The latest New York Review of Books publishes a review by Tom Segev, a columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, in which Segev suggests that the West Bank should become part of Jordan so that the oppressed Palestinians at last obtain rights in a viable state. (Sorry I can’t excerpt; my copy’s back home.)
I found Segev’s argument unsettling/intriguing; I know little about Palestinian attitudes, and Segev lives in Israel, after all, and is a noted New Historian. You’d think he knows; and maybe that would solve the problem.
Well it’s 12:30 a.m. in Jerusalem and I just got back to my hotel after visiting a family that was evicted from a house in Sheikh Jarrah.
I sat by the fire with Nasser Ghawe in the little tent he lives in. Across the road was his house, with Israeli flags all over it. Ghawe is a very moderate man. He told me he is for the two-state solution, with a Palestinian state on less than the ’67 lines, with East Jerusalem as the capital. I told him Segev’s argument. He shook his head and said:
"When we got to the airport at Reagan [on a visit to American congressmen last fall that apparently achieved nothing], we were a small delegation, they asked my friend for his passport. It is Palestinian. The police looked it up in his book. He could not find the state of Palestine. He asked my friend, ‘Excuse me, where are you from?’ ‘I am from Palestine.’ ‘I can’t find in my book, I need to register. Maybe you are Jordanian?’ He said, ‘No, I’m Palestinian.’ The police, again he said, ‘But I cannot find the Palestinian state. Maybe you are from Israel?’ He said, ‘No, the Israelis occupied my territory.’ The police said, ‘Well just tell me which is your favorite for me to register in the file, Israel, or unknown. My friend said, ‘Unknown.’"
Ghawe went on, "A state means limits [borders], rights, dignity, flags, passport."
I said, "But what if you could have all that, as part of the state of Jordan?"
"I’m not Jordanian. I’m Palestinian."
"How many Palestinians feel that way?"
"100 percent feel the same way."
Ghawe’s strong sense of national identity reminded me that Shlomo Sand has said that Zionism helped to create two peoples, the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. There may have been a time when I would accept New York being part of Canada, but that time is now past.
Maybe the New York Review of Books should stop trying to explain the situation to American readers by hiring Israelis.
