November 12, 2004

Alison on Aliyah:  The World Without Arafat

            So the big news on the street over here is that Yasser Arafat is dead.  In actuality, it is widely believed that he has been dead for at least a week and the announcement was simply being delayed for a variety of reasons.  Regardless, he was buried today in Ramallah, amidst chaos and gunfire and the highest security alert level Israel has known since wartimes.

            I chose not to travel to Jerusalem for the weekend, a trip I have taken without second thought every weekend for over a month now.  I was, in fact, visiting Jerusalem last weekend when I first heard the “presumptive” news that he had died.  My first reaction was excitement and not a small amount of hope.  I immediately envisioned a new world, a new Middle East, a new chance to fix the mess we have become over here.  That fantasy world faded away and was quickly replaced by a gripping fear.  Indeed, I haven’t felt that way since Israel assassinated one of the highest ranking leaders of Hamas earlier this year.  I instantly felt like a target, like it wouldn’t be long before the retaliation would rain down upon us, like I wanted to get out of the shuk – bustling on a Friday morning – and get home as soon as possible.  After all, I reasoned, it was only a matter of time before they found some way to blame this on us too.

            We all got through the rest of the week, wondering when the “official” news would come, whether Arafat would be replaced by someone better or worse, and how far the battle over his burial place would be taken by both sides.  It was clear to all that we were experiencing a major turning point, whether to a positive or negative place.  I cannot describe what it feels like to be in the middle of an event such as this, truly in the middle.  At these times, it is as if Jerusalem is at the core of the world.

            Nonetheless, I returned to Beersheva to attend the week’s classes.  One of my courses, entitled, “Co-Existence Through Life Stories,” places eight Israeli Arabs and seven Jewish Israelis in a room for two hours per week, to interact and learn how to understand one another.  The theory behind it asserts that a bridge can be built between opposing sides through the mutual telling and listening to each one’s life narrative.  I have been in scores of racially-charged situations, and I can honestly say that none has come close to the tension and shared pain accompanying each of us in that room at Ben Gurion University every week.

            Class started as usual last Tuesday, with the Arabs clumping together in the circle and the Jews similarly clinging to one another.  We try to be nice and involve the others, but it never works.  Finally, in the last half hour of the session, the Arab professor asked us to go around the circle and give our thoughts on the imminent demise of Mr. Arafat.  I immediately tensed up, knowing what I would need to say.  I had no clue, however, of what would be said by the other side.

            An Arab girl raised her hand first, one I had previously understood to be fairly moderate and one of the nicer of the bunch.  (One must realize that the course is entirely in Hebrew, and when you combine my less-than-stellar vocabulary with their thick Arab accents, I regularly lose certain nuances of the conversations.)  She began by saying that she is angry with Arafat’s wife for all the commotion she has caused and for being so concerned with money at a time like this, but overall, she said, she has great respect for Arafat and his lifelong leadership of his people.  I understood this to mean that she includes herself in this definition, although she does not refer to herself as a Palestinian.

            Once the words “respect” and “Arafat” were uttered in the same sentence, one could literally see the stomachs of most of the Jews in the room turning.  Two more Arab girls spoke after her, both echoing the same sentiments of sadness and pain at his passing and deep respect for “what he did for our people.”  I felt such repulsion; all I could think was, “How in the world are we supposed to understand and ‘co-exist’ with people who think this way??”

            Some of the Jews spoke next, all “politically correct” and clearly unwilling to say what (I hoped) we were all thinking.  They said they were in shock when they heard the news, and while there was certainly no “love lost,” they were feeling uncertain for the future.  No one, not one, said the word “terrorist.”  As the discussion made its way around the room, I could feel myself flushing with anger and frustration.  I began to prepare myself for my speech, a task made all the more difficult by the language barrier, which tends to grow exponentially the greater my emotion on a topic.

            When the professor finally asked me how I felt, I nearly exploded.  My eyes fixed on the floor, I struggled to keep my cool enough so that I could be sure that my verb tenses and gender forms matched.  “It pains me to hear you all say Arafat is a man worthy of respect,” I articulated slowly, “He is not.  And I simply cannot understand why no one has mentioned ‘terror.’  Arafat is a terrorist.  He organizes terror.  It kills me that he received a Nobel Peace Prize and it pleases me that he will soon be dead.  My only reaction to the news was fear, fear for the retribution that we always receive as a result of everything being blamed on us.”

            A number of angry outbursts greeted me upon the conclusion of my speech.  A left-wing Jew yelled that Sharon, too, is a terrorist in his eyes.  A Jewish girl and an Arab boy argued back and forth about the money that Arafat has pilfered from his own people (one saying it was disgraceful, the other saying corruption is rampant in every government).  Finally a young Arab woman looked straight at me and, with tears in her eyes and chin wobbling, whispered that she was hurt deeply by my comments.

            I simply looked back at her, unable to think of a single word to ease her pain and, even more, not feeling any desire to do so.  All I could think was, “This will never work, this will NEVER work.”  The professor thanked us all for sharing our feelings and dismissed us.  I cannot get the image of that girl’s icy but pained stare out of my mind.  I cannot help but continue to think that co-existence is far from possible.  When even a group of students who volunteer to do a project such as this cannot find common ground, what hope do we have?  Arafat is deep in the ground, but now we have the rest to contend with.