New Death, Ancient Grief

Israel is in turmoil. How do we respond in the face of unfathomable tragedy?

By now, we all know of the violence that happened in Israel this week. Over 700 people are confirmed dead, many more injured, and many unaccounted for. This is heavy. It is an unbelievable tragedy for those people and their families. Personally, I am not one of those people. I am not one of the many thousands of people who lost a loved one in this violence. For the people who are feeling it, this is an extremely vulnerable time. Because of this, it feels like it may not be appropriate to talk about it. Yet, that doesn't seem an appropriate response, either. I imagine it would be alienating to experience such a tragic loss and hear silence about it from the world around you. So here I am. I will speak.

Photo by Tim Umphreys on Unsplash

I have been feeling quite a bit about this tragedy in the past several days. This is for a number of reasons, I'm sure. For one, I am Jewish. I have many friends who are Jewish. Many of the greatest philosophers, thinkers, and teachers that I'm connected with are Jewish. This has not been intentional, but it has happened. I can't help but think about the reverberations of this disaster through the lives of so many whom I love and respect. As well, in 2017 I spent a month in Israel and a week in Palestine and was heartbroken by what I saw there. Largely because of that, I was not at all surprised by the news of the violence this week. Frankly, I was numb to the impact of this tragedy until I witnessed a small piece of the personal horror experienced by someone in my local community. The fact that I was numb to it at all only serves to make it more tragic.

It was a full day before I finally began to look at the many emails flooding my inbox on the matter from various media sources. The first one I opened said something about, “the truth of what happened today.” I thought this sounded good.

What I saw really disturbed me even beyond the horror of the event itself. This article was extremely politically charged. It linked to three other articles, urging me and anyone else who was reading to be wary of the “lies” that would come out in the coming days. The lies they suggested would come were of a story of an entrenched, decades-old conflict—saying this was just another event in a longstanding cycle of violence. I was shocked. Where would the lie be in that? The violence between Israel and Palestine has indeed been going on for decades. So what is the lie? I still do not know.

I remember my time in Israel. I loved the country. I loved the feeling of connection to my ancestral community, my ancestral land. I thought the people were proud, strong, intelligent, and brave. Though, I felt something there that I didn't like, too: hatred.

I had only left the Standing Rock pipeline protest—where I stood in solidarity with the Lakota tribe as they resisted incursion onto their land by corporate power—a week before arriving in Israel. In my time at Standing Rock, I felt my heart torn with compassion for both the Lakota tribe whose sovereignty was being violated as well as the police who were forced to act as militiamen for an oil company in order to maintain their jobs. While I stood with the tribe, I could not help but feel compassion for those caught up in the colonized logic of the other side.

Thus, when I was in Israel, I felt curious about the Palestinians. I wasn't, and I'm still not, someone who knows the detailed history of the region or has intimate knowledge about geopolitics. What I did know is that there were living, breathing humans living on the other side of the 100 ft wall on the eastern border of Israel, and I knew nothing about them.

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

Asking folks in Israel didn't help. People would characterize them as dangerous and violent. When I would ask the question, “What do they want?” I would be told, “They want us all dead.” When I would ask why, I would be told that they hated us.

Whatever truth there may have been in that, I reasoned, there must be much more to the story than that.

It took me a full two weeks to muster the courage to cross the border into Palestine to find out for myself who these people were. I was warned by just about everyone I knew that such a move would be foolish—that I would be in danger simply by virtue of my Jewish blood. I was scared, but I couldn't leave this region without knowing who these people really were. I knew that they could not only be the hateful violent people that I had been told they were. More so, I knew even then that the people who told me these things didn't know who those people were either.

It was thanks to a fellow curious Jewish traveler that I found the courage to cross. He, too, wanted to know what lay beyond the wall but was scared to go alone. It was shocking how easy it was to cross. I was American and he was Canadian. Our passports got us anywhere. It was a 10-shekel (about $2.50) bus from Jerusalem to Ramallah, the capital of Palestine. We had to pass a security checkpoint on the way. I can't recall specifics, but I do recall that there were certain search procedures that the darker-skinned people on the bus were subjected to that we weren't. This felt strange given that we were foreigners and these Arab folks were probably just going home.

