Recent headlines and editorials have been sounding the alarm on a new Israeli policy requiring non-Jewish immigrants to Israel to swear allegiance to a “Jewish and democratic” state. Commentators and academics around the world are calling the just-approved measure fascist and some even compare it to racist laws in Europe that lead up to the Holocaust. Within Israel, “liberal” Zionists are calling this a turning point at which Israel begins an inexorable march away from democracy. Though it is surely the most blatantly racist and discriminatory policy to come out of the Knesset, it is far from the first.
Yesterday I spent the afternoon wading through the bureaucratic labyrinth laid out by the Israeli Interior Ministry. Bouncing from office to office, building to building, on a strangely-hot October day, I had official after official tell me I was in the wrong place and I had to go talk to someone else. But the most foreboding aspect of the whole process was filling out the application itself before I arrived.
Firstly I was surprised to see the field on the front page asking to list my religion. Coming from the United States, where religion is rightly considered a personal subject and not a subject of government scrutiny, I seriously considered writing “none” or leaving the space blank. In a country that claims to be the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, this seemed to be a slap in the face of the principals of equality and liberalism.
Listing religion may not be all that sinister, but a statement that applicants must sign lays bare the implications of making a religious declaration. I had to swear that I had not “committed any criminal offence or any act directed against the Jewish people”. It specifically references only the part of Israeli society that the Zionist agenda considers legitimate: Jews. It matters not to the officials who will decide if my application is approved if I had done anything to harm the fifth of Israel’s citizens who are Palestinian.
The Israeli government has certainly been moving further toward the right and accelerating its descent toward authoritarianism with the election of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ultra-nationalist sidekick Avigdore Lieberman who spearheaded the push for the new loyalty oath for immigrants. Such requirements put one nation – whether you define it as racial, cultural, ethnic, or religious – above all others which is the antithesis of democracy in a bi-national state.
The laws that uphold that system have always been covered with a veil of legitimacy, by either hypocritically claiming to protect equality, promote social justice or address the ever-present security concerns. A 2003 law passed under Ariel Sharon’s government prevents Palestinians with Israeli ID’s who marry Palestinians from the Occupied Territories from bringing their spouses to live with them. In 2007 under the supposedly centrist Olmert government, the Knesset voted to allow the semi-governmental Jewish National Fund to discriminate based on race when deciding whether to lease land to non-Jews.
It used to be that Israel’s leaders could point to guarantees of equal rights in Israel’s basic laws that supposedly prevented discrimination based on race or national identity, but now the letter of the law is becoming just as discriminatory as the practice.
On one hand it’s a disgusting show of hypocrisy and racism, but on the other hand, at least now the subtlety and nuance is disappearing. The discrimination can now be seen, quoted, and denounced world wide.
The increasing visibility of Israel’s racist system is awakening international activism among citizens with a growing boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS), and even a handful of governments showing increasing displeasure like the UK, Turkey and Spain withdrawing from the upcoming OECD tourism conference in Jerusalem.
Yet these efforts are still little more than a slight inconvenience when it comes to Israel’s international standing. The inertia of the international status quo requires movement not only from the bit players in Europe or the international peace camp, but from the halls of power in the center of it all: Washington D.C. Though hope is slight that things will change there any time soon, the conversation on the street is changing, people are not so afraid of criticizing Israel publicly, college campuses host more activists against Israeli occupation, and among Jewish Americans blind support is giving way to a more nuanced view of Israel especially among young Jews who look at the Jewish state’s human rights records and wonder how Israel represents them as Jews.
Michael Khaled is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). He can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
Who will hear their screams?
Date posted: April 01, 2024
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
When Israel claimed women were sexually assaulted on a mass scale on October 7, the world exploded. Almost the entirety of Israel’s genocidal war was based on these and other allegations, many unsubstantiated. We all remember the infamous’40 beheaded babies” story, do we not?
This article is not about Israeli allegations per se, neither will it only focus on violations against Palestinian women. This is about a world that is immediately up in arms when one side merely alleges atrocities while it turns a blind eye to actual documented violations against the “other”.
