on settlements

If you are against Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, read this article to appreciate the complexities of Israeli society and politics. With which segments of Israeli society do you have philosophical or ideological trouble? If and when we are "anti-Israel" - exactly who is it that we are against?

The Orthodox Jews fighting the Judaization of East Jerusalem

Leading the demonstrations of solidarity with Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah are some young Israelis with a religious background. They explain their activism and how it correlates to their conception of the true meaning of the Torah

by Nir Hasson. Published online by Ha'aretz, June 24, 2010.
Link to the article

Not long before Hillel Ben Sasson attended his first demonstration in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, Aryeh King − perhaps the person most identified with Jewish settlement there − declared that in the battle over the capital of Israel, the left had been defeated.

“In the past they organized demonstrations,” King told Haaretz last November, “but now we have made them understand that they have lost the battle. They can’t even recruit 20 people, and if there is a demonstration it’s Europeans who take part. Israelis don’t show up anymore. We have won.”

	A demonstration in Sheikh Jarrah. The settlers plan to demolish the 30 homes and establish a new neighborhood there.
	Photo by: Yuval Tebol

But King was wrong. A few days later, Ben Sasson and his friends joined the demonstrations in support of residents of Sheikh Jarrah, and thus launched a rearguard battle not only on behalf of the residents’ rights, but on behalf of both the status of the left in Jerusalem and their own identity.

“From my point of view, being in Sheikh Jarrah is the full and supreme realization of my religious existence,” Ben Sasson says, as he walks on a recent day through the neighborhood. “When I don’t show up on a Friday, I feel as though I have not put on tefillin [phylacteries] in the morning. When I am here, I am fighting against the expulsion of people who will become refugees for a second time, but also against the settlers − because they are trying to expel me from the boundaries of legitimacy. They are double enemies: They are trying to plunder the homes of the Palestinians and, by contrast of course, also the religion to whose God I pray.”

The eviction of a few families from Sheikh Jarrah last summer spurred one of the most intriguing protest movements in Israel in recent times. Like the weekly demonstrations against the separation fence in the West Bank villages of Bil’in and Na’alin, there is no single body behind this movement. A few dozen activists, in partnership with the residents, are its driving force. They have been joined, every Friday afternoon since last November, by between 200 and 300 people, only a few of whom are Palestinians or are not Israeli citizens.

It is possible to estimate cautiously that about half of the 30 key activists in Sheikh Jarrah are now or were in the past religiously observant. Most are young people in their twenties and thirties, and they represent an entire spectrum: religious, datlashim ‏(formerly religious, but usually people for whom religion and tradition are still important to some degree‏), datlafim ‏(sometimes religious‏), “transparent skullcaps” ‏(bareheaded people who describe themselves as religiously observant‏), secular, and those who do not want to specify their position along this continuum. In any event, nearly all consider Judaism and their religious education and background to be important elements in their political thinking and activism. They also wonder if their presence in Sheikh Jarrah spells the advent of a new phenomenon in religious society, or whether they represent a disappearing breed of the religious left.

The most veteran beard and skullcap in Sheikh Jarrah probably belong to Rabbi Arik Ascherman, the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights. For years the Reform rabbi, who speaks Arabic with a pronounced American accent, has fought shoulder to shoulder with the Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah and many other locales.

“I think this is a new phenomenon,” he says. “Something that crosses religions is emerging in Jerusalem today. [These are] young people who are not bound to their parents’ conventions and don’t care whether their partners in the struggle are religious or not, but all of them share the feeling that our future is in danger.”

‘Symbolic capital’

“I can imagine one of my cousins saying, ‘Again those leftists are identifying with the other side and not with the unfortunate people among us,’” Ben Sasson says. “But in Sheikh Jarrah there is no mistaking the good guys from the bad guys. No matter how you look at it or describe it − there is no way the settlers living there can be considered the good guys and the Palestinians the bad guys. Maybe in other places you can consider Palestinian suffering to be somehow relative, but here it’s so clear. And it doesn’t matter how what additional data you factor in or even if you ‘recruit’ Herzl [in your arguments]: It won’t make a difference.”

A few dozen Palestinian refugee families have been living in Sheikh Jarrah for the past 60 or so years. Of late, a company called Nahalat Shimon, an operative arm of settler organizations, has started to evict them, based on Jewish ownership documents from the end of the 19th century which have been validated by the courts ‏(See box‏). The settlers have already taken permanent possession of three homes. Many more Palestinian families are in danger of eviction.

Israeli law permits people to claim Jewish property abandoned almost a century ago, but does not permit Arab families to claim ownership over property they abandoned during Israel’s War of Independence. Thus, refugee families of 1948 are liable to become refugees again, in 2010 − and this asymmetry is nourishing the struggle in East Jerusalem.

Ben Sasson, son of the president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, historian Menahem Ben-Sasson, is currently writing his doctoral dissertation in Jewish studies. The subject: the explicit name of God. He describes the Sheikh Jarrah demonstrations as “worship of Hashem [the Hebrew name for God]” and is very eager to engage his settler-adversaries in theological debate. It’s clear he has already rehearsed these arguments in his mind many times.

“If you take away their Uzis and kick out the police, sit us down and remove the media − they will leave with their tail between their legs,” he says emphatically. “In the Middle Ages disputations were held between learned Jews and Christians. Sometimes the Jews won, in which case they had to escape to avoid being killed. If you bring [the settlers] for a disputation now, I will win. All the Jewish sources are on my side. Their whole activity is twisted. What they are doing is desecration of God’s name, in the most explicit way.”

Asked to illustrate his thesis, he recites rapidly: “Ezekiel 33: ‘O mortal, those who live in these ruins in the Land of Israel ... and you shed blood, yet you expect to possess the land!’”

Another longtime activist who has been prominent in the struggle, Assaf Sharon, 35, is less assertive in this regard. “There is no such thing as [one form of] Judaism,” he says. “There are many ideas and streams and motifs − some of them on our side [politically], others not. Unfortunately, the latter are more dominant in the society I grew up in.”

Sharon, now secular and a Ph.D. student in philosophy at Stanford University, attended a hesder yeshiva ‏(combining religious studies with army service‏), studying at Alon Shvut in the Etzion Bloc south of Bethlehem and Otniel Yeshiva, also in the West Bank.

“In one of the left-wing actions in the southern Hebron Hills, we escorted Palestinian children to school, with about 100 settlers surrounding them and the Jeep,” Sharon recalls. “They started hitting us and in the midst of all this I heard my name called. It was a friend of mine from high school, who was with them. In the middle of everything there were hugs, and the Border Police removed all the left-wingers, but took no notice of me, because I was with the settlers.

“I was alone facing 40-50 guys, who started to engage in a theological debate. ‘Plunder is plunder,’ I shouted at them, citing verses from here and there. It was interesting and enjoyable to argue, and it’s important for me to feel that Judaism is on my side, not theirs. I really do think that the right and beautiful parts of Judaism are with me, but there is also a great deal of racism and violence in Judaism. Roughly speaking, they are still with the early prophets, at the stage of the conquest of the land, and I am in the era of late prophets, building society. I say we have finished conquering the land, the War of Independence is over and the question that remains is what type of society we will have.”

Like most of his friends in the protest movement, Sharon is from a liberal religious family, a relative anomaly in the religious-Zionist landscape. One of the turning points in his political thinking and on the path that ultimately led him into the secular world was November 4, 1995 − the night Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.

