Emily Hauser, who has moved between Israel and the U.S., writes a stirring piece about why she's throwing herself back into Palestine/Israel issues. Her story reminds me of all the Americans who moved to Israel after '67. And now the reverse is happening. Go to her blog to read the more hopeful conclusion:
I don’t think I’ve ever gone more than 12 months without being in Israel during our entire 11 years in America. I’m always in a state of decompressing from the last jaunt, or gearing up for the next.
At first, we knew we’d be going back permanently, in time for our first-born to start kindergarten. Then in 2002, my husband and I admitted to each other that the Israeli response to the al-Aksa intifada meant we didn’t actually want to raise our children in Israel, unless and until something changed — peace and justice were, I think, what we had in mind.
As I said in an earlier post, this was an excruciating decision for me, one I’ve mentally kicked at and picked apart ever since. I spent the next four years essentially apologizing to my Israeli friends for not being there, and reiterating, ad infinitum (probably ad nauseam), how much I loved and missed it — a thing which, while entirely true, probably did not endear me to those who lived there and could have reasonably wondered why I didn’t move back, if I living elsewhere gave me a literal, physical ache. I took to referring to the “gentle exile of American suburbia,” and remarked (again, probably too often) that though we had built a good life, I never felt fully alive except when at home. In Israel.
Cut to, where are we now, 2006? The Second War in Lebanon, and the military operation in Gaza which left hundreds dead and flattened Gaza’s one power plant along with much of the rest of the Strip’s infrastructure — all in response to the Palestinian capture of an on-duty soldier, which came in retaliation for the almost entirely unreported Israeli kidnapping of suspected Hamas members from their Gaza home the day before.
Something in me snapped. Having actively advocated for a two-state solution for years, having apparently hoped in some corner of my heart that we would one day return, I began to back away. I told people I had given up hope. (Well, I told some people. I didn’t tell my friends in Israel, but I did tell them that I would stop bending their ear about my own internal turmoil. They smiled fondly, for they are very good friends).
And then: This winter. The absolutely unnecessary, unforgiveable, full-frontal war in Gaza in which rather than try to deal rationally with the undeniable wrong of rocket attacks on its cities, Israel decided to subject an entire population — that it was already keeping in what amounted to an open-air jail — to a landscape-flattening assault that killed and maimed and destroyed and wrecked horrible havoc for three weeks. And registered an 80-90% approval rate from the Israeli people.
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{ 17 comments }
Courage. Dropping the two-state solution as a goal, is giving up. If you need to reassess where your energy is best directed, do so. Its not a failing to choose to bring up a family safely in all meanings of the term. The Israeli response was an example of extreme frustration on the part of the not quite up-to-the-task Israeli government. The conflict is between civility and fanaticism, between liberalism based on respecting the other, and solidarity based on picking a side (or a fantasy, in the case of the single-state proposal). As peace is an exercise in consent, it takes movements for civility IN Israel, movements for civility IN Palestine, movements for civility in the US, movements for civility in the Arab world.
The kidnappings are responses to responses to responses to responses. No real starting point. The Lebanon kidnappings were an independant starting point. The kidnapping of Shalit was accompanied by multiple kidnapping attempts in the West Bank, with the Hezbollah kidnappings experienced by Israel as a "last straw:. The presence of big weapons in the hands of Hezbollah allowed them to undertake "little kidnapping operations". As, the presence of nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran will allow them to escalate their "resistance solidarity" in the form of increasing harrassment of Israeli civilians. None of the actions by either Hezbollah, Hamas, Israel, are justified or justifiable. The dysfunctional complex is the problem, and that is solved by urging of mutual acceptance of the other, and NOT by solidarity with escalating angers picking either self-defined victim/hero side.
A FEW israeli soldiers are CAPTURED as they are preparing yet another violent invasion of Lebanon, a sovereign country and that in your monumentally WARPED mind is a more intolerable affront to peace and security than the OUTRIGHT KIDNAPPING OF THOUSANDS OF PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS AND DOZENS OF ELECTED MEMBERS OF PALESTINIAN GOVERNMENT NOT TO MENTION THE RAMPANT KIDNAPPING OF UNARMED CIVILIANS BY ISRAEL IN INTERNATIONAL WATERS. Pure, unadulterated Nazism. You're not an Adolf Hitler because you have no power. But your "morality" and deranged sense of proportion are identical.