In Gaza, it is painfully clear that we indeed, are ‘the other’. How else can anyone explain the muted cries of women being stripped, raped, starved and murdered practically in real time, on our phone screens, documented in UN reports and described in horrific detail in eyewitness testimonies? There is no other explanation than that Palestinians are what Arundhati Roy calls “Children of a lesser God”. We are the victims of deep-rooted colonialism, one whose geographic demarcations may have vanished but whose insidious, dehumanizing mentality still prevails and manifests in the ugliest of manners.
For nearly six months, Palestinians have endured unspeakable atrocities at the hands of Israel’s occupying army. Today, the Gaza Strip has been reduced to an emaciated shell of what it once was. As Gaza is being systematically decimated and ethnically cleansed, the world, for the most part, looks on. Barring sympathetic supporters and a few well-intended but timid political actors, nothing has been done to stop the carnage. Palestinians once believed there was no way the world would allow Israel to erase Gaza off the map, no way it could see a live-streamed genocide and do nothing. But that is exactly what is happening.
Then, when we thought things could not get any worse, something unfathomable emerged from the deathtrap of Gaza. When this happened, we were certain it would be the turning point in this hellish nightmare. Well-documented reports, corroborated by the UN and eyewitnesses on the ground, told of harrowing stories of sexual assault against Palestinian women in Gaza.
We were paralysed with horror when we heard of women being raped by Israeli soldiers in northern Gaza, assaulted and stripped in front of their families. What’s worse, we all know that in times like these, the undocumented atrocities will far outnumber those documented. Who knows what horrors will unfold once the dust settles in Gaza; no doubt they will be so horrific, our entire nation will be traumatized for years to come.
The real question here is not how Israel’s soldiers perpetrated such gross violations. I think by now we can all agree that this depraved military establishment and its political echelon to boot, has dehumanized and vilified Palestinians so much and for so long, they will justify just about anything. No, the question is more about the moral compass of the rest of the world. While alliances and political interests are always part of the equation, even when the issue pertains to basic human rights, nothing can better explain the blatant hypocrisy, double standards and loss of collective humanity than the deafening silence today.
Our women have not only been killed, starved and displaced, they have been exposed to the very violations that sparked global outrage and a genocidal war against an entire population under occupation, unprecedented in modern history. This is not only unacceptable, it is an indelible stain on humanity. Sexual violence is a crime so heinous it is imperative to condemn and prevent, no matter the perpetrator or the victim. That must always be the baseline in any argument.
Palestinians will never get past this genocide; it is not something you can come back from. However, be assured, this is not only about the Palestinians. The world’s women, the majority of so-called feminists who have remained disgustingly silent, must know this: when you do not stand up for women, all women, no one will stand up for you in your time of need.
A new day will come
Date posted: February 14, 2024
By Joharah Baker
I once heard that anger is not a real emotion, but a cover for other feelings such as sadness, disappointment or fear. You need to peel back that outer layer to understand what is really going on inside.
Strange how this has lately resurfaced for me, but I think I know why. Lately, I and surely, millions of other Palestinians, have been filled with a blinding rage -- at Israel, at the United States, and at the world overall. This is a rage that is all-encompassing, the depth of which is palpable at the cellular level, permeating every molecule and every atom of our being. The genocide in the Gaza Strip has grated our emotions raw and we are left stinging and burning from our head to our toes.
Our anger is like a huge magnetosphere and we are all trapped inside, but its walls are translucent and we can see the source of our rage mocking us from beyond. We Palestinians are angry because we are so disappointed and we are angry because we are disillusioned and we are angry because we are drowning in sorrow.
Our disappointment lies in the fact that the world has failed us in the worst possible way and has allowed the unspeakable to be committed against us. Genocide is the ‘mother of all crimes’ and, contrary to the promises, the conventions and the historical lessons the world was supposed to learn, it has been committed over and over again. The Palestinian genocide, however, is unique in at least one way: it is live-streamed, which means no one can claim ignorance and everyone has a responsibility in stopping it. Hence, our disappointment is not limited to countries, Arab or otherwise, or to international and human rights organizations. It has spread to everyone in our orbit; acquaintances and people we thought were friends, but whose silence towards our slaughter is a deafening betrayal. Our sense of disappointment has discolored every relationship it touches because every relationship for us is a dichotomy: you are either with or against genocide and either support Palestine in word and deed, or not.
