The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine (34 page)

1
  Also known as Beit Seit, or the House of Seth (a prominent prophet in the Muslim tradition and the third son of Adam and Eve according to Jewish tradition). Beshshit was a village of close to 20,000 between the towns Yibna and Isdud, today’s Yavne and Ashdod. It had a rich history that goes back to the twelfth century. The village was destroyed by the Givati Brigade in 1948. Its residents were deported, and most of them were exiled to the Gaza Strip, where they lived as refugees.

2
  Maya Rosenfeld, “The Centrality of the Prisoners’ Movement” in
Threat: Palestinian Political Prisoners in Israel
, ed. Abeer Baker and Anat Matar (London: Pluto Press, 2011), 11.

3
  In violation of international law, Palestinian prisoners are held in various prisons inside Israel, outside the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Rami and I have been arguing about politics since I was 12 years old. By the sound of our voices then and now, you’d think that our disagreements were unbridgeable, profound, and fundamental. But in reality we agree on almost everything and all of our arguments are of nuance. With one exception.

I came to the realization that establishing a secular, pluralistic democracy that includes all of Palestine/Israel was the best thing for Israelis and Palestinians and that the two-state solution was not a solution at all. My brother-in-law could not disagree more, and when this came up for the first time in the summer of 2007, he and I had yet another shouting match. It is not that we can’t speak without shouting; it is just that we can’t speak without shouting when we talk about the future of Israel and Palestine.

Rami is a graphic designer, and with his partner Jaki he owns and operates Studio Rami & Jaki in Jerusalem. I always loved sitting with Rami at his studio and
designing posters for my karate school, and Jaki, who is also a martial arts enthusiast, would join us from time to time and contribute his creative touches. Over the years we had done this many times, and my school in Coronado is filled with posters that they made for me. I typically go to the studio after it closes and Rami and I sit together for hours working on a poster. Then, when we are done, we go and get a bite to eat. It is truly one of my favorite things to do while I am in Jerusalem.

Rami and I discussing current affairs and enjoying each other’s company.

It was just such a day in the summer of 2007, and Rami and I had just spent hours working on yet another poster. After we were done we decided to try a trendy little restaurant in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem, one of many places that serve exotic salads and pasta dishes.

We had no intention to get into an argument, but it was inevitable. To begin with, we always, always talk about “the situation” when we are together. Both he and I think about it and talk about it and do everything we can to change it and it consumes a huge portion of our lives. This was always true, and it became even more so in the years after Smadar’s death. Rami’s point of view was always pessimistic, but after he became active with the Bereaved Families Forum and began meeting Palestinians, he developed a far more positive view of the world.

When I reached the conclusion that a state for Jews in a land where half of the population is not Jewish was not going to work, things changed drastically for me. I wrote an article titled “The Answers Have Changed” that appeared in the online publication “Electronic Intifada” in January 2007.
¹
I took the title from a story about Albert Einstein. According to this story, Einstein was on his way to give a particular exam to a class that had already taken the exact same exam. Alarmed at what he saw and thinking it to be the result of the professor’s absent-mindedness, an assistant warned Einstein of what he was about to do. The professor just smiled and said, “It’s all right, the answers have changed.”

My views on the best solution for Israel/Palestine changed largely as a result of my travels throughout the West Bank and having witnessed Israel’s immense investment in infrastructure to attract Jewish settlers and thereby exclude Palestinians—to whom the land belongs. It became clear to me that when Zionists talked about the two-state solution they were lying. I became convinced that universal freedom in a shared homeland was the best thing for both peoples. Zionists failed to demonstrate that when they are in power things go well, so my conclusion was that a real pluralistic democracy would benefit everyone.

Rami read the article and said he was saddened that I had lost hope. He was right in that I had lost hope in the Jewish state and in Zionism. But one might also say I became more hopeful, because I realized that Israelis and Palestinians could live together in their shared homeland. I had hope in our ability to live in peace as long as we all had an equal voice in determining our fate, as long as we were governed as equals.

