217: Give It to Them
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Nothing prepares you for what the border between Israel and the West Bank can look like. In the town of Batrefer, on the Israeli side, there's a bedroom community that looks like it was airlifted from Scottsdale, Arizona, rows of houses with white stucco walls and red roofs and yards where you can see plastic slides and other kids' toys. And then, a perfectly paved street, and then, on the other side of the street, a wire fence and some no man's land, then an electrified fence, then more no man's land. And then, a tall, concrete wall with sentry posts and armed Israeli soldiers. An 18-year-old who lives on the street told me that even here, where she sees the barricades that protect her every day, she tries to ignore what's on the other side. I don't think I think about it very much. When I hear things on the news, so, yeah, I get, it worries me and all that, but I live my life. What's the point of thinking about it? There's a bumper sticker, a Tel Aviv advertising writer made up, a few months after the current wave of violence began in Israel. It says, "Nagzerlaim, the Shalomal Israel." Which has the same sad, double meaning in Hebrew that it does in English. Roughly, give it to them and they'll be peace in Israel. That is, give up the territories of the Palestinians and they'll be peace in Israel. And then, also... The other meaning, giving back, is like, show them that we're the best or we're stronger. Like, we'll give it to them. Well, yes. Heat him back. That's a complete contradiction. Either you give it back or you hit him back. It is, it is, but we suffer from some kind of schizophrenia, I think, nowadays. And it's not just Israelis who are feeling schizophrenic nowadays. Sitting in a cafe in Ramallah, Rula Halawani goes back and forth, trying to make sense of what to feel about the collapse of the peace process. I never thought Oslo was right. And then I decided, like, come on, Rula, it's a chance, it's a dream, it's not good enough, but it might work. When I was younger, I never met an Israeli in my life, I never had an Israeli friend. But it's between the two grandfathers, like, I had real Israeli friends. I don't know. The peace process gave us something, but it seems the peace process also took back everything. It took back the friends, took back, like, the good days we had together, and it's gone. Tom SEGA, an Israeli journalist and historian, says people are confused because for nearly a decade, Israelis at least thought that there would be peace. They always thought this one in Palestinians. And then, peace evaporated. And their confusion even shows up in the polls. Their answers are completely contradictory. You ask people, do you support the establishment of a Palestinian state? Yes, I do. Do you support the reoccupation of the West Bank? Yes, I do. Do you support the dismantlement of the settlements? Yes, I do that. Support that also. So this is a very strange situation where Israel doesn't know what to do. We are doing things which don't make much sense. We let a 16-year-old suicide bomber dictate the whole agenda of the Middle East. He blows himself up in Tel Aviv. We go and occupy Ramallah. Is it good for us to occupy Ramallah? It's probably not, but we do it, because what else should we do? What should we do?
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