It seems to me that it is difficult today to argue against Israel’s right to defend itself by retaliating against the Palestinian Authority. There is no government in the world that would hold itself back after the incessant cruel and deadly attacks in the last ten days. And yet, with all due understanding of the anger and urge for revenge that have seized the Israeli people, we need to say: Force will not resolve the severe crisis between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The two sides have been drawing each other’s blood for almost a hundred years. Tens of thousands have already lost their lives. Yet the Arabs have not succeeded in destroying Israel, and Israel has not succeeded in cementing its occupation by force. These truths apply today as well, perhaps even more pointedly than before: perhaps the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians will have no political solution, either, without intense pressure from the international community. The two sides simply are not able today to return to a psychological state in which they can begin a movement toward compromise and conciliation. The darkest days of the Jewish-Arab conflict have not seen such polarized positions, so saturated with hatred and suspicion, as we see today.
It may well be that Arafat has lost control of his people. That is a frightening possibility, and recent events require us to discuss it seriously. I’d submit that even if it is true, no one ought to be too pleased about it, definitely not the Israelis. A crumbling Palestinian Authority, fired up because of what it sees as the “achievements” of terror—especially a Palestinian Authority that has surrendered to Hamas and Islamic Jihad—may bring a horrible catastrophe on itself, on Israel, and on the entire region.
Still, it may well be that Arafat did not order his men to prevent the recent terrorist attacks because he knew he would not be obeyed. If this hypothesis is true, it means that his declaration of a cease-fire this morning has no validity—just like dozens of his similar announcements in the past.
Arafat is now paying the price of flirting with terror. In recent years he has, time after time, released from his prisons Hamas terrorists who have committed attacks against Israel. He has done so to pressure Israel. For years he has been riding on the tiger’s back—that’s the local cliché—and now the tiger has thrown him off and confronts him.
Of course, Israel cannot be absolved of responsibility for Arafat’s weakened position. For years Israel has done everything—even during the negotiations after the Oslo Accords—to strengthen its grip on the occupied territories. The Palestinians watched as Arafat was forced to make ever-greater concessions, while the Israeli settlements grew before their eyes and many Israeli roads were paved through the territory promised to the Palestinians. It is clear that this has strengthened the position of the extremists, at the expense of Arafat and of peace.
Here is the essence of the tragedy: two peoples whose extended struggle has distorted their ability to act in a measured way and save themselves from themselves. Today, with eyes wide open—but perhaps blinded by hatred and fear—they are marching toward a terrifying confrontation.
The only thing that can prevent this horrible fate is swift international intervention. This can begin by immediately convening a summit, in the region itself, an emergency conference of the European Union’s heads of government, the UN Secretary-General, the leaders of those Arab countries that have an interest in putting out this fire, and a senior representative of the President of the United States. Afterward, international forces should be sent to the region to create an impermeable barrier between Israel and Palestine. Concurrently, negotiations should be imposed on the two sides, based on the understandings reached at Taba five months ago. This is apparently the only way that they will make the painful compromises that they are unable to make on their own. All those who see themselves as friends of Israel or of the Palestinians cannot stand aside, at a time when the two peoples are preparing for what may be the beginning of a long war.
Time to Part Company
August 2001
A mother, a father, and three of their children were among the fifteen killed in the suicide bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in downtown West Jerusalem. Another 130 people were injured, including many more children on their summer vacation. The terrorist responsible for planning this attack appeared on a most-wanted list of terrorists previously submitted to the Palestinian Authority by Israel. Arafat condemned the attack, but failed to take concrete steps to prevent further killings.
Jerusalem’s main street was built more than a century ago, and it’s engaging in its simplicity and shabbiness. It’s lined with two rows of antiquated, outdated stone construction plastered with huge billboards. The X-shaped crosswalk painted in the middle of the central intersection is the city’s heart. There is no child in Jerusalem who does not know it, and for many it is one of the quotidian symbols of civilian Jerusalem—if you’ve crossed the street there, if you’ve gotten intermingled, as everyone does, in the flow of people coming at you, you’ve felt as local as a native.
A Palestinian terrorist picked that X as a target. He chose a vacation day, one on which many of the families sightseeing in Jerusalem stop in at one of the inexpensive downtown restaurants. As I write this, there are already fifteen dead, among them entire families and many children. There are also more than a hundred wounded. When I saw the footage of the crosswalk on television after the attack, my first thought was: This is hell, and I’m living in it.
I turn on the television and hear Palestinian spokesmen explaining with great fluency why the terrorist did what he did. Yasir Arafat will, apparently, issue an official condemnation of the attack. But who will that condemnation help so long as Arafat refuses to arrest those whose intentions to commit such attacks are known to all? At this hour the Israeli cabinet is convening to discuss how to respond. Tonight or tomorrow it will come, the retaliation. But will it really change anything? Will it be of any use to the dead? It won’t even be of any use to the living.
