Pink-washed Apartheid

At the end of December, I entertained the idea that I would write some pieces focused on every day life and take time for some creativity. I wanted to give my audience the same appreciation for Palestine that I get from living here but also take a step back toward my brush with creative writing in college.

Yet, today I am thinking about pink-washed apartheid. My work life boundaries are so poor, I find myself browsing for anti-occupation fare at home. This time, it was two articles about Israel’s supposed “pink-washing” of the occupation by recruiting queers to take part in publicity activities. The whole idea slid into my ears easily; this would be just one more on a long-list of apparatuses employed in their games of misdirection. I posted the articles on a private facebook feed, where I thought it would be of interest, and fielded some commentary from someone affiliated with Hillel. The results were predictable, right down to his misconceptions about homophobia in Palestine. It is often characterized by avoidance or negative social pressures, not typically “beatings and torture”. It isn't that it never happens. It happens in Texas: I'm sure it can happen in Nablus but that's not normal and the sweeping generalization is harmful to Palestinians. I respected his assertion that it was insulting to believe that Israel’s apparent tolerance for homosexuals would just be a device to mask racism.

No kidding! I can see how that would hurt! On the other hand, there is a brick-bat with this guy’s name on it in an Orthodox Jewish settlement—and they practice on Palestinians. Intentional, diabolical plot [insert evil laughter] or convenient diversion, it is effective pink-washing. Israel deserves no progressive-points for having their t’s crossed and asses kissed (though they always do a thorough job). When he started to comment on Gaza, I could tell he knew the proverbial less-than-nothing, courtesy of pro-Israel propaganda machinery. So, I offered to him that plenty of conscientious Jewish people exist and will welcome him to their circles if he sees Israel for what it is.

At the same time, I wondered if the pink-washing allegations were like the comparisons to Nazi Germany—too inflammatory and not constructive enough. The comparison is somewhat fair but only vaguely, whereas the outrage it incites is extreme. It touches raw nerves and opens the door for more ridiculous exceptionalism, giving Israelis the chance to compete for victimhood that they no longer deserve. Not worth it. I try to be very sparing about comparisons to Germany...

After all, its South Africa that is being washed-over. You heard me right: Israel is white-washing the fact that it is just like the South Africa of decades ago or worse. That comparison is apt, easy, and supported by decades of military, economic, and political collaboration between Israel and the apartheid regime in South Africa. South Africa had a Jewish community of its own, some of whom moved to settlements in the West Bank. The Hebrew word for separation policies translates into Afrikaans as “apartheid”. White-wash, pink-wash, whatever-wash ... it is Israel’s lobbying and propaganda machinery in the United States that has preserved occupation. Which leads us full-circle, back to our “friend” from Hillel, who undoubtedly meant well and is progressive in at least one obvious way....

Pink-washing sure does work, huh?

I would rather not end with that, though. After all, I am enjoying a big, whopping playlist of South African Jazz – protest and the blues! I am suckered. It’s a great story, how I came to have this music and be thinking about South Africa again—but in a different way.

They called her “indlovukazi” when she visited. In Zulu, queen mother or the matriarch of an elephant herd....

^^ Zulu!

Walls:

Once upon a time, it was only a ring of rubble. A powerful foreign empire swept into the region, blowing Jerusalem's inhabitants into the East like dandelion fluff. Decades later, a new generation returned to the Holy mound and its city, in shambles and left vulnerable by gaping holes in its wall. According to the book of Nehemiah, a different kind of prophet came to Judea and drew the people together. In fifty-two days, it says, they were able to restore the wall and a sense of identity.

I drew a stone from upstate New York out of my bag and touched it against the wall in Jerusalem. I later learned that the Ottoman Turks built this incarnation of the wall in 1541 but the symbolism of the gesture was not lost. At one time, that little stone laid in a jar of water with 25 others like it. When I read Nehemiah, I am inspired by his unwillingness to be told that his goal is unreasonable, nor be intimidated by the self-interested people who are trying to prevent the refugees’ return. Wall’s function, by itself, may have been security but the function of building the wall was greater still: the refugees worked together and learned how to live together again. Nehemiah instituted reforms, evident in chapters 5, 9, 10, & 13. Within the parameters of the re-established Jerusalem, people were held accountable for their actions.

My readers are intelligent enough to know what walls can do. There doesn’t need to be a breakdown of the difference between a boundary, a buffer and a barrier. Anyone who reads this blog can smell the comparison coming, too. I stood by the Southwest corner of the Jerusalem Wall and looked over my shoulder. Across the valley was the concrete gerrymander. The cement serpent. At that moment, it looked most like a giant millipede quietly eating the decay it makes. Three days later, I looked at it from a different hill-top. From there, I could also see a Palestinian neighborhood completely enclosed by barbed-wire fence. The check-point there is walking-only, so that all of their Israeli-registered cars never go more than a kilometer. They carry their groceries and gasoline—everything—on foot. They are not Bedouin: all of them have to work jobs in Jerusalem to survive. In other words, if they want to keep their ID cards they must be indentured servants.

