This is definitely naval gazing. But when I've got something on my mind, better out than in. If for no one else's benefit but mine.The Gaza DoctorTonight I went with some buddies to a talk by Dr
Izzeldin Abuelaish. He's a Palestinian doctor who was living in Gaza when it was bombed in January 2009; his house was bombed, killing three of his daughters plus his niece. (His wife had died of cancer not long before that.)
This was the time when Israeli reporters weren't allowed to report from Gaza, so they were broadcasting nightly reports from people like Dr Abuelaish. The video below is his report on the night his children were killed:
He now lives in Toronto and has written a book called
I Shall Not Hate. Which, as you can guess from the title, is about his determination not to hate Israelis in the aftermath of this tragedy, but to continue trying to bring people together. He had also worked in Israeli hospitals, and was a peace activist before the bombing.
At first I wasn't sure where his talk/interview tonight was going--he seems to speak in generalities. And when you've studied the Arab-Israeli conflict, you think about all those intractable issues, which no one can really see a way out of. Palestinian politics are so divided that it's difficult to come to peace agreements--you don't really know who's *agreeing.* You can reach an agreement with the Palestinian Authority, and still be attacked by Fatah. And like many places, the authority of these groups rests on the perception by the peeps of how well they're protecting Palestinian demands.
And much the same goes for Israeli politicians. Which is why they continue to allow Israelis to build settlements in the areas of land which are under dispute (land which, in theory, could revert to the Palestinians one day if they ever had a state--settling that land is like saying you'll never give it away.) It's hard to "give in" to Palestinian demands, because it makes it seem as though violent action is working, which then encourages more violent action. (That's the theory, and is probably true.)
And so, in a very very rough nutshell, is your stalemate. No matter how willing you are as a politician to make concessions, if your people don't support you, you won't be in power for long.
So all these sorts of things were passing through my mind as I listened to him speak. But the doctor refused to go down the path of discussing settlements, or right of return, or terrorism etc. which made his solutions seem sort of vague. But then Reisman (who was interviewing him) mentioned at one point--perhaps when she sensed the audience bewilderment at Abuelaish's vagueness--said that she too has often left conversations with him feeling like the key points weren't addressed. Until she realized that he was doing it on purpose. He was refusing to let himself be drawn down the usual paths, which generally lead to a lot of arguing (a LOT of arguing... it's easily one of the hottest, most contentious topics in the world.)
A Dipstick Poli Sci StudentWhen she said that, I began to think about what he
was saying. I'm a dipstick poli sci student who's taken a couple courses in conflict. I understand the conflict pretty well, but I don't know how they'll ever get the hell out of it, and I'm not going to pretend to know more than a man who's lived in Gaza most of his life and lost children to war. I was trying to pull out the thread of what I needed to learn.
I thought about the first lecture I had by
Professor Brecher when I was an undergrad. Brecher was in his late 70s or early 80s and I was lucky to take his class soon before he stopped teaching it. One student said he reminded her of Grampa Simpson--you'd sit there watching him, hoping he wouldn't die in the middle of the lecture. He had two great tactics for diffusing tension in his classroom (which you MUST do before you teach the subject.) First, he made it clear that this wasn't a course on the Arab-Israeli conflict; it was a course about protracted conflict, using the A-I conflict as a case study. The subject matter was DRY. Second, whenever someone asked a question (usually a belligerent one) he had to ask themselves to repeat themselves about 3 times before he heard them. Do you know what happens to a moody comment once it's been repeated three times? It gets clearer, simpler, and less emotional. Hilarious.
Anyway. My husband attended the last day of class with me, and he remembers really well Brecher's final comments. He felt that peace couldn't be forced, it would only come about once there'd been so much violence that BOTH sides became fatigued by it. Only once a situation has become completely intolerable, can people come to the negotiation table willing to make concessions that years before they would have died rather than make -- concessions you wouldn't ever dream of making. If we ever see the Israelis and Palestinians come to that point, then maybe peace will be possible. Because key concessions will HAVE to be made on both sides, there is absolutely no way around that (in my opinion.)
You won't get to that point because of some visionary leader. Anwar Sadat was as close to a visionary as you're likely to get (in part because Egypt was too poor to continue being at war with Israel), and he was
assassinated 4 years after his groundbreaking move of addressing the Israeli parliament. I can remember where I was when they showed Arafat and Rabin shaking hands after the conclusion of the Oslo peace accords (I was cleaning an old lady's livingroom), and things have only gotten worse since.
Y
ou can't have visionary leaders without visionary people. And Dr. Abuelaish's main argument is that Israelis and Palestinians need to personally engage with each other more. Children are being raised with these very skewed views of each other, and in his opinion this next generation is worse than the last. About 75% of the population of the Gaza strip people are under the age of 25. That's 75% of the population raised in poverty, war, oppression, lack of employment, and growing fundamentalism--and we all know what people are like in their Terrible 22s. Young people aren't known for their concessionary attitudes, especially when they feel hopeless, powerless, and angry.
But it's easiest to be that angry (on both sides) when you look at your enemy as that Faceless Nameless Other. Just like anonymous people on chatrooms are meaner than the ones who sign in; and the ones who sign in are meaner than people who know each other in real life; and real life people are meaner behind each other's backs than they are to their faces. It's harder to hate someone who you see face to face, and sympathize with, and realize wants basically the same things as you do.
For example, he told the story of an Israeli father and his daughter at the hospital where Abuelaish worked who wouldn't even eat near the doctor and his daughter. (I may have the details wrongs, the doctor's accent was quite thick.) Then the Dr noticed the Israeli daughter drawing something, and he approached to see what she was doing. Turned out she was a first year engineering student having trouble with her homework. The doctor mentioned that
his daughter was a second year architectural engineering student and could help her. And pretty soon the tables were side by side.