“Rami,” I said, pressing my point, “you know as well as I that no Zionist government will ever allow a Palestinian state to be established in the land of Israel. No prime minister will ever let go of East Jerusalem and the Jordan River valley, which make up over a third of the West Bank. And since the large settlement blocks that take up large portions of the West Bank will not be returned, where exactly will there be a Palestinian state? We have to change the paradigm from a Zionist one that says Jews must have their own state to a paradigm that sees both Jews and Palestinians as equals living together in a state that is neither Jewish or Arab, and governed by an elected government that represents everyone.”

My brother-in-law was losing his patience by the minute. “You don’t understand anything! Can’t you see it will lead to civil war? It will be another Kosovo or Lebanon and the bloodshed will be unstoppable.”

But I couldn’t let it go. “Or Switzerland or Belgium. If you compare us to other multinational states, ours is not a very complicated issue. We are two nations who are actually very similar.”

The cultural similarities between Israelis and Palestinians are illustrated beautifully in an article written in Hebrew by Yael Lerrer, titled, “Is it Possible to Crack the Cultural Separation Wall?”
²
In the article, she describes a woman from outer space who lands somewhere in Israel.

This woman notices that close to half of the population are Palestinian Arabs and that Arabic is also the mother tongue of more than half of the Jews, or at least the parents of half of the Jews that live there as well… This visitor notices that most Israelis emerged from Arab culture and that Israel sits in the middle of the Arab world and is surrounded by Arab countries. Wanting to know more about the country and its culture, this visitor decides to visit the bookstores, where she expects to find books in Arabic and Hebrew, the languages of this country. In the first bookstore she finds books in Hebrew only, in the second she finds a few shelves in English as well and the third bookstore is a Russian bookstore. ‘There are no Arabs here,’ she is told, ‘here we do not speak Arabic, this is Tel Aviv.’ …The visitor is puzzled. ‘A city with no Arabs, with no Arabic, in the middle of an Arab country?’

“In the long run,” I told Rami, “the Zionist state is a disaster for Jews as well as it is for Palestinians. It completely undermined, not to say destroyed, Jewish culture and traditions, both European and Middle Eastern.”

My father’s generation looked at the old, European Jews with disdain. They were considered weak, and with their Yiddish language and culture they seemed pale and subservient by comparison. By eliminating the culture of the diaspora, and attempting to be different from the old European “diaspora Jews,” my father’s
generation thought they were doing everyone a favor. In fact, Zionist Israel all but destroyed the Yiddish culture.

Both my parents had a lot of respect for Arab Jews and the rich culture they brought with them when they immigrated to Israel. But in Israel that culture was viewed as inferior, and the Jews who came from Arab countries were called Sephardic or Oriental, rather than Arab Jews, and were forced to give up their identity and their culture for fear of being viewed as Arabs. Indeed, Israel’s campaign of ethnic cleansing has included destroying, mocking, or ignoring all Arab culture, including that of the Jewish Arabs.

Palestine has a rich Arab and Muslim history, yet hardly any of it is taught in schools in Israel. Very little Arab literature or poetry is translated into Hebrew or taught and the Arab and Muslim historical monuments that were not destroyed on purpose were left in disrepair and were ruined from neglect. There are examples of this in all of the older cities like Yafa and Ramle, Tiberias and Jerusalem, and pretty much everywhere. The word “Arab” is frequently attached to adjectives such as filthy, or is synonymous with stupid, useless, or lazy.

“You are out of your mind!” Rami shot back.

On his Facebook page Rami insists, “I am a Zionist.” He likes to see himself as a Zionist even though he clearly abhors what Zionists have done to Palestinians. Few people have such regard for Palestinians as he does and few have developed true, deep friendships that cross the divide as he has. Yet he is determined that we must not give up.