Walls can be good for your health. They prevent you from freezing in the winter, seeing your Dad naked or the organelles from leaving your cells. The Old City Wall has that cellular quality, with gates like pores and so many disparate, Holy apparatuses folded tightly into its cytoplasm. It defines an area and part of a community. The other wall reminds me of an amoeba. It severs communities by swallowing the arable land and leaving Palestinian villages behind or stretching itself around historic sites and leaving businesses stranded. Its route is no accident: it forms a tourniquet at the very point that Manger Street and Hebron road would converge, asphyxiating Bethlehem’s commerce. More than twenty years ago, the Jerusalem Municipality started offering property tax-breaks to Palestinians who moved past a certain point to the East. When the opportune moment arose, Israel built the wall just West of this building-boom and retracted the municipal limits: no more ID cards for them. “We are dealing with very intelligent people,” said our tour guide, Hammod, “there are people who sit in offices all day and think of ways to make Palestinians’ lives impossible.”

“Look over the wall and you will see people slaughtering each other,” joked Hammod. The other tourists flinched a moment before they realized: the wall bisected an East Jerusalem neighborhood. “Why here? The people on the other side are the same as on this side. There are more than 40,000 people who come to work in Israel illegally everyday. Israel has the best surveillance technology available, so they know. If this wall is for security, why would they let that happen?” The wall is hardly a source of security. One day, I passed through the check-point with relative ease, while the soldier in the booth yacked on her cell phone and apathetically waved me through. Two days later, the guards were performing monkey business with the electronic turn-styles; they would turn on the green light but not unlock the gate or unlock and relock the gate quickly. The little green light would flicker and another Palestinian would push against the gate, still locked. Clack. That day, the same guard just HAD to see my VISA stamp. Why? The wall is an intentional obstacle to anything that is not idiot tourists and cheap labor. As I hear Zoughbi say, repeatedly: “Israel wants to have cake and eat cake too.”

The politics of walls is not new. Walls are good for obscuring. They can create the needed illusion of danger when Israel wants to keep tourists funneled into the Nativity church, so they never get the chance to identify with Palestinians. The Zionist Christians can play pretend-promised-land and never feel the guts of what Jesus had to say, refusing to go beyond the walls. Some walls are not physical. Relenting in curiosity, I read about the Old City Wall on a Jewish History website. It advised visitors to “stay to the main thoroughfares in the Muslim Quarter,” as if it were dangerous or undesirable when, I know, the only quarter of the city that feels different is the Jewish one. On the other hand, the gerrymander makes it easy to forget how close Bethlehem, East Jerusalem and Ramallah are to each other; all of those Palestinians are kept far apart when they could be less than an hour away from united. “Some Jews are waiting for the Messiah, still; good luck to Him, here—I hope He has a permit to get through the checkpoint.”

Before we lapse into clichés about breaking down our ‘barriers’, consider the possibility of your home being breached. You build a new addition onto your house to accommodate more family. The court confiscates the key to the new addition, since it was built without a permit. One day, strange people show-up with said key and start to live in the new addition—with the intention of taking over your entire house and property if you ever leave. I bore witness to this situation. This is what I describe as parasitic Settler behavior. The problem is not walls but the intentions behind them. It would be impossible for me to imagine that the wall is for safety, even if they dress it up with a pretty facade whenever it passes through a Jewish neighborhood. Walls are for containment but containment is not always right. A significant point in the New Testament, for me, is when the temple curtain is reported to have torn from ceiling to floor, symbolically opening the Holy of Holies so that everyone could be sanctified.

The Holy of Holies was breached, violently, when the second temple was destroyed by Roman forces. Presently, it is re-sanctified under another faith—the same faith that built the current version of the wall. The temple mound is now home to a golden dome, built over a stone rising to meet Mohammad or a ruined temple alter, depending on how you look at it. Unfortunately, when I tried to visit I found that a new barrier had been erected. “It’s closed. Muslims only!” That would be one thing coming from a Muslim but is quite another coming from an Israeli Defense Force soldier, not a Muslim himself. If that smells like ‘fish’ to you, you are not alone. The closest I got to the dome was a photograph I took from the top of Al-Quds University. Fittingly, there is a line of barbed-wire partially obscuring its gleam.

