Carolyn's Blog

Fear and Love

i have started writing this email five times and each time i delete what i have written and start again. i dont know where to begin or how to express my feelings about what is going on here. particularly after the shootings yesterday which i sent you an email about earlier. a young israeli man is lying in hospital with brain damage to his sight and speech. he was a lawyer and an activist. there is also a young danish woman in hospital with brain contusions caused by a soldier butting her in the head with a rifle, which may also lead to some kind of brain damage.

then there are 12 other palestinians, israelis and internationals with lesser injuries caused by the orders of a violent and hateful commander.

it makes me want to weep with profound sadness at the unnecessary violence perpetrated against people because they take a principled stand alongside the oppressed, or simply because they dont go along with the status quo, or of course, for being born on the 'wrong' side of the wall...

i even feel a little guilty for not being at the demo yesterday. last week the Bil'in demo was quiet and there were other things needing to be done for iwps, so only one of us went to the demo. she is ok thanks goodness. but i feel guilty. not a useful emotion at all- what use would another body have been? but i understand how those who survive terrible situations, or who have been away when a disaster has visited their community, feel guilt afterwards.

i am always amazed by how much i learn about myself and the wider world when i am here. i have learned over the years that violence is truly a terrible thing and affects both the perpetrator and the survivor. how must that soldier who shot that young lawyer be feeling now? At some level he must be feeling terrible, even if that gets suppressed out of guilt and shame. and how can a society who professes to love their children, send them to kill and maim others?

i have learned that solidarity is really about standing in the shoes of the other. i have experienced that it really is possible to look in the eyes of someone who has been presented as your enemy and to see yourself in them. yesterday my friend fatima told me i am now her sister. she cant see her own sisters because they live in Gaza and so are separated from their relations on the westbank by a system that is apartheid and racist. we have been told all our lives that we are enemies, the palestinian and the jew - not just the israeli jews either.

i have learned that fear and love are the two extreme ends of a continuous emotion. i have waivered between both of those at different times on each of my visits here and i know that i do not want fear to dominate my life. it is crippling.

fear is the base emotion that manifested the state of israel. fear is the fuel that enflames the hatred in the hearts of the settlers, that leads them to incite their small children to throw stones and call out foul comments to palestinians.

fear is a tool that is used by those who want a zionist jewish state, to make people believe that another holocaust is imminent, that anti-semitism is the only form of racism and that a jewish state is the only answer to that racism.

fear creates hatred of people who are somehow different than oneself because the difference becomes threatening, maybe because it makes you realise there are many ways to be in the world not just the one way you have been told all your life.

but i truly believe it is possible to turn fear into love. maybe it is a bit like being an alchemist turning base metals into gold, but it is possible. i know it is. maybe it takes a long time, but i am sure it is possible. because to not know that, is to despair, and despair is only something that privileged people like myself can afford to feel. those girls on the bus to ramallah have far more reason than i to despair, but they sing and dance and do not let despair stop them from being typical teenagers, occupation or not.

love would never have created this violent, racist state, at war since its inception. the apartheid wall would never have been built from love. protestors would never be run over by bulldozers or shot in the head like that young man today.

as i struggle with feelings of deep anger about what i see here with my own eyes, i try to remember that anti semitism is still alive and on the rise, and that many jewish people live in fear because of it. but that very fear fuels a self-fulfilling prophecy. out of the fear of anti semitism comes the need for a so called 'safe haven' for jews. to create a place of safety from the depths of fear, can only lead to exlusion, ignorance, hatred and violence. in turn this gives rise to a rationale that the jews themselves are a people worthy only of hatred.

how it is possible to make zionists understand that what israel is doing and that every jewish or christian zionist who complies with what israel does, is only increasing anti semitism? how can jews stop reliving the holocaust when its terrible images and stories are constantly reiterated in the media and entertainment industry? the holocaust was a terrible terrible thing, but so were the massacres committed in vietnam, kampuchea, rawanda and serbia, and the list could go on for many lines. each one terrible in its own right. the other day i read that maureen lipman, who is a famous jewish comedian in britain, said in reference to the war in lebanon and gaza, on a tv program, that it was not relevant to talk about proportionality in this context because after all jewish life was worth something, and well, arabs do blow themselves up after all. i believe that she was not allowed to get away with this racist statment unchallenged. but it is astounding that zionists like her dare to say that it isnt about proportion when all my life i have heard that nothing compares to the holocaust because of the numbers of jews killed. rarely are the political prisoners, the gay and lesbians, the romanys and the others who were sent to their deaths, mentioned.

when the holocaust becomes the rationale for acts of brutalities, hatred and vengeance that are being committed by the state of israel, it shames the memory of all those who suffered and died because of it.

israel was a state created from fear and violence and has continued as it began. perhaps it sounds crass to say that the opposite of this is love, and out of love could be created something so different, but it is also deeply true. and that goes for not only israel but everywhere in our world. i do not like the institutions of religion. but it seems to me that the very essense of the spirit of religion, is to live in love. the state of israel in that sense is very much not a jewish state. jewish people have had a long history of acting out of love, of speaking up for the oppressed and standing up against injustice. it is this history which makes me call myself a jew. israel does not speak in my name or the name of my wonderful friends who overcome fear and chose to follow a spirit of love.

 

Other entries