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CounterPunch
March 31,
2003
A Different
Kind of Despair
Life on $2 a Day
By NEVE GORDON
"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.
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