Green Bay — “Be careful!” “Don’t ride on a bus; there are suicide bombers!” “Don’t rent a car; they drive like maniacs.”
This is just some of the friendly advice I received before leaving on an emergency trip to Israel earlier this year to see a critically ill friend. After an eight-year absence, I returned to the country where my parents had married, and where I have life-long emotional ties.
What I discovered is that Israel today is a vital land in a constant state of alert. Medical scientists win international recognition in the morning. In the afternoon they rush to emergency rooms to save Israeli victims of terrorist attacks and Arab victims of Israeli bullets.
Life seems normal when it is abnormal: Young children and the elderly have cell phones, with strict instructions to make contact in case of an emergency. Bags are searched everywhere, but strangely enough, not on buses.
Families celebrate and mourn. They plan for the future and chafe under the poor economic conditions that frustrate those plans. Women give birth and then send their sons and daughters to war. Israelis educate their children and pray that the school bus will return safely. Through it all, they live full lives — because they have no choice.
I arrived at the Ben Gurion Airport on a rainy evening, only to discover that my friend, Talma, had died that morning. En route to Talma’s home, I questioned my cab driver about the recent elections in Israel, in which Ariel Sharon had again been elected prime minister.
“There is no one else. We don’t have any other leader who has the respect of all the people,” he said, resigned to a long siege of attacks and retaliations.
At every opportunity I asked the same question. From most cabbies (and I rode many during my ten-day stay) I heard the same hard line: “Until terrorism stops, Israel should not pull out of the territories or condone a Palestinian state.”
“Everyone knows that the Palestinians will not be satisfied with just a state on the West Bank,” one man insisted. “Their maps show a Palestine that completely obliterates the State of Israel. Why should we leave the territories if we can’t trust them?”
My friends are a varied group — Americans who made aliyah, native Israelis, South African and Russian immigrants. Some take the peace position: Withdraw from the territories and let the Palestinians have a state. Others want to see a physical wall built. Still others strongly support Sharon’s approach, and feel that it offers them the greatest chance for security.
‘ Peaceful divorce’
How does one discuss hatred, dashed hopes and fears, not to mention grief for a beloved friend, while strolling the beautiful shore of the Mediterranean in Tel Aviv, eating a falafel in Hadera or visiting an art gallery in the ancient Arab village of Abu Ghosh?
But I did, at the same time talking about the depressed economy, children’s wedding plans and the tragic death of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon aboard the space shuttle Columbia. As one young woman explained, “Everything in Israel is political and everything matters.”
Relaxing in a friend’s house on a quiet, upscale street in Jerusalem, I jumped at the sound of several loud explosions. “It’s probably a robot blowing up an unidentified object,” was the unemotional explanation. That morning my friend’s mail delivery included a brochure on how to use gas masks and prepare for possible attack along with an ad for a vacation abroad and the usual household bills.
At a family reunion, I helped my cousin celebrate the birth of a grandchild. We also marked an Israeli rite of passage, her 18-year daughter Ruthie’s induction into the army. Before she left, Ruthie resisted removing the stud in her tongue (army orders) and passionately kissed her boyfriend good-bye.
Israelis are passionate about everything — from the best candidate to the best place to eat. Again, everything matters.
My cousin, Sacha, who came to Israel from Russia at the age of ten, serves in an intelligence unit in Tel Aviv. On the night I stayed with her family in Hadera, she was out until 6 a.m. dancing.
“That’s what we do when we know we’ll have the next day off,” she explained, smiling, when she woke up. Later, her grandmother took me on a bus to the center of town. She showed me the monument erected in memory of the people who had been blown up on that street by suicide terrorists a year ago, two years ago, ten years ago.
I felt nervous. There hadn’t been a terrorist attack for several weeks. Would they strike in the same place again? She waited with me while I caught a bus to Tel Aviv. Yes, I took the risk. More than once.
My 87-year-old cousin, Moshe, who came as a small child to Palestine under the British Mandate, shared his intense disappointment for his country.
“Our dreams of a place where we could live in peace have never been achieved,” he said sorrowfully.
My final conversations with friends were illuminating. When I asked about the imminent war against Iraq, most were realistic as they prepared their shelters: “Israel can hold its own against Saddam Hussein.” They have no love for Hussein and did not voice as much opposition to the war as I had expected. None of my friends plans to leave the country.
An unexpected encounter on my return flight — I sat next to a Palestinian professor born and raised in Jerusalem who team-teaches a course on the Middle East with a Jewish Israeli professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
We had a candid conversation after he showed me the mud on his shoes from crossing checkpoints for 24 hours to get to the airport.
I strongly criticized Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat for not accepting former Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s peace offer and also the Palestinians for teaching their children hatred. He denied that hatred is taught and saw Sharon as an obstacle. He insisted, however, that there could be a solution.
“But the longer it is delayed,” he cautioned, “the more difficult it becomes to curb the hatred of the youth, much less the adult survivors. If only your President Bush would take a more active interest in achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace, I think it could be accomplished.”
I cannot predict the future, but I do think that if the Israelis felt they could trust the Palestinians not to continue to terrorize them, and if the Palestinians had a viable state, an uncomfortable co-existence could develop.
An Israeli tour guide who drives a cab because there are no tourists said it most succinctly: “We’re not looking for a good marriage with the Palestinians. Just give us a peaceful divorce.”
Chicago native Leah Broyde Abrahams has been a resident of Green Bay for more than 30 years and is currently president of Congregation Cnesses Israel there. She studied in Israel in the 1960s and has visited there several times.
Loading ...