Personal opinion commentary blog posts, thoughts and rants since 2003, sometimes written in the moment, sometimes more considered. This is not my journalistic work site, and may lack the depth and sourcing of my usual works. I have a professional site which is dzx2.net Please respect copyrights - writing and editing is my bread and butter!
The rift between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians is unsurprisingly huge, when one considers the current escalation. There is a lot of resentment on either side. It seems to me that we all have an obligation to humanize the conflict to both sides, who are unable to see the other side. Rockets did not change Israeli policy, Missiles did not stop rockets. Walls did not stop the problems, and fundamentalist Islam, nor orthodox nationalist Judaism brought anyone closer to a better life. Nor did it help to deny Jews the right to live in Palestine, or Palestinians their right of history. There was no nobility in any of the wars and conflicts. So there are people on both sides, the silent majority who wants a better life. Now where some are trying to declare that the other side is not human, that they are ferocious beasts because they are Jews, or because they are Arabs, child-killers, and murderers of innocents, we have to insist on trying harder still to likewise insist on confronting first our demons and then our inability to talk (to each other) and act on it.
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I hesitated to comment on the new outbreak between Hamas and Israel, as instantly as some did. I needed to think a moment about it. I don't think it is as easy as "political motivation for the sake of the forthcoming elections." It may in fact be quite strategic, in a move to "quiet" Hamas's capability before having to deal with Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon...
Or it was a strategic decision by Hamas to attack Israel with rockets, using the more sympathetic Egypt and available weapon arsenals that flooded in, into Gaza....
The cycle of blame is once again an indefinite chicken and egg scenario.
It most certainly is getting hot in the Middle East again in a stalemate where one side does not want to compromise on the West Bank (after all it is a security risk... how can you trust them... ?), the other does not want to give up seeing Israel and Jews as their permanent enemy (why trust the Jews after decades of broken promises...?). The net results are far from heroic for either side. It will be ordinary civilian people who will have to bear the brink of this emasculated show down, which all will have to admit, can only have temporary gains at the cost of much suffering. In the end both can not but learn to live with the other, or be it, that such wisdom may only arise in the face of much more blood letting for the sake of being right - Right to defend oneself (on both sides), but not humanity!
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About 75.3 percent of all Israelis are Jewish. If you look at their Olympic team you will see that it consist out of Jewish people from the most diverse corners and are in that sense is one of the most diverse teams. However the Israeli Central Buerau of Statistics tells us that 20.6 % of Israel's citizens are non-Jewish Arabs mostly Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, a total of 1,623,000 and those not identified with either group are 327,000 (4.1%) (Source Jerusalem Post). With 38 athletes Israel takes to London one would expect 7-10 athletes to reflect this reality at least somewhat. Given Israel's terrible history at the Olympics in 1972 as well as the historical exclusion of Jewish athletes, for example during the Hitler games, but also during less integrated periods, the Israeli team and Jewish athletes representing other states must be celebrated! Would Palestinian, Druze, Bedouin Israelis wish to represent Israel? We know that at least one athlete from East-Jerusalem, Judoka Maher Abu Remeleh
represents the Palestinian Olympic team. Reuters gives an interesting indication that it is not just the Israeli side that can be blamed. Journalists Ori Lewis and Roleen Tafakji quote in Reuters Rameleh's coach and representative of the Palestinian Olympic Delegation Hani Halabi: "The Israeli union tried many times to arrange joint events but we have refused ... I cannot ask a Palestinian boy to compete against an Israeli while his father is in jail, or his house has been demolished and he can't go through checkpoints." They also quoted Zvi Varshaviak, chairman of the Israeli Olympic Committee, as saying:
"we have offered the Palestinians to cooperate and to take advantage of our facilities and so far they have refused. They have got cold feet for political reasons"
Bearing not accessing facilities for political reasons in mind, I can not assess the question if sport facility access is equal for Israel's 24.7% non Jews, one would expect at least some inequities or area of improvement. What I am confident in saying is that it is not a straight forward story on either side, symbol of much ground in terms of community cohesion and peace work still to be done, most likely on both sides.
Questions remain. They are always questions of demographics, with Jewish Israelis often quick at pointing out that Jews are at the end a minority in the Middle East, and Palestinians not wishing to separate between Palestinians withor without Israeli citizenship. Should all Jewish athletes of Israel compete in the Israeli team, or Palestinian / Arab one's in the Palestinian? Should they be mixed on one side (Israel) or on both sides Israel and Palestine (integrated Jewish settlers in Palestine)? Each political view carries its own vision and "solution." But it can not be surprising that in a region of conflict sport expresses the conflict as well, but sometimes and this is the spirit of the Olympics it can master borders otherwise impassible.
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Egypt questions: How will Muslim Brotherhood (MBH) upkeep tourism? Will they tolerate alcohol, Western liberal holiday makers who are not part of their pious morality, Jewish visitors, LGBT visitors, and how will MBH treat the Egyptian Coptic community. Will they tolerate Egyptian liberal attitude of dance and music, will they respect peace agreements with Israel and put themselves forward to negotiate and encourage a non-violent process between the fronts in Israel / Palestine? Will they open the Egyptian archives relating to the wars between Israel and Egypt (which have been kept shut to protect Egypt's officer and elite class), which reveal how war was staged and 10.000s of young Egyptians were sent unneeded into death under Nassr and Sadat? Will South Egyptians and Bedouins be treated equally to others? Will African refugees and migrants no longer be shot at in the Sinai desert, or exploited and will they be given refugee rights? Will the Suez canal continue to be open to all traffic? Will the West keep their calm or will they create another Algeria 1990s?
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The
concept of "rest" does not exist for me anymore. With mum and child away for three days now I have written a news record with
interviews and photos, written a story line, booked my next trip away, taught
Pilates, and I wonder about my tax return 2011/12 for the rest... and
plan some radio work... Nobody works as efficient as parents do! And some
have stereotypes about employing us. Sure sometimes our kids are ill
and we can't get in, but boy try a parent and you know the difference
between that parent and your other workers... we are always (!) on a
deadline and have to cope with doing all in less time!
These have been another interesting four days in Britain for someone who read once political studies and history at SOAS (much of it on the heydays of colonialism and slavery). It shows that contemporary politics has as much to do with keeping up with Hello Magazine,The Sun and The Daily Mail and free union jack hand outs as it has to do with understanding Marx or Adorno. Funny only Prof. Paul Gilroy at Goldsmiths where i then did my MA insisted that we university students ready to take on any 300 page political theorist ought to read the Daily Mail etc. if we were to understand certain quarters of Britain, and he made sure he brought left over copies from the underground into our university class.