“It wasn’t done in my circles, but I went to the square that evening [for the peace rally] and after the murder I stayed until almost dawn. In the morning I went to the yeshiva. I was very religious then. That day the rabbi of the yeshiva told me that people from [the left-wing youth movement] Hashomer Hatzair wanted to meet with us.

“Just think what a crazy reversal it was,” he continues. “Rabin’s body wasn’t yet cold, and instead of us looking for a way to reach them and ask them for forgiveness − they come to us, on top of which the rabbi approached me because he knew I was considered left wing and that most of the students would not agree to meet with them. In the end, we met, but not in the yeshiva; in an apartment, so people wouldn’t see. The Rabin assassination became a ‘lever’ for the settlers: Not only did they not back down, but since then they’ve gained key positions, influence in the media, in politics and in culture. Most important, they seized control of the ‘symbolic capital’ of Israeliness. They are now identified as owners of the Jewish cargo. They constitute the hegemony.”

Activist religion

Some members of the Sheikh Jarrah group associate themselves with the remnants of a liberal left-wing religious community which once existed in Jerusalem, but disappeared within the nationalist currents of religious Zionism.

“Sociologically, Jerusalem religiosity is far more pluralistic,” says Amos Goldberg, 44, who teaches in the contemporary Judaism department at the Hebrew University and is a major activist in the struggle. “The Jerusalem left is far less anti-religious and contains many more people who are now religious or were observant in the past.”

Sharon proposes a different explanation for recent left-wing religious activism: “Maybe it’s precisely because we did not come up through the intellectual left, but through Gush Emunim [Bloc of the Faithful], where the principle is that politics must be manifested through activity − you have to be where things are happening and not only where it’s convenient to be. The idea is that political activity means action, not persuading someone you are in the right. Maybe from this point of view we are a lot closer to the ‘Zambish’ types [nickname of Ze’ev Hever, a settler activist] than to others. We also learned from them how to confront the state’s mechanisms.”

Goldberg mentions a “formative moment,” when he experienced the change that led him to Sheikh Jarrah − and even to a detention cell. A few years ago, he joined an escort group provided by peace organizations for Palestinian farmers who were being harassed by settlers.

“I was always left wing, but also a soldier. Suddenly I saw an elderly Palestinian who wanted to plow his field being chased away by a soldier. You identify instinctively with the old man, and you say, ‘That soldier is a brute,’” says Goldberg, a doctoral student who is writing his dissertation on Holocaust survivors.

“Suddenly you’re in reverse mode: My solidarity is unequivocally not with the state, not with its symbols and not with the police. I consider them ... I hold myself back from saying ‘the enemy.’ After that you can no longer see things as you did beforehand. I have not switched sides, but one’s map of identification changes and once it does, there is no going back.”

As a researcher who deals mainly with the Holocaust, Goldberg lets history direct his conscience: “At the personal psychological level, this is a matter of moral duty, the duty of those who are bystanders. It might be a large or a small injustice, but there is no need to wait until the situation becomes so extreme. When one sees injustice and racism such as we have here, you have to intervene.”

Goldberg ceased being religiously observant years ago but refuses to define his status today. His children are religious and he wears a skullcap. “It’s for protection against the sun and does not make it possible to define me. It’s also convenient, because I am getting bald,” he quips.

Indeed, he still sees hope in the thinking of some members of religious society, even settler circles: “The discourse of large swaths of the religious public is saliently racist. Their conceptual world resonates with ideas espoused by folk movements in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. But at the same time, we have to remember that the greatest wrongs against the Palestinians were perpetrated not by the settlers, but by secular nationalism. To pin the blame on the settlers is a type of internal cleansing process that you find in Israeliness. It’s precisely within the religious-settler discourse that the potential exists for a different type of political discourse − one that is far more egalitarian. I am referring to ideas that spring from a religious worldview that will sanctify the entire region, because the land is God’s and not a nation’s. That is where ideas of equality can spring from.”

Goldberg draws the ire of his fellow protesters by not rejecting the name Simeon the Just, as used by the settlers, the Jerusalem Municipality and the police to denote the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, because the Second Temple high priest’s tomb is there. The debate around the name is the symbolic manifestation of the struggle for the neighborhood.

Goldberg: “The tomb of Simeon the Just was there for a great many years and did not bother the Palestinians. Jews came and there was no violence,” he notes. “I want to believe that a joint struggle should also give rise to new language. We have to find a way to say that it’s both Simeon the Just and Sheikh Jarrah.” Religion, he says, can be helpful in this regard.

To which Ben-Sasson responds, “If only the day will come when the name Al-Quds [the Arabic name of Jerusalem] will also appear at the entrance to the city. If only we will be deserving of this.”

Practice and belief

“To grow up in religious society means to translate your beliefs into deeds,” says Elisheva Milikovsky, a 27-year-old social worker who was raised in a national-religious home in the settlement of Efrat, near Bethlehem. “You don’t just sit at home and cogitate. You put into practice the things you believe in.”

Milikovsky gained fame a few years ago, when she became a one-woman institution looking after the African refugees who reached Israel. The standard operating procedure was for the army to leave the refugees it had rounded up crossing into Israel from Egypt on a street in Be’er Sheva, after which someone from the army would call Milikovsky and inform her. She did all she could to help the refugees get through their first days in the country. Since then she has continued to work with refugees, and this, she says, is what eventually brought her to Sheikh Jarrah as well.

“In Efrat it’s very obvious that the Palestinians are transparent people. You live in the settlement and don’t have the slightest notion of what’s going on around you. As a teenager I viewed myself as left wing, but the true change was fomented by my activity with the refugees. I made an effort to see the other side.”

Gil Gutglick, 44, production director at Keter Publishing House in Jerusalem, was not a political activist before joining the Sheikh Jarrah protest movement. He has long been secular, but admits that his religious past is one of the reasons he demonstrates in the East Jerusalem neighborhood.

“My Jewish identification is very strong. I feel ashamed that the Jewish settlers are entering the homes [of the Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah] while the beds are still warm. That feeling of shame was the first thing that induced me to participate. Amos [Goldberg] sent me an email saying they needed people to be with them. I went after work that day and since then I have been in the neighborhood, whenever possible.”

Gutglick is one of 14 activists who are under court order to stay away from the neighborhood for five months, after being arrested in a demonstration on May 14.

“I am religious, but there was a period in which, even though I did not stop believing, I did not want to walk around with a skullcap,” says Netanel Warschawski, 27, who also works at Keter. “I was a bit ashamed that in the name of the beliefs of the settlers, and in the name of the skullcap, as it were − people say and do terrible things. I did not want to identify with that society, did not want them to think that I was like them, that we share the same views. Eight years ago I had an argument with friends, during which one said I was ‘shaming’ the skullcap on my head, and since then I decided that it is precisely an opposite symbol. I am proud to be religiously observant and I represent the religion better than they do. That is why I still wear the skullcap and go to demonstrations with it.”

The group of religious and formerly religious activists in Sheikh Jarrah includes young adults as well as people in their mid-forties. Their life stories are illustrative of the changes religious society has undergone in recent decades. Years ago, Goldberg and Gutglick participated in peace demonstrations of religious youth. Sharon, 35, attended the rally after which Rabin was assassinated. The young women in the group, Milikovsky and Shira Wilkof, 29, an M.A. student in town planning at the Technion − Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, are amazed to hear that such activities even existed.