Our anger is a thin veil concealing our disillusion with the international community and its institutions, supposedly established to protect people in situations precisely like ours. We have confirmed what we knew all along, that these organizations were constructed for some and not all, for colonial powers and not those who suffer beneath them. Even when the highest court in the land rules in our favor, the Global North ensures that its ruling will not be implemented to save us, the oppressed, indigenous brown people whose lives apparently do not matter.
And finally, our anger is a survival mechanism to shield us from our own grief. Our sorrow over the murdered men, women and children, defenseless, homeless, starving and shivering in the cold, is so deep, so immense, we ourselves cannot fathom it. If we dare peek behind this anger and truly feel a fraction of the aching in our hearts, it will paralyze us for sure, because no people can endure the magnitude and scale of such suffering and not lose their minds.
We Palestinians know we cannot let go and that a new day is near. We know we must hold on just a little bit longer, because Palestine depends on it. We are no strangers to oppression, suffering and sacrifice and we know the price of our freedom has and continues to be painfully high. Still, we also know that a life without shackles and the yoke of oppression around our weary necks is the only life worth living.
Killing the flowers will not delay spring
Date posted: February 01, 2024
By Joharah Baker
This may be the hardest article I’ve written so far, for obvious reasons. As the genocide in Gaza grinds on into its fourth month, with winter in full force, the situation is so dire it has been described as hell on earth. To date, some 27,000 Palestinians have been murdered by Israel, nearly 70% of them women and children. Another 70,000 have been wounded and at least 1.9 million people have been displaced. With only 2.3 million in the Gaza Strip to start with, this computes to 1% of its population being exterminated, and in less than four months.
However, in the midst of these horrific times, let us allow ourselves a sliver of hope. The ICJ ruling, announced on January 26, prompted mixed feelings among Palestinians who naturally, wanted to hear a clear and firm demand on Israel to stop its onslaught. However, even without the express demand for a ceasefire, the ICJ offered something to the Palestinians for which they have been demanding for many years: their suffering, their plight and the brutal oppression they live under, was finally acknowledged by the highest court in the world. More importantly, Israel is being called out for its crimes, displayed in real time for all to see. For this, we will be eternally grateful to South Africa and its exceptional legal team for bringing this case of genocide to the ICJ and forcing the world to look straight down the barrel of Israel’s cruel intentions.
Of course, for the Palestinians, we did not need an international court to tell us that Israel is committing a genocide, but it was cathartic to hear this acknowledged on a global platform. While we are aware that the actual charge of genocide perhaps needs years to prove, it only takes hearing the ruling and the case argued by South Africa to surmise that Israel is as good as convicted.
This is not insignificant, and we will cling to any shred of hope we can find in this unjust world. Having said that, this is no time to rest. If anything, it is time to push even harder because now, we have ICJ rulings in our favor and legal backing to claims we already knew were legitimate.
However, while this may have offered us some ray of light in the darkness in which we are all engulfed, the fact of the matter is that things continue to worsen on the ground in Gaza. This genocide is so heinous, not only in the brutality of the Israeli bombs and denial of basic aid to the people of Gaza, but in the fact that its people are suffering from multiple and simultaneous injustices. That is, those who are being starved are the same people who have been displaced and the same people who have been injured and cannot receive medical attention. They are the same people who have lost their homes and family members and the same people who are under the rubble. One atrocity does not cancel out another in Gaza and that is what makes this genocide so unimaginable.
We have reached a point where it is unnecessary to describe the horrors of life in Gaza because frankly, in the past four months, everyone has seen them. It is not a matter of the world not knowing. This may have been the case in other genocides and atrocities, but not this one. It really boils down to two things: The dehumanization of the Palestinians and Israel’s impunity for its crimes, the latter being a direct result of the former.
Shame on the world for accepting Israel’s vile propaganda, hook, line and sinker. Shame on the “western world” in particular, who we will never forgive. Shame on them all for aiding and abetting the slaughter of our people, their displacement, starvation and annihilation. This will not go unnoticed in the annals of history, which will paint each and every accomplice in the criminal light it deserves.
But these despicable powers do not know the lion-hearts of the Palestinians and their fierce loyalty to Palestine. They will never be able to kill us all and my hope is that this thought haunts them day and night.
A sign held up in one of the many protests around the world reads: “Killing the flowers will not delay spring”. Our Spring is coming, without a doubt.
