Voices Across the Divide is a new documentary about the Israel/Palestine that uses incorporates oral histories of Palestinian refugees. These stories are not often heard.
The filmmakers need funding to finish their project. Check out their Indiegogo page and donate if you can:
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
i've never felt so much like a kid
Everything on the trip was finely choreographed; from the bathroom times to the eating times. If you go on a Birthright trip you should expect this. Even our "free time" was constrained. We were allowed to do what we wanted within a 3 block radius and had to be back at the meeting point within 2 hours. The lack of sleep can be very disorienting. I probably got an average of 4 hours per night. I started to feel powerless to make decisions without the guides around me; I didn't know exactly where I was, what day it was, or how I could possibly travel in Israel without the Birthright bus.
Birthright organizers attempt to be the gatekeepers of Israeli identity. Throughout the trip I felt disconnected from the Israeli population. I knew there were Israelis out there who agreed with my views (Anarchists Against the Wall for example), but I didn't meet any of these people on my way.
Unfortunately one of the only spontaneous interactions I had with an Israeli was as follows:
I had to get directions from a stupid old man who told me a joke on the way:
"Why are the signs in Jerusalem written in Arabic?" He said.
"Why?" I said.
"So the terrorists shouldn't get lost!"
"Oh good one. All along, I thought it had to do with the fact that a large percentage of Jerusalem residents speak Arabic." He didn't say anything.
Despite the barely concealed racist assumptions of the man in this conversation, there are many admirable enclaves of the Israeli population that agitate against the oppression of the Palestinians. In fact, there are Israelis that would debate our guides and guest speakers on the exact same points that I did.
The Shuk (outdoor market) in Jerusalem
Unfortunately, tourists can get trapped into homogenizing a country's population, and it's in Birthright's interest to lure you right into this trap. If hypothetically everyone in Israel is a Jewish nationalist (read: Zionist), then that coincides perfectly with Birthright's ideology. Then Birthright can claim they are only representing the population of Israel. It's all so perfectly uncomplicated, unlike reality. Every country has its debates (and of course its limits around what is considered acceptable, sane, or mainstream debate). However, when a chorus of Israeli citizens you meet on your trip all sing the same tune, its hard to imagine where the debate happens.
In part it occurs in the Jerusalem Post (Israel's largest distribution English-language newspaper). In this "Right of Reply" article an Israeli anarchist (Uri Gordon) defends the anarchist community from the vilification of a previous article. Now imagine for a second a major American newspaper, say the Boston Globe allowing an anarchist the right of reply. Actually, I can't imagine it.
During the course of the trip we were able to see one Jewish organization (Yad Sarah) which rents out medical equipment to those who need it in their homes. We went on an extended tour of their facilities, with only half an hour left to actually volunteer.
There are other kinds of the trips, that may allow you to meet with different segments of the Israeli population. In another blog, heeb'n'vegan summarizes the events of his trip:
We went to a Tel Aviv peace rally marking the 40-year anniversary of the Six Day War and the Occupation and got to talk to different protesters as well as representatives from groups that were tabling...We met with a representative from Meretz...We were hosted by an Arab-Israeli family at their home as they talked about their perspectives on the conflict. We drove along the Israel-West Bank border with Lydia Aisenberg of Givat Haviva and saw the security fence close up, looked out to the West Bank on one side and to the Mediterrean Sea (a mere 15 miles away from the border) on the other, and heard Aisenberg's stories about her interviews with Palestinians who wait for hours to get past checkpoints and who are separated from their families by the controversial fence. We attended a Parents Circle Family Forum event featuring a Palestinian woman and an Israeli man who had lost their siblings in the conflict and who shared their desires for peace.
Be careful in your trip selection. There's likely to be another post on other cool things Israelis are doing, but for now I'll move on to other aspects of the trip.
Birthright organizers attempt to be the gatekeepers of Israeli identity. Throughout the trip I felt disconnected from the Israeli population. I knew there were Israelis out there who agreed with my views (Anarchists Against the Wall for example), but I didn't meet any of these people on my way.
Unfortunately one of the only spontaneous interactions I had with an Israeli was as follows:
I had to get directions from a stupid old man who told me a joke on the way:
"Why are the signs in Jerusalem written in Arabic?" He said.
