Gaza Pullout
Although it is too early to be able to assess the full implications of the Gaza pullout, and many issues are still unresolved, such as border crossing and what form the Palestinian response to what has just happened will take, now that the evacuation is done it is possible to think realistically about a post-settler Gaza. While reading last week's edition of The Economist I saw some interesting maps in the feature article, Goodbye to Gaza which was written before the pullout. The maps show the settlements that lay beyond the 1967 borders, and divides them into four categories based on what types of settlers they are occupied by. The categories are: mainly economic/secularly motivated, moderate religious, Haredi, and extremist religious. Many of the settlers want what everyone wants: simply a better, more peaceful life.
Gaza
Mainly economic/secular: 5
Moderate: 13
Haredi: 0
Extremist: 0
West Bank
Mainly economic/secular: 40
Moderate: 65
Haredi: 2
Extremist: 5
What I see here is something that does not surprise me, but is very interesting. Many Israeli settlers chose to live beyond the borders for economic and quality of life reasons. Many are disenchanted by Israeli society and wish to make something better, safer for their children, or simply more spacious in Palestinian lands. I do not see the acceptance of this task to be at all unjust or unreasonable, but would rather view it as the flip-side of the trend of many Palestinians stating that they want Israeli citizenship (I saw this in a poll in Ha'aretz months ago). While I believe that many of the settlements were built on land acquired by unjust or unfair means, I agree with the underlying aims of the secular and moderate settlers.
It is a tragedy that states, national/religious politics and wars have forestalled the development of both the Palestinians and the Israelis. Not only are Israelis and Palestinians joined at the hip by geography, environment and economy, but they share many of the same cultural concerns and have much to offer to one another. This is something that Martin Buber recognized years ago: that Zionism includes the "de-Europeanization" of Ashkenazim and the "modernization" of the Palestinians. Many Israelis, and particularly the settlers, desire to live more land-based Middle Eastern lives, and many Palestinians desire the best modernity has to offer, democracy, education, recreation and entertainment. By no means should each side abandon its own particulars all together and adopt those of the other, but by reaching a middle ground both cultures will no longer stand on one leg and both will be fully Middle Eastern and fully modern.
This is the tragedy that must be escaped: each has what the other wants and neither are trusting enough to share. Once the two peoples allow for cultural exchange we may be able to build some trust, paving the way for greater material and economic exchange, eventually leading to a binational renaissance and a sharing of the land. Only then will Israelis be able to walk beyond the green-line with full integrity and Palestinians be able to share in modern intellectual society with neither shame nor alienation.
posted by Isaac at 26.9.05
7 Comments:
You wrote, “each has what the other wants and neither are trusting enough to share. Once the two peoples allow for cultural exchange we may be able to build some trust, paving the way for greater material and economic exchange, eventually leading to a binational renaissance and a sharing of the land. Only then will Israelis be able to walk beyond the green-line with full integrity and Palestinians be able to share in modern intellectual society with neither shame nor avarice.”
Are you a speechwriter? You should offer your services to the next leader of Israel’s Labour party. I can see this quote in one of their TV ads. It could be a great career change. Good luck.
And for the record, I echo your sentiments.
Keep up the good work. Happy to be your visitor from Downunder.
1:03 AM
Thanks. (and the only speeches I've written have been my own). Thanks for the comment. It's nice to learn about other blogs this way.
8:54 AM
I just stumbled across your blog and liked what I found, you write very well. Thanks for the plesant reading.
11:35 AM
Thank you.
On a side-note I wanted to clarify that when I said that "only then will... Palestinians be able to share in modern intellectual society with neither shame nor avarice" I did not mean to say that Palestinians should abandon their culture, but that they would no longer have to pick between apologizing for Hamas-like groups and defending them. I suppose that much of the same would be true of the Israelis. So I guess both statements apply to both groups about equally.
4:49 PM
isaac! change my link NOWWWWWZZZ!
also you continue to roxorz my soxorz
10:00 PM
Nice post.
My main concern is about detachment from the situation... being in that comfortable place that us lucky first-worlders so often find ouselves, with a utopian ideal that is utterly divorced from both the Israeli and Palestinian realities.
That's something I'm very guilty of when making calls on the situation from a place like Aotearoa/New Zealand having already spent 8 months away from Israel - being too comfortable and disconnected from those people.
I guess the lucky thing we NZ Jews have in our little three island paradise is no barrier, legal or physical between us and NZ Palestinians or Arabs - the possibility for a grassroots coexistence movement is much more fertile in a different way when we live so far from the conflict.
5:42 AM
I think it is legitimate for us to claim Israel as ours when they claim to represent us as "the Jewish state." Additionally, our distance may give us perspective.
Even Israeli Likudniks have to acknowledge our points of view because they hope we'll make aliyah.
Somehow I feel more closely linked to Jews and to Israel than I do to the USA (I know many American Jews don't want me to say this). I feel that I have a "side" in the conflict for which I am responsible to criticize.
I try to criticize the USA too, seeing as it is "my country." However, I actually feel somewhat more an interloper talking to many in my own country about American politics than to Jews about Israeli politics. My political values seem so to have virtually no relation to the mainstream political culture of either group, but American political culture seems more ossified, and I am unable to create a personal take on USA politics like I can on Israeli and Jewish politics. In short, I can oppose the war in Iraq but can't say anything everyone hasn't heard before because I feel more distant from America even though it's supposed to be mine.
9:49 PM
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