The Occupation Heats Palestinian Temperament
Date posted: November 24, 2010
By Michael Khaled for MIFTAH
The other day I was speaking about Palestinian culture with a friend who runs a school in Jerusalem. It happens to be the first Palestinian green school, which attracts attention from many foreigners, not the religious tourists coming to see the holy land, but the political tourists who want to see the Palestine-Israel conflict firsthand. He told me outsiders, even those well-versed in the conflict, come with wide eyes and wider smiles and ask why no one here returns their grin.
It made me think about how the conflict has hardened Palestinians' demeanor. It's as if the macho aspects of Arab culture are magnified by the constant hassles, threats and intimidation they feel daily under an authority which keeps one nation underfoot to elevate another. It has led the Palestinians to become a very stoic people. Though certainly once you get to know someone here they will open their hearts, when it comes to strangers, the default position is skepticism and reserve.
Too much emotional expressions seem to be regarded as a sign of foolhardiness and naďveté. Even when a conversation starts smoothly, people tend to keep their feelings close to their chest. It's risky showing your emotions here, because to be excessively warm and animated is putting yourself out there and if these expressions are not met with an equivalent response it leaves you looking foolish.
Expressing anger, boredom and frustration on the other hand have the opposite effect. As long as it is not perceived as a show of bravado, negative emotions establish your presence. Tempers tend to be short with any perceived affront or insult easily sparking a heated argument.
Even among the closest relations, short and terse is the norm. All day they are used to keeping such an emotional level, so their minds become trained to stay in that mode. I was raised to always say “please” and “thank you” but here saying them too much comes off as patronizing rather than respectful. I asked my cousin about this and he told me that if you know the person well enough there is no need to say please. When she serves me a delicious meal and I thank her, she looks at me with a screwed up face and looks genuinely perturbed at why I would thank her for something that she feels is her duty to do for a guest.
Thinking about this reminded me about a quote I remember from a movie, "You've got to control your smiles and cries, because that's all you have and nobody can take that away from you." This stoicism comes from the need to take control of what little Palestinians have control over in their lives. Their reputation is one thing that no matter how hard Israeli occupation forces try to, they can never break unless a Palestinian chooses to become an informant.
This issue, possibly more than any other has truly torn at the fabric of Palestinian society. Israel rampantly recruits paid informants who receive money, travel permits, cars, clemency for relatives in Israeli prisons, and even women so they will betray their friends and family to the Israelis. No one is out of bounds for Israeli forces to try to enlist, men women, young, old, West Bank, Gaza, and even Palestinians within Israel. All are targets to be solicited by charismatic Israeli officers who try to act as their personal genie, offering to fulfill their greatest wishes.
Another cousin in Ramallah told me of a run-in he had with an Israeli recruiter. He was summoned to an Israeli military post and spoke with an officer, well-dressed without a uniform, for hours in perfect Arabic about his life, his family, his work, his friends. In the end, after drinking coffee together and trying to make him feel like he really cared, the officer asked him what he wanted in life; to travel, to work in Israel, to get a nice car, to make some easy money. My cousin refused anything from the Israelis but came out of the experience shaken not only about how seductive the approach was, but how much information the officer already had about him.
Trying to adapt to the emotional scale here has been tiring, people constantly keep their guard up in a way I'm not used to. Coming from a comfortable life in the American suburbs, in a safe environment, you are free to stick to the optimistic, happy emotions and if you are made a fool, you move on and only have to deal with a bruised ego. The full spectrum of emotions is used less, where being aloof and short tempered is looked down on.
It's generally been my experience that a smile disarms people. It puts them at ease, since you've already gone to the risk of showing your emotion. For me it's been a risk worth taking, because the potential downside won't last long and doesn't do any real serious damage. But it's the mortal fear of any Palestinian to be taken as a fool. Israelis have the same phobia for that matter, this is a truly binational cultural feature.
Here you have to be much more level, not showing you're easily pleased because it is taken as a sign of weakness. On one hand it seems to be a more realistic approach to life; controlling your emotions to send the non-verbal messages you really want to send. Yet I find it very difficult to keep myself from smiling when I introduce myself and say "Marhaba".
Of course, when it comes to the biggest tourist destinations the shopkeepers, tour guides, and hotel workers that deal with foreigners generally know how to make outsiders feel comfortable. And beyond that, the famous Arab hospitality is always present, just expect it to be extended with a firm handshake and a strong look in the eye.