For more than ten months now, the two sides have been in a mad, dizzy spiral of violence. They don’t know how to stop. In the lunatic logic of this conflict it is possible, of course, to justify every murder by citing the murder that preceded it. The cruel code of the Middle East states that if you have not responded with full force to the blow you suffered, the other side will interpret it as weakness and will strike at you again even more painfully. The result is that each side is condemned to strike out at its antagonist, and then cringe in anticipation of the counterblow. The rhythm of life, the rhythm of consciousness, even contacts between one person and another, everything is conducted entirely according to the tick of this deadly metronome. In such an atmosphere, who even remembers that the real goal that we must aspire to is not the next attack on the enemy, or effective protection against him, but to attempt to bring this cycle of death to an end? We suffer so much from the outer, violent symptoms of the situation, and we are so focused in our treatment of them—of them alone. So much so that we have entirely forgotten that only if we are cured of the disease itself, at the source, will we cease, perhaps, to suffer from its symptoms.
*
The Palestinian Authority is shattered and disintegrating. Palestinians are hungry and hopeless. When the doors are closed and the windows shut, they are vociferously critical of the way Arafat is conducting their affairs. They are also quickly awakening from the illusion that the world—and the United States in particular—will rush to their aid. Israelis are no less desperate. They cannot understand the reality in which they have been living for the last ten months. They are afraid to leave their homes, and especially, they despair at the thought that they will have to live this way for many years to come.
Israel has vast military power—but it cannot use it out of fear that it will lead to international intervention and the imposition of a solution not to its liking. The Palestinians are weak, and yet they are able to cause Israel great distress. Is there a third way? Of course there is: the painful separation of the two peoples, forming two separate sovereign sta
tes, Israel and Palestine. To this end, intensive and determined negotiations must be commenced at once. And don’t wait, not for a halt to terror, or for mitigation of the siege of the Palestinian population (neither of these will happen, regrettably, in the near future).
Are the Israelis and Palestinians capable of this? The answer, I’m afraid, can be found in Thomas Mann’s story “Mario and the Magician”: “Between not willing a certain thing and not willing at all … there may lie too small a space for the idea of freedom to squeeze into.” And, indeed, after more than a century of saying no to each other—in every way possible—it seems as if Israel and the Palestinians are not capable today of wanting anything at all. Not even the right thing for themselves, the thing that will promise them life. As for freedom of some sort, freedom of choice, of desire, of hope—it is almost impossible to talk about that anymore.
Terror’s Long Shadow
September 2001
This article was written a week after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
A dark shadow has fallen over the citizens of the United States and Europe. As an Israeli who has lived his entire life in fear of terrorist attacks, I can say quite simply: Terror embitters life. It imposes a “military” mode of behavior on a person, places him in a constant state of stress.
This slowly percolates throughout one’s life and pollutes it. The terrorists don’t have to make too much of an effort—from the moment they inject fear into the hearts of citizens, from the moment they persuade the populace that they have no limits, they can make do with sporadic attacks. Fear will soon spread like a flesh-eating bacterium.
The combat aircraft now flying over New York are only the beginning. Gradually, Americans and Europeans will find themselves surrounded by an endless number of security systems. Meant to defend people, these systems actually make them more anxious and less secure. Countless policemen and security guards and SWAT teams and uniformed and plainclothes detectives will be deployed at the entrances to cinemas, theaters, and malls. Guards will check visitors to schools and preschools. But are there enough guards to oversee everyone who goes down into the subway? How many hours before the football game will people have to be at the stadium, so that the guards can search the bags of each and every fan?
In Israel, if you lose your handbag, or if you leave your suitcase unattended for a minute to go buy a bus ticket, upon your return you’re likely to find it being detonated by a sapper robot. Many streets are closed off in Jerusalem each day because of suspicious objects. All Israelis know that they must allow double the normal time to get anywhere because of these security controls. Boarding an El Al plane is a complicated matter, involving interrogations and personal searches. (It’s almost like trying to get into a prestigious college.)
A large segment of the workforce hold security-related jobs. Huge amounts of energy, invention, and creativity that could have gone into science or technology and into improving the quality of life are channeled into security. Personal freedoms and rights are restricted and taken away in order to protect life. You can be sure that at this very moment every Western state is installing a dense web of surveillance over private telephone calls and e-mail traffic. Thousands of innocent civilians are being arrested, and will continue to be arrested, in an effort to prevent the next attack. An entire army of secret agents will now be allowed to invade every private, intimate area.
In the years to come we will see more people carrying firearms in the streets of the United States and Europe. This massive presence will affect every little run-in and confrontation, even over parking spaces. The violence and murder rates will rise. Fingers will be heavier on the trigger. “I thought he was a terrorist” is an acceptable justification for shooting people in terror-stricken areas.
