David Twersky
EPISTLES TO THE HEBREWS
According to most observers of Israel, Arabs and Jews live
separate lives.
In
Hebrew literature, Arabs playa significant role, but as
messengers in dreams, objects of fear and loathing, or the cause of national
shame and guilt. (This depends not only on the writer and his worldview but
on the period in which the images were committed to paper.)
Unlike America's invisible black men and women who lived and often
still do live in a world apart, Israeli Arabs speak - that is, live, dream, think
and imagine - in language, and in an historical and theological frame of
reference (Christian or Moslem) other than their own. Although they share
with Israeli Jews a certain number of economic relationships, political
activities, and citizenship, social interaction appears to be largely ceremonial.
The introduction of the Palestinian Arabs of the occupied territories into
the equation has created a new set of relationships. Israeli Jews and Israeli
Arabs both have spent (or grew up during) twenty years in a socio-political
reality radically different from that of the period between 1947 and 1967.
This new reality presented itself as a temporary condition , existing in
pending time. The evolving pattern of relationships, almost set in stone after
two decades and more, was also temporary, pending a diplomatic settlement.
Israel was administering the territories pending negotiations with the Arab
world.
In
the dimension of pending time, any moral complications arising from
the occupation are only temporary in nature, and responsibility for them
devolves on the Arabs who block a settlement of the dispute - which alone
can end the occupation.
During that period, Israeli Jews sought to ensure that it would be im–
possible to return to the pre-1967 status. Jewish settlers acted out a farcical
(yet tragic) replay ofthe "heroic" early period of "pioneering Zionism."
In
advancing the program of the right, they coopted the historical symbolism of
the left. Bereft of symbols, other Israeli Jews were shielded from the in–
creasing harshness of real-time life through the "pending time" mechanism.
We now are aware that the other two sides of the triangle were each in–
venting their own versions of history. But on all sides, new generations have
grown up knowing only "pending time" reality. For the Jewish young, the
international border (the 1967 "green line") no longer exists; Israel stretches
on through the decompression chamber of ambiguous sovereignty in the
West Bank to the Jordanian frontier. For Palestinians, the Jordanian
occupation is a dimly perceived historical accident. They measure their lives
against those they see daily in secular, democratic Israel.
At the same time, Israeli Arabs have, paradoxically, become both
more Israeli and more Arab. They increasingly demand fu ller integration,