"Why?" I said.
"So the terrorists shouldn't get lost!"
"Oh good one. All along, I thought it had to do with the fact that a large percentage of Jerusalem residents speak Arabic." He didn't say anything.
Despite the barely concealed racist assumptions of the man in this conversation, there are many admirable enclaves of the Israeli population that agitate against the oppression of the Palestinians. In fact, there are Israelis that would debate our guides and guest speakers on the exact same points that I did.
The Shuk (outdoor market) in JerusalemIn part it occurs in the Jerusalem Post (Israel's largest distribution English-language newspaper). In this "Right of Reply" article an Israeli anarchist (Uri Gordon) defends the anarchist community from the vilification of a previous article. Now imagine for a second a major American newspaper, say the Boston Globe allowing an anarchist the right of reply. Actually, I can't imagine it.
During the course of the trip we were able to see one Jewish organization (Yad Sarah) which rents out medical equipment to those who need it in their homes. We went on an extended tour of their facilities, with only half an hour left to actually volunteer.
There are other kinds of the trips, that may allow you to meet with different segments of the Israeli population. In another blog, heeb'n'vegan summarizes the events of his trip:
We went to a Tel Aviv peace rally marking the 40-year anniversary of the Six Day War and the Occupation and got to talk to different protesters as well as representatives from groups that were tabling...We met with a representative from Meretz...We were hosted by an Arab-Israeli family at their home as they talked about their perspectives on the conflict. We drove along the Israel-West Bank border with Lydia Aisenberg of Givat Haviva and saw the security fence close up, looked out to the West Bank on one side and to the Mediterrean Sea (a mere 15 miles away from the border) on the other, and heard Aisenberg's stories about her interviews with Palestinians who wait for hours to get past checkpoints and who are separated from their families by the controversial fence. We attended a Parents Circle Family Forum event featuring a Palestinian woman and an Israeli man who had lost their siblings in the conflict and who shared their desires for peace.
Be careful in your trip selection. There's likely to be another post on other cool things Israelis are doing, but for now I'll move on to other aspects of the trip.
our second speaker
Our second political speaker, David, got together with us today. Our guides felt somewhat guilty about our first speaker (which might have to do with his answer to my question). The second speaker was a lot different and also more upfront than the first. Not surprisingly, he was a reserve officer in the IDF and works for the Israeli strategic department. Obviously our Birthright organizer was intent on getting a speaker with the least amount of bias and personal stake in the status quo *sarcasm*. However, he didn't claim any special status for Israeli "purity of arms." He didn't take an obnoxious, and moreover, hypocritical moral stand.
He was an academic who spoke from a very specific theoretical framework: International Relations Realism with an emphasis on Game Theory. This limited what anyone could directly challenge him on because this framework so powerfully narrows ethical debate. We sat there in what seemed like a college class for two hours listening to him. I looked back and forth over my shoulder hoping that the audience wasn't thinking, "we're all sitting at this lecture because of YOU!"
He prefaced his talk with the complexity of the situation in the Middle East and how it is a multi-level conflict. And therefore the lines are not so clearly drawn. He referenced the fact that in the 1980s, Maronite Christians, teamed with Shiite Muslims, supported by Israel, fought against Hezbollah. "Anyone who says they can explain what's going on in the Middle East is a liar," he said. There was potential here.
After that he got straight down to business defending Israeli security policy, stating that X number of possible attacks were thwarted by Israeli security forces each week. One member of the audience scribbled this down on a piece of paper, eager to collect ammunition. David would not talk in detail about how he came to these numbers because of military confidentiality. But it would certainly be interesting to know in what stage these "plots" were "thwarted." Were participants just talking about an attack? Planning logistics? Obtaining explosive materials? From what I know about police responses to demonstrations in the U.S. against the WTO and IMF, cops are eager to pretend that normally common household items like paint thinner, glue, paper-mache, and hammers are bomb building materials and weapons.
Certainly I'll admit that there are a handful of people planning to commit suicide attacks against Israel on a given week. But in a state that condones torture as an interrogation method (to be discussed in another post), I wonder how much Israeli security forces "cook the books" by extracting confessions out of people that haven't actually done anything.
