The Battle for Power and Powerlessness
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
If only the mighty Israeli army would do the sad and powerless people of Darfur a favour and bomb a refugee camp over there or at least relieve the Janjaweed from their killing duties – at least that way the story of genocide might be allowed back into the newspapers. Similarly, if the IDF were to invade Tibet or Burma, Brian Eno or Bianca Jagger might again feel sufficiently outraged to spoil their Sunday afternoon to raise their celebrity voice against such 'war crimes'. Such is the slightly bizarre obsession with Jews / Israelis in the media, that one action by Israel equals fifty for an African. How else do we explain the saturation broadcasting of events from Gaza, out of all proportion to the rest of the world. (Thank goodness for Kevin Pieterson's spat with the English Cricket Board and Prince Harry contribution to the multicultural debate since little else has been able to dislodge the Gaza story from the headlines). Who even remembers or cares about Zimbabwe? The tangled morality of media reporting always allows a single Israeli / Palestinian ace to trump a whole pack of Africans.
This then, is a time for us as Israelis to be aware of the limits of both power and powerlessness. I acknowledge this as a personal challenge reflecting my own wish to immigrate to Israel from the UK in the early 1990's. The desire to be part of the project of Jewish statehood was and remains a complex and daunting challenge, combining the non negotiable right to protect oneself as well as the imperative to respect others with whom we share land and destiny in this region.
In these last weeks, the challenge of Jewish power has being tested for the umpteenth time in strained circumstances. In a correct and legitimate attempt to challenge the powerlessness of being fired upon, Israel has attempted to reclaim the power advantage. Our soldiers have displayed impressive levels of heroism and bravery in attempting to engage an enemy in the dreadful terrain of Gaza. How much easier would it have been to emulate Russia's campaign in Georgia and blast everything that stood in its way. Instead, soldiers have risked abduction and sniper fire to engage the enemy on their turf.
For those willing to look closely, the politics of the powerful and the powerless have been played out in far more complex ways than the conventional media image. Who is more powerful / powerless in this situation? Israel, a sovereign state bound by legal and moral boundaries that has struggled to control its fate by withdrawing from Gaza only to be attacked indiscriminately by Hamas? Or Hamas, a political / military movement that has been defined by its famed tactics suicide bombing, rocket fire (both cases directed against civilians) to achieve the victory for its religio-political ideal. There are, however, smaller studies to be made here, not of nations, armies or movements, but of individuals who also embody the power / powerless conundrum.
The action in Gaza began with the decision of Hamas leaders, to escalate their 'heroic struggle' against the 'Zionist invader' by rejecting a renewed ceasefire and firing missiles indiscriminately at civilian targets inside Israel. It could be argued that theirs was the inevitable consequence of the powerless using the only strategy open. I would argue that it is the failure to use the power of national imagination and seize the chance for a lasting arrangement with Israel. A victory of their nihilistic death cult over the optimism of diplomacy and nation building.
Then came the sorry spectacle of a truly amoral politician, the former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone as he joined the angry mob as they burned Israeli flags. Safe within their ranks, he joined the notorious conspiracy theorists by letting us know that we should not accept the unfair ratio of one Jewish death for every hundred Arabs. Maybe if we Jews would just die a bit more we might gain his sympathy. Jews are so much easier to feel good about if they we were just a little more powerless. Livingstone and his ilk have long lost their relevance by the shameful nature of their posturing. In truth, I say shame on the arrogant 'liberals', journalists and rock stars alike who rush to protest against the right of soldiers to fulfill their mission of defending the children of their country. These are not American troops fighting in far away Iraq that he protests about, but Israeli troops just across the border of their own country where the innocent have been under fire for years. But why let a little reality spoil a good prejudice. Frankly, there is little to say to those whose greatest encounter with danger is to strut before the image hungry media, placard in hand and sanctimonious sound bite at the ready. Posing on demonstrations maybe the only means they think they have to express frustrations at the horrors of war. Nevertheless, a modicum of humility might be in order, in consideration of those who really are in the frame.
Consider for a moment the power conundrum of the far braver Israeli soldier. He patrols through the back alleys of Gaza hunting down the killers of fellow citizens, Jew and Arab, and at the same time, keeps a watchful eye on the morality of warfare – that is the true mark of bravery. The split second decision to fire and risk civilian death is terrifying in its complexity. For this type of warfare, for which Israeli soldiers train tirelessly, the use of power means risking life, limb and soul as well.
At the same time, it is worth recalling another story of last week, too quiet to be audible above the endless stream of commentators and spokespeople. Some five hundred Sudanese Muslim refugees living in Israel announced this week, their desire to fight with the IDF against Hamas. The self image of the powerless refugee is one that hovers tenderly between the pragmatic search for a better life and the self conscious awareness of not really belonging anywhere except where one is not. And yet, there was enough presence and decency to see that this was also their struggle. Victims of Muslim terror, they have found refuge, albeit insufficient at times, in Jewish Israel.
Then, deconstruct if you will, the scene we witnessed on our screens of the brave Hamas fighter in action. Upon firing his weapons at the 'Zionist enemy', he promptly looked around for a young child who he grabbed and slung across his shoulder. Now armed with the protective shield of a young human life, he knew the Zionist enemy would be rendered powerless. He was right. It may be excused by the likes of Livingstone et al, as they would dismiss another image of the powerless that tells a more complex story to his simplistic one. The Palestinian children for instance who have been treated this week in Schneider hospital in Israel. After all, we cannot have the powerful enemy using their power to rescue, heal and indeed live up to their own moral standards.
And so finally, I return, albeit reluctantly to the scene of dead children from the UN school compound and elsewhere. The pictures betray the powerless nature of the nation who seeks to combine power with morality. For Jews there are few options for dealing with these terrible images. Undoubtedly there is need to understand why, in spite of the sure knowledge that Hamas fighters are firing from schools and homes, our soldiers nevertheless choose to fire. Beyond this there is also the imperative of what is called in Hebrew, cheshbon nefesh, literally 'accounting of the soul', self reflection. Maybe that is what marks the difference between the powerful / powerless identity of Israel and Hamas at this time. For us, the death of the children is a terrible and heart wrenching consequence of war. We will surely give an account and reckoning.
There are times when words do not capture the pain and horror of that scene because it is the essence of bitter tragedy. Personally, I am reminded of the closing section of the poem that has become a standard part of the Israeli liturgy of remembrance by the poet Zelda,
Each (of us) has a name
Given to us by God
And given by our parents
Each (of us) has a name
Given by the sea
And given by his death
And so there is no cognizance of these times without affirming that 'we' fired the mortars that killed those children, whose names are as precious as anything and everything in the world, especially to their grieving parents, brothers and sisters. The guilt for inviting the war in which they died, I lay at the feet of their so-called defenders, Hamas.
Of course, for Hamas it would be quite different since the death of the children would a victory for their own deployment of power. Had they achieved the same result inside Israel, it could only be a cause for celebration, since otherwise why would they be firing rockets at schools and hospitals in the first place and every day since? As Golda Meir famously remarked, "we can forgive the Arabs for killing our children but we cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they'll love their children more than they hate us".
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