“What I remember from the sixth grade, three years before the Rabin assassination,” Wilkof says, “was a rabbi who taught us Gemara in a special girls’ class. When he arrived for the first class he wrote on the blackboard, ‘A good Arab is a dead Arab.’”

On the night of the assassination she was in the Ra’anana branch of the national-religious Bnei Akiva movement. “I remember the spontaneous cheers of joy of children in the ninth grade when they heard about the murder,” she relates. “There were very few left-wingers where I grew up. That probably has something to do with the difference between Jerusalem and Ra’anana. In Jerusalem you had the liberal intellectual elite. But I am from the intermediate generation, in which there was a facade of open religious Zionism. An atmosphere of ‘You are either with us or against us’ has now taken over, so I suppose it’s 10 times harder these days.”

In contrast to Ben Sasson, Wilkof considers her activity the opposite of “worship of Hashem”: “My experience is totally different,” she explains. “There is no dimension of religiosity in my going to Sheikh Jarrah. On the contrary: It constitutes a very clear decision between the particularist, isolationist messages of religious society and messages of universalism.”

Gutglick, who until three years ago lived in the Galilee, has a distinctive take on the whole process: “I lived in a bubble and am missing 14 years of acquaintance with the changes that have occurred in Israeli society. Since I moved back, I have not been able to understand the hatred. I grew up in a right-wing society; we were taken on trips to Judea and Samaria, but there were other things, too. I don’t remember hatred like there is today − of Arabs, left-wingers, Tel Avivans, of the other.”

It seems that there is no simple answer to the question of what will be considered a victory in the Sheikh Jarrah struggle.

“It’s not the kind of thing where if you just solve something, everything will be all right,” Sharon explains. “What is happening there is a reflection of the foundations of the Israeli regime: the race-based privileges. So in a profound sense, success in the struggle will be almost a revolution.”

Late start

The struggle between the Sheikh Jarrah demonstrators and the Jerusalem police recently took a very peculiar turn. At 5 A.M. on Wednesday two weeks ago, police arrived at the home of the parents of one of the main activists, and asked her to accompany them for questioning. Her mother told the officers that her daughter was not living at home and refused to give them her address.

The next day, the young woman went to the police station at her initiative. An officer asked her to join him for a “conversation.” He told her that she had been summoned to the station in the wake of intelligence information, to the effect that she intended to set herself ablaze at the next demonstration. “I was told that I had written in Facebook that I was going to throw Molotov cocktails and set myself on fire to cause provocations,” she says.

The woman, who had never written anything remotely resembling that, told the interrogator, “You should question whoever gave you the information.” She was released after 20 minutes.

The activists believe that the fabricated report was given to the police by right-wingers as part of a harassment campaign. The activist’s name, along with the names of many others, was recently placed in right-wing websites calling for the harassment of protesters.

“Instead of dealing with the lawbreakers on the right, the Jerusalem police are continuing to pester the Sheikh Jarrah activists,” Assaf Sharon notes. “We filed complaints about harassment and threats from extreme right-wing activists three months ago. The police did nothing to investigate the threats or to put an end to them. That is another manifestation of the dangerous bias of the district police, which has become an operative arm of the right-wing associations. The police find themselves wasting their meager resources in futile pursuit of ghosts.”

A spokesperson for the Jerusalem police stated that, in the wake of “serious statements and grave actions attributed to the female activist, policemen searched for her the whole day to hand her a summons for questioning. Someone was found to be home before dawn, so the policemen arrived. At midday she appeared for questioning accompanied by her lawyer, was questioned and released.”

A simple question

The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood was built in the 19th century as a luxury Arab quarter. The homes of some of the most distinguished and best-known Palestinian families, such as Nashashibi and Husseini, are still there. For centuries, the burial cave in the center of the neighborhood has been considered the final resting place of the high priest Simeon the Just. A small Jewish neighborhood sprang up around the tomb toward the end of the 19th century. Like similar Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, it was abandoned during the 1920s and 1930s, in part because of harassment by Arab neighbors.

During Israel’s War of Independence the Jordanians nationalized the land of the Jewish neighborhood in question and in the 1950s, 28 Palestinian families who were uprooted from their homes inside the Green Line were relocated there. The Jordanian government and UNRWA, the United Nations relief agency, settled the refugees for a symbolic price on land that had been purchased by Jews. In return, the Palestinians gave up their refugee certification and paid low rent.

In the early 1970s, two groups − the Sephardi Community Committee and the Knesset Israel ‏(a term referring to the Second Temple period‏) Committee − succeeded in receiving rights to land there from the Israeli custodian of absentee property, and registered it in their name. In 1982, the Palestinians made what, in retrospect, appears to have been a crucial mistake in terms of the continuation of their struggle. In the wake of misguided legal counsel, they signed an agreement recognizing the committees’ ownership of the land and in return were granted the status of protected tenants. Since then, the Palestinians and their lawyers have tried to disavow and annul the agreement, but all attempts have been rejected by the courts.

The situation of the Palestinian residents was aggravated after the Nahalat Shimon company purchased part of the land from the two committees. It is this company that has been waging the legal battle to remove the residents. To date, three families have been evicted. Legal proceedings are under way to evict many others as well. The evicted families erected protest tents on the sidewalks opposite their homes, which have become permanent sites of friction and confrontation with the settlers.

The legal proceedings over Sheikh Jarrah have serious political and moral implications. The Palestinian residents, who have almost despaired of the Israeli judicial system, are planning international action based on a simple question: Why did the Jewish committees receive their property, which was abandoned in the 1930s, by presenting Ottoman documents in court − whereas the Palestinians are unable to put forward an identical claim to property they abandoned in 1948? The families that were evicted say they are ready to forgo their homes in Sheikh Jarrah in return for properties they abandoned in the past in Jaffa, Tzrifin and elsewhere.

The settlers plan to demolish the 30 homes in Sheikh Jarrah and establish on their ruins a new neighborhood of 200 residential units, which will be part of a string of other communities planned in the area: the Shepherd Hotel compound, which has been acquired by the settlers’ American patron, Irwin Moskowitz, the Kerem Hamufti section and others. In such a scenario, the veteran Palestinian neighborhood will undergo rapid Judaization.

Given Israel’s current sensitive political situation, and in the light of the difficulties involved today in receiving authorization for housing projects that are far less provocative − it’s hard to see such a plan being approved in the foreseeable future. But in Sheikh Jarrah it sometimes looks as if not much more provocation is needed to ignite the powder keg called East Jerusalem.

‘This land is our land’

The leading spokesperson for the Jewish settlers, in what they call the Shimon Hatzaddik ‏(Simeon the Just‏) neighborhood, is Yonatan Yosef, grandson of Shas spiritual mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and the son of former MK Yaakov Yosef, who has led the current struggle to integrate Sephardi ultra-Orthodox girls in the Haredi school in Immanuel.

Yosef downplays the phenomenon of religious demonstrators in the other camp. “I am there seven days a week and we have a photographer who films all their demonstrations,” he says. “The number of religious people is minuscule to the point of a non-presence. There are maybe a few with small skullcaps.”

In any event, Yosef continues, “Anyone who is religious and acts against the religious belief that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people, anyone who has doubts and adopts the Arab narrative and marches under the PLO flag and pesters Jews who come to pray on a Jewish tomb − he has removed himself from the religious community.”

