By Stephanie Ramage
I do not support some of Israel’s recent measures in Gaza. Limiting food and medical aid to a window of a few hours each day and striking civilian areas, intentionally or not, only empowers Hamas.
But I refuse to take up the now-fashionable anti-Israel chant because I truly want peace for the Israelis and Palestinians, and there is a tremendous difference between wanting peace and wanting to
look like someone who wants peace.
Those who want to
look like peacemakers participate in protests against Israel and write opinion pieces that increase Israel’s feeling of isolation and alienation. Because these marchers and editorialists, many of them American Jews, are largely ignorant of how their actions are used by Israel’s right wing, they believe that they will be able to shame Israel into peace. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Israel’s religious right-wingers essentially believe that a righteous Israel is an isolated Israel. So, when the world turns against Israel, they are vindicated.
If they could be discounted as merely a minority, that wouldn’t matter, but Israel’s right wing is the key to peace, especially with Benjamin Netanyahu poised to return as prime minister. As peace negotiator Dennis Ross describes in his book, “The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace,” in times of great strife, Israel gravitates to the right. The right, which includes secular hawks, has a tremendous pull that far outweighs its numbers. When the rest of the world agitates against Israel, this group is energized and galvanized, and its influence swells. Conversely, the most militant segments of the Palestinian population are similarly affected. So those most likely to fan the flames of conflict benefit most from America’s so-called “peace marches” for Gaza.
Last week, a friend of mine who is a member of Israel’s right wing returned to her job in Atlanta after a visit to her homeland. She is not influenced by religious fundamentalism or any Zionist ideal; she is instead a secular Israeli who, like every Israeli, has lived her entire life in what amounts to a state of siege.
“Twenty minutes south of my house is the limit of how far the rockets from the south can reach. Twenty minutes north of my house is the limit of how far the rockets from the north can reach,” she says.
That’s a helluva way to describe where you live, and such descriptions are common in Israel. The Bush Administration, she says, has done little to alleviate the situation.
“For the past eight years, Hamas has launched about 20,000 rockets into Israel,” she says. “People can say they are only little rockets, but they can kill people.”
She adds, “The whole world keeps talking about how the Israelis are killing Palestinian schoolchildren and how none of the Israeli children are being killed. They don’t seem to know that school has ceased to function in Israel. In a time of war, we take our children out of school, so even if the schools are hit, the children aren’t killed. The Palestinians, on the other hand, use their schools for cover. Why would anyone send their children to school in these conditions?”
We have known each other for a couple of years, but we’ve never had a lengthy conversation about Israel and the Palestinians before because I tend to change the subject. She doesn’t feel as much compassion as I do for the Palestinians. I can see, as our conversation continues, that my shutting down communication on the topic was a mistake. Israelis on the right desperately need to be heard; they have valid points to make.
For example, as she reminds me, Israel’s taxpayers still provide electricity for Gaza’s Palestinians free of charge.
“If Hamas intended to be a real government, to be a real autonomous state, then why haven’t they used the many billions of dollars the Americans and Europeans have sent them to build their own electrical plant? To build hospitals? To do the things that real governments do?”
In her voice, her sense of betrayal by the Palestinians is clear. There are tears behind her words when she says with bitter weariness, “They voted for Hamas. Sixty-two percent of their population wanted the terrorists, they voted for the party that publicly stated that it seeks the destruction of Israel. They wanted people who want me dead. I cannot feel compassion for people who want to kill my family and my people.”
No one in Israel has forgotten the graphic images of right-wing settlers being forced out of their homes by their own country’s soldiers in 2005 in order for Israel to comply with its agreement with the Palestinians. Israel proved in that long, traumatic summer what it is willing to do for peace. Israel has kept its peace agreement with Jordan for a decade, and its peace agreement with Egypt for 30 years. Israel has proven that it is capable of peace. Hamas has not. Hamas, in fact, in its leaders’ broadcasts from their plush accommodations in neighboring Syria, has continued demanding the destruction of Israel.
The Israelis’ overt short-term demands are fairly simple. They want the smugglers’ tunnels from Egypt closed. They want the rocket attacks to stop. Setting aside Hamas’ absurd desire for Israel's “extermination,” the Palestinians, rightfully, want statehood. They, rightfully, want Israel’s barrier walls (and concommitant blockade) to come down. None of this will be achieved as long as Americans and Europeans are protesting against Israel and, de facto, in support of Hamas. Why?
Consider merely the issue of the tunnels. The nation best positioned to close them is Egypt. But with the world supporting Hamas and demonizing Israel, Egypt won’t do it for fear of alienating other Arab nations and drawing the ire of liberal politicians in the West. (And yet, the Arab world itself doesn’t support Hamas, which is why the 22 Arab countries have so far failed to gather a quorum for a proposed summit on Gaza.)
It is easy to
look like a peacemaker these days. One only need shout slogans about the “Palestinian genocide” and spew garbage about Israel’s “Nazi” government. It’s much harder to
be a peacemaker, because that entails compassion for Israel’s battle-weary, secretly terrified people. It means listening to them and acknowledging that sometimes the people with jobs and a functioning government aren’t the root of the problem.
SP
Stephanie Ramage is news editor of The Sunday Paper.