The Need to Talk

Canadian musician David Buchbinder last week wrote an op-ed in the Toronto Star, which I happened across on social media. The piece is entitled, “ My Jewish community is fractured and in crisis. Here’s the conversation we need to have.”  I thought it might be a good idea to participate in this conversation. 

There are a lot of things in this piece that demand my attention. For brevity’s sake, I will hold myself to two.

Mr. Buchbinder notes that, having married into a Palestinian family, he possesses “a perspective many in my community may lack.” In reading the op-ed, I did not notice anything that would indicate a perspective that has not been presented before, no new insight. In fact, it was pretty standard stuff : that Israel’s conducting of this war is unacceptable, and that Israel’s treatment of its largest minority is “unfair and oppressive”. Granted, I am not in his community, so I may have missed something. The thing is, though, that I have lived in Israel for the last 40 years, and  I may have a perspective that many in his community may lack. 

There is a general consensus that Israel’s occupation of Judea and Samaria is illegal. It is not, but that is for another conversation.  What I would like to share is some insight into how not unfair our treatment of the Arab population actually is, contrary to general opinion. 

I have the privilege of living in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Jerusalem has a significant Arab population. There is, of course, what is known as East Jerusalem, but there is also the Moslem Quarter of the Old City. Residents of the Moslem Quarter and their visitors pass through my neighbourhood – often past my courtyard, all the time. Children from outside the Old City walls walk past my courtyard and through my neighbourhood to go to school in the Moslem Quarter. They do this alone, in pairs and in groups, with no parental escort or supervision. Their parents have no fear of what the cruel and evil occupiers might do. There is no fear because there is no danger. Moslems come through my neighbourhood every Friday on their way to the Temple Mount, Israel’s most significant place for Jews, so that they can pray in the mosque that is up there. 

And then there are the Arabs who live in my neighbourhood. Just down my street.

But it’s not just my neighbourhood.  I have studied in two post-secondary institutions here — David Yellin Teachers’ College and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In both, as many as half of my classmates — some my age, some high school graduates — were Arab. This indicates an access to information in at least two languages. They are not forced to learn Hebrew, although many do. Go to a health clinic, and you will see Arabs among the medical staff. Go to the courthouse, you will see Arabs litigating cases. Go to a pharmacy — well you get the picture.

All this comes in the face of a violent hostility expressed by the Arabs. Generally justified as a legitimate resistance to Israel’s occupation, it amounts to Jews being literally murdered in the streets of their own country. They blow us up in buses, they shoot us, stab us, run us over, and throw rocks. We have set up an extensive – and expensive – security system to allow this violently hostile minority population to remain in place, because we are loath to displace. We know what that is like.  As was shown just this week (Sept.8), the system is not without flaws, and the violent hostility continues.  I would invite Mr. Buchbinder, his Palestinian family, or anyone else for that matter, to explain Israel’s unfairness in the face of these facts.

As for Israel’s prosecution of this instalment of the war for independence, my sympathy for the civilians in Gaza is limited to the idea that there is no country anywhere on the planet that is willing to give these people asylum or refuge. I have absolutely no patience or respect for those who decry the plight of these unfortunate people, and say nothing about getting them out of the way. Whether because other countries fear a threat to their security (from innocent civilians, mind you), or the civilians have the right to not be displaced, or that moving them out of a war zone constitutes ethnic cleansing, to not demand their evacuation is criminal. The main reason so many have been killed is because they are there. I have been looking for a word to describe the despicable act of throwing responsibility for these civilians on us. Hypocrisy is certainly one of them. We are not holding them there. We try to get them out of the way. We risk our own forces to minimize enemy civilian casualties. Hamas hides behind civilian casualties. We are not responsible for their plight. One who really cares would get them out. 

Mr. Buchbinder is correct – we need to have a conversation about what is happening to us as a people, wherever we are. The first step to making that a possibility is to apply an element of intellectual honesty regarding who and what we are as a people, and what we are trying to achieve.