Nor does Yosef fear a theological disputation. “Why does the Torah begin with Genesis and not with basic precepts? The answer that is given is that the Holy One blessed be he created the world in order to give the Land to the people of Israel. They tell us that we are coming to steal, but how can you steal something that belongs to you? Anyone who argues otherwise is violating an explicit rule of the Torah − any infant who has studied a little of it knows that.”

Yosef also mentions large-scale demonstrations organized at the site by the right. “On Lag Ba’omer we had 27,000 people and on Jerusalem Day many thousands more, and the media make a fuss over 150 anarchists.”

Rawabi

Today was the most hopeful day I’ve had on this journey. We visited al-Haram ash-Sharif (the Temple Mount) this morning (pictures below), and this afternoon we visited the offices of Massar International, the real-estate company breaking ground – literally and figuratively – on Rawabi, the first planned Palestinian city.

Bashar Masri is the charismatic founder of Massar International, which, in conjunction with Qatari Government-owned Qatari Diar, are the investors backing the work of Masri’s Bayti Real Estate Investment Company. His story is remarkable. Born and raised in Nablus in the West Bank, he lived in Washington D.C. for well over a decade and became a U.S. citizen in 1987. He founded Massar International, a small private sector development company, in 1994, and moved back to the West Bank. After working on small development projects in Palestine, he realized that to compete globally, the company needed to upgrade. By September 2000, the company was hiring dozens of employees, and owned a brokerage company, a technology company, an advertising company, and a newspaper publishing company. However, also in fall 2000, the first Intifada broke out. With increased security forces of the IDF placing West Bank residents under curfew for four months out of the next year and a half, and increasing difficulties with mobility and a complete halt to development projects, Massar International had to think creatively, or go bankrupt. Mr. Masri decided to diversify and invest in real estate. Bayti Real Estate Investment Company was born and operations started in 2004. Mr. Masri began projects in Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, and Serbia.

“Real estate was promising,” he said. His company realized that there was a significant population of middle and low-income families living throughout the Middle East who don’t own homes, “and there is no good reason why they don’t,” he said. With six years of work in Morocco, Bayti homes sold over 12,000 apartments, growing their initial investment of 1.2 million euro into a 300 million euro enterprise. “Bayti homes have a great reputation. And we made such a profit on the homes in Morocco, within three years we were renovating and updating the homes… When you say ‘Bayti Homes’ in Morocco, they have a great reputation, and a great resale value,” he said.

He continued, “So, we said, ‘If we can be successful in other countries, why not elsewhere? Why not attempt to do this in Palestine?” 2005 was a great financial year for most of the countries in the Middle East, and momentum started building for Mr. Masri and the managers and employees of Bayti Homes and Massar International in Ramallah. In 2007, the idea of Rawabi, the first planned Palestinian city, was born. From the Winter 2010 Newsletters to investors in the Rawabi project:

“Rawabi is being developed by the Bayti Real Estate Investment Company, jointly owned by Qatari Government-owned Qatari Diar and Ramallah-based Massar International- two companies with unsurpassed real estate development experience and extensive knowledge of regional and international markets.

Rawabi will be built as a modern, high-tech city with gleaming mid-rise buildings, green parks and shopping areas. It will include fully developed infrastructure, a business district and commercial center, private and public schools, mosques and a church, public parks, a hotel and convention center, a cinema, a library and a municipal complex. Primary and secondary health care facilities, a police station and a fire station will be key features of the city, ensuring a safe, comfortable and healthy environment. The infrastructure and public facilities will benefit not only Rawabi but also the nine neighboring towns and villages.

Rawabi will provide more than 5,000 affordable housing units with nine different floor-plans to choose from, spread across 23 neighborhoods. Rawabi will initially be home to 25,000 residents, with additional residential and commercial unis slated for subsequent construction phases that will ultimately serve a city with a population of 40,000.”

The Rawabi project has already begun, and it is awe-inspiring. We were driven to the site today to overlook the work being done in the first phase. The mountain is being carved into a contour suitable for building, with the crushed aggregate stone being saved as building material. Three different Palestinian private contractors are busy on the project, causing a significant snowball effect in the Palestinian economy. Banks are approving the contractors’ application for business loans, and the contractors are purchasing new, state-of-the-art equipment to get the job done well and on schedule. The hundreds of workers on site are stimulating the economies of the small surrounding towns and villages by eating in their restaurants and cafes, shopping in their stores and markets, and project managers sleeping in their hotels. With more and more construction workers joining the project every week, new business ventures are popping up in Ramallah and villages near the site to provide large quantities of boxed lunches for the workers. Over 1,000 qualified prospective residents have already been interviewed by Bayti homes and are registered to purchase the first units, which are scheduled to be completed in the next three years.

“We are targeting young professionals, young families who want a safe place to raise their families… a clean, well-planned city that provides jobs… This project is growing the Palestinian economy,” said Amir Dajani, project planner and manager.

The cooperation that has gone into the Rawabi project and the support it is enjoying are unparalleled. Just last Thursday, Tony Blair was on site to learn about the project and see its progress. The newsletter reports, “Bayti holds regular meetings and briefings with Palestinian community and business leaders interested in Rawabi, to provide updates on the project and to gain feedback from the attendees. Recently, Bayti conducted briefings for community leaders on the progress of the Rawabi project. During the meetings, Bayti received valuable insights from the participants, whose suggestions will be incorporated into future development plans. Due to this level of community interest and the fruitfulness of such meetings, Bayti plans to continue to hold such briefings and involve Palestinian business and community leaders in the city’s development.” The notable dignitaries who have visited and support Rawabi include Daniel Rubinstein, U.S Consul General; David Harden, Senior Advisor to U.S. Envoy Senator George Mitchell; Senator John Kerry; board members of the Middle East Investment Initiative; Howard Sumka, USAID Mission Director; and Archbishop Theodosios, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, among others.

It was humbling to realize that I was receiving the same tour that these very important and very influential leaders had received. I was dumbfounded, actually.

I was most moved by the initiative to make Rawabi an environmentally sustainable green space. The Jewish National Fund has for decades received donations from around the world for the forestation of Israel. Now, it is possible to buy a tree that will be planted in Rawabi. I highly encourage you to do so. So far, 10,000 trees have been planted through the GROW for a Greener Palestine program. Visit http://www.rawabi.ps/ to purchase a tree and help forest Palestine.

One more “hallelujah” about the Rawabi project: this project will not only be the first planned Palestinian city, but it is also “the first time in Palestinian history that structured long-term mortgages will be available to target segments of the Palestinian population, such as future Rawabi homeowners (through programs such as Amal [an affordable mortgage and loan company] and those offered through local banks).”

Some of the remaining headlines and taglines of the articles in this newsletter:

· “A Model for Future Palestinian City Developments”

· “A City of Firsts in Palestine: Offering a Better Quality of Life”

· “A Pioneering City, Home to Innovation”

· “10,000 Trees Planted Under the GROW for a Greener Palestine Program”

· “Rawabi to Spur Economic Growth”

· “Mortgage Finance Programs: A Path to Home Ownership”

· “Adhering to Better International Standards and Practices”

It is stunning that the private sector is leading the way in the development of the infrastructure for the birth of a new Palestinian state. After so many failings and so much corruption within the Palestinian Authority under Arafat, the rise of Hamas and brutal and violent clashes with Fatah, the building of the wall to put an end to terrorist attacks originating in the West Bank, and the blockade of Gaza to prevent the entry of weapons in the strip and reaching the hands of Hamas militants –

this is a success story to hold on to. This is the building up of a new generation of Palestinian hope, originating from strong, sound leadership within Palestine’s private sector.