Me and My Family and High SchoolMaybe it doesn't sound very revolutionary to see the solution as: People need to connect. But I can identify with it. My step-mother's family are all French-Canadians, and it gives me a very compassionate view on the language issue. The "French people" aren't abstract to me--this is my grandmother who is one of the kindest, warmest people I've ever met; and my cousin who I used to play with when neither of us spoke the other language; and my fun aunts who always made me and my brother and father feel completely welcome and a part of their family.
I went to a French high school, which alone isn't enough to make you sympathetic to The Other--my friends were all English speaking. We often had profs chastise us for speaking English in the hallways; but I had one teacher who would take the time to stand around in the hall, or after class, and
talk about the French side of the debate. He was my drama teacher, and the prof I respected most in the whole school because he had a way of teaching respect, while teaching acting. He had a firm rule that no one was allowed to judge others in his classroom--he very strictly enforced a safe space. As someone who got teased a lot, his classroom was a breath of fresh air. When you have a teacher who so adamantly creates an atmosphere of respect, you're going to respect them in return; when he talked about the French perspective on Bill 101 and such, I really listened. And to this day it's because of him, and my family, that I refuse to fan the flames of the language debate--and I'll easily take up the pro side, if I find myself in one of those "Oh this fucking province" conversations.
I suppose this idea of not judging people until you've had a chance to understand them is somewhat the foundation of all my personal philosophies. It's why I'm always raving on like a lunatic against even silly prejudices, like judging people because they read books you think are trash. Or they wear socks with their sandals. It's poisonous, it really is.
The More We Get Togeeether (remember that song?)So. Do personal connections help bridge the gap in a protracted conflict? I think so. Heather Reisman and her husband created a charity that supports people who aren't from Israeli have elected to fight in their army. Protestors picket the Indigo and Chapters stores on a weekly basis. I have a lot of Jewish friends, but she is by far the most pro-Israeli person I know of. Will she ever disassociate herself from this army-supporting charity because of her new friendship with Dr. Abuelaish? I hope so. In any case, I'm sure something new has sparked inside of her because of this personal connection. I've never seen her push this sort of book before.
Now it would take a pretty large number of such encounters to turn the political tide in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Maybe that large number won't come until the violence-fatigue has set in. Maybe it works hand in hand. After all, while the doctor was pro-peace to begin with, it's the death of his daughters which has sent him out to give as many interviews and speeches as he can about the dire need for the two sides to connect. Personally. He was desperately trying to get this across to one woman in the audience who just couldn't understand what he was getting at. While she acknowledged the doctor as a visionary, she doubted that there were many other such Palestinians, and he said--Go look for them. If you look for them, I promise you'll find them. And when she continued to not understand he said: I'll bring you myself, I'll show you. And I swear he was ready to walk out of the interview with her, hop on a plane to the Middle East, and introduce her to people.
And I've heard his opinion mirrored elsewhere. Anytime you hear of these kids going off to camps where they hang out with other Israeli/Palestinian children, they seem to have this sort of "they're just like me" epiphanies. I remember a Chenoys waiter once telling me the same thing. My other fabulous Arab-Israeli professor,
Laila Parsons, described some group that's making an Israeli-Pal history high school text book with two columns--one with the Palestinian perspective, one with the Israeli. For each important event. (Maybe it's
this project?) Sounds brilliant to me. Cause if you've taken a good course or two on this subject, or watched a good documentary, you know how complicated the history is.
I think Dr. Auelaish is right. It's only when they've reached a critical mass of people who are tired of the violence, and who are able to see The Other as A Person, will it be possible to say... okay, we'll settle for the border Here. We'll settle for only a partial and mediated right of return. We'll let a group of mediators bash out an agreement on Jerusalem and we'll follow it, no matter what decision they reach. That's why Abuelaish won't get into debates over these details--because there's probably no point. There is no *perfect* solution to this conflict. And why hammer out who should give up what when people are not yet ready for ANY concessions? The education has to come first.
So all in all, a good night. I like it when some idea that's always seemed vague to me suddenly becomes clear and concrete,
because of a good book, or article, or speech. And I'm glad that Joni Mitchell (by way of Yeats) was only half right. I think the worst are "full of passion without mercy", but we've produced human beings who are better than just those who "lack conviction, given some time to think."
The best lack conviction
Given some time to think
And the worst are full of passion
Without mercy
- Joni Mitchell
On a side note: A couple of The Usual Protestors were at this speech tonight, even though the speaker was Palestinian. The doctor was talking at one point when this man shouted: BOYCOTT INDIGO! BOYCOTT INDIGO! The doc kept talking, while the store staff asked the man to leave. As he left he kept shouting his unintelligible protests. Thing is, I don't like Reisman's charity either--I mean, for heaven's sake of all the groups you could support in this conflict, you're supporting the army?? I respect the protesters, in as much as they're out there picketing, standing up for something they believe in. But of all the talks to protest, come on. Ease. It just makes you look like an idiot to take a loud anti-Israeli position at a talk by a Palestinian called "I Shall Not Hate."
But more interesting... most of the people seated up front, who listened respectfully, who gave props to the speaker, who asked questions after the talk, were either Jewish, or Palestinian, or Lebanese, etc. While this lone protester was a young white guy. (And the other protesters I've seen are a mix of young white students and old white hippies.) And you're going to interrupt a speech about bringing the two sides together? Oh buddy. You're crazy, or way too over-privileged. If Reisman ever modifies her stance on the issue, it will be because of forgiving Palestinians who've lost children to war, and not because of people who shout over the speeches of forgiving Palestinians who've lost children to war.
I'll bet that pony express letter was the precursor to today's spam email from my friend, the Nigerian Prince.