Tornadoes v. Rockets

This is part of the view from my favorite place in Israel: the hammock on the porch of the apartment I rented.  Almost every night I spent a little time in this hammock relaxing and watching the moon rise over Beer Sheva.  My next few posts will be reflections on my trip.  These are my Thoughts from the Hammock.

Installment #1: Tornadoes v. Rockets.

At some point within the first three days of arriving in Israel, the guy I'm subletting this apartment from let me know that there would be a city-wide siren some time the following day. An emergency preparedness drill, like the fire drills from high school in which an alarm would ring and we'd practice the proper procedure in case the school was on fire - walk calmly onto the football field making sure that we'd rescued our ipods and sacrificed our homework.

The city-wide siren wasn't exactly a fire drill.  It was a rocket drill.  This is the siren that would sound if rockets, presumably from Gaza, were fired on Beer Sheva.  My host shared that, as part of the drill, people were expected to at least identify the nearest bomb shelter they would move to in the event of incoming rockets.  The good news is that my room in the apartment is a bomb shelter.  It has a steel shutter that slides over the window and reinforced walls and door.  I was simultaneously comforted and disturbed by this revelation.

Once the drill came and went and my jet lag wore off, the anxiety about potential rockets also wore off.  I remembered that just a few weeks earlier I'd experienced city-wide sirens in Little Rock, Arkansas.  No threat of rockets in Little Rock.  Those sirens were tornado warnings and they weren't a drill.  Several large tornadoes touched down in and near Little Rock causing a great deal of destruction.  Remembering those sirens and the cause of those sirens gave me a different perspective on the rocket drill sirens of Beer Sheva.  I realized that if ever I was forced to choose between the two I'd choose the rocket sirens.  I'd choose the rocket sirens because I feel like I have some control over whether or not those are needed.

We (humans) made the rockets.  Our technology powers them. Our fingers push the buttons that send them hurtling at one another. Our minds decide whether or not to use them.  Which means that it is within Our power to stop them.  No amount of mediating or conflict resolution or diplomacy can stop a tornado.  But We can stop the rockets and since I'm part of the greater We, I can work to stop the rockets, so everyone can enjoy their hammock time at the end of a hot desert day.

Home

I'll let you in on a little secret - officially I'm here in Israel to work with Bedouin women's organizations, but (here's the secret) I was kinda hoping to achieve peace in the Middle East while I was here.  When I've broached that topic with folks here, a common reply is "It's complicated".  I've spent some time trying to understand the complicating factors.  This past weekend I felt a glimpse.

As part of my journey to and through Israel, I've visited and slept in a variety of places.  I've slept on planes, trains, buses, and outside under an open-air tent.  I've spent the majority of my nights in the apartment I'm subletting in Beer Sheva.  I've visited friends and colleagues in their apartments.  Temporary places.

This weekend I visited and stayed with a Palestinian family in the village their family has lived in for generations.  As soon as I walked into their house (pictured above), I felt immediately at ease.  I was more relaxed than I've been at any point in my stay.  I hadn't realized how temporary those other places felt until I walked through their door - the door of the place they have lived, are living, and plan to keep living in for a very long time.  In other words, I felt a home.  Not my home, but a home.

That feeling helped me understand the heart of the conflict in this area.  Jews and Palestinians both want that feeling.  They both want to feel at home.  And they both believe they can only get that feeling from the same piece of geography.  This is not a great insight for most folks, but for me there's a difference between knowing something and feeling something.  And, thanks to the hospitality of this family, I feel like I understand the complicated situation more clearly.

By the time most of you read this a decision will have been made regarding the future of the house pictured at the right.

A court hearing is being held today, July 14th in the city of Ramla.  The court will officially decide whether or not to demolish this home along with 12 others in the village of Dahmash.  Dahmash is one of many "unrecognized villages" in Israel-Palestine.  It's a village of roughly 70 families and 600 residents.

I've been here for less than two months, which means I can't speak with authority on the status of "unrecognized villages" but I can share with you  the perspectives I've heard and questions I have.

My understanding is this:  As a result of the conflicts in 1948 and 1967 the Israeli government either was given, or won by force, lands in this region.  Some of this land was actively occupied by Palestinians who had been living on it for generations.  The Israeli government is responsible for, among other things, national planning and security.  The government gets to decide what which lands will be used for agricultural, residential, military, etc. purposes.  In many instances, the government has designated the land inhabited by Palestinian families to be used for purposes other than residential which renders all of the homes on that land illegal.  In the cases where Palestinian families choose not move, they become part of an "unrecognized village".  Homes in an unrecognized village receive no support from nearby municipalities: no access to the electrical grid, no water and sewage services, no bus service, no official addresses, no trash collection.  I wish I'd taken a picture of the mountains of trash located with a few hundred yards of the very nice house pictured above. 

