Nothing's simple:
Steinfels, Margaret O'Brien
REPORT ON ISRAEL NOTHING'S SIMPLE A LAND OF INTENSE CONVERSATIONS Although she considered herself a Zionist, Hannah Arendt opposed the creation of a specifically Jewish state. She hoped that by...
...One week's worth of conversations does not confer expertise or even great optimism...
...Yet every conversation was one that promised a possible crack in the hostilities, that yielded grudging respect to one's opponents (or at least their cunning), that mirrored the subtle and intense relations between Israelis and Palestinians...
...A surprising number of Palestinians seem to count on it...
...This possibly moderating fear is balanced against the apprehension over secure borders and the hostility of the Arab states (during our stay, Iraq's threats of chemical warfare briefly eclipsed Mr...
...It is widely acknowledged that the intifada is not simply a political challenge to Israel...
...But at least some Israeli Jews cling to this precarious commitment to Zionism and a wider ethical mission: they feel a responsibility to their fellow citizens, both Jewish and Arab, to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, to Soviet Jewish emigres, and to principles of social justice...
...Peace with the Palestinians...
...What constitutes security in a small Jewish state surrounded by larger Arab neighbors...
...The bargaining and buying to form a government scandalizes everyone, including the Palestinians, yet there is an addiction to news of preposterous demands (one straying Knesset member sought a $2.5 million bond to insure a place on party lists in the next election...
...More layers in the onion that we steadily work at peeling back...
...Curiously enough none of these conversations could have taken place in the United States...
...Jewish and Arab Israeli children can grow up without meeting each other...
...Everyone is for peace (no, we did not meet Ariel Sharon, but statistics widely quoted show the Israeli public increasingly in favor of land for peace...
...We are quickly into the chicken and the egg...
...Or with which nation...
...Because Arabs cannot join the army, they do not enjoy the full rights of Israeli citizens, are barred from certain industries and professions...
...Our hosts arranged meetings with as many groups, Israeli and Palestinian, as we could fit into a sixteen-hour day...
...Peace with Iraq, Syria, Jordan...
...She says the intifada has not drawn Israeli Arabs into the territories, but has strengthened them "in their resolve to remain Israeli citizens...
...yet, she adds in a critical voice, "the Orthodox students studying in yeshivas don't serve either, and still enjoy full civil rights...
...The Palestinians too are brutalized by the intifada and its fall-out...
...She hoped that by developing new forms of government in cooperation with Arabs, the Jewish people would give the world alternatives to the racism, nationalism, and the excesses of individualism that had produced modern totalitarianism...
...Can Israel rise to the challenge...
...Curiously no one despairs of a resolution...
...On one point, across the Jewish political spectrum, there is no hesitation: the Soviet Jews must be welcomed, housed, taught Hebrew, given jobs even while emigration from Israel continues because of the economic crisis, the housing shortage, the security problems...
...She visited Israel from March 30 through April 7. The trip was organized by the International Center for Development Policy, Washington, D.C., and sponsored by the World Zionist Organization and the United Workers' Party of Israel (MAPAM).of Israel (MAPAM...
...Which comes first...
...We have morally armed ourselves" a condition that she believes the Israelis understand...
...Israel's system of proportional voting allows parties that win 1 percent of the vote a place in the Knesset, giving small parties disproportionate influence...
...Israeli soldiers and reservists are regularly exposed to the living conditions of the Palestinians and to the moral problems of fighting the intifada...
...Denials to the contrary, the Palestinians are participants, directly and indirectly, in this convoluted effort to find a way out of the political, social, and economic morass created by the occupation and exposed by the intifada...
...She is optimistic...
...Even Kibbutzniks cannot have their communal meetings until after the nightly news...
...Some hold "you Americans" directly responsible for this unending struggle...
...Everything in Israel and the West Bank is complex, the people above all...
...They grapple with several dilemmas: "Our state is at war with our people...
...The Palestinians, too, fear the effects of the intifada on their children...
...Israeli Arabs agree: they insist on their loyalty, do not join the intifada, yet feel solidarity with their fellows in the West Bank and Gaza and show it with material and financial support...
...But there are more divisions inside Israel: A Jewish woman characterizes relations between Israeli Arabs and Jews: "mistrust, fear, stereotyping...
...Unknown assailants are reported to have killed 200 Palestinians said to have "collaborated" with the Israelis are our interlocutors possible candidates...
...Will the Soviets stay...
...Everyone says "peace...
...What should the Palestinians worry about...
...I think she is right...
...it is a moral one as well...
...A Palestinian journalist: "The early values of Zionism are losing hold and what is happening in Israel itself is more dangerous than the Palestinians...
...Or move on...
...Peace or security...
...And, "without full civil rights ourselves, it is hard to convince our brothers to trust the Jews...
...Peres's search for the sixty-first vote needed to form a Labor coalition government...
...They are apprehensive about the growing power of the Islamic fundamentalists, and the intractable crisis that has kept the Israeli government from beginning the peace process ("The Israelis have no consensus, but we do...
...Meting out collective punishments, demolishing houses, carrying out night-time arrests ("climbing over children and a man's wife to take him to jail it is awful"), enforcing curfews the corrosive effects on Israeli society are widely feared...
...Every detail of the wheeling and dealing that goes into forming a government is pored over for its larger implications...
...The irony of their situation is not lost on them, nor on the Palestinians who understand this larger ethical pull and have learned to use its leverage in the intifada...
...A Palestinian woman tells us that a sense of historical responsibility will allow Israelis to break through the dawdling of leaders and the constraints of security interests...
...What constitutes peace...
...Other questions are warily explored: Jerusalem, control of water supplies, the settlements...
...Everyone announces him or herself a moderate...
...Not simply about Soviet-Jewish settlements in the West Bank, but about the right-wing politics the new immigrants may take up in reaction to the "socialism" they have left behind...
...Peace will come or not with the current factionalism in place...
...A striking performance of "A Reservist's Diary" by the Kibbutz Dance Company silently evokes the emotional power of these shared grievances and fears...
...No one has a kind word for a political system that has kept Israel on hold since 1984, but no one expects serious reform soon...
...Who knows...
...Her views did not prevail...
...All the players have well-honed political and rhetorical skills...
...MARGARET O'BRIEN STEINFELS Margaret O'Brien Steinfels is editor of Commonweal...
...She hopes for an equitable alternative, perhaps some form of national service...
Vol. 117 • May 1990 • No. 9
