My mind is in jumbles and its hard for me to come up with words to describe the impact that my stay in Chevron left on me.
One thought of mine is how different reality of the Jew's in Chevron is compared to America. In Amerca a person will turn on the 10 o' clock news, hear about wars in the middle east - think about how horrible it is - then go to sleep with an easy conscious. I cant blame them, I've done the same thing myself and when I go home I might even continue to do so.
In Chevron, Jews are living under the threat of the Palestinians every day. They walk down the street and are neighbors to people who hate the very essence of their being.
This sounds extreme, maybe I'm being extreme...But thats just what it is.
I saw things that I've always heard about, but never put together as a reality...
For instance I saw soldiers posted at every corner for our protection.
Palestinians stop what they are doing and stare at you, most of the time with hatred
Fences, Walls and Barbed wire to prevent chaos..
Bullet holes in household objects...
Children living their life as they would anywhere else without fear...
I saw one of the Holiest sites in the world for Jews, Christians and Moslem's... and when I peaked through bars to see the place where Abraham's tombstone is, on the other side I saw Moslims bowing down and praying, even some gazing though the window at us...What did I think of them and what did they think of me at that moment?
I saw a building stopped in the middle of production. 12 single rooms, open windows with a plastic covering, one bathroom, one washer and one drier... and I heard that 12 families live in one room each [one per family] and they share the one bathroom and one washer and drier...
I heard a story of a building that was once an Arab market, but after a shooting in 1994 they vacated the building. It was left empty for 6 years, then fixed by Jews who moved in and lived there for maybe 6. I heard that this past August they were expelled by the government for living there illegally. But it wasn't so easy to take out the people who so very much wanted to stay. The doors were fired down and blocked with settlers locked inside..
Three of them even locked themselves inside a concrete box, for standoff, that took the soldiers hours to open up.
And I saw a small city, that is unable to build up because it upsets the people who hate them.
I saw and heard all this and I now know it as a reality. In America we live a luxury life and so many people take that for granted.
I dont know where I'm going with this.. my mind is in jumbles...
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The Real vs. The Surreal
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7 comments:
Sarah, I sitting here in the icy cold in Michigan, USA where I saw your pictures pop up on blogger play. Your post says so much about life in Isreal that we would normally never see. Thanks for putting it up.
It's good to know that other people see what I write and appreciate it.
Thank you :)
That's because..ehh..the Israelis stole Palestine and claimed it their country 60 years ago.
#1. Israel was a gift to the Jewish people, just look in the bible.
#2. We rightfully won our part of Israel in the 6 day war and given some of it back out of the goodness of our hearts.
I'm sorry, if Mexico all of a sudden claimed California as its own and demanded that the U.S.A. give it back...what would America do? Laugh in their faces. However Israel I think is the only country which has won land like any other and has began to give it back.
What's strange is that many people in the Southwestern US seem to be saying that the Mexicans own Calif. I think that idea is far more of a non starter than having Mexico, Canada and the US become one nation. It is a political factor here though.
Isreal and the Palestinians are left with a bad choice as their best choice. Palestine must have land to exist on or it must be destroyed. Isreal is very much in the same situation. Few, in this world would want either.
As a southwestern US native, I can say that no one really says that the Mexicans own California. There is a difference between a group of people populating a place to that of a group of people claiming something that is not rightfully theirs...We don't say they OWN California, but we do say that there are many of them....
California is rightfully a part of the U.S. and Mexicans seem to be fine with that. (so much, as that they come to the U.S. for a better life...)
The two cannot be compared in that sense.
I absolutely agree that Isreal/Palestine and Mexico/California can't be compared. California has some interesting things happening though. The Nation of Aztlan and La Raza are two of them. When a thousand people turn out in the streets like they did at Maywood High School in California raising the Mexican flag over the US flag on US territory there is a cause for concern.
A June 2002 Zogby poll of Mexicans found that a substantial majority of Mexican citizens believe that southwestern America is rightfully the territory of Mexico and that Mexicans do not need the permission of the U.S. to enter. The poll found that 58 percent of Mexicans agree with the statement, "The territory of the United States' southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico." Zogby said 28 percent disagreed, while another 14 percent said they weren't sure.
When I first ran into this idea, a few months ago, I was very surprised. As Americans, most of us feel, territory grabs happen only in other nations. We are at some risk of this ourselves.
You are surely right in saying Isreal has a very different situation.
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