|
Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine
by Raja Shehadeh
Revenge: A Story of Hope
by Laura Blumenfeld
Reviewed by Betsy Ross
World
developments of the past year demand an attempt to understand the complex psychologies contributing to current events. These two books, representative of the "natural enemies"
of the Middle East situation - one written by an American Jew with strong ties to Israel, the other by a Palestinian living in the West Bank - provide some perspective to understanding
the hatred fueling the conflict, and offer some hope, where many see none, for an end to hostilities.
Murder and attempted murder tie these books together. In Shehadeh's book it is
the murder of his father. Though an unsolved crime, the suspicion is that Aziz Shehadeh was murdered by Palestinians who opposed his advocacy of a peaceful, two-state solution for the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In Blumenfeld's book, her father is grazed by a bullet from the gun of a member of a rebel faction of the PLO responsible for attacks on several tourists in
Jerusalem. Both authors explore these and other very personal events in a way that sheds light on the collective pain, disenfranchisement, and discord.
Shehadeh is a lawyer, as
was his father, and a founder of the nonpartisan human rights organization Al-Haq. History being an integral part of the Middle East, Shehadeh's own history is important to relate. (There
is, by the way, an enlightening historical chronology provided beginning with the first wave of Jewish settlers to Palestine in 1878-1904 through the 1948 establishment of Israel as a
state, the 1964 establishment of the PLO in Jerusalem, and ending with the February 2001 entry: "The number of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza reaches 205,000 and in
East Jerusalem, 180,000 living in two hundred settlements.") Shehadeh's family were residents of the rich coastal town of Jaffa. They left their home temporarily in April 1948 to
wait out the fighting that preceded the establishment of the Israeli state, and traveled to the West Bank city of Ramallah where there was another family home. On May 14, 1948, Jaffa was
included in the land declared to be part of the Israeli state. The Shehadehs never returned. Their property, along with all property owned by Palestinians, was confiscated by the
Israelis. Perhaps shielding himself a bit from this history, Shehadeh intellectually refers to these events as "that cataclysmic fall from grace."
Part of the
Palestinian intellectual elite, Shehadeh offers a critique of the everyday Palestinian mindset, which was preoccupied with demonizing the Israelis and playing the martyr, or as he writes:
The people around me had a simple solution to all my dilemmas; they hated the Israelis, all of them, without exception. They spit after they saw an Israeli bus pass by. But this was
not something I could emulate. It was just such simplistic, anti-Israel attitudes that Father said had brought us to the state of defeat we were now in.
The many dimensions of the situation are undermined by such simplicity and offer political sound-bites, but do not capture reality. It is particularly in the West that political
sound-bites are readily adopted. So Shehadeh relates a meeting in the United States with a Palestinian writer living in the States for many years:
We went down a long staircase underground to the restaurant and my host impatiently asked me a few perfunctory questions and them immediately began to preach to me: "You should
resist the occupation. You should not let them get away with it. You should not accept anything that they have as good. This is an important temptation to resist, otherwise you sill
find yourself dragged into their way of thinking. It is all propaganda. They are very clever at propaganda. We know this. You should know this too. You should never forget this."
. . . .
I sat opposite him at the thick wooden table in the dim yellow light looking straight into his darting eyes, nodding and saying nothing. I wondered if he had ever considered that he
did not know what he was talking about. . . . He presumed to know everything about Israel and about us, the Palestinians living under its military rule. He did not have to worry about
being stopped and harassed. He did not have to be concerned after going home that soldiers could enter and do what they wished under the authority of the military law. He did not live
with the constant news of bombs exploding here and there and injuries and deaths and bloodshed and collective punishments and hatred and fear and no certainty from day to day whether
you can go on with the education of your children or with your business or profession.
Shehadeh strongly suggests that creating a one-dimensional enemy, though good for political expediencies, turns its back on the human reality. He sees for himself, even after all the
injustices he has suffered, the role of fighting for human rights - and not just for Palestinians, as "human" rights is not exclusive. As he notes, his goal is "[t]o fight
to reveal the pain and dehumanization that the occupation was inflicting on the oppressor no less than on the oppressed."
His father was murdered, conjecturally, for
advocating compromise; for eschewing political simplicities and extremity. Shehadeh is his father's son.
Blumenfeld's father was shot not for his political views, but because he
was a tourist in Jerusalem. Blumenfeld's account is a direct result of that shooting, as she writes: My father was shot by a terrorist. A decade later, I went looking for him . . .
." seeking, as her title suggests, revenge.
Blumenfeld is by profession a journalist (a writer for the Washington Post). She travels to Israel ten years after her father's
shooting to interview the family of the shooter, who is in prison, without revealing that she is the daughter of his victim. Her goal is very generally revenge, though what form it should
take is unclear to her.
In interviewing the family, Blumenfeld initially comes upon the attitudes of Palestinian victimization and Israeli demonizing Shehadeh wrote about. As she
asks about the reason for the shooting, the family responds:
"He did his duty. Every Palestinian must do it," the father said. "Then there will be justice."
"Was it for your honor?" I said.
"Not for my honor, for the honor of our people," he said.
"We were all with him politically," said Saed, the shooter's oldest brother. "We all think it
was worth it-his duty to get back all the cities taken by the Jews."
. . . .
"And what about the man he tried to kill?"
"It wasn't a personal vendetta. . .He didn't know the man. He did it so people would look at us."
. . . .
"I am a victim," he said.
Blumenfeld also echoes Shehadeh's concern with the effects of current events on both sides. She begins to understand that the oppressor and the oppressed are often the same, as she notes
the dangers of revenge: "A symmetry develops between two people engaged in revenge, as they match blow for blow. The parties mimic each other's tactics - whether it is price-fixing
in business or cheating in a marriage - which they might otherwise condemn." Revenge is not dangerous "because of what it does to your enemy, but because of what it does to
you."
As the family takes her in collective simplicities flounder. Both sides, when faced with the individual, real human element, must rethink perceptions and actions. Though
it may seem trite, in this real-life story, Blumenfeld ultimately testifies at the shooter's "parole" hearing, requesting clemency.
Blumenfeld's is a very emotional
memoir, whereas Shehadeh's is intellectual. In both, though, the power is in the form - the memoir - the individual story of individual lives. In Blumenfeld 's book, she reflects briefly
on the events of September 11, and the role played by collective anonymity:
"Following the attack, our president spoke of 'revenge' until an aide urged him to call it 'justice.' New channels adopted the slogan 'America Strikes Back.' American bombs
dropped on Afghanistan were scrawled with payback messages: 'Pentagon' and 'WTC.'
. . . .
Like so many Americans, I was groping for a response. And like many, I wavered between hope and despair. Is evil unalterable? If the terrorists had known their victims-sat down with
their children, drank tea with their wives - could they have done this?"
For both writers, hope is in the movement from collective generalization to individual acknowledgment; from a feeling of powerlessness in the face of unthinkable current events to a
feeling of power in moving into the future.
|