Many promise that they will have a piece of the apartheid wall on their mantel someday, just as chips of the Berlin wall have scattered to all ends of the Earth. Other than a truck-sized section removed every few kilometers for farmers, I disagree. Any wall left inside the green-line when justice is served (and it will be) should remain as a monument—both to the hypocritical bigotry of Israel and the persistence of Palestine. Even now, the Wall is filling with artwork. The Palestinian Authority should be able to sell sections of the wall to artists who meet their criteria and I would like to see one-hundred percent of the proceeds go to education. I never want a Palestinian parent to buy a book again. Post-secondary, too: I want students from Scotland, Brazil, Taiwan (I don’t care) to compete for scholarships to come study in Palestine. While we are at it, I would like to see the tiles taken from the ‘garden’ portions of the wall and put-up around the courtyard at Bethlehem University, Al-Quds U., the international café in Ramallah, and other legitimate walls around the West Bank. As long as the snake is slain, make snake-skin boots.

That Moment...

The past week has been jarring not because of its events but because of its under-currents. Today’s moment of dislocation took place, of all places, at the point of dislocation in the West Bank: next to the apartheid wall. I had managed to escape the office on the pretext of taking pictures of the massive group of American undergraduates that Usama was leading on a short walk through Aida refugee camp. The short-cut to the refugees camp passes along Apartheid Wall and through a Palestinian graveyard. I still cannot fathom that on the other side of that wall, almost adjacent to where I work every day, is Rachel’s Tomb. Thanks to the giant concrete-gerrymander, I have never seen it.

What I have seen twice is the giant key and ‘key hole’ that leads into Aida; the camp is three generations old. The first generation inhabitants set their tents there in the late forties after being internally displaced decades ago. There were two ideas behind the giant key and key-hole shaped gate: first, Aida residents keep the keys to their homes in “Israel” as a symbol of their eventual return. Second, they were hoping that the Guinness Book of World Records would recognize it as the biggest key in the world (which did not happen). Usama has a friend in the camp who lets him take tour groups onto a high roof-top in order to get the lay of the land: Rachel’s tomb, an olive grove lying fallow, the illegal Israeli settlement and the Wall that makes it all possible.

While half the group was on the roof, I was spending time with the rest of the group. Children from the camp were flocking to us, finding various ways to amuse themselves with the big pack of tourists. Little kids are little kids anywhere in the world. One little boy asked to borrow my camera. I fought my reluctance and let him figure things out on my Canon~ I watched him closely for monkey-business but instead he began to painstakingly frame some graffiti on the Apartheid Wall, working hard to stabilize the shot.

Later, a shop-keeper came and recruited some of the young Americans to buy things from his mini-mart. He came up and introduced himself to me in broken English. I responded in broken Arabic. We were both smiling and shaking hands, trying to understand each other over the buzz of vehicles coming in and out of the camp. Our second-language skills were a match: he was as terrible at English as I was at Arabic. We never got beyond exchanging names and clarifying that I had no money. Yet, it was a warm exchange overall: we had good non-verbal communication.

One of the internationals was a man named Andrew, who looked like he could be five to ten years older than the rest of the group, perhaps a graduate-level resident advisor or something similar. Andrew carried a well-worn, leather-bound Bible under one arm, wore small glasses but looked to be in excellent shape. We started talking about how I came to be working with Wi’am. Then, we came to the point of dislocation, where I found myself dealing not with the issues I think about every day in Palestine but the issues that brought me here: concepts of mission.

“Do you think Wi’am has a good ministry here?” asked Andrew.

“Oh yes,” I said, without hesitation. In my mind, Wi’am has an excellent ministry—they are an office filled with overt Christians doing good work in the name of caring for their community.

“So, do you lead a Bible Study there?” began Andrew, “What kind of work do you do with the Gospel?” “What is your missionary role, here?” I can only assume, in hind sight, that he was trying to unearth a kernel of evidence that matched his ideas of ministry so he could start to build an understanding of what I do. The awkward moment came, as we realized that the kernels he searched for were not there. I do not lead a Bible study—I study a little in the morning but I am not teaching lessons. It came out that I am a word-nerd, proof-reading grant proposals and making newsletters, occasionally taking photographs or ghost-writing an e-mail.

“When I think about it, though, everything I do here relates back to the Gospel,” I said. I getting ready to segue into Mark 12:31. “Love God with all of your heart, mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself—and if it was me, living here in Palestine all my life, I would want my stories to be heard.” That is a perfectly understandable Gospel connection for the other Young Adult Missionary personnel but I could feel a small disconnect between myself and Andrew.

Pressing onward, I said “...actually, I have seen some of the Gospel here in the radical hospitality. Everyone has made me feel so welcome, in spite of whatever circumstances...”

The conversation continued in this stilted vein:

“...I said that Wi’am has a good mission but it covers the social aspects of mission more than the theological aspects... everyone there is motivated by their beliefs even though...”

“...I am really trying to take-on the receiver role so I can return to the United States and...”

“...I really wanted to connect people where I come from to these struggles so they can have compassion...”

