Nazi-style marginalization/elimination of Palestinians. Israel isn't so far down that ugly road as to have lost the ability to distinguish between good people and evil ones.
but this is just the course that Hamas and the other groups are dedicated to follow to the end; annihilation of Israel. As long as polls show the majority of Palestinians supporting this and believing in this, the wall will always be necessary, as is a coat when going outside in the snow. One must take sensible measures to protect oneself.
I liked the previous post which used the phrase "Fair Peace". I like that a lot. It means peace can only emerge through a mutual respect and recognition of rights.
I hear some harsh, verging on antisemitic, comments made about the Israeli Government's "Security Fence". However, i have yet to hear a truly convincing argument FOR the wall (by that i mean one that outweights the arguments against).
A “mutual recognition of rights, or fair peace” is very well indeed, but how is that going to come about? Do we just wait for that to happen? Democracy in the region is the best shot at this surely? As tolerant as i am, spare me the religous nonsense. God would want us to live in peace and as "one" surely, not in segregated communities, veying to build one nation on the blood and ruins of the other. If you hold to your religous dogma there is no forseeable peace... you had better build the wall in that case.
The international community must do all it can to foster democracy in Palestine, or at least ensure conditions allowing it to blossom. I do agree with Chomsky that the wall is certainly not a “Security Fence” and is a dangerous step toward an apartheid situation. While Chomsky has ensured his position as a true radical… this observation is astute. How does a “mutual recognition of rights” come in to existence after this – it will not penetrate past the armoured wall surely, not in any true or significant form anyhow. I believe the wall to be dangerous hindrance to development of democracy in Palestine, and offers false hope for Israelis. Yes, Israel is a democracy, but I believe the Israeli “people” must understand that hard-liners and the Likud only leach off their insecurity, and living behind a huge armoured wall is simply security and not a form of sustainable peace; I believe it detrimental to peace.
There may be the belief that nothing can be done until Arafat and the PLO men in the PA are removed, but the international community can ensure conditions exist to capitalise on this momentous occasion when it occurs, at least. Furthermore, I believe that there is more that can be done to foster democracy from within Palestine. After 35 yrs of Intifada, an end to the violence and suffering is surely more beneficial to the “people” than Islamic bigotry touted by the fundamentalists; I’d like to believe this? Abba Eban, Israel's legendary foreign minister, once quipped that the Palestinians had never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. I believe they, the “people”, suffer greatly as a consequence of this while Arafat and the Islamists grow stronger.
How about takcling the root causes of the conflict as a form of both security and peace. Don't worry, i'm sure the ALMIGHTY GOD would be equaly, if not more, impressed with this approach.
Speak out, "Stop the Wall!".
argh. the key problem with the wall isn't that it's just a border, necessary or otherwise, or even that it's chopping into people's land, property, etc [necessarily or otherwise].
the problem is that the wall, as it is, literally renders any sort of autonomous palestinian state inviable [and hence it isn't a national border so much as something else-- what, i don't know]. the reason being that (a) it chops too many economic and social arteries [both into israel and around the palestinian bits themselves] that would be necessary for any sort of stable, autonomous society on the palestinian side, and (b) cuts things up geographically in such a way that *replacing* the vital things-- building up an infrastructure that will generate jobs [for instance-- and hospitals (the other big thing israel provides right now)] beyond the wall-- is next to impossible [or else fantastically difficult, expensive, and unlikely]-- it would have to happen more or less from scratch [particularly if too many of the small-scale autonomous gardens and olive-groves etc get destroyed]. so whatever the rationale for building *a wall* is [and there are plenty of good reasons], building *that wall* in *that way* can't split the "evil" away from israel very well, simply because everything outside the wall will still be economically dependent on israel [everything, that is, except the actual terrorist groups, who seem to have enough foresight to have secured funding links & supplies from elsewhere], and it will be socially dependent as well-- if you have family members who live ten minutes away from you, and you cut up that ten minutes' worth of land in such a way that this family has to spend a day or more negotiating *your* armed roadblocks in order to see each other, you're not creating a stable, independent, autonomous society. you're not splitting this family [and its potential dangers] off from yourself, you're making them *more* dependent on you-- because you've arranged things so they have to ask your permission to have tea together. contrast with the typical terror group-- for the most part, its main dependence on israel is *momentary contact* with *something* israeli [during which moment the "something", ideally (goes the twisted logic), will explode].
i mean, you *can* of course take the line that israel doesn't owe the palestinians anything, and that if the resulting cut-off "state" is economically inviable, that's its own fault. but strictly in terms of security you don't want to say that: you have a real problem on your hands if you create a "state" where the strongest economic entity is the terrorist group. i exaggerate, perhaps, but not by much.
sorry that's long and convoluted, but i really don't like walls.
-hortensio
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