Gush Etzion Settlement Visit

Now I'm going to talk about Zionism!

I am hoping people reading this blog will read this entry with as open a mind as they read the West Bank one.

Zionism is just the belief that the Jewish people should have a sovereign homeland and that homeland should be in the historic Land of Israel.

A friend from home cautioned me about using this word, saying it has a lot of stigma.  Another friend found out I was going to Israel this summer and paused and said, "But you're not a zionist... are you?"  And one time on an online dating site, this guy meant to make a note about my profile to himself but accidentally sent it to me, and it said: "the bad kind of Democrat (zionist, .....)"  Followed by: "I feel terrible. I didn't mean to send that to you"

Obviously this is discouraging to me.  I think people hear Zionist and think "Zionist conspiracy" as if it's some secret that we Jews have spent our entire history yearning for a place to self-actualize.   Or as if our desire is for world domination instead of just self-governance. I don't think Zionism is any more disturbing than any other movement of peoplehood.  I mean, I find Zionism very beautiful, but that's me.

I won't disown the term Zionism just because it makes people uncomfortable because of previous connotations with the word.  Just like I won't disown "Feminism" because some women have taken that and translated it into hatred against men.  Man-hating is not feminism.  World domination is not Zionism.  People need to learn these things and I won't help the situation by letting movements I love be twisted and misunderstood and so disown them.

I think in part because the world is so uninformed about Zionism and thus so critical of it, Zionists can be overwhelmingly self critical.  This really played out in our field trip last week to Gush Etzion.

I've misplaced my camera (not lost... I'm convinced it's just under a pile of clothes somewhere), so I'm gonna use internet pictures again to illustrate.

Gush Etzion is a block of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria (aka The West Bank).  I think it's the largest collection of Jewish settlements in the area but I'm not positive, with nearly 100,000 residents.  It's mostly agricultural and it's also home to some very famous yeshiva, or religious study schools.

It's obviously a very controversial place.  To give you some background, Jewish settlers tried to settle the (empty) land many times in the early 20th century (this was when the land was still under British control.  It was not a Jewish or Palestinian state.) but  they were chased off by Arab raiders many times.  The most famous attempt was the kibbutz (farming collective) Kfar Etzion, which flourished for some time.  When the UN proposed a partition plan to divide the British land into two states: The Jewish State and the Palestinian State, the Arabs refused to partition plan and launched heavy attacks on Jewish settlements.  Kfar Etzion was completely wiped out, with over 200 people killed (Mostly men, most of the women and children had been evacuated shortly before hand).  We heard some testimony about how the surrendered defenders were rounded up in the center of town and told they were going to take a picture, but they were all shot.

And remember, of course, that a great portion of the membership of settlements like this were holocaust survivors. Being rounded up and shot in the street in the place they sought refuge is...

I think you get it.  Some time after Israel won the conflict against the Arabs and founded its own state, the children of these killed settlers returned to the spot and build the settlements of modern Gush Etzion. These kids had harbored this dream of going back to their home town their whole lives.  We heard a story about how they were gathered around a radio saying hi to their dads when they heard the defenses breached and gun shots and then nothing.

One part of the field trip was visiting one of the only buildings standing from the attack which is now a museum.  We went into a theater and there was this really weird dank smell, like a basement.  We watched a film about Kfar Etzion that ended with a description of the attack and how the wounded and a nurse were gathered in the bomb shelter under the building we were then sitting in. And an Arab came over and dragged this woman out and pulled a pin out of a grenade and handed it to her, and ordered her to toss it into the shelter where her husband was wounded, and when she refused, he did it.  The movie ended with a shot of the blown out bomb shelter with the gnarled steel girding on top.

Then the screen raised up and behind the screen we could see into the floor and see the bomb shelter were the people died!  That was the smell!

Oh SNAP!

bunker

I'm pretty sure my eyes were like this O_O.  SHiiiiiiiiiiiit.

Then we all went down the stairs and circled the bomb shelter and there was a memorial with all the names of the dead and electric candles.  It was intense. I was stunned, and yes, I was moved.  Some of the girls in our group were sniffling.  It was powerful.

But about half of our group got very grumpy and started talking about the propaganda of it all. How manipulative it is.

And then my eyes were like O_O.  WHhhhhhaaaaaaaaat?

This goes back to what I was saying earlier about the extreme skepticism about Zionism. Was it trying to tug at our heartstrings? Yes, of course.  All memorials do.  The Hiroshima Peace Memorial.  The Boston Holocaust Memorial.  The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I mean really, every memorial I know is designed to kick you in the teeth with the memory of the tragedy.  This one was, too.

But as we stood a foot away from the place were people had been killed, this time the topic was propaganda.