Michael Khaled is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). He can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
The Weight of a City
Date posted: November 10, 2010
By Michael Khaled for MIFTAH
When I decided years ago to leave my home in America after graduating to come to Palestine and start my career here, my family was less than thrilled. Not only was I moving too far away, but to a place torn apart by generations of conflict. When one of my uncles heard the news, he asked me where I wanted to live, and I have to admit, I hadn’t given it much thought at the time so I just blurted the first city that came to mind: Jerusalem.
He smiled and told me that was a courageous idea, and though I knew about the tense and sometimes violent situation in the holy city, all I was thinking about was its central role in the conflict. The next time I saw him, he gave me a present, a framed picture of a Palestinian man carrying Jerusalem on his back symbolizing the difficulty of staying in Jerusalem for Palestinians. It’s a common painting and many Palestinians here and abroad hang it or similar ones up in their homes.
The image is very fitting since the role of Jerusalem in the conflict is similarly symbolic. Physically there is nothing particularly extraordinary about the city; it’s not more beautiful, resource rich, or strategic than many others. Yet, as the holy city of the three great Western religions, literally billions of people around the world have a stake in its future. With so much attention paid to such a small area, the lives of the city’s population are under the microscope and every action has consequences.
Within the ancient walls of the Old City, the status quo is rigidly maintained between the different sects which if violated, can cause even the humblest of priests to raise hell. Supposedly a feud broke out between neighboring priests over using a ladder to clean the Church of the Holy Sepulcher’s walls claiming the ladder trespassed on their neighbor’s grounds. The ladder has remained in place for the past century to serve as a reminder for priests to watch their tempers, yet I heard of a recent attempt to move it disintegrate to fisticuffs.
Outside the Old City, the stakes are much higher than fuming priests and an occasional fistfight. Israelis regularly announce new construction in east Jerusalem, which did not stop for the so-called settlement freeze. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that it did not pertain to east Jerusalem, which Israel illegally annexed after conquering it in 1967. All sides affirm the special status of Jerusalem: Jews who see it as their holiest temple site, Christians whose messianic story culminates here, and Muslims who believe it to be the site of Prophet Muhammad’s ascent to heaven.
Yet Israel’s policies have been towards Judaizing the city and cutting off its ties to the rest of the Palestinians who have been almost entirely barred from visiting the city since the placement of checkpoints and especially the separation wall. Only with a special permit can a Palestinian with a West Bank ID card pass through, including children.
Politically, Israel seeks to separate Jerusalem from the West Bank where the settlement project has been most frenzied around the holy city. A string of settlements surround Jerusalem separating it from the rest of Palestinian population centers – settlements which Israel has invested billions to develop and subsidize and assumes it will retain in any final agreement with Palestinians.
Within the city though is where Palestinians face the brunt of Israeli attempts to erase Palestinian ties. Land confiscations, housing demolitions, revoked residency status, inflated cost of living, unresponsive municipal authorities, abusive police, and funding disparities are only some of the ways Israel’s stranglehold on Jerusalem attempts to make life so difficult for Palestinians they don’t want to stay.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel recently published a report, titled "Unsafe space: The Israeli authorities' failure to protect human rights amid settlements in East Jerusalem," detailing the lawlessness, and insecurity Jerusalemite Palestinians face daily at the hands of Israel’s often imposing and often violent Jerusalem settlers. Just last month a man was shot and killed by an Israeli private security guard, and two young boys under 15 were run over by a settler and subsequently arrested for throwing stones.
While today the efforts are usually under the guise of benignly serving the “public good”, the policies used to be more blatant; in 1973 a decision issued by the Israeli inter-ministerial committee on Jerusalem affairs set a goal to push the Palestinian population to below 22 percent. Today it still stands at about 30 percent according to Israeli census numbers. Combined Israeli efforts to Judiaze Jerusalem have deprived Palestinians of 86 percent of their private land according to the Civic Coalition for Defending Palestinians’ Rights in Jerusalem.
Palestinians are determined to hold on to their claim to Jerusalem, no matter the price. Jerusalemite Palestinians have told me of how revered they feel abroad when they tell other Middle Easterners where they are from. Most Muslims, especially Middle Eastern ones, never get the opportunity to see the holy city, yet hear constantly about it and the oppression facing its mostly Muslim Palestinians. My uncle was one of them, even though at the time I was still living in the States.
