Although it’s difficult at an emotional time like this to study the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it’s important. Some valuable work has been done by the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East . One can download and read workbooks they have produced which present (side by side) the Palestinian and Israeli narratives and invite the reader to make his/her own observations.
Showing posts with label palestine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label palestine. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Israeli and Palestinian narratives
Although it’s difficult at an emotional time like this to study the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it’s important. Some valuable work has been done by the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East . One can download and read workbooks they have produced which present (side by side) the Palestinian and Israeli narratives and invite the reader to make his/her own observations.
Although it’s difficult at an emotional time like this to study the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it’s important. Some valuable work has been done by the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East . One can download and read workbooks they have produced which present (side by side) the Palestinian and Israeli narratives and invite the reader to make his/her own observations.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
State of Israel = State of War
Although I have lived in Israel for 35 years now and participated (passively) in 4 wars and 2 Intifadas, the penny has only now dropped for me that Israel is actually is a permanent state of war with only rest periods in between. This is amusingly (and terribly) illustrated by Doron Rosenblum's column in last Friday's weekend magazine of the Ha'aretz newspaper .
The wars and periods of unrest that I can remember:
- 1967 - the 6 Day War , the glorious defeat of the Arab Goliath by Israel's David. Some of us now realise that that the colonisation of millions more Palestinians as the result of Israel's conquests in that war was the start of Israel's moral decline.
- 1970- 1972 War of Attrition (along the Suez Canal). A cousin of mine was killed in this war
- 1973 - Yom Kippur War. Israel won on points but the Arabs , especially the Egyptians consider this war a glorious victory for themselves
- 1982-1985 The 1st Lebanon War. Then Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon (later Prime Minister and now in a coma) thought he could change the regime in Lebanon. He was wrong. 500 Israeli soldiers and countless Lebanese and Palestinians paid with their lives
- 1987-1992 The first Intifada - popular uprising by the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories against Israeli occupation. The Jewish Israelis were genuinely surprised at this uprising "But we gave them new roads, clinics and jobs"
- 1991 The Gulf War - Israel was a passive participant , being on the receiving end of Scud missiles from Saddam Hussein's Iraq
- 2000 - 2005 The second Intifada -a second Palestinian uprising characterized by far greater use of arms and terror attacks (mostly suicide bombings) against Israeli civilians
- 2006 The second Lebanon War , against the Hezbollah. Inconclusive.Over 1000 Lebanese killed, 300 Israelis killed (soldiers and civilians)
Why has the penny dropped only now?
- A newspaper article after the first week of the current Gaza war included a melancholy note by the writer that he just realised that our wars are like the Thirty Years' War or the Hundred Years' War that we read about in the history books.
- The last war (the 2nd Lebanon War in 2006) was the first one I felt directly and which got to me real bad. I live in Haifa in northern Israel and for 33 days we were under a constant barrage of missile attacks. For a nice Jewish boy from London to feel the fear of death when the air-raid siren goes off is a profound shock.
- Only two and a half years have passed since the last war
- Especially after the "glory" of Israel's victory in the 6-Day War, we had an expectation that the Israeli Army can work miracles and and bring us either victory or peace. We always thought that this war (whichever it was) would be the last . The last few wars (and the current one) have shown that to be illusory.
- I have gotten to a reflective age where , at best, I am entering the last one third of my life. With great reluctance and sadness I accept that I am unlikely to see peace in Israel/Palestine in my lifetime.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Conversations from a dinner party
Last night Irit and I were invited to the 70th birthday party of a friend from Haifa. The party took place in a large and luxurious house in one of the expensive suburbs north of Tel Aviv. I don't know whether anyone had dilemmas about having the party during a war but I suspect not. We were about 90 minutes drive from Gaza where dozens of Palestinians are getting killed every day and where Israeli soldiers are risking their lives day and night.
I had two conversations at the party about the war with friends, white Caucasian upper middle class Jewish Israeli males about 70 years old, one a physicist, the other a dentist, both gentle, pleasant, thinking people. I suspect that if I hadn't brought up the question of the war , it wouldn't have arisen.
Me: What do you think about the war?
