On Thursday I was on a train platform headed for Manhattan when I saw a friend of mine ahead of me, a silverhaired woman I had had dinner with back in January, before she went out to Israel. I called out to her and asked her how her trip had been. Oh, we really have to have you over to dinner, she said.
You see, she had asked me over to dinner before her trip, to get my insights. She and her husband were going out with a college tour group, her alma mater. They served roasted chicken and red wine, and I sang for my supper. I explained why the situation is unsustainable– that nearly half the population between the river and the sea have no rights. And have had no rights for many years. The Arab Spring has changed young people’s view of their future. But what about Palestinians rejecting every deal and responding with terror? the husband had asked me over the bread pudding.
Imagine if immigrants took over our town and forced us out of our homes and wanted to impose a government on us, I said. Well I would be up in the hills with a gun, and so would my friends. He had nodded, accepting the point.
But now she had gone and come back, and we stood on the train platform.
It was really astonishing, she said. We saw many of the universities. Ben Gurion University was especially impressive.
In the desert, I said.
Yes. In the desert. But the buildings are amazing. There is innovation written all over them, literally and figuratively.
It was not a political trip, I said.
Oh no. Cultural, educational. Have you been to Haifa University?
No, I said.
Well it is on this dramatic hillside over the sea and it goes up 30 stories. It is beautiful, you’re overlooking the sea and you can see Lebanon and Syria and all of Israel, and then you look down and there is IBM’s facility. It’s IBM’s second most important research facility in the world. And it’s there for a reason. Because innovation is such a central part of the culture there.
The train came and we sat in separate rows, I had to get to work, and I was downcast. I thought, we’re losing. They really are flooding the world with this propaganda about startup nation– the Brand Israel message the consul is selling on the Upper West Side— and it’s working on our elites. I thought back on my passionate description of the persecution in the occupied territories. But everything I said about human rights meant nothing in the end, up against the brand-name techno-wizardry (a lot of it funded by military aid).
“what about Palestinians rejecting every deal and responding with terror? the husband had asked me over the bread pudding……The train came and we sat in separate rows”
they are elitists, the colonizers. and they will always exist and the meek will inherit the earth.
“Have you been to Haifa University?
No, I said.”
No degree of political engagement can replace first-hand experience.
Well, to counterbalance, we held a Go and Learn session at a (yes, Reconstructionist, but still) synagogue last night that was attended by about 25 congregants, not a single one of whom expressed any Zionist hostility towards the BDS message we were delivering. The few critical responses were about strategy and effectiveness, not goals.
Maybe it was a self-selected bunch of lefties, I don’t know, but I felt it represented some kind of small progress.
The Brand Israel people aren’t stupid. Our society is taught to worship technology and confuse it with virtue. It sells stuff and keeps people quiet. Tap into that, and talk of human rights and human cost will go in one ear and out the other. Thirty stories and IBM? What’s not to like?
@Philip
You cannot expect much from her. It seems she just attended scientific facilities, so that is the same as not even living home in terms of seeing the truth.
In my country there is a saying in my country, Brazil, that goes like this “Começar a comer pelas pontas”(Beginning to eat something by its edges). That means when you have a difficult problem to solve, you start by its weak edges, in the same way when you are very hungry you star eating by the coolest places, the edges.
I think a better strategy would be not expect too much from your fellow Jews, but also start targeting Christian groups usually associated with Zionism since Israel cannot do their Hasbara as efficiently directly to them. Also, these groups are the ones who holds far more votes, so in the end, getting their support would be much more rewarding in the end.
And I think Mondoweiss is still lacking too and passive much in this regard. Christian groups are mostly referred here when they actively start a movement, like the Methodist with their support for BDS or the recent covering of the CBS covering of the Christian repression in West Bank. I do not see very frenquently Christians posting articles here, in Mondoweiss, about their struggle for the Palestinian civil rights, or their talks in churches .
What I see here, more frequently, instead, are Jews at Synagogues or other meetings trying to convince other Jews. But I do not feel this is the most appropriate strategy because the power, in reality, emanates from the Christian majority. There should be more talks to Christians.
And this should be actively seek here and not merely just wait for sporadic happenings.
Daniel de França