I had a moment for a conversation with Amir Dajani, the project manager, today when we were looking at the construction site. I asked, “Do you think that with your initiative, with you leading the way, that other private sector actors will join in building up Palestine, and that the public sector will follow your lead, too?”

“Oh, definitely,” he said. “We’re paving the way.”

Indeed they are.

If you support the Palestinian cause – you MUST educate yourself about Rawabi. And, you must realize the drastic difference between the past Palestinian modus operandi and the new transparent pioneering vision of Massar International and Bayti Real Estate Investment.

They are paving the way for a transparent, accountable, organized, and modern Palestinian state.

Saturday night

Day four (Saturday night).

At the end of the “business day,” I was ready to pack my bags and go home. Go home. Done. I’m done – see ya later.

Then, we had our oh-so-necessary and long-delayed Episcopal alcohol outing. Two lovely bottles of red wine from the Golan Heights Winery later – I think I can face Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

In every trip I take, there’s always a moment of “wow, I love these people. I’m really going to be sad to leave.” Today was that day for me. I love the people on this trip – in all their eccentricities – and I love the camaraderie and humor we share. I also appreciate – to such a great extent that I cannot express it – that all these bishops and priests have accepted me with open arms and actually LISTEN TO ME. I don’t feel marginalized. I don’t feel young. I don’t feel insignificant. I actually feel quite normal, quite able to contribute, and quite happy. This is a huge moment for me. I think I’ve finally made the transition from child to adult in the church. These very wise and very educated people are listening to me, dignifying me, and most times, agreeing with my assessments of certain issues. I feel pretty damn fantastic.

Also, though, I feel somewhat out of place. Today we had a meeting in Bethlehem with a Palestinian family, and we were offered candies, coffee, and treats. I’ve lived with Arabs, and Arab hospitality is beautiful. I knew going into the meeting that it would be rude to refuse the gifts being offered to us. To me – this is just common knowledge of how to behave in Arab culture. I was astonished by how many members of our group refused – politely, of course –the food and drink. I was a little embarrassed, actually. This is a simple matter – it’s the American politeness of declining in the American way versus Arab hospitality being offered to make the stranger feel like a friend. Two very different systems. I just wish we had discussed it prior to the meeting. I remember my Moroccan mother once being almost hurt that I refused the cookies she had set out for me to enjoy. She offered dozens of cookies – all for me, and all for a simple visit. I said, “La, shukran,” (no, thank you) because I was already full. And then the look on her face came, and I immediately regretted that choice. Arabs are generous and hospitable to a fault. Folks – if you ever travel in the Middle East and you are lucky enough to spend time with people who live there, don’t refuse their offerings. It is their cultural – and beautiful – way of welcoming you, of making you feel like a friend and not a stranger.

At dinner this evening, I was eating with three other women in my group. Across from us, a few tables away, a black Jewish couple sat eating their meal. One of the women at my table is black, and she wanted to get a photograph of this black Jewish couple, since they were the first we had seen. We waited until after dinner. As we were leaving the dining room, the man had his head bowed in prayer as he cradled his prayer book in his hands. His wife was at the buffet getting some more food. One of my friends retrieved the camera from her pocket to photograph the man. I took out my cellphone to look distracted and distanced myself from my group. I didn’t want to be part of these curious and inappropriate Americans taking a picture of a man engaged in humble prayer to his god – in an intimate location, close enough to reach out and touch him. Taking pictures at the Western Wall is one thing. It is huge, it is an open air, public space, and thousands of tourists visit every day. Taking a picture of a black Jew praying in a dining room full of tourists and other Jews at the end of a holy Shabbat– this is just audacious. He ignored her while she took the picture. His wife returned to the table and gave us all a quizzical look. Her husband had not lifted his head from his prayers. “Do you mind if I take your picture?” she asked. The black Jewish woman did not understand her question, so my friend proceeded to position herself to take their photograph.

I was rather disgusted and annoyed. It’s just backwards and strange. Let’s imagine for a minute: I’m in Ghana, or Mongolia, or some other place where my skin color and culture make me out of place. And, curious and silly tourists take out their camera to take a picture of me while I’m kneeling in prayer. “Oh, look at the interesting white girl kneeling down, performing her religious rituals. How fascinating. Let’s take a photograph of this curiosity.”
Oh- but wait. This would never happen to me in another place. This is pure American tourist syndrome, orientalism, and an “oh how quaint and fascinating” attitude rolled into one.

Eww. Ewwwwww. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

These are not cultural curiosities. These are people, living their lives. They’re not on display, they’re not on stage, and they’re not play-acting for your amusement. Why are we taking their photograph?

Those things aside, I will conclude today by saying that I don’t want to write about this conflict today. The layers are only piling up, the interreligious, interethnic, inter-Jewish, inter-Palestinian, and inter-political dialectics are only twisting my brain into a knot.

I can say, with assurance and in full confidence, that there is 1000 times more complexity to this conflict than opinionated Americans understand, or than educated pundits care to write about. Before you jump ship into the extreme pro-Israel camp, or wear your keffiyeh and carry your Palestinian flag, stop for a moment. Think. Read. And get your butt to Israel and Palestine for something more than a religious pilgrimage.

There’s much, much, much more to this conflict than any of us dare to imagine. It’s too weighty. It’s too hard. It’s too much.

And that’s exactly why we should either read voraciously, study voraciously, and talk to people living these realities (normal people, on the ground – and not politicians), or just claim ignorance and shut up.

Why didn’t I shut up before?
How stupid I was.

Shabbat Shalom

Today we heard from two journalists. Yossi Klein Halevi, an Israeli Jewish journalist, spent two hours with us in the morning, and Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arab Israeli journalist and expert on Palestinian affairs for numerous publications, spent about two hours with us this evening.
The breadth, depth, and complexity of the material they presented will take a long time for me to sift through. I took 21 pages of notes – and these are all in truncated short-hand. The primary ideas that arose from both of their talks were:
1. Arab world has to come to an age of maturation, responsibility, and accountability. The West (primarily the United States, but also countries in the E.U.) has to stop financially supporting corrupt regimes in the Middle East, thus suppressing the rise of leaders with integrity, character, and goodwill. [I will get the statistics and all the facts that I can to further explain this point. I was astounded at my ignorance, and when I can more fully present what I heard today, you may be astounded, too. Or maybe the wool was pulled over my eyes only.].
2. Judaism and Christianity have had their modern “coming of age.” Islam isn’t there yet. (Read Irshad Manji’s The Trouble with Islam Today to see what they’re getting at on this point). Islam is being held back by many social forces, including widespread corruption of Islamic governments, which leads to large groups of people looking to radical Islamic movements for solutions to their problems.
3. The relationship of Hamas to Iran, to Syria, and to extremist and radical Islamic movements throughout the world CANNOT be underestimated.
4. $10 billion was given to the Palestinian Authority for development programs for its 3 million people between 1994 and 2001 – primarily from the United States (taxpayer dollars). [This amounts to $3,333 per Palestinian – just to give you a per-person figure]. Walk into the Palestinian Territories today and look for development projects and infrastructure that dates from that period. You’ll find none. Where did all the money go? A corrupt Arafat government that was not held accountable by the nations funding his luxurious lifestyle, his construction of a casino (and not hospitals or schools), and his $100,000 monthly shopping allowance to his wife, who was living in Paris.
5. Israel is marching toward pragmatism and realism. Arab nations are marching toward radicalism, intransigence, and stubbornness.
6. Israel is badly losing the PR war. Palestine has its buzz words: occupation, wall, blockade, human rights. Israel doesn’t have the buzz words. [And the HUGE problem here, for me, is that all you have to say to an ignorant emotional activist-type American is “occupation” or “human rights violations” and the rhetoric is immediately against Israel – without any research to qualify their claims, without deep investigation into the history of the country and the two peoples in conflict, without anything that would dignify their arguments as sound, rational and logical. What about terrorism? What about intransigent religious extremism? What about corruption, misuse of funds, and lack of any stable Palestinian government to build up the Palestinian people and make them self-sufficient? $10billion between 1994 and 2001, and roughly $1 billion per year continues to be given to Palestine. WHERE IS IT GOING?]
7. Palestinians and Israelis are tired of the West’s repeated attempts to bring them into “dialogue,” to the “negotiating table” to talk about the “peace process.” Life has settled into a status quo in the past few years. Violence, terrorism, and tensions have decreased. When the West, or particularly, Obama requests that Netanyahu and Abbas meet to discuss a final settlement – Israeli and Palestinian hairs stand up on the backs of Israeli and Palestinian necks. The “peace processes” of 2000 and 2001 did not deliver.