Now that I’m here, I see just how unique the city really is. Shaped by so many powerful forces throughout history, it seems like an act of hubris for any one people to lay exclusive claim to it. To the Muslims abroad who may never get the chance to come to Jerusalem, that picture my uncle gave me serves as a reminder of the weight the Palestinians who remain here carry so that some day the city may once again earn its original nickname: The city of peace.
Michael Khaled is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). He can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
Working the Visa System
Date posted: November 03, 2010
By Michael Khaled for MIFTAH
In any regime that controls people, finding ways to “work the system” becomes standard discussion among the system’s targets. Internationals sympathetic to the Palestinians always get extra attention from Israel’s border control and finding ways to enter the country and remain here legally is a constant concern.
For Americans and citizens of most western countries, Israel grants a three-month tourist visa at the airport or any border crossing entitling the traveler to move through Israel and the occupied territories with the exception of the Gaza Strip. For foreigners who want to stay longer though, things get dicey. The Israeli interior ministry, which is responsible for visa extensions, is known to deny requests for people staying in or with ties to Palestinians in the West Bank, even if they work or volunteer with legitimate international organizations.
To get around the issue, when the expiration of their visa approaches, most tend to leave the country for a few days and return for a new tourist visa. This leaves their situation tenuous and completely out of their control, not knowing what will come after the next three months.
Israeli border control is notoriously invasive as well, selecting certain people for in depth interviews, highly thorough searches of luggage and frisking. Frequently, activists, scholars, clergy, journalists, and others who are sympathetic or connected to Palestinians are simply denied entry without given an explanation.
I recently returned from such a short trip to Cairo. I left a few days before my own visa was set to expire and came back three days later. In this situation, most tend to cross the border over land to Jordan for a few days and return that way with the hopes of getting their passports stamped for an additional three months. Yet after a few trips there and back, the pattern becomes pretty obvious and they risk being turned away or given a one-month or shorter stamp instead. Luckily I had the resources to travel through the airport in Tel Aviv, which I heard from some was simultaneously harder since the security is tighter, yet easier since in order to deny entry, they must put you on another plane instead of simply sending you back over the border.
Ironically enough, the hassles didn’t come when I was entering through the airport, which only took 30 minutes of security delays. Yet, on my way out I had to go through four hours of security checks including three metal detectors, four x-ray machines, two frisks, two hand checks on my bags and more than 10 minutes of questioning.
The worst part was the final check. I thought I was done and heading to get my exit stamp after a handsearch and very intimate frisking. Unfortunately though the immigration officer sent me toward the police booth instead. The police officer inside then took my passport with no explanations and had me wait outside. I came expecting to go through extra security so I made sure I got to the airport extra early, but with less than an hour till takeoff, I was finally getting worried. Then a suited security official came flanked by two plainclothes guards and asked me to follow them all the way back to the screening room I had just left a few minutes ago. There, the officers tore apart my entire carry-on bag, documented everything I carried, read all the papers and business cards I had, searched through my wallet and my phone and gave me the most thorough frisking I’ve ever had, even more thorough than the last one. My laptop was also put under special scrutiny. I had to demonstrate it worked as it should with and without the power plugged in and even after the show, they said I had to check it (and a lighter) in with the luggage instead of letting me carry it on board.
In all though, it wasn’t the humiliation or hassle that I’ve heard many go through at the hands of Israeli border control; it just delayed the plane a few minutes. And on the way back I couldn’t believe how quickly I passed through, just 20 minutes waiting for my passport and a 10 minute bag search and I was through. Last time I came through the airport, it took three hours of interviews alone plus the physical security checks.
Whatever Israel's system is to determine just how much scrutiny and hassle a person needs to go through is completely lost on me. It seems to be completely arbitrary and every question I asked about why I had to go through all the extra checks were cut off with canned statements about security procedures and that "I just had to wait." With so many redundancies and wasted efforts, the only goal I can see is to make the process so difficult certain people choose not to return. Luckily many supporters of the Palestinian cause seem to be tougher than that.