“...well, you know, Christianity has been here a pretty long time, huh?” (epic fail)

Eventually, Usama came down from the roof and called for the next group to ascend. I could tell that my statements about the Gospel had defied Andrew’s expectations and I had to admit to myself that I embraced that purposely in my attempt to reframe my mission. I did not feel like I should have to say “well, I am just doing support work,” when I feel like I am working for the unification of humanity through better relationships. The fact of the matter is that I do occasionally engage in some theological reflection but my message is not for Palestinians. I think Andrew assumed I was preaching the Gospel to Palestine when I want to preach Gospel from Palestine.

Another dislocating feeling was realizing that Andrew was doing something right: he listened to me. He was really listening to me and trying to understand and that gives me hope. There could be hundreds of Disciples like that: people who mean well but are having trouble getting the new wine into the new wine skins, as Jesus might put it. Paradigm shifts. I felt humbled and even a little edified by his ability to listen. I need to ‘catch’ some of that.

I did catch something on my way back through the refugee camp. I noticed how neatly and elegantly constructed the tower next to the camp mosque was, especially as the sun was setting. It seemed beautiful to me, all at once, to understand how much it might mean to some of the Aida’s residents to have a respectable place of worship: the highest point in the whole camp. Later, the call to prayer rang-out across the graveyard and reached Wi’am – and the Wall adjacent.

Activist > Writer

Someone suggested to me that I should settle down about government, policy and media outlets so I can write something that would humanize Palestinians for the outside world. “Why don’t you write something about a normal Palestinian person, like a portrait” or “why not a story about a little Palestinian boy?—even a novel!”

There are several problems with this idea. The first problem is I already considered the idea and I liked it much better when I had it, not someone else; nothing takes the shine out of an idea like someone else prompting me with it. If someone else thought of it, then they should get on a plane, come over here and do it; it’s so obvious. I could as easily find new ways to paint the horror of occupation. I am not here to catalogue their memories in preparation for their demise—I’m here in solidarity while they resist the forces that threaten their way of life.They really would not need to be humanized if others were not out there dehumanizing them.

The main reason I am reluctant to start profiling Palestinians or create a Palestinian storyline is because that is not my story to tell. The implications are disgusting to me. If I were a naturalist, this would be an excellent time to find my voice on behalf of trees, birds, animals and landscapes in danger. I am a peace-worker: my job is to make people listen to the voices that are already crying to be heard. I do want to tell stories about Palestinians but I want to step carefully because I am not better equipped to tell those stories than they are. I will be the best vessel possible, I promise, when I return to the United States but I think the author of the novel about the little Palestinian boy should be a Palestinian man remembering his childhood. He will be perfectly capable of telling his own story ten times better than I might.

We have passed the age of 35mm film; I am capable of posting pictures that speak louder than my words, via this blog and social networks, with relative ease. What I cannot do it locate one of those tiny, plastic film canisters. Every morning, I day-dream about unscrewing the lid from one of those and moseying over to the apartheid wall. There, I would scoop in some dirt and squirrel it away for the next year. When mid-terms came and I made my brief visit to Michigan (to tell family hellogoodbye) I would take that little vial of dirt with my everywhere that I spoke. Whenever someone contested me, I would carefully pour some of that dirt on the nearest table and say “if you have any dirt from underneath the apartheid wall, you got me. Otherwise, I advise you to sit quietly and listen for a while.” That dirt would scream louder than any picture. This is my selfish little fantasy because I was not believed when I spoke at West Michigan Annual Conference. I relied upon the witness of a friend to make my case for divestment and the assembly voted to the contrary for reasons I still do not fully understand. I like to say that people are pro-Israel but the Israel they favor does not actually exist—it’s in their imaginations.

So, here I am cutting down the audience at home instead of building Palestinians up. I know this is a dead-end and I'll have to do better. The thing is, patting these wonderful people on the back repeatedly does too little. They already know that they deserve better—they are extremely hospitable. They are more multi-lingual, on average, then Americans. They drink better coffee over here. Their kids can dance. They suffer more with less bitching. They also know all of this. I would feel silly, sitting here patronizing Palestinians when I feel as if what they need me to do, for them, is hammer very very hard on my passport country and all its ridiculous policies that support what will be legendary levels of oppression. In the grander scheme, I have too little faith in my compatriots overseas. I’m afraid I would write a stirring and accurate portrayal just for someone in the mid-West to go ...

“Oh, that’s nice...” and never do anything.

So, I’ll save my stories for another day. Today, I will keep ringing in peoples ears about government, policies, unethical media and all of the other macro-level garbage that makes me cantankerous on a daily basis because I DO know that these people deserve better. I also know that the only people who read my blog regularly are also Young Adult Mission Personnel who get cranky about similar things and right now I want solidarity, not a Pulitzer Prize.