I learned a great skill while I was in school from good professors and intelligent friends who would call me on my bullshit when I would start spouting “facts” on issues ABOUT WHICH I KNEW NOTHING. Clay truly was my savior in this respect. He calls me on my bullshit.

So, over the years, I have intentionally and deliberately tried to learn to live in humility and admit when I don’t know something. There is no problem with not knowing. There is a problem with speaking as an authority when you’re not. There is a problem in claiming expertise when you haven’t done the groundwork to learn the history, the dialectic, the polemics, etc., etc. (And, I have to say, there is a problem with having an opinion when you’ve not educated yourself in the least bit on the issue about which you’re forming said opinion. Period. …climbing down off my soap box…).

This trip is teaching me two things. First – thank goodness that I started reading about this conflict back in January, because if I hadn’t, I would be in the middle of the deep-end without my floaties and I wouldn’t know which way was up. Second – I am desperately ignorant.
Despite, or rather, because of my ignorance, I am listening with the widest open ears I can muster. My eyes are pealed. I am reading voraciously, scribbling notes voraciously, and trying to retain everything I’m being told. I’m relying on my short experience living in the Arab-Islamic world, on my undergraduate years spent reading about religion and religious conflicts, and on my previous trip to Israel so that I can learn more fully about intra-Palestinian political struggles, intra-Israeli political discourse, and the very delicate and volatile nature of this whole thing.

To conclude, today brought to light that there is much more going on in this conflict than two competing narratives, and two peoples fighting for the same very small piece of land (along with other readily acknowledged things that this is about). What is going on in many cases is journalism lacking integrity and blinded by ideology and argument.

And so, this leaves observers of good will with the high task not only of dignifying both peoples, but of searching for the truth in the media, and proclaiming it with integrity.

My suggestion: get to Israel and Palestine, meet with people in the know, and learn for yourself.

deeper into the narratives

Day two on the ground.

I’ll open this synopsis with the ideas I used to conclude my last posting:

In Israel, in Palestine, in our own country: what memories do we allow to shape our history, shape our identity, and then cycle back to create new memories? What memories do we co-opt as our own, from others’ testimonies, from history, from our identity? What memories, histories, and identities do we construct out of thin air?

What is the mantle that we wrap around ourselves? And do we have the courage to take it off, and objectively analyze, cleanse, reconstruct, or destroy it if necessary?


This land is a land of vivid memories, dynamic and tangible history, and complicated, unceasing conflict. The Israeli national narrative is deeply ingrained in the minds of the Jewish Israelis living here. It is dream fed by memory, molded into movement, enacted by emigrants and refugees for decades prior to the establishment of Israel in 1948, and continued since. It is nightmare-dream/memory/myth become national narrative, become catalyst for events that have shaped history. Whether or not you buy into the narrative is irrelevant. The narrative has shaped history for the Israelis, and it will continue to do so.

A view of the security barrier from the

southernmost point of Israel (looking into Bethlehem)

Graffiti on the wall, on the Palestinian side,
on the way to Ramallah.

The Palestinian narrative has likewise shaped their history. It is, similarly, nightmare-dream/memory/ myth become the narrative of the nationalist aspirations of Palestine, and it shapes their history on the ground. Every event in the life of Palestine (and likewise of Israel) is perceived through the lens of the collective national memory and identity, and thus shapes their historiography (their writing of history) – and likewise the history-in-the-making on the ground. Again, whatever you might think about the narrative is irrelevant. The narrative is writing history.




My thinking about this whole memory/history/identity cyclical process has matured in the past year and a half, since I first started working with the idea in the context of Moroccan identity politics. I still have a soft spot in my heart for the Berberist (Amazigh- indigenous) struggle and the narrative that they spout, but, in the end, their narrative developed just as did the Arabo-Islamist narrative that they are combating. My thesis argued in favor of the Berberist narrative, and concluded that it is in the interest of the West and particularly, America, to hear their narrative and value it over the Islamist one. In the end, though, both narratives developed by means of the same processes, and one is NOT better than the other and should NOT supersede the other. They both just are. It is how it is. The problem in Morocco and the problem in Israel and Palestine is that there is one narrative that is superseding the other narrative, one history and memory that oppresses the other (the Islamist in Morocco, and, arguably, the Israeli in this part of the world, but also, in certain ways, the Palestinian in the ability of Palestinian-born terrorists to hold the Israeli population hostage in immobilizing fear, and lead them to security measures such as the blockade of Gaza and the construction of the security barrier).

More graffiti on the Palestinian side of the wall

It serves no purpose to form value judgments about a people’s collective narrative and identity. Identities are what they are, and the Palestinian and Israeli identities are shaped as any person’s identity would be shaped: by events, by memory, by family, upbringing, filtered through language, religion, culture and historical experience. Layer upon layer of individual identities conflate to form the collective identity and group narrative.


The Israeli narrative is a valid narrative. The Palestinian narrative is a valid narrative. Both contain fact, fiction, reality and myth. The issue is not that one narrative must cease to exist (and a people and their identity with it) in favor of the other’s rise. The issue is when two peoples of distinct identities and narratives are in conflict, it is often because one is not being granted the right to self-determination in light of their narrative. This is, as I see it, exactly what is going on Israel-Palestine, and to a much lesser and much milder extent, in Morocco between the indigenous Berbers and the Arabs.

Looking into Beit Lehem (Bethlehem) and Beit Jala

from the southernmost Israeli-controlled point in Jerusalem

Ok. So both the Israelis and the Palestinians deserve the right to self-determination. A no-brainer. A two-state solution is the most viable way to go – where Palestinians would have full and complete governance of their own state, existing peacefully beside Israel. The problem is, then, where the state is to be after the failure of the peace negotiations of the last decade. Here is where I have difficulty, and here is where you must spend considerable time learning about the failed Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David in summer 2000, and the later failed negotiations at Taba in January 2001. The blame is thrown at both sides: at Yasser Arafat because he rejected a very generous offer made by Ehud Barak, and at Israel because Israel didn’t concede enough, and back at the Palestinians because Israel maintains there was nothing more they could have reasonably given. And so it continues. (Read about the Clinton Parameters on Wikipedia. It’s truly a good, concise synopsis, and it will provide you with many links for further research).