This fellow traveler and I spent only one evening together in Ramallah. By the first morning, neither of us felt the least bit frightened anymore and felt confident to go on our own ways. I don't recall where he went, but I went off to meet the Palestinian people.

What I discovered was a region populated by the same kinds of delicious cuisine I had found in Israel. It was practically indistinguishable. The people here had darker skin, far fewer of them spoke English, and there were piles of trash in slum-like dumps. The people were extraordinarily kind to me. I was traveling on a shoestring budget, though people offered me food. One guy spent much of the day with me, giving me a walking tour of one city. Multiple people invited me into their homes, smiling warmly and offering me coffee while they struggled to tell me about their lives in broken English.

I hitchhiked from one city to another, about a two-hour drive. I pointed at the curb (the local gesture for hitchhiking) and was picked up by a taxi. I explained to him that I was looking for a free ride, not to pay a fair. He spoke almost no English but waved me in and turned off the meter. While our communication consisted of mostly grunts and gestures, he was very kind to me. We stopped for gas at one point and he insisted on purchasing me a snack.

I recall, sadly, one conversation with an older man—probably in his late 50s. I asked him the same question I had asked so many in Israel about him and his people: “What do you want?” He told me, sorrowfully, that he wanted to see the sea before he died. The coast was less than 30 miles away, a 10 shekel bus ride for me. For him, it was inaccessible.

I didn't know before spending time in Palestine how much political and military power the Israeli government has over life in Palestine. Even traveling from one Palestinian city to the next, folks often have to pass through Israeli-controlled checkpoints. These checkpoints, I was told, could be randomly shut down, forcing travelers to make multiple-hour detours. Some people lived in one city and worked in the next. These shutdowns could happen suddenly and add multiple hours to their commute.

Photo by Cole Keister on Unsplash

I attended an event with a group of local Palestinian activists that I was guided to from a local hostel. I was told stories of an Israeli settlement that had popped up nearby within the last ten years. One of the Palestinian men spoke of one of the farms within the settlement. It had previously belonged to his family before the settlement arrived and pushed his family off. The event I attended was a direct confrontation with the settlement. Local activists arranged themselves by the fence that separated the settlement from the rest of Palestine. They threw rocks and other things over the fence, hoping—I imagine—to hit and injure the people in the settlement. They shouted at the gate, lighting trash on fire and leaving it there.

My heart broke. I felt their anger. I felt their pain. I imagined how they must be feeling, having their home taken from them. As well, I understood the limited perspective of my brothers and sisters on the other side of the wall who had told me that Palestinians were hateful and violent. They didn't see what I saw. All they saw were the rocks, the shouts, the burning trash.

The most heartbreaking place in Palestine was Hebron. This is the town where the Cave of the Patriarchs is. It is said that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are entombed here. Thus, it is a holy place for both Jews and Muslims.

I had been told that there had once been an uneasy peace here. The Tomb was shared among Palestinians and Israelis. They divided the week into two chunks. Three days a week the Tomb was open to Jews to worship. Three days a week for Muslims. One day a week would switch off—classic joint custody.

Though, I was told that there was a horrible tragedy in 1993. It is known as the Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre. An Israeli entered the tomb on one of the days that it was occupied by Muslims and opened fire with an assault weapon. Twenty-nine worshipers were killed and many more injured. Needless to say, this caused tremendous damage to the uneasy peace in the region.

I was told that the Israeli government so feared retaliation, that they divided the city in two—cleanly down the middle. One side of the city was for Israelis and the other side of the city was for Palestinians. One of the problems with this was that hundreds of Palestinian homeowners and business owners were forced from their homes or business residences. I was told there were still people who had most of their livelihood in their store that they were still not allowed to access almost 30 years later. Others could still access their homes but would have to climb in through windows as the entrance was on the Israeli side of town. One street I vividly remember was actually divided horizontally. Palestinians occupied the street level, whereas Israelis occupied the upper levels of the homes. I was saddened to see lots of trash piled atop the mesh that divided the two, inconsiderately tossed down by the people above.

