A Steak Dinner Called Peace

29 October 2000

I'm not a war correspondent, and thank God for that. I wouldn't want to be one, but I've felt in the last month how easy it might be for someone to slip into the role in a crisis like this. I see firsthand how war reporters and journalists turn into bitter, pessimistic, alcoholic, smoke-aholic, work-aholic cynics. I have to fight to keep myself out of it. At the same, time, I can't close my eyes to it all and pretend I'm in Tahiti. 

The death toll has reached the ballpark figure of 150 Palestinians and 7 Israelis (5 soldiers, 2 settlers). In the last few days, Israeli tanks have fired shells into apartment complexes in nearby Ramallah. The IDF captured one of the Palestinians responsible for the killing of the 2 undercover soldiers in Ramallah 2 weeks ago - the one from the famous picture with the bloody hands. Yesterday the Israeli news agency as well as Israeli human rights groups reported that the suspect was tortured for more than six hours after his apprehension. Clashes continue all over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including the exchange of live fire between Palestinian police and one of the world's most advanced militaries. A recent hotspot has developed between the largely Palestinian Christian village of Beit Jala and the Jewish Settlement of Gilo (the western press, I've noticed, often refers to Gilo as a "suburb" of Jerusalem but its proximity to the holy city does not change the fact that it is a settlement built on illegally confiscated land in the West Bank). Recently a member of the militant party Islamic Jihad tried to suicide bomb an Israeli military post while riding a bike laden with explosives. He managed to kill only himself, but these kinds of incidents kindle bitter and horrific memories of such travesties in the past. 

The conservative Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday that the Palestinian Authority is purposely shooting at Israelis from Christian enclaves in an effort to coerce the Arab Christians into leaving Palestine. This conspiracy theory, however, has no legitimacy on the ground level - which is the soul of the uprising. This conflict has plenty of religious implications and facets, but I have yet to find sufficient grass-roots proof that Palestinian Muslims and Christians are at all divided about the current "throwing off" (the literal translation of intifada) of the occupational force and the failed peace process. 

Leaders on all sides continue to play political games of chess, using innocent lives as pawns. Arafat tells his opponents to "Go to..." some very hot place! What kind of diplomacy is this, I ask myself? And Barak presses the magic pause button on peace. Does life have a pause button? I've been dreaming of one all my life, but I've not found it. Time-outs are for football games, not for peace processes. So Barak and Arafat want and end to the violence. Bill Clinton wants his legacy. The leaders of the Arab world want unified support of Palestine but also want Western guns and butter for their own regimes. Me? I want a steak dinner, but I'm not going to get one in Palestine by whining about how nice it would be if I had one. And top-level intransigence disguised with diplomatic window-dressing about this wonderful thing called "peace" won't stop the violence anymore than wishful thinking will net me a corn-fed Texas filet mignon.

Clashes between Jewish settlers and Palestinians constitute the worst and most sickening confrontations of the conflict. And the occupying Israeli army often has to play the role of the teacher in separating the schoolyard bullies. Everything you may have read about what happened to those two Israeli soldiers brutalized in Ramallah has been equally done to at least 3 Palestinian civilians by settlers, and in one case to a settler by a gang of Palestinians. It's a terrible fact to realize that armed Palestinians and Jewish settlers make up tiny percentages of their respective populations, yet it seems that too many Palestinians believe settlers are perpetrating the secret desires of all Israelis with their atrocities, and that the settlers believe that any Palestinian olive picker they pass is representative of those that wish them dead. If I were a work-aholic war correspondent, I'd go into gory detail. If I wanted you to worry about me more than you already do, I'd tell you about my proximity to some of the violence. I will do neither of the two while this "war" continues. 

I really hate violence - more-so on principle than the fact that it threatens the place I currently call home. Why do Palestinians turn to violence? Because it worked before? Because they know nothing else? Why?? Are the Palestinians an educated people, you ask? They are, in fact, perhaps the most broadly educated people in the Arab World, if not the entire third world of planet Earth – certainly in terms of literacy rates, economic and political issues, and global awareness. But education for a Palestinian is very diverse; it goes well beyond the university classroom. After all, can you name a single soul who derives more knowledge from a book or a lecture than from his everyday experience? Palestinians, for all their gains, are still denizens of an occupied land. And environment is a demanding and inescapable educationalist. 

Do they want violence? No. That is not the end. The end is "hurriyya" (freedom). Violence is the means. Attaining world sympathy is the means. Almost every Palestinian would like the land that is the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including East Jerusalem, to be a state without a Jewish presence (i.e. no Israeli soldiers, and no Jewish settlers). The first might happen, the latter certainly will not. But do most Palestinians seek to rid the region that was mandate Palestine (i.e. from the Jordan River to the Med Sea) of Jews? Certainly not. Not even student members of Hamas Political Party can honestly say this. Clarifying what Palestine is, then we can say that indeed they want to rid the land of an Israeli presence. 'Extermination' is a very strong word and I've not heard it or its synonym from a Palestinian yet (not to argue that the opinion is totally dead).

So what's a Palestinian to do? All out guerilla war junta-style? I'm happy to report that no one of significant position or intelligence wants this. There have been too many gains, albeit relatively unproductive ones, to throw away all the sympathy and positive attention and with them the futures of the children of Palestine. 

Where's Gandhi when you need him? Or King? Can non-violent resistance work in Palestine? I've tried to have this discussion with Palestinians and international students as often as possible. In practice, given the nature and history of the conflict, bitter mutual animosity stemming from repeated malevolent confrontation, the input of political conservative religion, the indefatigable system of government by the elite and powerful, it seems unlikely that a spontaneous conglomerate of Palestinians will march down to Al-Bireh or Netzarim with candles and sing songs to the TV cameras and the IDF troops (tanks, snipers, etc). Non-violent resistance, while often stemming from religious tenets, nevertheless requires a broad social acceptance and above all a charismatic leader from within the masses. Even if someone could arise from within the Palestinian community to convince the citizens of this oppressed land to throw falafil balls or pistachios instead of rocks, he or she would be struck down by the archaic tribal infrastructure of Palestine if not first by an Israeli sniper's bullet.

So the Palestinians will continue to throw those "deadly" stones at the living symbols of occupation. This violence shouldn't be the answer, but it is. Palestinians are not a problem to be coped with but a people, like all others, entitled to and deserving of basic civil and human rights. The Palestinian position in the peace process adheres to international law and human rights codes. Israel blatantly ignores this. Israel wants the merits of peace without losing the benefits of occupation. And in truth granting Palestinians their "hurriyya" won't change the fact that more than 50% of West Bank and Gazan residents will cross the Green Line everyday to build homes and roads, pick up garbage, and purchase commercial goods in Israel.

Who has a right to the land? We're way beyond that. Every citizen has a right to his land, although clearly it cannot be just one bi-national state. And it certainly cannot be one nation of people occupying another. Until the diplomats and policy-makers venture out and take a look at the common ground on which they stand, the people beneath them will continue to dictate the course of fate in this land. For two months I’ve endured life in this state-less nation, and it has affected me impressively. Thirty three years under such conditions might turn me into a completely frustrated stone-thrower. I'd like to believe otherwise, but I can't think of another way to get my steak dinner.