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A
Different Kind of Despair
by
Neve Gordon
March
31, 2003
“Come
to dinner when the war against Iraq ends,” Jamil said, as I opened the car
door. He had just parked the sedan, a short distance from the Bethlehem
military checkpoint, the one closest to Jerusalem.
“Is
that what you call hospitality?” I asked.
“What
do you mean?” he queried, in turn.
“Well,
imagine I invited you to dinner, but told you to come only in the year 2008?” I
retorted, with a small smirk on my face.
“You’re
right,” he said. “The 1967 war, which you Israelis call the Six Day War, is still
going on 35 years after it began. Also, the Americans thought they would
rapidly defeat the Vietnamese but ended up occupying the country for many
years, killing three million people, not to mention the 58,000 American
soldiers who died.”
“On
second thought,” he continued, “perhaps you should come to dinner next week and
not wait until the Iraqi debacle is over.”
I
stepped out of Jamil’s car and climbed into the waiting truck. It was about
5:00 pm, and we had just finished delivering food to 9 villages located on the
southern outskirts of Bethlehem. We were now on our way back to Jerusalem.
Earlier
that day, Ta’ayush -- Arab-Jewish
Partnership -- activists had delivered 100 tons of food to small villages all
over the West Bank, knowing that the Palestinian population had already begun
suffering from the war against Iraq.
I
am not only referring to the media blackout concerning the 180 Palestinians who
have been killed by the Israeli military since January 2003. Just as important is the world’s failure to
respond to the humanitarian crisis transpiring in the occupied territories -- a
crisis that is only deepening due to extended curfews and closures imposed
following the outbreak of the war.
The
World Bank recently published a report showing that the effects of the Israeli
military siege are ominous. Twenty-seven months after the eruption of the
Intifada, 60 percent of the population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip live
under the international poverty line of $2 per day. The number of poor has
tripled from 637,000 in September 2000 to nearly 2 million today (out of a
total population of 3.5 million), with more than 50 percent of the work force
unemployed.
People
cannot reach work or their fields, and it is said that over half a million
Palestinians are now fully dependent on food aid. Per capita food consumption
has declined by 30 percent in the past two years, and there is severe
malnutrition in the Gaza Strip -- equivalent to levels found in some of the
poorer sub-Saharan countries -- as found in a recent Johns Hopkins University
study.
It
is this crisis that led Ta’ayush to embark on a food campaign. Yet the campaign
is not only meant to provide humanitarian aid, but rather has a crucial political
dimension as well.
In
different parts of the West Bank, the Palestinian population is fighting
everyday to hold on to its land, despite the harassment, constant intimidation
and violence of the Jewish settlers and Israeli military. The food supply and
solidarity visits organized by Ta’ayush are meant to strengthen the
Palestinians, who are struggling against all odds, as the Israeli government
constantly and systematically destroys their infrastructure of existence.
Moreover,
by entering closed military areas the peace activists break the military siege,
and thus undermine the political, physical, and psychological barriers set up
by the Israeli government -- barriers which deliberately obstruct all acts of
solidarity with the occupied Palestinians and block collaboration between the
two peoples. Indeed, the separation walls Israel is constructing will only
continue to cultivate the seeds of hatred, thus adding fuel to the ongoing
conflict.
Back
at the checkpoint, the food truck drove slowly towards the guards. Together
with my fellow travelers, I was asked to step down by Israeli policemen; we
were subsequently detained for several hours since Jews are not allowed to
enter Bethlehem.
While
our lawyer was making phone calls to ensure our release, I had a short
conversation with one of the policemen.
“Up
until a year ago,” he said, “the Palestinians still had a glitter in their
eyes. Now it’s all gone, a sign of total despair.”
“When
someone despairs, he has nothing left to lose,” I whispered, asking the
policeman whether he thought this would lead to more suicide bombings.
“No,”
he said. “It’s a different kind of despair, more like the one experienced by
the Jews in the European Ghettos.”
Neve Gordon teaches
politics at Ben-Gurion University, Israel, and is a contributor to The Other
Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent (New Press, 2002). He can be reached
at ngordon@bgumail.bgu.ac.il.