“Don’t you see that your naïve plan would never work?” He said this loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear. “Separation is the only solution! It is like a divorce that has to take place or the couple will kill one another. And in the meantime we have to struggle, we need to convince people in Israel and overseas to bring about change within the framework of two states. What you are suggesting is totally crazy and unrealistic. The two-state is the only solution that has the smallest chance of working.”

By this time most of the people in the restaurant, as well as a few passersby, were looking at us. But we ignored them and Rami continued lecturing, as he did when I was still twelve years old.

“One day the Israeli government will be forced to negotiate in a fair manner and allow the Palestinians a state alongside Israel and the settlers will leave the settlements and return to their homes inside Israel.”

“But you know just as well as I that we are all settlers, and all of Israel is occupied Palestine. The West Bank is just a small part of the problem. What about the refugees? And what about the right of return? And what about the horrific negligence of the Palestinian communities who are part of Israel now and are Israeli citizens? How long do you think these issues can go on being ignored?”

That did not help my argument and I was clearly not making any progress. In all honesty Rami’s resistance surprised me. My arguments in favor of one
democratic state for all Israelis and Palestinians made so much sense to me. Plus, I no longer had emotional ties to Zionism—and there was certainly no rational argument that I could see against a single democracy—whereas Rami’s argument was guttural; it came from a deeply emotional place. “My father is an ‘Auschwitz graduate,’” he says in his lectures, reminding his listeners that his father survived the Auschwitz death camp and that for many Jewish people the wounds of the Holocaust have not yet healed.

“But Miko, can’t you see? A solution that calls for ultimate justice is doomed to fail! Both Jews and Palestinians deserve a state of their own, a flag of their own, and a national political identity of their own. And we have no right to deny them these things.”

“Yes, they deserve all of these things, but that ship has sailed. Our flag will not allow any other flag to be raised on this land, and you know this as well if not better than I.”

Rami’s point was that we’d better reserve our arguments and our struggle to achieve an “amicable separation” rather than to entertain crazy ideas of equality. I had heard Uri Avnery, the veteran journalist and peace activist whom I also greatly respect, make a similar argument: “Will they (Palestinians and Israelis) serve side by side in the same army, the same police force, will they pay the same taxes?”

After the argument subsided a little, Rami made a point that he has since repeated many times: “One or two or three states is not the issue.” Meaning: We have a long way to go before we convince people either way, so for the time being we should stick to more burning issues.

“I think it
is
the issue,” I said. “As long as Israel remains unchanged and the debate evolves around the creation of a Palestinian state in some undefined region, nothing will change. For years Israel has been saying that it is willing to give the Palestinians a few pieces of land on which they may establish some sort of mini state, and somehow, each time it falls apart. The actors know full well that this is an act. The Israeli settlements in the West Bank expand and the horrors of the ethnic cleansing campaign continue to terrorize the Palestinian people day in and day out.”

Israel has always insisted that it will determine the nature of the solution, and the Palestinians must be resigned to accept it or suffer the consequences of continued oppression. Israel will permit the Palestinians a level of independence that Israel will determine based on its own perception of Palestinian compliance with Israeli interests. The best Palestinians may expect is that Israel will at some point permit a limited autonomy on selected areas of historic Palestine—areas that will be selected by Israel itself. The notion that the two parties need to reach a solution as equal partners is inconceivable to the Zionist state.

The Israeli government always maintained that it has the right to determine who will represent the Palestinians as Israel’s negotiating partner, using “security” considerations as the ultimate test. Israel has systematically delegitimized any
Palestinian leader who was unwilling to accept Israel’s “right” to total domination of the land and the discourse. This is the primary reason why so many Palestinian leaders have been imprisoned, exiled, or assassinated, and it is the reason Yasser Arafat spent his final days surrounded by Israeli tanks: refusal to accept Israeli superiority and the exclusivity of the Israeli narrative.