Families living in an unrecognized village exist under the constant threat of having their home demolished.  The government can decide that specific houses need to be removed and arrive with bulldozers to accomplish that purpose.  The rationale behind choosing which homes are destroyed is unclear to me.  It's my impression that the families who lose their homes are not compensated in any way and may even be required to pay the city for the cost of the bulldozers and manpower used to destroy their homes.

So my questions are:  How do home demolitions reduce tensions or promote stability in this country and region?  What's the logic behind it?  From a humanitarian perspective, how are home demolitions just and morally justifiable?

Yesterday I witnessed a group of people asking those questions.  There was a march from the City Hall of Ramla to Dahmash.  I'm glad to report that the portion of the march I saw was entirely peaceful and gives me hope that there are a good number of people who want justice and fair treatment for everyone.  The march was significant because it marked the first time that a primarily Arab (though there were plenty of Jews in the crowd too) march was allowed to pass down the main street of the city.  I was told both by members of the march and a member of the police force that peaceful, legal marches, such as this one, were usually heavily stipulated - the pro-Palestinian marches were not allowed to pass through Jewish neighborhoods and vice versa.  This march was entirely legal.  The organizers received permission from the city officials and received the protection of city police.

I hope the march achieved its goal of stopping the demolitions and paved the way for peaceful talks between the residents of Dahmash and the government.

Visual Democracy

I don't quite know how to describe it, but "visual democracy" is the phrase that keeps coming to mind.  Multiple times I've had the sensation that Israel's democracy has a distinctly visual component.  My experiences today reinforced that idea for me.  Maybe the equivalent components in the U.S. are just more familiar to me and I take them for granted.  Everything in this part of the world is still new and fascinating to me.  As I walk down the street I notice the various states of dress and undress and what's being communicated.  There's a guy with a head covering; those are a woman's eyes peeking out from yards of clothing; there's a guy in black with ringlets and a beard; there's a Muslim woman with her head covered; there's a Jewish woman with her head covered; there's an old guy with not nearly enough covered...all of these things mean something different.  The signs are telling, but, especially in this area where geography is so contentious, the map definitely isn't the territory.  There are so many more layers of complexity and uniqueness beyond the obvious distinctions.

Today's lesson in democracy came from a little trip to Nazareth.  Did I go to Nazareth to visit locations of significance to different religions? Nope.  Did I go to Nazareth to experience the second largest Arab community in Israel? Nope.  Both good guesses though.

Today one guy (me) and a busload of Arab women went to a conference on...

...polygamy.

I don't know about you, but that scenario cracks me up.  I love my life.

The conference was a little over three hours long.  It included the results of some research, reflections on the current legal system, ideas on where to push on the system, and some open mic time for the audience.

Bits and pieces of this were translated for me.  I'll share a few of them with you:

The researcher shared some of the reasons given by men who are active polygamists:

1. Religion allows him to do it; therefore, there's no reason not to.
2. Parents chose his first wife when he was very young.  He wanted a more appropriate companion, so he chose the next one.
3. His wife had a lot of kids and her body was too worn out for sex, so he got another wife to have sex with. (I'm gonna go ahead and say this didn't get a very favorable response from the crowd)
4. After his brother died he married his brother's wife to keep the family together.

In the spirit of an open-minded free exchange of ideas, I tried to give serious weight and thought to each reason given.  When I asked myself what values were being communicated, I found a lot more common ground than I expected.  Maybe I'll post more on that another time.

For now I'd rather share a little more about the open mic portion of our program.  Many women took the opportunity to share their thoughts.  Honestly, I expected all of it to be preaching to the choir.  This was a completely voluntary conference after all.  I thought everyone in attendance would have similar views on polygamy.

Nope.

A couple of women shared some clearly controversial viewpoints.  Whenever the crowd got riled, I'd ask somebody to summarize for me.  One of the women made a case for the superiority of men (I don't know the details of her argument).  Another woman put all of the responsibility on the women.  If you give your husband all of the support he needs emotionally, mentally, and physically, then he won't take more wives. (Again, not a crowd favorite, but spend a few minutes thinking about how much power this attributes to women.)

