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Israel
17.11, 10.2 and beyond...
Now
I feel more disconnected than ever from this country. Everywhere I stare
I see pain and exploitation. Even the house I'd lived half of my life
in looks not as a folder of my childhood memories but only as a tool for
Zionist colonization The events that occurred this last weeks came like
a stormy eastern wind and exposed the real face of the Israeli left. If
I had my doubts about the willingness of the Israeli side to withdraw
from territories in order to reach a political agreement (there's no point
in even thinking about advancing any social issue in the most reformist
sense), it just blew up in my face and splashed spit drops as big as watermelons.
When the events started I was outside Israel, but already there I smelled
the stench of the traditional right that came back and spread their cholera
in the hearts of the people. Like hate-junkies trying to cut the habit,
the new wave of abhorrence gave them a new fix straight into a main vein,
in the neck, and was pumping in their vibrating bodies, inflates veins
in the forehead and shooting all over without distinction. The "New
Middle East" that the bleeding heart leftist promised to deliver
doesn't look like a brand new suburban shopping mall anymore but more
like an industrial area junkyard.
Helicopters that keep crossing the sky back and forth distract my stare
from the signs calling to "let the IDF win". Israel's "restraint
policy" needs to be dethroned by the revolutionary impatience of
the people. Death wish: Armageddon, an all out war and death for all escapes
from their throats and the bible, wrote maybe by their ancestors, proves
again that it has its own life. In both religions there's a "holy
war effect" (as a political solution) and the believer's anxiousness
pushes them closer to God, now in a "spiritual" sense and in
the near future also in a physical one.
The Israeli side lost a couple dozen persons so far and the right is already
shouting and demanding from the government to "take off their velvet
gloves" and to move over to heavy artillery. "Give the IDF a
free hand" they are calling for, in colorful posters, and "death
to Arabs" they shout the second the camera points at them - yes,
the same camera they blame for not allowing the IDF to "put an end
to the whole thing" with bombs from planes delivered to the center
of Palestinian villages and towns. Hundreds of Palestinian casualties,
thousands of wounded but it still doesn't stop them from throwing stones
- they don't have the choice of moving to heavy artillery.
At first I was glad that riots took place near my house (even though fear
for my parents life was eating me inside), "Bring the war home,"
I said to myself with a smile. It's about time people see frustration
exploding near their homes from a "civilian perspective" (while
they're not on active army service) and not just on TV. For example, I
was naive enough to think that people would try to think and comprehend
why Israeli Arabs - the Arab population-living inside the pre-'67 war
border, and who are considered Israeli citizens that supposedly have it
good, are demonstrating and throwing stones in the middle of Israeli cities.
I thought they would wake up, open their eyes and see what happens in
the territories day by day, like the continuing "judaization"
going on all over the country: from confiscation of lands in the Galilee
up to the building of luxury apartments in Jaffa. Obviously, it was too
much to ask for and is not as fun as analyzing Arafat's mind, the pastime
of the Israeli "middle eastern experts".
With this whole media whitewash, anything may sound more reasonable then
the official truth: Is the current situation another "conspiracy"?
For example: after reading this country's history, it wouldn't be so hard
for me to believe that the state of Israel supplied the Palestinian weapons
because their usage would be a perfect justification for using tanks to
expel Palestinians and to create territorial facts a la 1948. Maybe it
is just the obvious popular answer to Israel's refusal to compromise in
everything that got to do with the peace agreements. But another possibility
is that Israel was never willing to reach a peace agreement and just wanted
to get rid of poor, problematic areas and their inhabitants with a nod
of acceptance from the international community. Peace without justice
is an empty concept in this context. And justice demands from this country
much more than its current state of mind is willing to give.
The idea of using Dir Yassin as a band's name was to try and create some
sort of discomfort that (we hoped) may lead to an awakening and liberation
in a small part of the local youth: trading Zionist/ Jewish values for
a will to explore those sides of Israel's history that hadn't been taught
in our schools. But still, our pretentions were limited and nobody in
the band was naive enough to believe we will be reaching more then a handful
of people. If the behavior and reaction of the "scenesters"
during this last months' events could be taken as a test for the reception
of our ideas among them, then I know we failed.
But despite our disillusionment, desperation and feeling of failure, and
even if the influence of the Israeli media is dominant in the west (where
most of the copies of this record are gonna end), I know that there's
an open ear for the Palestinian people and for us around the world. We're
gonna keep trying, and most importantly, the Palestinian people are going
to keep fighting.
Thanks
and solidarity,
Dir Yassin
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