No time to celebrate
Published by Sabotabby May 15th, 2008 in nakba, no time to celebrate
“Commemoration: al-Nakba 1948,” Sue Goldstein (2008). My photo does not do the piece justice, I’m afraid.
Cognitive dissonance, said developmental theorist Jean Piaget, is the only way one ever learns anything. The discrepancy between what we already know or believe and new information that we encounter hits us repeatedly. There’s a tendency to initially reject that new knowledge, no matter how seemingly inoffensive. The child refuses to believe that a piece of clay molded in her hands occupies the same amount of space when it’s shaped like a ball as it does when it’s flattened into a pancake. She gets upset; the universe is not functioning as it should. She tries to assimilate the new evidence into her previous knowledge, but the pieces don’t fit. Thus, the new knowledge supplants the old—she changes, she grows, and she learns. But first, she gets upset. The reaction is even stronger when the belief that gets challenged is very dear to us, very vital to our sense of self.
So here’s how it is when you’re raised in a North American Jewish family. You watch the news every night, and your parents explain things. Jews have always been victims, and Israel is our only protection. Every Arab in the Middle East wants to destroy it. The land was empty when we got there—we made the desert bloom. Most of my relatives, though they are no longer children, still believe these stories.
But the evening news, biased though it is in Israel’s favour, introduces ambiguities. Where did those stone-throwing youths come from? So, then, the land wasn’t empty when we got there? Your worldview clashes and shifts again, forced to incorporate this new information. You adopt the liberal worldview—both sides are angry, both sides are wrong. The situation is too complex to understand or debate. They’re all crazy over there. A plague on both their houses.
But you’re older now, and engaged with the world. You meet peace activists. You accept the idea of two states, independent from one another. You accept the possibility of change and even a token sacrifice.
And then one day you’re at an event for Jews who oppose the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Bat Shalom’s director is talking about the possibility of peaceful co-existence, two states, how she still loves Israel despite being opposed to its government. She does great work, and everyone in the crowd respects that work—you still, to this day, respect that work. But that upset, that new knowledge that threatens the old, is never far away. A woman stands—an older woman that you know from protests, a woman with whom you’re starting to become friends. She’s one of the few Palestinians in the audience. And she, too, respects the work that Israeli peace activists do.
“I just wanted to say, though,” she says. “I was forced from my house in 1948, when I was 12 years old. My house was in Jerusalem—right across from where Bat Shalom’s headquarters are. When there is peace, where should I live?”
This is where you begin to understand, in that slow, painful, incremental sort of way, what the Nakba means. Not just then, for that innocent 12-year-old girl, but for every Palestinian and every Israeli alive today. That’s why you can’t listen to politicians quibbling over the route of imaginary lines on a map. That’s why you can’t be proud or wave a flag, not even in the name of peace. You can’t ignore that the fact that today’s horrors—the imprisonment of Gaza, the denial of food, water, health care, and basic human rights to Palestinians in the occupied territories, the ongoing displacement and violence—have their roots in that original dispossession.
And it makes you upset. Because part of your identity comes from being from a persecuted people, and more significantly, from being on the righteous side of history. And these atrocities—checkpoints, home demolitions, incursions, arbitrary detention, the Apartheid Wall, people dying of childbirth or cancer because they can’t get to a hospital—were not, could not be a light unto nations. We weren’t Davids facing down a Goliath. And the solution isn’t as simple as another summit or shifting the imaginary line a little more to the left or a little more to the right.
For the last few years, I, like a growing number of Jews, have been talking about things that upset other Jews. I’ve been talking about the 800,000 Palestinians displaced from their homes in 1948, the 500 destroyed villages, the impossibility of any sort of just, lasting peace in the Middle East without grappling with this history, this original atrocity.
But if hearing about this upsets you, keep reading. Keep questioning what you know and what you hear. And most of all, listen. Read the stories of the dispossessed. Read this letter from Jews who stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
It’s been 60 years. And it’s no time to celebrate.
You can’t ignore that the fact that today’s horrors—the imprisonment of Gaza, the denial of food, water, health care, and basic human rights to Palestinians in the occupied territories, the ongoing displacement and violence—have their roots in that original dispossession.
The thing that really made me re-think my “America Jew” perspective is how many people know about these abuses. When I first started speaking with people from my synagogue, there was almost never any denial that these things happened, just constant repetition that it was necessary, necessary to protect Israel, living in a land surrounded by enemies. And the really scary cognitive dissonance for me was the realization that that sounded *so* familiar. This idea that we need to separate, conceal, oppress - haven’t we learned that this is unacceptable? How have we turned a lesson that should be about tolerance, about abolishing arbitrary ideas of “other,” into a lesson that Jews should never be questioned?
It’s frustrating, because I’m so proud of my Jewish great-grandparents, who came here from Russia to escape the pogroms. I should be able to be proud of them for being so brave, and I should be able to take their legacy and use it to protect other people who are being oppressed. It’s so painful to be told that I’m not a “real Jew” when I try to do that.
I’m at a point where I say, “a pox on both their houses, and the houses of Jews who tell me I’m a bad Jew because I say a pox on both their houses.” I try to have more hope than that, but I’m young yet. Maybe in a few years.
One of the things that I feel would really make a difference is exactly that, that the history be recognised. That there be some Truth and Reconciliation committee put up by Palestinians, Israelis and Int. and find out what happened, why it happened and how we can save ourselves (Israelis, Jews, Palestinians, the Palestinians living within the ‘48 territory) and maybe actually manage some kind of “normal” life.
I’m missing the commemorations. Which I’m glad in some ways because I’ve become more and more involved in the activism at home, I’m also too cynical to believe next year I’ll be in East Jerusalem celebrating a Palestinian state.
I think at the end of the day, once the people and not the “leaders”, “ideologues” and what have you, establish, with “facts on the ground” as they say, that co-existence with mutual respect, love and all that mushy stuff
… things will happen.
What a great post…
Awesome post, thank you!
Yes, that was lovely. Cognitive dissonance is a tricky thing, isn’t it? The discomfort we feel when some cherished belief doesn’t hold up to reality ought to be such a clear sign that it’s time to reassess what we know, to its very foundations, if necessary. But it seems so painful to actually challenge ourselves this way. It’s easy to get used to it– I think human beings can probably get used to anything– and live with an undercurrent of unexamined discomfort for years. Especially with TV and music and, ahem, all of these nice shiny blogs to escape into for a while instead.
Though I’m of Jewish heritage on my dad’s side, I wasn’t really raised in the culture, except for family visits and such. Let’s face it; actually, I’m an ignoramus. Those facile liberals you characterize as just saying “The situation is too complex to understand or debate”– that cuts rather close to the bone for me. I have, in fact, been recently making token efforts to try to understand the issues at play in the Middle East a bit more. Your post came at a good time for me. For anybody else like me (that is, woefully ignorant but with a desire to rectify the situation), there’s some really clear background on the Palestinian perspective here, inside one of the sites Sabotabby linked. And while I’m at it, may I recommend Lawrence of Cyberia, a blog with really clear analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that always makes me feel like I actually understand what’s going on for a little while.
Anyway, Sabotabby, thanks for that, and keep it up. That’s some fine writing.