Obviously David is a statist (otherwise he'd have nothing to study). He also bandied about the belief that most nation-states are based on a cohesive ethnic group and that when there is a single ethnic group in a nation, you're more likely to have peace. If there is more than one ethnic group then conflict is more likely. I think the theory is just too simplistic, a touch racist, and of course totally ignores any economic factors that may set groups of people in conflict. It privileges the idea of ethnicity (itself a fluid term, usually categorized by common ancestry) over any other possibilities that might bring people together such as class.
He also made a big deal about another theory: if Palestinians actually want a two-state solution they just need to "declare independence." He suggested that they draft a document similar to the U.S. Declaration of Independence. After drafting the document, he argued, Israel might formally recognize the Palestinian state, and then make peace with it. He seemed genuinely excited about this proposal, as if he were the first to make it.
The problem with this theory is that a Palestinian Declaration of Independence has existed at least since the 1980s. And one could see the resulting Palestinian Intifada as a war for independence. He argued that Palestinian leaders are not interested in real independence because they would have to take full responsibility for the new state. These same leaders are probably so complacent because they are benefiting from the current arrangement with Israel either economically or by retaining their current power. This is something Edward Said had been suggesting for a long time before. And I agree with him. I don't think Palestinian leaders are representing their people (as it is impossible for a few people to make decisions for a mass) and more often than not sell them out. Which brings us to the simple but often forgotten distinction between criticizing leaders and criticizing a given cause.
He did get a few things right. First, he acknowledged that states can engage in acts classified as "terrorism." Second, he stated that each Palestinian is equal in value to each Israeli in his calculus. He also brought out two messy words that had not been uttered by an authority figure on the trip: "military occupation." I thought this might "break the spell" of the trip, though I didn't notice anyone flinch. He clearly stated that the West Bank and Gaza Strip were under a military occupation by the IDF. However, he later argued that a military occupation is acceptable under International Law.
He contradicted himself when saying that people should take statements from Iranian and Fatah websites very seriously and literally; but then later, that statements from Europe supporting the Palestinian cause should not be taken seriously. So, how do we know which public statements to take seriously? He also sidestepped the events of 1948, saying that there wasn't sufficient time to discuss them (though I suspect if he did our group may have also heard the term "Palestinian expulsions" for the first time in the trip).
Even more interesting were the reactions of other participants after the speech. They turned to me, dying to know what I thought of him. As if the right speaker could easily repair the fissure in the group. As if the state of Israel could now officially be considered a completely unproblematic, democratic, benevolent country as long as the opposition gets a chance to speak (then the substance of their argument can then be ignored). I sincerely hope this wasn't the case in their heads. Or perhaps they felt guilty that I had been feeling left out and hoped David's speech could change that?
I tried to explain that I didn't agree with his framework, how it simplifies our world into reductive and sometimes sadistic games, but there wasn't much more I could say. After all, it didn't seem like there was much more than that they wanted to hear. Sometimes I don't think people realize the sheer amount of time and energy it can take to construct a new theoretical framework, especially if a given audience is not familiar with it. In a situation (like a lecture) that requires such concise statements from someone in the audience it's nearly impossible to present new ideas.
He was an academic who spoke from a very specific theoretical framework: International Relations Realism with an emphasis on Game Theory. This limited what anyone could directly challenge him on because this framework so powerfully narrows ethical debate. We sat there in what seemed like a college class for two hours listening to him. I looked back and forth over my shoulder hoping that the audience wasn't thinking, "we're all sitting at this lecture because of YOU!"
He prefaced his talk with the complexity of the situation in the Middle East and how it is a multi-level conflict. And therefore the lines are not so clearly drawn. He referenced the fact that in the 1980s, Maronite Christians, teamed with Shiite Muslims, supported by Israel, fought against Hezbollah. "Anyone who says they can explain what's going on in the Middle East is a liar," he said. There was potential here.