I asked one man that I met what I could do to help the Palestinian people. He told me to go home and tell Americans who the Palestinian people really are. He was aware that he and his people were portrayed negatively in the West. He urged me to tell Americans that the Palestinians are good people.

Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

Probably, I haven't fully honored his request. This is why I share this with you now. Of course, this is not to say that all my experiences with Palestinians were positive. There were two encounters, in particular, where I felt taken advantage of by Palestinian people—both of whom were trying to gouge me for money. Likely, they recognized I was American and assumed that I had a lot of money. Neither would have believed that I was unemployed and only had $300 to my name at the beginning of my time there. These were rather unpleasant encounters, though could just as easily have taken place in the United States.

I was really struck by my time in Israel and Palestine. Yet I was also struck by an experience I had on my way home. At the airport, I made a social media post about my time in Israel and Palestine. A person I had met at Standing Rock—who I considered at least a comrade if not a friend—bombarded me with all manner of vitriol that I would dare even visit such a horrible colonial place. I don't know what he was thinking or feeling, but I imagine he may have felt betrayed by me. Perhaps he recognized my Jewish name, heard of my time in Israel, and made a lot of assumptions about me. Thus, I was met with no curiosity, kindness, or respect. Instead, I was met with accusations, insults, and other forms of verbal violence. Perhaps this could have been avoided by a face-to-face encounter. Though, like the 100-foot wall that separates Israel and Palestine, we were separated from each other by an impassable digital divide. Like that wall, that lack of connection between us erupted into violence.

So again, I was not surprised to hear of what happened this week. My intention is not to trivialize the tremendous loss that happened there. To the contrary, I write this because I am not at all satisfied by the sense of righteous indignation that I see parading itself as care in the aftermath of an inconceivable horror.

This tragedy does not exist in isolation, it is an expression of the more insidious, ongoing tragedy that has been going on for decades at least—if not centuries. I understand the impulse towards hatred in the face of such overwhelming grief. Though, when we reach for blame, indignation, and seek vengeance thinly veiled by the language of justice—we actually participate in creating the conditions that give rise to such tragedies in the first place. I saw it that day as the rocks were hurled over the walls into the Jewish settlement. Unmetabolized grief metastasizes into anger and eventually hatred. This hatred erupts into violence and the cycle of violence is fed.

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It is indeed tempting to succumb to the impulses of war and tribalism. If the problem is the violent Palestinians, the answer is simple. If the problem is the colonizing Israelis, the answer is simple. Though both such answers depend upon the denial of the humanity of an entire population of human beings. Human beings who have much more in common than they think. I've seen it for myself.

The answer here is not simple. The problem isn't simple. There is no single person, government, or group to blame. Rather, we are caught in a cycle of loss, grief, distrust, pain, and vengeance that has no clear beginning. This is horrific, incomprehensible violence. It is not time to find a solution or affix blame. This is the time to grieve.

If you grieve, don't only grieve the 700+ people in Israel who died in this latest attack. Grieve the whole cycle of vengeance that has given rise to this abominable situation. Grieve for the propaganda that prevents Palestinians and Israelis from truly seeing each other. Grieve for the Palestinians who have lost their homes or who can no longer visit the ocean. Grieve for the dispossessed Jews who first arrived in Palestine after WWII with no safe place in the world to call their own. Grieve for a world that in the face of such tragedy, so often turns to blame, hatred, and retribution rather than seeking for peace.

Grieve for all of these things, then begin to seek solutions. For it is not enough to affix blame for such a tragedy, to determine who is “right” and who is “wrong”. Better is to feel the heartbreaking, earth-shattering weight of such a tragedy. Then begin the hard work of coming together in a new way to ensure that no such tragedy has to happen again.

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