Thoughts about Israel from the outside
By Isabel Maxwell April 14, 2002
Israelinsider
israelinsider.com
When the very existence of Israel feels at stake and the "future" once again feels like a "luxury word" that is in danger of extinction, what is it like to watch from the outside for those who believe in the history and vital presence, and yes, that there MUST be a future for this wonderful but troubled nation…
These past months and days I have been feeling like an Oliver Tambo [he who kept the torch alive for the African peoples against Apartheid as an exile in Europe while Mandela and his brethren struggled on the 'inside'] for the Israeli peoples, and I mean all of them, Jews, Arab Israelis and all who have chosen to live in Israel, the only democratic state in the Middle East. Here am I, a non-Jew to the Jews (only my father was Jewish, my mother is a French Protestant); a relatively recently involved and frequent traveler to Israel (since 1997), feeling extraordinarily caught up in this struggle for survival. And by that I mean, SURVIVAL FOR THE WORLD and for HUMANITY, of which Israel is anguishingly on the front-line. A line that has become jagged and deeper and stained with more and more red every passing day.
Both peoples in this conflict are struggling for life - right now a truly miserable life for all, a life as if under 24 hour curfew, where going out anywhere is an ordeal and staying at home, thrown together as never before, is increasingly tense and fearful. What a tragedy!
Never normally a TV watcher, I find I sleep with the remote control constantly by me. Last thing at night I switch on to see what the dawn in Israel has brought to the country and the region…. and on and off, all day, I am on the phone and on the Internet - HaaretzDaily; Israelinsider; Jerusalem Post; Foxnews; MSNBC; CNN (aargh!); MEMRI; and again, first thing in the morning as consciousness seeps in, Israel, oh! Israel. And with heavy heart, I switch the TV back on to see what has happened before the start of my workday.
Particularly if there has been a huge attack or a bombing, I will start calling - my oldest friends and colleagues in Tel Aviv, other newer friends in Ramat Gan, Jerusalem and other parts of the country, and colleagues at the Peres Center. I have been unable to get through to my Palestinian colleagues for some time now, by email and by phone. I cannot imagine that their offices, let alone much of their normal lives, are intact any more. And always, always, I email and I email, and I continue to send my support and comfort over the air-waves, even though it feels so little and so inadequate.
On the weekends, I switch the TV on and off all day - impossible to watch one full program, there is so much braying and barking from all sides, so much ignorance and so much spin. So polarized and anguished has it become that no one side dares to state or accept publicly the obvious anguish of their adversary - that suicide bombing of civilians is homicide and terrorism or that Israel has occupied Palestinian lands since the '67 War started by the Arabs (and other reasons not withstanding). I cannot help but feel that if any leader was courageous enough to accept the anguish of the other side, publicly, and keep accepting it loudly, that the road to negotiation would/could begin to open again at last. AND that the international view of both sides would improve dramatically.
I channel surf, in vain to see if someone, somewhere, will state something sane and stick to it - I feel like the person who has realized there is something amiss with her eyesight. At the oculists, she tries on pair after pair of glasses, but that each one, no matter how 'different' it is billed, seems only to give her the same view - and a hideously distorted one at that.
Speaking of which, I believe that the most terrifying development, recounted seen and heard again and again now in the media and the demonstrations flooding across the world, has been the equating of the Israeli offensive in the territories with Nazism and the Holocaust. Both comparisons are beyond obscene and frankly, do the utmost harm and insult to Jews and the Israeli nation and to any real understanding of what the Nazis really stood for and did to the Jews. If that comparison is accepted as any truth and not quashed immediately and with finality every time it is mentioned, then it is but a small step from there to accept that the Jewish nation that is Israel must be defeated and destroyed.
What needs to be destroyed and defeated is actually FEAR - of each other. At the risk of sounding naive, I truly believe that if the territories were demilitarized for a substantial period of time and strongly supervised and supported by independent 3rd parties enabling a true infrastructure to grow, then the volcanoes of rage would begin to subside and Israelis and Palestinians would ultimately be able to live side by side. Palestine would be a real state and Israel would be able to withdraw from most if not all of the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. A strong and committed third party such as the United States/UN needs to STAY involved 'big-time' to enable this to have a chance to happen. For one thing I am not naive about is the state of hatred for Israel in the region and beyond. She is definitely not surrounded by the Salvation Army!
I want badly to be back in Israel, to experience what is happening there from the 'inside,' even if only for a relative moment (and there again I realize how very, very fortunate I am, that I can go back out, that I have a place to go back out to!). And all the while, I realize that the Israel I have known, will never be the same again. It is as if the land was visited by a wrathful god who has smitten all with plagues and infestation and madness and now one can only pray for a huge storm to come and in its pouring and pouring, to wash away the leaders of death, humiliation, blood and mayhem and the brainwashed men and women who are annihilating themselves and their victims, so that after the storm has finally abated, the earth can begin to breathe and heal again and recommit itself to the sanctity of human life, so very imperfect though it is.
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Isabel Maxwell consults for Apax Partners, Israel, and is a member of the Board of Directors of BackWeb Technologies. She is a member of the Board of Governors of the Peres Center for Peace & of the Board of the American Friends of the Soroka Medical Center of the Negev.
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