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.