It’s not only countries that will be trapped by the security networks they use to protect “normal life” (except that life long ago stopped being normal). This coarse, stiff veneer will also coat the individual soul, the soul of each human being. That is the immediate result of living in fear, in suspicion of every unfamiliar person. It is the way every normal person defends himself against the pain of what is liable to be taken from him at any moment. It is the inability to believe in normalcy even for a minute. Every habitual sequence of events is but an illusion, and he who is tempted to believe in it will not be prepared for the blow when it comes. Maybe that’s the worst thing of all—the person who lives for a time in the shadow of terror no longer knows how enslaved he has become to the struggle for survival, and how much he is, in fact, already a victim.
It is painful to admit, but in a certain sense terror always succeeds. The war against it, and the process of becoming accustomed to what it does with our lives, slowly perverts all that is precious and human, all that makes life worthwhile.
The frightened civilian very quickly composes his own internal mechanism that identifies and catalogues strangers by their racial/national/ethnic traits. Like it or not, he becomes more of a bigot, more suspectible to stereotypes and preconceptions. It is not hard to predict that, under such conditions, the political parties that feed off xenophobia and racism will flourish. Nor is it hard to predict how bitter the lives of minorities will be, especially those who, in outward appearance, match the profile of the suspect terrorists.
Just a few weeks of life in the shadow of the fear of terror will show every nation that believes itself enlightened just how rapidly and sharply it can turn needs into values, permit fear to determine its norms. Terror humiliates. It rapidly sends a human being back to a pre-cultural, violent, chaotic existence. It determines where society’s breaking point is. It entices certain groups, not small ones, to join it, and to actively seek to use force to destroy and crush everything they hate. Terror contains something that acts like a digestive enzyme—it decomposes the private human body and the body politic.
Terror also sharpens one’s awareness that a democratic, tranquil way of life requires a great deal of goodwill, the constant goodwill of a country’s citizens. That is the amazing secret of democratic rule, and also its Achilles’ heel. All of us are, when it comes down to it, each other’s hostages. Terrorists act on this potential, and so unstring the entire fabric of life.
I regret having to write so bluntly. This is unbearable for me, too, because as I write, I myself realize how great the price is that I, as an Israeli, pay each and every day and moment, in each and every dream at night, in each and every morning farewell to my children.
But it is now, when we are still overcome with shock, when every sane person is in despair over the evil and cruelty of which people are capable, that I want to reiterate something. We, all of us, have so much to lose. That which is most precious to us is so fragile. Countries that fight terror fight not only for the physical security of their citizens. They fight also for their humanity, and for everything that makes them civilized.
Seven Days: A Diary
October 2001
This article was commissioned by the French newspaper Libération, as part of a series of personal diaries by authors.
Saturday, October 13, 2001
Saturday’s a great day to get your bomb shelter in order. As my wife and I do our best to clear out all the junk that’s piled up there since the last time we thought there’d be a war (it wasn’t that long ago, just a year back, when the Intifada broke out), my young daughter is busy making up the list of friends she wants to invite to her upcoming birthday party. A weighty question: Should she invite Tali, who didn’t invite her to her birthday party? We discuss the problem, trying to mobilize all the gravity it deserves, just so that we can at least keep up an appearance of routine. But the terrorist attacks in the United States have in fact robbed us of that illusion, of the possibility of depending on some sort of logical continuity. A thought is always hovering in the air: Who knows where we will be a month from now.
We already know that our lives will not be as they were before September 11. When the World Trade Center towers coll
apsed, a deep, long crack appeared in the old reality. The muffled roar of everything that might burst out can be heard through the crack—violence, cruelty, fanaticism, and madness. All is suddenly possible. The wish that we might keep what we have, keep up a daily routine, suddenly seems exposed and vulnerable. The effort to maintain some sort of routine now seems so touching, even heroic—to keep family, home, friends together.
We decide to invite Tali.
Sunday
I’m lucky that the suggestion to write this journal came as I was beginning to write a new story. If it weren’t for that, I’m afraid my diary would have been quite melancholy.
Several months have gone by since I finished my last book, and I felt that not writing was having a bad effect on me. When I’m not writing, I have a feeling that I don’t really understand anything. That everything that happens to me, all events and statements and encounters, exist only side by side, without any real contact between them. But the minute I begin writing a new story, everything suddenly becomes intertwined into a single cord; every event feeds into and imbues all other events with life. Every sight I see, every person I meet is a hint that’s been sent to me, waiting for me to decipher it.
I’m writing a story about a man and a woman. That is, it began as a short story about a man alone, but the woman he met, who was supposed to be just a chance passerby who listens to his story, suddenly interests me no less than he does. I wonder if it is correct, from a literary point of view, to get so involved with her. She changes the center of gravity I had planned for the story. She disrupts the delicate balance it requires. Last night I woke up thinking that I ought to take her out entirely and replace her with a different character, someone paler, who wouldn’t overshadow my protagonist. But in the morning, when I saw her in writing, I just couldn’t part with her. At least not before I got to know her a little better. I wrote her all day.