We met with a senior Fatah official today at the Palestinian Authority headquarters in Ramallah (an experience that very very few Americans heavily emotionally invested in this conflict EVER get to have). The four-part demands of Fatah, as he repeatedly explained to us, are as follows:

1. Withdrawal from lands that exceed the pre-1967 borders of Israel, returning all the land outside of those borders to the Palestinian people for a Palestinian state. (This was effectively part of the Clinton Parameters accepted by Barak, and rejected by Arafat).
2. To give East Jerusalem – in its entirety (as defined by Fatah) – back to the Palestinians.
3. Remove illegal settlements in Palestinian territories, which he defined as settlements in that exceed the pre-1967 borders of Israel (this was addressed in the peace negotiations with proposed “land swaps” for Arab villages in the Israeli side with Jewish settlements in the Palestinian side)
4. Grant the option of the Right of Return to refugees and their descendants, or instead grant them monetary compensation for their losses (which has always been a demand of the Palestinians, and has always been refused by Israel)

Our group spent considerable time questioning him about the fourth demand, as this would mean at least hundreds of thousands (some estimates exceed millions) of people flooding into the land of Israel, effectively dismantling the demographics of the state and the existence of a Jewish state.

“With very minor exceptions, one through three have been granted and rejected twice by the Palestinians. Why do you say that Israel refuses to meet these parameters?”
“Because they were not offered to us in this way. This was not the offer made to us at Camp David or at Taba.”
A few more questions circled about this, and the response remained the same. The Wikipedia article touches on what he considered many of the problems: occupation of the Jordan Valley by Israeli forces (Wikipedia reads “international forces”), right of Israel to deploy troops in Palestine, etc.

“The Right of Return would be impossible for Israel to accept,” some of us mentioned.

“Israel won’t even meet one through three,” he said. “Israel must accept one through three, and then we can negotiate about number four. But one through three, they must accept.”

The whole talk left me feeling somewhat hopeless, and while this was perhaps lost in translation, his position, as I heard it, was one of intransigence. (Two things: first, he’s a politician, and politicians stick to their party line. Granted. From what I could see, he’s a very effective politician, and a good leader for his people. Second, I really loved being around Arabic speakers. I could catch at least a dozen words or phrases in every statement he made, and often derive some meaning from it. That was terribly exciting, and renewed my motivation to gain functional fluency in Arabic. So, while his position was hard to swallow at times, the whole experience was as enjoyable as this type of experience could be).

The Israeli and Palestinian narratives are nationalist narratives, and the Palestinians need their own state. The Israeli public (70% in a recent poll) have no argument there. They want Palestinians to have their own state. Two “however’s.” The first: However, the Palestinians have to get their act together (Hamas needs to stop terrorizing Fatah, and Fatah needs to stop terrorizing Hamas, responsible leaders need to be raised up and the widespread corruption in the Fatah government has to end). The second: However, those who support the creation of a Palestinian state – and I wholeheartedly do – have to also acknowledge the very valid security concerns of Israel. While the Fatah official with whom we met spoke to us primarily about territorial concerns and, I believe, yearns for negotiations and for peace, I pressed him on the issue of Hamas – which purports an religious extremism, historically has terrorized the Israelis living in towns bordering the Gaza strip, and has proclaimed its determination to destroy Israel. (Fatah also proclaims that they want an end to the Jewish state).

“You are speaking about territorial concerns, but what about Hamas? Hamas will not negotiate, and is determined to destroy Israel. How will peace come, even if Israel meets these demands, with Hamas determined to destroy Israel?” I asked.

He contended that if Israel would concede to the demands of Fatah, peace would come to the region and Hamas would cease its campaign of terror.

I wish, and I pray. Truly I do. But I don’t believe that religious extremists will stop if Israel were to make the territorial concessions that our Fatah official outlined. The motivation that drives Hamas’ fight supersedes the nationalist aspirations of Palestinians as outlined by Fatah. Hamas wants to end the existence of Israel.

The high-ranking IDF officer with whom we spoke yesterday in Sderot, on a hill overlooking the Gaza strip, told us, “There have been 10 million Qassam rockets launched into Israel since 2001.” The vast majority of these were fired into Israel from Gaza. He later added, “If you open the sea gates, within two months Hamas would have 40,000 rockets that could reach Tel Aviv.”

We hear these things and whether or not we believe them, whether or not we believe Israeli intelligence and the unclassified information being shared with us, we’re hearing part of the Israeli narrative that continues to feed their mindset, stoke the fire of their fears, and affects their actions on the ground.

And those of us stateside who are very passionate about this conflict, we HAVE to remember: There is no easy answer to the woes of all the people in this land, and there is no use to Westerners spouting one-sided, biased, bigoted, and proud analyses of this conflict. I’m guilty of this, and tonight, I will pray for forgiveness. I don’t live here. My family members haven’t been killed or maimed by suicide bombers. I have no iron key hanging on my wall that unlocks a long-lost door in a long-lost Arab neighborhood in what is now Israel.

My heart aches for the people affected by this conflict. I have no solution. American pro-Palestinian activists don’t have a solution, and neither do American pro-Israel lobbies.
We don’t live here. We don’t know what it’s like to feel that there is no other option than to construct a security barrier to prevent terrorists from entering our neighborhoods and blowing up buses outside our children’s kindergartens. And we don’t live next to walls that separate us from our family and friends living in Jerusalem, while we live just over the hill in Bethlehem.
I am convinced that no side is ultimately “right” while the other is “wrong.” Both have committed violence and unspeakable evil.

We can’t imagine what it’s like.

Happy photos from today's journey

Needed some levity to my blog, so here are two happier photos from today's excursion:

Russian Orthodox Church on the Mount of Olives:

Church of All Nations, next to the Garden of Gethsemane, at the base of the Mount of Olives:

beginning

End of first full day in Israel.

My group has been asked not to do in-depth blogging while on this journey, as the trust and honesty built between our group is paramount to the mission of why we’re here, learning what we’re learning. So, in interest of maintaining integrity, I’ll only share tidbits of the goings-on here, with some commentary on what I’m experiencing and what’s running through my head.

After arriving in Tel Aviv yesterday (and opening an Israeli cell phone account and putting my new Israel SIM card into my Moroccan cell phone – a walk down memory lane…), our tour guide and driver took us to an overlook of the old city of Jerusalem on the Hebrew University campus on Mount Scopus. Clay and I have looked dreamily at the English language masters programs offered at Hebrew University – Religious Studies, Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, Biblical Studies, etc. – so I called him immediately and told him where I was. I really look forward to returning to Israel with him so we can visit the school together and get to know some faculty. I would love nothing more than to be a student at Hebrew University.