After that he got straight down to business defending Israeli security policy, stating that X number of possible attacks were thwarted by Israeli security forces each week. One member of the audience scribbled this down on a piece of paper, eager to collect ammunition. David would not talk in detail about how he came to these numbers because of military confidentiality. But it would certainly be interesting to know in what stage these "plots" were "thwarted." Were participants just talking about an attack? Planning logistics? Obtaining explosive materials? From what I know about police responses to demonstrations in the U.S. against the WTO and IMF, cops are eager to pretend that normally common household items like paint thinner, glue, paper-mache, and hammers are bomb building materials and weapons.
Certainly I'll admit that there are a handful of people planning to commit suicide attacks against Israel on a given week. But in a state that condones torture as an interrogation method (to be discussed in another post), I wonder how much Israeli security forces "cook the books" by extracting confessions out of people that haven't actually done anything.
Obviously David is a statist (otherwise he'd have nothing to study). He also bandied about the belief that most nation-states are based on a cohesive ethnic group and that when there is a single ethnic group in a nation, you're more likely to have peace. If there is more than one ethnic group then conflict is more likely. I think the theory is just too simplistic, a touch racist, and of course totally ignores any economic factors that may set groups of people in conflict. It privileges the idea of ethnicity (itself a fluid term, usually categorized by common ancestry) over any other possibilities that might bring people together such as class.
He also made a big deal about another theory: if Palestinians actually want a two-state solution they just need to "declare independence." He suggested that they draft a document similar to the U.S. Declaration of Independence. After drafting the document, he argued, Israel might formally recognize the Palestinian state, and then make peace with it. He seemed genuinely excited about this proposal, as if he were the first to make it.
The problem with this theory is that a Palestinian Declaration of Independence has existed at least since the 1980s. And one could see the resulting Palestinian Intifada as a war for independence. He argued that Palestinian leaders are not interested in real independence because they would have to take full responsibility for the new state. These same leaders are probably so complacent because they are benefiting from the current arrangement with Israel either economically or by retaining their current power. This is something Edward Said had been suggesting for a long time before. And I agree with him. I don't think Palestinian leaders are representing their people (as it is impossible for a few people to make decisions for a mass) and more often than not sell them out. Which brings us to the simple but often forgotten distinction between criticizing leaders and criticizing a given cause.
He did get a few things right. First, he acknowledged that states can engage in acts classified as "terrorism." Second, he stated that each Palestinian is equal in value to each Israeli in his calculus. He also brought out two messy words that had not been uttered by an authority figure on the trip: "military occupation." I thought this might "break the spell" of the trip, though I didn't notice anyone flinch. He clearly stated that the West Bank and Gaza Strip were under a military occupation by the IDF. However, he later argued that a military occupation is acceptable under International Law.
He contradicted himself when saying that people should take statements from Iranian and Fatah websites very seriously and literally; but then later, that statements from Europe supporting the Palestinian cause should not be taken seriously. So, how do we know which public statements to take seriously? He also sidestepped the events of 1948, saying that there wasn't sufficient time to discuss them (though I suspect if he did our group may have also heard the term "Palestinian expulsions" for the first time in the trip).
Even more interesting were the reactions of other participants after the speech. They turned to me, dying to know what I thought of him. As if the right speaker could easily repair the fissure in the group. As if the state of Israel could now officially be considered a completely unproblematic, democratic, benevolent country as long as the opposition gets a chance to speak (then the substance of their argument can then be ignored). I sincerely hope this wasn't the case in their heads. Or perhaps they felt guilty that I had been feeling left out and hoped David's speech could change that?
I tried to explain that I didn't agree with his framework, how it simplifies our world into reductive and sometimes sadistic games, but there wasn't much more I could say. After all, it didn't seem like there was much more than that they wanted to hear. Sometimes I don't think people realize the sheer amount of time and energy it can take to construct a new theoretical framework, especially if a given audience is not familiar with it. In a situation (like a lecture) that requires such concise statements from someone in the audience it's nearly impossible to present new ideas.
additional reading
Since I have recommended that people take the trip, I thought the impassioned plea of this Israeli citizen would be a good counterpoint: It's worth reading whether you decide to go on a trip or not.
In other news, straight from those who brought you Birthright Israel.................Here comes
In this article, Mairav Zonszein writes about why TBZ is an embarrassment. I'm working on a post to cover this new development, but in the meantime, I'm interested to hear what others have to say on the subject.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