People got passionate at different points in the conference.  Tempers flared a bit, but they didn't seem to shut down the sharing of ideas.  Folks are gonna get riled in a democracy.  To some degree, they're supposed to.  In a healthy democracy the passions generated fuel the decision-making machine that values everyone.  At least that's the theory.  I'm not a good enough student of world governments to know if it's working on a large scale anywhere.  Today's meeting is one of many examples where I've seen it work on a small scale though and that gives me hope.

Contributing to the visual democracy

Wedding Roots

About a week-and-a-half ago Amny told me that I'd been invited to the wedding of the son of one of the women (Nama from the video a few posts ago).  Awesome! I was really excited to see a Bedouin wedding.

About 4 days ago Amny told me that it wasn't actually the wedding ceremony, but part of the week of celebration leading up to the ceremony.  Still cool!  Several of the other women I've been working with said they'd be there too.

About an hour before we arrived at the celebration Amny told me that once we got there, I'd be sent to the men's areas, while she went to the women's area.  Quick mental calculation...number of Bedouin women I've met while working with Bedouin women's organization: dozens; number of Bedouin men I've met while working with Bedouin women's organizations: zero.  I got a little nervous at that point, but could only laugh and go with the flow.

We arrived pretty late in the evening after the party had been going on for a while.  There were two large, courtyards, one for the men, and another one, this one with walls, for the women.  There was no mingling of the men and women except as they arrived or left the party.  Amny found a group of teenage boys and requested that one of them escort me into the men's area and show me around.  I was quickly adopted by the little guy in the middle.  He wasn't at all shy and knew enough English to show me around a bit.  The men's area was a big open area with blankets and pillows and fires heating the tea characteristic of the Bedouins.  Some men were just lounging around on the pillows while others were singing and dancing together.  For about 15 minutes my guide enjoyed having me as the focus of his show-and-tell show. Once he'd introduced me to everyone he had the patience for, he deposited me on a blanket and wandered off. 

At which point I was adopted by another little guy who introduced me to some older guys.  These two guys and I hit it off and spent the rest of the evening talking about America and Israel.  They wanted to visit America, but were nervous about the reception they'd receive.  I was glad to reassure them that there are plenty of Americans that don't hate Arabs.  

This wedding celebration was unusual for me, for obvious reasons.  It was also unusual by the standards of a significant number of Negev Bedouins.  This wedding was the first, and likely to be the only, wedding for both the bride and groom. In comparison, it's estimated that over one third of the marriages in this region are polygamous.  The man is allowed to have up to four wives and often exercizes that option.

As I've mentioned several times in this blog, I'm interested in root issues or problems that contribute to other problems.  Last week while we met with a representative from the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) Amny described polygamy as a root issue in this region.  It's hard for me to fathom the emotional and mental impact of being one of four spouses, a not so significant other.  The saying, "If momma ain't happy, nobody's happy" takes on a different meaning.  Rates of depression among the women are disproprotionately high.  This naturally has an enormous negative impact on her children.

All of the Bedouin women's groups that I'm working with are trying to tackle the issue of polygamy, though many of them can't approach it head on.  It's too sensitive in this culture.  Instead, they address economic empowerment among women, or they weave women's rights into literacy courses, or they talk about mental and emotional health in the clinics.  After four weeks here, I can't say that I understand the complexity of it, but I am more and more in awe of the pioneering women I'm working with.  They've made significant progress in just 10 years.

Speaking of Translators

A couple of you asked about the translation device I mentioned in my last post.  I can't fully explain how it works but here's what I've been able to piece together from the following scraps of information:

Clue #1:  One of the few agreed upon names for this piece of geography is "Terra Santa".  My newfound language skills allow me to say with confidence that this means "Land of Santa" (no relation).  I was understandably confused by this until...

Clue #2:  I was given brief access to the translator (pictured to the right).  When I first received this magical device I slipped on the headphones, pointed the hand-held portion at Amny and said, "Say something".  She replied, "That's not how it works." Ha! If that's not how it works, then how could I understand her perfectly?  She claims to have been speaking English and sitting right next to me.  I pushed her for another reasonable explanation.  She explained that there was a person sitting in a booth that would take whatever was spoken into the microphone, translate it, then relay it to the headphones.  Likely story.

Conclusions:  Using my powerful skills of deduction (which are only slightly less powerful than my skills at translation) I reasoned the following:  Though Amny never referred to the mysterious booth person as "Santa" (no relation), I realized that the cultures in this part of world must have a mythical figure similar to our Mr. Claus.  Just like we attribute the appearance of presents under a tree to Mr. Claus, they attribute the delivery of English words through the translator to Santa (no relation).  Is the shared name a really big coincidence? or proof that there are commonalities among all cultures?