The recent violent conflict over the blockade of Gaza enforced by Israel and the attempt of humanitarian organizations and political movements aligned against Israel to break the blockade reminds me of the fundamental nature of conflict. Amos Oz once summed up the situation as he understands it:
“[I]t is high time that honest people outside the region .. conceive of [the Palestinian Israeli conflict] as a tragedy and not as some ‘Wild – West Show,’ containing good guys and bad guys. Tragedies can be resolved in one of two ways: there is the Shakespearean resolution and there is the Chekhovian one. At the end of the Shakespeare tragedy, the stage is strewn with dead bodies, and maybe there’s some justice hovering high above. A Chekhov tragedy, on the other hand, ends with everybody disillusioned, embittered, heartbroken, disappointed, absolutely shattered, but still alive. And I want a Chekhovian resolution, not a Shakespearean one, for the Israeli – Palestinian tragedy.”
I completely agree. A persecuted people, after centuries of oppression and exclusion in Europe, culminating in genocide, find a place for themselves in what they perceive to be their ancient homeland. A peaceful people are forced off their land, displaced, homeless, subjected to second class citizenship. As Israelis and Palestinians fight against each other in their pursuit of justice, justice is denied. The majority on both sides, at least at times, have even agreed on what they perceive as a just solution, a two state solution, with Jerusalem as the capital of two nations, but getting there from here has made the solution elusive, if not impossible. Repeated failure has led to despair and aggression. On both sides, majorities are convinced that the other side is not serious about a just resolution, not serious about peace. Against these majorities, some try to keep alternatives alive. Their activities remind me of small things I had observed in the U.S. and in East and Central Europe.
A most compelling example of people who work against the common sense about the other is The Parents Circle, a Palestinian Israeli organization of “bereaved families for peace.” I first met them at their Israeli headquarters outside of Tel Aviv when a student of mine arranged a meeting. I found it absolutely remarkable how the Israeli and the Palestinian members of the organization worked with each other. I know that when people try to work across divides of conflict and of domination, finding an equal footing is difficult. Condescension and arrogance on the part of the structurally advantaged group members is difficult to avoid, as is acquiescence to subordination or defensive aggression on the part of the members of the dominated group. The warm feeling and the careful avoidance of such pitfalls were striking at The Parents Circle office.
What I saw that day is depicted in Encounter Point, a moving film about the group.3 It introduces ordinary people on both sides of the conflict attempting to re-write the political culture as it accounts for them and us. These are people who have lost love ones in the conflict, victims of wars, military raids, suicide bombings, terror of the state apparatus and of resistance organizations. The group members are dedicated to not having their loss used to justify a politics of retribution. It started in Tel Aviv, among a group of Israeli parents. It now has both Palestinian and Israeli branches, with the Palestinian group slightly outnumbering the Israeli one. The groups operate independently and also work jointly. Getting together, a crucial part of their endeavors, though, is not easy. Travel restrictions make Palestinian movements within Israel proper difficult, if not impossible. And Israeli citizens also are restricted in their movements in the occupied territories. In the film, we see a group meeting in Jerusalem. What we don’t see are the obstacles and checkpoints that had to be surmounted for the Palestinians to take part. We are shown an attempt by the Israeli group to meet a group in the West Bank, and though they finally do get through, their difficulties are clearly depicted. It includes a postscript of the Palestinian host of the gathering being arrested as a terrorist, but released from prison thanks to his Parents Circle Israeli colleagues. Road blocks, checkpoints, official regulations and fear are the group’s immediate obstacles. But memory and attitudes toward the other are more profound ones.
In the report of the Jerusalem meeting, we see a discussion between two families who lost their daughters to the conflict, in an anti terrorist military operation in Bethlehem and in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. It is a quick empathetic conversation, casual, seemingly not of profound significance. But we see more outside the meeting. We learn that the family from Bethlehem had the bad luck of driving their late model Toyota on a shopping trip on the same day a group of suspected terrorists were driving the same model. And when their car came into view of the Israeli army, they were attacked and their daughter was killed. We see the funeral, a full martyr’s ceremony, with aggressive nationalist, almost militaristic, rhetoric and with the father actively taking part. And we see the father, later, now a member of Parents Circle, as deputy major of the city. This is a moving sequence of events. The family, of course, has not forgotten the loss of their daughter, but in their actions, they are undermining a dominant way of remembering, trying to create another way, apparently with some success.
Their Israeli counterparts do the same thing. We see the father who lost his daughter to the suicide bombing go to school groups and argue not only for peace and reconciliation, but also against the linking of memory and retribution. He may not convince, but he is, at least, opening up new possibilities.
Both fathers know that as they work in their own communities, they make it possible to work together, and in doing so, they are creating new political alternatives to the logic of the central authorities, by redefining their situation and acting together based on that redefinition. I am struck by the fact that working against memory, or, at least, “re-remembering,” collectively remembering in a different way, is a first act of transforming the common sense about them and us and reinventing a political culture.
The two fathers and their fellow members of The Parents Circle meet the other in a different way. Even as they are part of different political communities and may not agree on the big political questions, they share a commitment that their losses are not used as a key justification for flaming the conflict. Their attempt to de-militarized the conflict suggests a possible overcoming of the tragedy. The obstacles they face are very real, some they are able to overcome in their interaction. But the interaction is difficult, requiring changes in fundamental attitudes, but also requiring a subversion of structures that separate people, physical restrictions and communal attitudes. Nonetheless these people and many like them persist. And in their persistence off the main political stage, I believe, the script of the “Chekhovian resolution” is being written. More about the writing of the script in future posts.
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