The view of the city from Mount Scopus is magnificent, and an entirely different viewpoint from the one I had when I was last in Jerusalem. On Mount Scopus we stood at the north end of the city, facing south. When I was previously in Jerusalem, we stood west facing east. It’s difficult to discern in the photograph, but from Scopus we could see the comparable size of the Holy Sepulchre dome to the Dome of the Rock, could see the Russian Orthodox Church, the Garden of Gethsemane and Church of All Nations, and just to our left, on the next hill over (an outfielder’s stone’s throw away) was the Mormon university. I identified it before our tour guide did, because I’m a nut and when I learned there was a Mormon university in Jerusalem months ago, I immediately scoured their website and learned what the campus looked like. So, yes, there I stood, looking once again onto the Old City, but strangely, with an eerie sense of calm and no nervous butterflies or chills up my spine. I just leaned my arms on the stone wall of the overlook, enjoyed the breeze, and felt comfortable in my surroundings. It has taken nine countries and some ten trips abroad to feel comfortable in a foreign environment. As I stood on Mount Scopus, I felt a great sense of peace and hope that I could return and live here, happily and perhaps for an extended stay.

We descended Mount Scopus and next visited the Western Wall. The first time I visited the Western Wall, I had been anticipating the visit for years – probably well over a decade. Ever sense I had read The Big Lie in third grade, and then read, and re-read Chaim Potok’s The Chosen (the last pages of my copy are tear-stained), I had dreamt and hoped and prayed about being at the Western Wall. Then, at 19, I toured Poland and visited Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Madajnek. My first trip to Israel was altogether momentous and lacking all comparison. I still cannot put adequate words to it. It’s an experience I share with all those who were on the trip with me, and particularly share with Dr. Russell and Dr. Jones. As a senior at Transy, my time in Israel would wander into my synapses and unexpected times, and then I would walk to Dr. Russell’s office, knock on the door, and say, “I was thinking about Israel.” We’d just look at each other, and smile knowingly, and that was all that needed to be said. Then, I’d walk away.

The Western Wall came late in my first trip to Israel – after visits to numerous archaeological sites, the Sea of Galilee, Tiberias, Caesarea Maritima, ancient churches, on and on. It was Shabbat, and we walked through the darkened tunnels of the old city, through heavy security screenings, and entered the Western Wall complex. It was FULL of people – in many places, shoulder to shoulder. I had excitement building in my stomach like I was just about to reach the crest of a roller coaster and be thrown into the fast downhill rush – but no, I was just about to experience Shabbat as I had never experienced it before. I heard shouting, singing, chanting, dancing, preaching. I walked to the wall that separates the worshipers from the crowd of onlookers, and stood up on a chair where I could see over into the crowd of men and boys below. I was enraptured. A huge, imposing Chasidic rebbe stood gyrating and preaching to the crowd, his speech peppered with higher-pitched staccato whenever he seemed to be making a really momentous point. He looked like a Southern Baptist preacher who’d been transplanted into old Poland or Lithuania, but no, here he really was, with all his faithful followers, preaching up a storm next to the Western Wall in the holy city of Jerusalem. My thoughts about the separation of men and women at prayer aside (and in this context my thoughts really aren’t vehement and truly don’t matter), there are few moments in my life when I have been happier or more in awe. I had walked through death camps and smelled remnants of Zyklon-B in the Madajnek gas chamber. And now, before me, standing below a proudly flown Israeli flag, were hundreds of Jewish worshipers, praying to God in the home of their ancestors, as the Divine Presence hovered above them and the wall.

Female worshipers praying at the wall

Israeli flag fluttering in front of the Western Wall

So, having that climatic experience of the Western Wall in vividly and permanently ingrained in my memory, this visit was far less moving. It was 100 degrees of hot, there had been no community building within this group - yet, we were all exhausted, dragging our feet, sweaty, stinky, and had just deplaned after 12 hours on our butts. Those things being said, I was able to have a calming moment of prayer at the wall, after which I departed slowly, walking backwards so not to turn my back to the Divine Presence. I returned to my group, and we made our way back to the bus, finally to the hotel to rest and refresh ourselves. Of course, before I allowed myself a moment to recover from the trip, I went wandering around the hotel looking for a place to work out. I discovered ballrooms in the depths of the hotel where I did some dance exercises and developed a good sweat before I got back to my room and took a cold shower and changed clothes for dinner. Dinner was delicious, as meals always are in Israel, and… to fast forward, breakfast was amazing this morning as well. Pickled fish, smoked fish, fresh mozzarella, hardboiled egg, hummus, bread, and thick creamy yogurt. I live for breakfasts in Israel (and Greece…… but that’s another time and another set of stories).

Today was our first day of actually doing fact-finding. I won’t share details with you about the people we spoke to and all of what we learned, but I can tell you some of the fascinating places we went and my reactions. First, we visited Sderot, an Israeli town on the border of the Gaza strip, and spoke to a high-ranking IDF officer about the situation in Gaza and Israel’s response to it.

Gaza strip in the distance, viewed from hill in Sderot

(so close we could clearly hear gunfire in Gaza City)

In 2000 and 2001 alone, over 4,500 rockets and 4,250 mortars were launched from Gaza into Israeli towns, killing innocent civilians in their homes. Children grew up in Sderot with the daily threat of bombings. Now, the sea blockade is an effective means of keeping high-range missiles and rockets out of the hands of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Among the many conversations we had today with Israeli officers, legal analysts, and others in the business of protecting Israeli civilians, I heard this idea presented, in different words, through different means, and by different people, that “If you open the sea gates, within TWO MONTHS, Hamas would have 40,000 rockets that could reach Tel Aviv.”

Later we visited the IDF base in Tel Aviv and met with experts in international law. The very real dilemma of the asymmetrical war Israel is fighting with terrorists became deathly clear. What is a sovereign nation to do when its opponents (here we’re talking Hamas militants) dress in civilian clothes, attack from civilian residential areas, hospitals, schools, and use children as human shields, and will not, under any circumstances, come to the table to discuss ceasefire or peace? What does a sovereign nation do when the opponent does not hold itself to, and neither do any other countries demand that it hold itself to, established rules of war – as enshrined in the Geneva Convention, sculpted by modernity from Augustine’s just war theology?

I can speak more about this later – in greater detail and with more depth – but I ask you in the meantime to consider how terrorists and terrorism, particularly the tactics employed by Hamas, challenge their victims to remain committed to the basic principles and laws of armed conflict:

1. Military necessity: That an army may not launch a military offensive unless it has just cause and justification to do so.
2. Distinction: That a clear distinction is drawn between civilians and combatants, and civilian objects and military installations.
3. Proportionality: That collateral damage (civilian casualties and destruction of civilian installations) cannot be excessive to the military advantage gained.
4. Humanity: That civilians and victims of war are dignified as human beings (i.e. granted access to Red Cross and other medical care, that civilians are given opportunities to remove themselves from impending sites of military action, etc.)

I’ll conclude with this idea. My senior thesis project revolved around Moroccan religio-political identity issues, and the construction of memory, history and identity within the Amazigh (Berber) and Islamist movements in Morocco.

What kept tumbling through my mind today was the idea that became the thrust of my thesis: that identity creates memory creates history creates memory creates identity – and the cycle falls over upon itself over and over again, agitated by the waves of movements, ideologies, and events.

In Israel, in Palestine, in our own country: what memories do we allow to shape our history, shape our identity, and then cycle back to create new memories? What memories do we co-opt as our own, from others’ testimonies, from history, from our identity? What memories, histories, and identities do we construct out of thin air?

What is the mantle that we wrap around ourselves? And do we have the courage to take it off, and objectively analyze, cleanse, reconstruct, or destroy it if necessary?

We are a sad lot, we humans.

Charcoal graffiti:

"Gaza," in Arabic

"FilisTin," or "Palestine" as written in Arabic