What
You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter
Special Issue: the Collapse of America
Paul Craig
Roberts gives CounterPunchers the definitive data on what is
happening to jobs in America. Not just blue collar jobs. Middle-class,
white collar jobs. Roberts'
stunning probe is the first true picture of what the U.S. economy
is fast becoming and of the savage class wars that lie ahead.
Plus Mike
Ferner on what it really means to investigate war crimes in Iraq. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers
each month! But
remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the
print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription
to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find
anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions
are tax-deductible.Click
here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please:Subscribe
Now!
Underneath his green helmet, his eyes
are clear and large and blue and when he tells me about seeing
his little brother blown up by a suicide bomber, he does
not look at me. "I'm so sorry," I say, and I mean
it.
"Oh yeah, I bet you are."
We have been at his checkpoint all morning, negotiating and pleading with
him and his fellow soldiers to allow sick people, pregnant women and
young children to pass through the long line of Palestinians
waiting to leave Nablus, a wait that is averaging two hours
today. We are annoying to him. He knows why we are here, what
we stand for.
"No, I mean it, I'm so
sorry, my heart is broken for you." I say it
and I mean it and my eyes are filling with tears thinking about
my little sisters, how much I love them, what it would be like
to see someone kill them. My eyes fill with tears as I think
about what I would (want to) do to someone who blew up my
little sister.
He is surprised a little, to see me cry for him and he says,
"I know this is a terrible solution"--he gestures toward
the checkpoint where a hundred Palestinians are packed like so
much cattle into narrow gangways, waiting their turn to have
their IDs checked, their bags searched, their shirts lifted,
their pockets patted. Some of them do this every day. They
have been waiting two hours today. It is very hot. There is
another checkpoint 2 miles down the road.
"I know this is not the
solution," he says again.
"This is not making you
safer," I say. "99% of the people that come through
here are not interested in hurting you, but when you treat them
like this everyday, you make them want to hurt you."
"I know. I know the conditions
are terrible. I know they are frustrated. I know people should
not live like this. But what else can we do? Last month we
caught 5 people with bomb packs."
I am doubtful of this--it seems highly unlikely that a self-martyr
would try to just walk through Hawara checkpoint, notorious for
its thorough and extravagant security procedures, its unbending
and merciless soldiers. There are many other checkpoints out
of the city that are easier to pass through, not to mention the
path over the mountains. But it doesn't matter--he is expressing
to me that although he realizes that innocent people are suffering,
he doesn't care because he believes this checkpoint keeps him
and his people from suffering.
It is hard to argue with this. It is hard to argue about suffering
with a Jewish person. I cannot reason with his heart, so
I try to reason with his head.
I tell him that the bombings are reactionary, not an offensive.
The profile of a self-martyr is very similar to a grassroots
activist in the USA--college educated, middle class upbringing,
promising future, interest in social justice and politics. I
tell him about a girl whose family I met, a college girl who
was engaged to be married in a couple months, a girl who went
into a supermarket in Tel Aviv and blew herself up. Her family
had no idea she was going to do this. Why would she want to
do this? I think about it all the time. What would make me
do that?
The longer I live in Palestine, and get a taste of what it's
like to be Palestinian, the more I understand. When you are
Palestinian, you know no one has respect for your life, and you
start to lose it yourself. You see soldiers kill people
and imprison people without any explanation given, without any
repercussions.
You know they could do this
to you and your family at any moment.
You know they could come destroy
your house at any time, because you know a lot of innocent people
this has happened to.
You see them building
a wall in your country, and you see them illegally confiscating
land from your friends and neighbors in order to do it.
You see them putting up checkpoints
inside your country, not on their borders but inside your country,
and they tell you when you can and can't leave.
You see that the world is OK
with this, because no one seems to be stopping it, and it
has been happening for 50 years.
You see that all people from
Israel are obligated to serve as soldiers, and you see a chance
to not only take out a few of these potential or past soldiers
who are committing these crimes against you and your people,
you also think that if you do this, maybe the world will pay
attention to what's happening to your home.
You see that there is not much
of a life for you or your children anyway.
You think that maybe this is
the best thing you can do for your people. Maybe you are
wrong, but you cannot keep living like this. You cannot bear
the thought of always living like this.
The soldier is quiet. I have been talking a long time. He is
listening to me. He is uncomfortable. I keep talking.
I tell him I don't condone suicide bombings. I think it's horrible.
But I understand it. I don't think it's any less horrible
than shooting missiles at people, blowing up hospitals, or forcing
almost a million civilians to flee their homes. I think
suicide bombings happen because of the Occupation. I don't think
the Occupation is happening because of suicide bombings. I think
if the Occupation ended, the bombings would stop, because Palestinians
would have hope. They would have something to live for. I think
if the Palestinians were given the right to a peaceful and
just existence by Israel, Israel would be rewarded with peace
by Palestine. You cannot oppress people and expect them not
to resist. If you use violence to oppress people,
they will use violence to resist it.
My president told me that attacking and occupying Iraq would
keep me safer. He was wrong. It made people hate me
more, it made more people want to hurt me, because
I have killed thousands of innocent people in
the name of my personal safety. I don't know what should've
been done after September 11th. I don't know what should've
been done after the Holocaust, after any of the tragedies of
our time. I do know that what we do, what the United
States and Israel has done, just perpetuates the evil
that causes these tragedies to happen.
I don't think that my president is occupying Iraq because he
is concerned for my safety; I don't think Olmert is occupying
Palestine because he is concerned for the Israelis' safety.
I think there are larger things at work, men fighting over money
and power and land, and we are all victims of it. We are told
that we need to be afraid of each other. We are told that people
are trying to kill us--our whole lives we are told this. The
Arabs, the Russians, the Japanese, the Native Americans--who
is trying to kill us, who the enemy is--it changes every few
years. People wanting to kill you is scary, so when someone
tells us they can keep us safe, we believe it,
and we do whatever they ask us. I tell this soldier that he
is a victim of it, too, that he is being used, that his real
enemy is not the Palestinians, but rather the men at the top
who wage war for profit. I ask him what would happen if we all
stopped being afraid of each other. If we all saw each other
as brothers instead of distant strangers (thank you, Tupac).
He looks at me a long long time. I am starting to cry again,
because I've just told him everything inside my heart and his
face is still as hard as stone. I'm embarrassed and I leave.
I look back and he is still looking at me.
Magan Wiles is an actress who teaches Theater of the Oppressed to
young people through the Center for Survivors of Torture and
War Trauma in Saint Louis, Missouri. She can be reached at missmagan3@yahoo.com
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.