Michael Khaled is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). He can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
In the End, Only One Way to See It
Date posted: October 27, 2010
By Michael Khaled for MIFTAH
I came to the Holy Land thinking I could find some type of middle ground and lodge myself there. As a Palestinian-American, I am equipped with the knowledge, cultural awareness and communication skills to show a Western audience the unvarnished truth behind the conflict. I try not to get emotionally involved with the political issues and "stay above" the fray. As a trained journalist, that is what I was taught.
Yet I recently watched a Palestinian friend get into a political discussion with an Israeli security guard on the way to the dorms at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. My friend is a fiery artist from the north with Israeli citizenship, and the guard, an imposing Sephardic Jew of Moroccan descent.
It heated up quickly, when the guard asked her if she calls herself Palestinian or Israeli. Something as simple as a person's self-identity can be seen as an act of defiance when the overarching system is built to replace one national identity with another. He attacked the very premise that there is such a thing as a Palestinian nation saying that this came as a response to Zionism and Jewish immigration. "Without us here, you would be Jordanians."
They discussed the gamut of historical flashpoints with each side taking completely opposite conclusions from each event: the British occupation (helped Jews colonize Palestine; kept Jewish immigration at a trickle), the 1948 war (well armed European Jews ethnically cleansed Palestine; five Arab armies attacked an infant Israeli state), Deir Yassin (a massacre; a hoax), Yasser Arafat (a national symbol of resistance; the greatest terrorist ever), the separation wall (a land grab; necessary to stop terrorists), failure of the peace process (Israelis sabotage the negotiations; Palestinians never fail to miss an opportunity).
The two distinct narratives here are diametrically opposed in every case, and for each event both sides have a self-serving interpretation. These interpretations are internalized and have become the personal and national narratives that form the basis of all assumptions when discussing the conflict.
Whatever overlap there has been in the two perspectives is diminishing every day as each side watches the other retreat further into cynicism and suspicion which leads to even further retreat. A Hebrew University poll conducted at the beginning of the month show just six percent of Palestinians and five percent of Israelis believe there is a high chance the talks will succeed. The same poll also found 54 percent of Israelis fear being injured by Arabs in their daily lives while 76 percent of Palestinians have the same fear of Israelis.
Almost daily, news comes of more racist and anti-democratic initiatives coming out of the Knesset and the response from the public varies between muted anxiety and complete ambivalence. Among Palestinians, there is a feeling of disparity and hopelessness. They are just watching and waiting for the next bout of violence to break out so they can try to duck out of the way before getting caught in the crossfire.
I’ve noticed a complete disillusionment from people on the street, as if both sides have stopped caring what their leaders are doing and just focus on their daily lives. How long can that mentality last in this period of "relative calm" when a handful of Palestinians are killed every week, a plot of land confiscated here, an olive orchard burned there? Since the end of the housing “freeze”, settlement construction has raced at a pace four times faster than in recent years. Once there is a big-enough perceived threat to the status quo, the powers-that-be will find a way to provoke another batch of ever more destructive violence.
Of course not all have resigned themselves to this never-ending cycle. Peace activists, Palestinian and Israeli, are active as ever hosting events, leading demonstrations, going to court, and generally blunting the effects of the racist system people face daily. Yet others fight to uphold the system they see as their birthright to protect, by burning olive orchards, rallying for the assassinated ultra-nationalist Meir Kahane, and requiring loyalty oaths for non-Jews.
Essentially I feel less and less like an impartial stance on the conflict is possible. As the gulf between the sides widens, anyone who tries to split the difference and take a middle road will be labeled a threat to the state's legitimacy by Israelis and a Zionist sympathizer by Palestinians.
Most come into this with a clearly chosen side based on their heritage and loyalties, yet I cannot help but think that there is a more objective way of viewing the conflict on a fundamental level. If things are ever going to change, it will require us to reframe the discussion in a way that everyone can understand and identify with. We must apply universal values of equality and justice without getting sucked into the same back and forth between the narratives.
In the end, when the current situation in Palestine and Israel boils down to its basic context, there is a system in place that methodically works to build up one group and subjugate another. Its mechanisms are sophisticatedly concealed under a veneer of legitimacy from a beneficiary public that is content to move forward with eyes closed to the daily injustices committed in their name. These injustices enfeeble the victims’ ability to move forward and build themselves up. It is a system based on racial lines, and it is a formula antithetical to common morality which has been proven time and again in similar schemes to be unsustainable.
Michael Khaled is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). He can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