He: I suppose you want it to end. Most people (i.e. Jewish Israelis) want it to continue
Me: Do you think about the war?
He: Only when I watch the news on television
Me: What do you think about the war?
He: I'm very disappointed
Me: Disappointed?
He: It can't work. The world won't accept that there are 700 Palestinians killed and only 6 Israelis killed. The only way we could beat them is by killing a huge number but that's not practical
Me: Not practical ?!!
He: I mean the world won't let us do it.
After a bit more prodding, he did say that this option is not moral, but practicality was evidently the prime consideration and morality the secondary one.
Irit would argue that such comments do not reflect what Jewish Israelis really think but but just that everyone is frustrated and doesn't know what to do and that Jewish Israelis would make far-reaching concessions for a guaranteed and durable peace. I wonder.
Last night Irit and I were invited to the 70th birthday party of a friend from Haifa. The party took place in a large and luxurious house in one of the expensive suburbs north of Tel Aviv. I don't know whether anyone had dilemmas about having the party during a war but I suspect not. We were about 90 minutes drive from Gaza where dozens of Palestinians are getting killed every day and where Israeli soldiers are risking their lives day and night.
I had two conversations at the party about the war with friends, white Caucasian upper middle class Jewish Israeli males about 70 years old, one a physicist, the other a dentist, both gentle, pleasant, thinking people. I suspect that if I hadn't brought up the question of the war , it wouldn't have arisen.
Me: What do you think about the war?
He: I suppose you want it to end. Most people (i.e. Jewish Israelis) want it to continue
Me: Do you think about the war?
He: Only when I watch the news on television
Me: What do you think about the war?
He: I'm very disappointed
Me: Disappointed?
He: It can't work. The world won't accept that there are 700 Palestinians killed and only 6 Israelis killed. The only way we could beat them is by killing a huge number but that's not practical
Me: Not practical ?!!
He: I mean the world won't let us do it.
After a bit more prodding, he did say that this option is not moral, but practicality was evidently the prime consideration and morality the secondary one.
Irit would argue that such comments do not reflect what Jewish Israelis really think but but just that everyone is frustrated and doesn't know what to do and that Jewish Israelis would make far-reaching concessions for a guaranteed and durable peace. I wonder.
Friday, November 02, 2007
A History of Modern Palestine
I have recently read most of a history of the geographical area known as Palestine in the last 150 years written by Ilan Pappe, one of a very small breed of so-called Israeli revisionist historians . He was until recently a lecturer at Haifa University in Israel and now at Exeter University in the UK. Pappe's revisionism is his challenging the classic Israeli historiography of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
I am not a historian but, unlike most Jewish Israelis, I have talked to enough Palestinians to believe that the history of the State of Israel on which I (and most Jews) was brought up on is at best biased, partial and one-sided. Winston Churchill said that "History is written by the victors". Israel was the victor and imbued with a literary and cultural superiority over the Palestinians such that their narrative and perspective has little been heard in the West.
Ilan Pappe is definitely a radical by Jewish Israeli standards and he challenges the mythological and passionately-held Israeli narrative. It is a difficult position to hold. For me, the hysteria, hate and disdain which Pappe gets in Israel for his writings are merely a confirmation that there is clearly something in what he says. Otherwise there wouldn't be this ten-ton outpouring against him. Privately Pappe seems a very learned, cultured, reasonable man.
This history is different from others I have read in several ways. Firstly it is a history of a land, not that of a national entity. Nor is it a history of the conflict although it obviously covers much of the conflict. Its starting point is the end of the Crimean War which signalled, according to Pappe, the start of the European "invasion" of Palestine. The book is clearly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but there is fair representation of the Zionist/Israeli position. Pappe does not spare the Palestinians from criticism. To his credit, Pappe does not hide his sympathies but he definitely goes against the trend of justifying the modernizing spirit of the Western world
The new insights I gained from this book were
1) Jewish colonialisation of Palestine was only one (even if, ultimately, the most significant) of the Western colonizing and 'modernizing' forces seeping into Palestine from the 1850s
2) throughout the period described the Palestinians (indeed the Arabs) were/are split, factionalised, tribalised and unable to agree and work on a common agenda. Unlike the Jews who managed to overcome their differences to work on a common agenda, the Arabs were divided, leaderless and pursuing several opposing agendas
3)The Hashemite monarchy of Jordan was a less-than-effective opposition for the Israelis because of their own political and territorial objectives in the WestBank.