Don't go Finkelsteinian on us, describing Hezbollah as heroic and uncorrupted resistance. Fanaticism is the problem. Israel is not disappearing. The Iranian and Hezbollah fantasy that is will soon dissolve into the abysses of time in favor their superior democratic model, is a harmful one, in that it distracts dissenters from pursuing real reform and real social improvement for Palestinians.
She said she and her husband were motivated not to bring up their children due to lack of peace and justice in Israel, not just peace (safety for her children). Clearly from the body of what she wrote in her article, subject of this thread, what she knows about Israel's activities do show her extreme frustration at the way under par performance of the Israeli government to maintain even a weak resemblance of a country she wants to raise her children in. She favors the USA for a lot more than merely the protection its goy cops and soldiers give her children. Quit projecting. Go discuss Postville, Iowa with your orthodox son, dwelling on the horrible facts of Agriprocessors, Inc and its use as metaphor for what happened to the higher aspirations of the American Dream.
Re: the kidnappings: Right, Richard, ignore what she said about what happened the day before Shalit–her point was that Shalit is all over the MSM news continually, while the Pals kidnapped, who can name one? And the disparate impact–for every one Shalit, 11000 Palestinians; again, the MSM never covers them. The starting point was back in 1882, if memory serves, when the first Jewish settlement was erected. If not, why not? Justification is awarded to the resistor of occupation, not to the perpetrator. The Nuremberg trials and its international law progeny set up a new post-1945 world standard for any collective's actions, most especially a state honored with a seat at the UN, the same UN that legitimatized the state of Israel in the eyes of the world (sorry, that includes goys). In that light, the dysfunctional complex is the US-Israel special relationship.
Don't go Dershie-Lieberman (both the US & Israeli versions)on us, Witty. Yes, fascism is the problem–it needs to disappear from Israeli policy and activity. Quit diverting that issue to Iran, a most innocuous nation compared to the preemptive warring USA & Israel partners, and to Hezbollah, patriotic freedom fighters. You distract the tiny number of informed USA citizens who dissent from the MSM hasbara spin in an attempt to live up to the highest American and humanist values.
And you ignore the prior events before the "kidnapping/arrest" the of the Palestine. In the week prior to the Shalit kidnapping there was a similar incident in the West Bank that was foiled, then the Shalit kidnapping, then the Hezbollah shelling and abduction, in quite rapid sequence. STOP this, is a relevant action to take relative to that pattern.
Did you read the Lebanon UNIFIL report? Did you bother? It stated that Hezbollah shelled a military installation and a civilian town during the long-planned operation. Hezbollah initially stated that it was an Israeli raid into Lebanon that they foiled, but later relented on that story in declaring victory of the successfully planned and implemented operation. You really consider Iran an innocuous nation?
To the degree Iran can help a pitifully outgunned resistance against Judeo Nazism and mass murder in Palestine and the Occupied Territories, Iran is a force for good in the world. Apart from that, they are totally innocuous. The implication Iran is a threat–to Israel or even more outlandishly, to America is an item of pure lunacy.
Iran has been in a defensive mode for at least 100 years, first against British Imperialism then US and Zionist subversion and militarism. The proper question should be "do you really consider Israel (or the US for that matter) an innocuous nation?"
Anytime people make comparisons of Jews to Nazis it just rings hollow. It's better to make arguments based on reality of one's actions rather than comparisons. Calling Jews Nazi is just a "low blow" in order to make us feel bad about the tragic event. I never compare anyone Jew or Arab to Nazi and I think that from right to left it would be a great recommended practice to lay off the Vietnam, Nazi, etc etc. comparisons.
Antisemite
Yes, exagerated rhetoric is very effective dissent.
Several of my postings to MondoLies have disappeared or not been published. MondoLies clearly does not seek honest discourse on the topics close to their hearts, namely the dispossession of Jews from Israel, increasing hatred toward Jews and, of course, Jews at MondoLies making money out of this Jew-Hatred. MondoLies can only exist in it's own fantasy world where truth is denied, facts are ignored and reality is imagined. MondoLies is MondoBigotry.
With all due respect to Phil and Adam, do you truly believe that they are making money from this site?
Your post probably crossed the line of decency Jake. There is no such thing as dispossession of Jews from Israel.
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