A few days ago I read in the French newspaper "Le Monde" (22.12.2009) about a group of 16 NGOs (some of them well known, such as the UN, Oxfam, Amnesty International, etc.) claiming that "the international community had "betrayed" Gaza's inhabitants". The article includes a list of complaints, about which I had heard from someone working in one of those organizations, stating, among other things, that Israel was not allowing construction materials to be imported into Gaza. The articled described also the toll of this blockade on the citizens of Gaza - 40% of the active population being jobless, daily electricity cuts, tap water not being suitable for drinking, and more.
What I would like to discuss here is not the political decisions taken here in the Middle East, but the way Israelis relate to the situation and live with it. Most Israeli citizens sense they have no impact on the decision making in this area, and yet they have to live day by day with their consequences - something very hard to imagine for someone in Europe or anywhere else in the world.
As I was reading this article, I happened to receive a phone call from a friend; I immediately decided to share the news with him and gave him a simultaneous translation of this article. The man I was talking to, let's call him Chaim, is a very well informed person reading newspapers on a daily basis, including a news portal providing unpublished news. He had not heard about this claim until now. Haim's response was sarcastic: "Does the article also mention who is responsible for this deadlock?". I answered: "Sure, Israel is being blamed for this, that is, Israeli is being held responsible." Chaim sighed and said: "O, yes, sure, we are to be blamed for everything and that happens to the Palestinians! Why would they mention how Hamas is treating its citizens? Why would the Europeans bother to find out who is the real culprit! I guess we are expected to bow down and allow those Hamas people to keep shooting at us without responding. I believe that deep inside, they all wish us dead and would be happy to have the Hamas do the job for them".
This is one of the more typical responses I keep encountering ever since I have been living in Israel - for some 30 years. Many Israelis live with a feeling that presenting our version of the facts is a lost cause and that trying to explain the situation is a pure waste of time, as only those who already identify with Israel will listen and that all the rest won't listen anyway - a quite depressing point of view, yet rather common among the older generations.
Recently, during a recent visit in Germany, a relative of mine asked me why the Israeli self presentation in the world press is doing so badly, to an extent that he could not understand. I guess that one of the reasons for this is this very feeling of "nobody in the world (except most of the Jews) loves us, they actually wouldn't mind seeing us wiped off the map". It certainly is not the only reason, but it's a very powerful one.
Nevertheless, not all Israelis feel like this. Among the younger generations; one often finds the opposite point of view: many believe that in fact, Israel could live in peace with its Arab neighbors if only the Israeli decision makers were able to let go of their deep anxieties and their persecution complexes (and it certainly is not a pure coincidence that there are hundreds of alternative practitioners in this small country!).
Quite a lot of Israelis actually have a sense of profound admiration for Arabs: in the late seventies, when I came to Israel, it was very fashionable for women to wear long traditional Palestinian women dresses embroidered with cross stitches (such as those that can be seen at: http://www.tatreez.net/dresses.htm); people's homes in Jerusalem were filled with local traditionally embroidered pillows. Up till now, lots of people are very fond of buying olive oil of Palestinian origin, because it feels "genuine". Many Israelis have an "Arab friend", either from the Palestinian Authority territories, or Arab Israeli citizens. Many Israelis genuinely wish they could live in peace with its neighbors, they would love to travel in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen or Saudi Arabia - and they do travel in Jordan (see: http://www.yoeloren.com/index.htm), Egypt (see: http://www.desertecotours.com/English/index.asp) and Morocco, but less and less, due to security issues.
Some Israelis are active in local NGOs, trying very hard to improve life conditions for the Palestinian population, sometimes to the extent of over-identifying with the suffering of our neighbors. A few years ago I volunteered, for a few months, for "Windows for Peace", a grass-root organization founded by an Israeli woman, attempting to publish an Arab-Israeli youth magazine and providing workshops to help school children express their feelings about the conflict (see: http://www.win-peace.org/). Yet another organization I got acquainted with is "Women in black" (see: http://coalitionofwomen.org/home/english/organizations/women_in_black). There are many more. In my eyes, these organizations are an expression of the Israelis' deep wish to live in peace with the Arab population and to embrace them.
Until such an overall peace settlement with our neighbors shall come into existence, there are several places of sanity where both Arab and Jewish Israelis can meet in peace, as "cafe Yafa" (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_n83-R21dA and also http://www.nif.org/issue-areas/stories/coffee-and-books-arouse-a.html) - a cafe opened by an Arab Israeli, Michel El Rahab from Ramle, and Jewish Israeli, Dina Lee from Jaffa. In the meantime, the two partners split off, Michel stayed at Cafe Yafa and Dina Lee just recently (on 19.12.09) opened a new place named "Dina" - as it seems, the peaceful cooperation didn't last and came to an end after 6 years. Now we have two meeting places in Jaffa!...
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