It is very refreshing to read a history that presents the position of both sides and Pappe definitely has the credentials of a professional historian. I wouldn't be surprised that if his book were gone over with a tooth comb one might find some inconsistencies and inaccuracies but this is irrelevant. What is important is the main gist and that it would be a refreshing change if such histories were widely read by Israelis and Palestinians. One looks forward to the day when Palestinian historians will come up with a book this this.
I have recently read most of a history of the geographical area known as Palestine in the last 150 years written by Ilan Pappe, one of a very small breed of so-called Israeli revisionist historians . He was until recently a lecturer at Haifa University in Israel and now at Exeter University in the UK. Pappe's revisionism is his challenging the classic Israeli historiography of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
I am not a historian but, unlike most Jewish Israelis, I have talked to enough Palestinians to believe that the history of the State of Israel on which I (and most Jews) was brought up on is at best biased, partial and one-sided. Winston Churchill said that "History is written by the victors". Israel was the victor and imbued with a literary and cultural superiority over the Palestinians such that their narrative and perspective has little been heard in the West.
Ilan Pappe is definitely a radical by Jewish Israeli standards and he challenges the mythological and passionately-held Israeli narrative. It is a difficult position to hold. For me, the hysteria, hate and disdain which Pappe gets in Israel for his writings are merely a confirmation that there is clearly something in what he says. Otherwise there wouldn't be this ten-ton outpouring against him. Privately Pappe seems a very learned, cultured, reasonable man.
This history is different from others I have read in several ways. Firstly it is a history of a land, not that of a national entity. Nor is it a history of the conflict although it obviously covers much of the conflict. Its starting point is the end of the Crimean War which signalled, according to Pappe, the start of the European "invasion" of Palestine. The book is clearly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but there is fair representation of the Zionist/Israeli position. Pappe does not spare the Palestinians from criticism. To his credit, Pappe does not hide his sympathies but he definitely goes against the trend of justifying the modernizing spirit of the Western world
The new insights I gained from this book were
1) Jewish colonialisation of Palestine was only one (even if, ultimately, the most significant) of the Western colonizing and 'modernizing' forces seeping into Palestine from the 1850s
2) throughout the period described the Palestinians (indeed the Arabs) were/are split, factionalised, tribalised and unable to agree and work on a common agenda. Unlike the Jews who managed to overcome their differences to work on a common agenda, the Arabs were divided, leaderless and pursuing several opposing agendas
3)The Hashemite monarchy of Jordan was a less-than-effective opposition for the Israelis because of their own political and territorial objectives in the WestBank.
It is very refreshing to read a history that presents the position of both sides and Pappe definitely has the credentials of a professional historian. I wouldn't be surprised that if his book were gone over with a tooth comb one might find some inconsistencies and inaccuracies but this is irrelevant. What is important is the main gist and that it would be a refreshing change if such histories were widely read by Israelis and Palestinians. One looks forward to the day when Palestinian historians will come up with a book this this.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The prospects for peace
My (96-year old) Dad asked me today whether I think we are any closer to peace now with the various peace activities that I am involved in. I don't think so. He is worried that a new Intifada might break out after the upcoming Annapolis conference fails. He thinks (and I tend to agree) that the Palestinians (as usual) are asking for the moon. It may seem just (maybe even reasonable) to them but Ehud Olmert gives no impression of being able (politically) or inclined to 'give' them anything on any of the substantive issues - the right of return or greater Palestinian control over Palestinian areas.
My (96-year old) Dad asked me today whether I think we are any closer to peace now with the various peace activities that I am involved in. I don't think so. He is worried that a new Intifada might break out after the upcoming Annapolis conference fails. He thinks (and I tend to agree) that the Palestinians (as usual) are asking for the moon. It may seem just (maybe even reasonable) to them but Ehud Olmert gives no impression of being able (politically) or inclined to 'give' them anything on any of the substantive issues - the right of return or greater Palestinian control over Palestinian areas.
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