Arabs And Jews, Oil and Water

Bill,

You can reliably tell when you are entering the Arab quarter in Jerusalem (or any Arab neighborhood)  by the ubiquitous presence of garbage. It's strewn about in a haphazard pattern such as the wind makes with the leaves now beginning to fall in our beloved New England. It comes in sizes large and small, from scattered bits of white paper to large bags dumped outside the shops or at the edges of the endless, labyrinthine alleyways. Adding color to the mix is the frequent presence of small, deep blue plastic bags used to wrap bagele, the traditional Arab bread sold on carts throughout the old city.

Our guide, whose left wing politics make me look like a Tea Party member, nevertheless complained  scornfully about the work habits of the Palestinians. "They open their shops at 10 and close at 4 and then they want to know why I never bring my pilgrims to shop with them." The Israeli shops by contrast, are open well into the night, till about 10 or so. If the Jewish merchants were allowed to tie a rope around you, drag you in, and hold you hostage until you emptied your wallet I'm sure they would do so.

It's such small country-the whole state of Israel would fit easily inside of Massachusetts. We drove around the entire northern half, from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea to the Sea of Galilee to Tel Aviv in a day. The Dead Sea is sinking as the water from the Jordan River, about the width of a side street in many places, is diverted by first the Syrians (when they're not killing each other) then the Jordanians and finally the Israelis. Again, you don't need a road sign to know when you are in Israel proper and when you are in the territories. Perfectly lined rows of manicured date palms, bustling industrial sites and blinding whitewashed homes give way to goats and men pushing carts and brown hovels, and garbage.  First world economy on one side, third world economy on the other.

On my last night, at dinner in a fancy suburb of Tel Aviv (think Oak Park), I asked my gracious host, a long time liberal journalist, what he would propose for ending the 45 year stalemate over the occupied territories. "Two independent states" (the official policy of both the United States and Israeli governments) he quickly replied.  "Let them have their homeland and then we can be done with them." Just as quickly, however, he followed that endorsement with this observation. "I don't see how they will survive though. Their livelihood, such as it is, is so dependent upon us that I can't imagine how they could build a functioning economy, or any economy really." From that point the conversation descended into a lament eerily reminiscent of what you hear when American conservatives trash the poor. They (the Arabs) don't want to work hard. They don't know how to work hard. They beat their wives and treat them like cattle. And finally, they leave their garbage everywhere, an observation I had already made for myself.

About the Arab spring, their position might be described as beyond skeptical. "You Americans don't understand" (how familiar a line is that?) my host gently reminded. "Democracy cannot be dictated from above. It must grow from the ground up, and the Arabs know nothing about this. Their loyalties are to family and to clan; the idea of a state as we understand is simply foreign to them."  Around the table, the fear, shared with the Israeli right, that all the Arab Spring will produce is pan Islamic hegemony was clearly evident.

Mind you, these are people may rightly be considered sympathetic to the Arabs. They have Palestinian friends who visit them in their home and these friends welcome them in turn into their villages. Their eldest daughter was engaged to a Palestinian until the man was killed by an Israeli soldier firing a teargas grenade into his chest from ten feet away during a demonstration . And yet, to this observer at least, their sense of the Arab as unshakably other was unmistakable.

At 17, I lived in Israel, for 6 months. It was a very difficult time in a very difficult place, filled with passion and incomprehension and a profound sense of hopelessness, both within the country and within the boy I was back then. Walking onto the plane I felt the same sense of relief that I felt 40 years ago.

Eli