Failing to Make the Connection - Haaretz

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 11:28:21 PDT
>Reply-To: Discussions on the Socialist Register and its articles
><SOCIALIST-REGISTER at YorkU.CA>
>Sender: Discussions on the Socialist Register and its articles
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>From: shniad at SFU.CA
>Subject: Failing to make the connection - Haaretz
>
>Haaretz Wednesday, August 29, 2001
>
>Failing to make the connection
>
>By Amira Hass
>
>At one of the hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints the IDF has across the
>West Bank, a soldier stopped the car of A.T. Inside the car was also A.T's
>10-year-old son, who stared at the uniformed soldier approaching the car.
>The soldier's rifle was half-slung, half-aimed. "You want peace? You want
>peace?" the soldier asked, surprising A.T., a member of the People's Party,
>formerly known as the Palestinian Communist Party. When it was still very
>unpopular, his party supported a two-state solution of a Palestinian state
>alongside Israel.
>
>"Yes," A.T. answered. "Of course I want peace."
>
>He didn't get to explain what he meant by peace when the soldier interrupted
>him. "So why does your son look at me with such hatred?"
>
>The soldier is one of the people, and like the people, he doesn't see any
>connection between the fact that he is in the territories as an occupation
>soldier and his side has unlimited power to determine every facet of life in
>the lives of the occupied people - and the "hatred" toward him.
>
>Like most of his people, he sees no connection between the expropriation of
>Palestinian land for expanding settlements for Jews only and the ban on
>Palestinian construction on their lands or even to install a water pipe,
>because it's in Area C, meaning under Israeli security and civil command -
>and the stone throwing at Israeli cars. He sees no connection between the
>green lawns of the settlements when there's not enough water to drink in
>Palestinian villages and refugee camps next door - and the Palestinian
>gunfire at settlements and Israeli civilians driving on roads that are
>forbidden to Palestinian drivers.
>
>Like most Israelis, he's convinced there's no difference between a suicide
>mission and terrorist attacks in Jerusalem - and Palestinian attacks on
>soldiers and settlers. Therefore he can't find any connection between the
>hundreds of Palestinian civilians who were killed by IDF fire in the last
>year and the widespread popular support for the terror attacks inside
>Israel. He also apparently can't see that an assassination of Palestinian
>leaders is not only a successful military operation but a proven recipe for
>encouraging more Palestinians to choose the armed struggle. He's convinced
>that he and his friends are only defending themselves from people who
>"simply hate" him and all the Jews.
>
>At another checkpoint, a soldier stopped K.D., a top Fatah officer. His
>5-year-old son was beside him, on the soldier's side of the car. K.D. gave
>his ID card to his son and guided him to say, in Hebrew, "good evening." The
>child practices a few times, and when the soldier peers into the car, he
>hears "Good evening" from the boy. "A great evening," says the surprised
>soldier with a big smile, and doesn't even check the ID card.
>
>K.D. is in favor of continuing the intifada. He doesn't see a "reason" for
>the Palestinian gunfire to draw IDF fire. He won't advise his armed
>associates to stop shooting Israelis - soldiers and settlers. The settlement
>close to where he lives is built on his village's land and on land taken
>from his family. But he also spent a lot of years in Israeli prisons. That's
>where he learned about Israeli society and to understand it's not
>one-dimensional - and won't go away. He's known Israelis who tortured him
>and he's known prison guards who told him about longing for their girl
>friend. He learned Hebrew in prison, and through Hebrew, learned about
>Israeli culture.
>
>He's not alone. His generation, the 30- to 50-year-olds, were in their youth
>active opponents of the Israeli occupation, were jailed for years, worked in
>Israel and traveled through the country. They are now the backbone of the
>PLO and the solution it has been trying to advance for the last several
>years: a two-state solution with a Palestinian state in the West Bank and
>Gaza.
>
>K.D. is neither a sycophant nor a hypocrite, teaching his son to say "Good
>evening" in Hebrew to the soldier. He opposes the occupation, supports
>active resistance against it, but at the same time he is capable of
>perceiving the man inside the uniform. And he's frustrated that his son will
>also grow up under Israeli occupation, in the shadow of the tanks, the
>shooting, the shelling and the daily deaths.
>
>K.D.'s generation is still the dominant one - but not for long. Palestinian
>society is young, and a new generation of Palestinians who only know the
>soldiers and settlers, is growing up, telling the older generation that the
>solution they propose for independence, has not proved itself and new ways
>should be sought, where death is no deterrent because life has become so
>insufferable.
>
>At another checkpoint, at one in the morning, a few hours after the shooting
>on the Modi'in-Pisgat Ze'ev highway on Saturday, a soldier rubs his hands
>and asks "Why don't you journalists do something already to end it? I'm fed
>up. I want to go home."