I say, think what you want about the settlements and the politics of them. But regardless of where you lean, Kfar Etzion was a group of Jewish refugees who settled semi-shitty land that no one else was occupying and turned it into a nice farm. They were survivors from all corners of the world, including Auschwitz. And then they were all killed.  Can't we mourn them, regardless of if you want that land to belong to Palestinians? Can't you remember in an intense way the loss of life? People died trying to be free.  People died.  If they'd been any other people I really don't think the bitter propaganda reaction would have happened.  But they were Zionist people, people who gave their lives for a Jewish homeland in the land of Israel and so their stories can't possibly be authentic...?

Did this happen on both sides? Yes, of course. And I think we should remember the heavy Palestinian losses as well. And I hope, in my West Bank entry, I conveyed that there are multiple narratives here and each has its truths and its legitimacy. But one of those narratives, with its truth and legitimacy, is the Jewish one. Is the Kfar Etzion one. It was painful for me to hear so much bitter denial while basically standing next to a grave.

Later on I was talking to Deeds, who is from Efrat, one of the settlements in the Gush Etzion bloc.  I asked him if they were always taught over and over the story of Kfar Etzion.  I pictured it being like the American Revolution in New England, I feel like we studied it every year and we're always hyper conscious of it, especially in Boston.  But Deeds said not at all, because it wasn't a solitary event, it's an on going thing.  It can still be a very violent place to live.  Two of Deeds high school friends were shot and killed by terrorists in the street of his home town.

I wish we'd talked to more people from the towns. I wish we'd heard more about their feelings about living in the West Bank and what their experiences were. I'd especially have liked to talk to some young people.  Maybe I'll as Rivka about it.

The end of our trip was probably the most awkward moment of my trip to Israel and definitely the only time I've felt ashamed.  Our tour guide had been talking about how he was friends with these Palestinian Arabs living in Gush Etzion. They are one huge family who basically have their own tiny village. He volunteered to show us around and of course we wanted to go.  When we got there, it was pretty run down and empty.  We didn't see any people to talk to.  We followed our guide into a building and down some stairs and were told to take off our shoes, so we did.  We'd been instructed to dress modestly for the trip, so we were, by modern Jewish standards... covered shoulders, knee-length skirts, etc..

Then we went into this little village mosque in the basement. I was really really surprised we were going in.  It didn't seem to fit our program. But I thought it was good we were trying to see Palestinian life, what they're facilities were like, etc..  It was strange, a bunch of us Jews barefoot in the mosque, nobody really knowing what they place was about or anything.  Our guide started talking about Arab life in Gush Etzion and then a Palestinian woman in a hijab came over and was very distraught that we were there and the way we were dressed... and then of course I recalled that all women should have their hair covered in a mosque, among many other rules we were probably breaking without knowing it.  We left in haste.

And you know, I was pretty pissed at the situation.  We were lead into this place because it seemed like we'd had prior arrangements or something.  We were misinformed about how to dress. And of course, we really violated the sacred space of a people who already feel oppressed and abused and appropriated by occupiers. It was a Divinity School grad's nightmare. I felt sick to my stomach.  As we were leaving the woman said, "I'm sorry, but you just can't." And I said, "No, we're sorry."

So it was a really tense, emotional day over all. There were so many compacted frustrations. I'm frustrated that the Zionist narrative is ignored or assumed false.  I'm frustrated at the insensitivity (including my own ignorance) shown to the Muslim Palestinians. I think everyone is frustrated.

Micah said there were two goals of our field trip.
1) To see how settlements are in ridiculous places.  Gush Etzion is in the middle of the West Bank.  It would be very difficult to negotiate it to be absorbed into Israel if two states are ever split up.  It's just kind of... PLOP, there. And these days it's surrounded by Arab towns. No wonder the Palestinians are pissed.

ON THE OTHER HAND...

2) How necessary they are for Israel's security.  We stood on a hill in Gush Etzion and we could see the Mediterranean.  The distance between these hills in the West Bank and Tel Aviv, the center of Israeli society, is only 38 miles of lowlands. And giving up the West Bank would be giving complete visibility of all of these lowlands at all times to the Palestinians. To withdraw and give complete control of the West Bank over to the Palestinians is military suicide.

Fabulous.

***

I'm not sure what else to say about this right now and I feel like ending on a positive note, so I'll say...

TEL AVIV!

Gabby and I spent the weekend in Tel Aviv in a hostel right on the beach.  It was beautiful!  We ate a lot of good food and met up with my friend Reuel from ROI for lunch and we went shopping a bit and had lots of good coffee.  We went bar hopping Friday night and I got pretty tipsy and couldn't remember my own phone number when a guy asked for it so Gabby had to give it to him for me, which amuses me to no end.  Gabby got stung by a jelly fish in the Mediterranean so we bought her some vinegar. We played Never Have I Ever with 5 or so Israeli guys on Dizengoff street and the Israelis kept losing.

Tel Aviv is not really my kind of city, but I enjoyed it and I'd like to go back.  I think the history and style and vibe of Jerusalem is much more me. But they're only an hour bus ride (18 shekels.. about 5 dollars) apart, so I can like both :). Next time I want to walk to Yaffo and maybe go to some art galleries.

Love you all!