Were we sleeping?

E.B.White once wrote that, “I get up every morning determined to both change the world and to have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning difficult.”

Four weeks ago today I arrived back in Jordan ready for the excitement of 2009 at KA. Of course I came back in the new cloud of the crisis in Gaza. It has been difficult to ascertain exactly how far away Gaza is from our little mound of earth here in the biblical kingdom of Moab. I have asked how long it would take to drive to Gaza, but the answer is difficult because there are these border crossings and security issues, and while people understand the English phrase, “as the crow flies,” nobody can arrive at a consensus how far, how close, we have been to this tragedy.

While the situation has calmed in the last 10 days, it certainly provoked much consternation and despair, some anger, and creative fund-raising activities (each faculty and staff member voted to offer one day’s salary to send medical supplies to Gaza). I didn’t write about Gaza too much this month, but I watched and listened and read, weaving the context together to better understand the 60-year history of the Gaza strip. The best article I read, in terms of comprehensive background, but even more since it comes from an Israeli perspective, appeared in the Manchester Guardian by Avi Schlaim, entitled, “How Israel Brought Gaza to the Brink of Disaster.” Mr. Schlaim’s first line opens with: “The only way to make sense of Israel’s senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context.” You betcha. Within the first 10 lines this man who identifies himself as “someone who served loyally in the Israeli army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel” writes about “Israel’s vicious attack on the people of Gaza and the Bush administration’s complicity in this assault.” Obviously it is interesting to read Schlaim’s thoughts (he teaches at Oxford) and it is not just another extremist on any side.

Are there new meanings to be gleaned in these old battles? It is just plain difficult to figure things out since it is hard to untangle the groups (Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah) and the legitimacy and exact intentions of presidents and figure-heads. I would say that before I came to the Middle East, in 2007, my perception of power politics here was pretty clear: Israel is an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism. But as I knew would happen, I have deepened, broadened, and complicated my understanding of the region.

On one of the nights when the students organized a vigil to commemorate/protest a renewed spate of Israeli violence, a group of us talked during Study Hall hours—several Americans and several Jordanians—about how each side views this mess. One guy explained how Israel has never promoted democracy for the Arabs in their borders. He spoke confidently about Israel’s long history of secret collaboration with reactionary Arab regimes to suppress Palestinian nationalism. My students are well-versed in the history, reminding us that in 2006 (and other times) Israel refused to recognize local democratically elected governments, instead claiming any and all of these organizations to be terrorist organizations.

This other student quoted from the article by Mr. Schlaim, agreeing that a “surreal situation thus developed with a significant part of the international community imposing economic sanctions not against the occupier but against the occupied, not against the oppressor but against the oppressed.”

I guess that has been the hardest part to figure out—we like to name the groups, we like to be clear and identify who the oppressors versus who the oppressed are. From that three-week old war of 2009 it looked pretty simple from this vantage point. Israel fomented this war, and Israel has cleverly played the old game of divide and conquer, but the statistics of the lost are plain: 1300 people in Gaza died, and 13 Israelis died. Israel bombed 50 buildings run by United Nations relief. One day Israel bombed a hospital, killing nearly 500 in that attack. In that night-time conversation my students explained that the ratios tend to be pretty consistent. If 1 Israeli is killed, then 20 Palestinians must be killed. If the math ratio is correct or not, what a chilling fact for an adolescent to process and reflect upon. I know some of you, maybe many of you, think Israel bombed those extremists who had rocket-attacked Israel since they have the right to act in self-defense. Whatever the numbers, killing civilians is wrong. Mr. Schlaim goes on to write, “Israel’s entire record is one of unbridled and unremitting brutality towards the inhabitants of Gaza.”

Does Israel count on apathy and impotence? President Bush put all the blame for the crisis on Hamas, issuing Israel a free pass to mount a ground invasion of Gaza. As I have concluded several times in my time here, in the tragic history of Palestine, the victims were blamed for their own misfortunes.

Mr. Schlaim reminds his readers that Jewish settlers number about 8,000 in Gaza compared with 1.4 million Palestinians, but that the small number controls 40% of the arable land, and most of the scarce water sources. The majority of the local population live in abject poverty (49% remain unemployed) earning about $261 a year. This asymmetry of power leaves little room for doubt as to who is the real victim.

Let’s look at Hamas—like other radical movements, as it has grown in power it has moderated its political program. And to be sure, they are not a totally innocent party in this conflict. Denied the fruit of their elected victory, and confronted with the difficulty of the Israeli government, it has resorted to the weapon of the weak—terror. Last spring Hamas extremists launched rocket attacks until a ceasefire in June. Now, what I have been told is that the damage caused by these rockets is minimal, but it prompted a desire to create a new fear screen and demand for heightened violence against not the militants, but the innocent population of Gaza.

Mr. Schlaim turns to the Bible and says that the familiar image of David and Goliath has been “inverted—a small and defenseless Palestinian David faces a heavily armed, merciless, and overbearing Israeli Goliath,” and then he goes on to end his assessment of the crisis Gaza branding Israel as “a rogue state” with “unscrupulous leaders.”

What is the goal? Is it peace? Is it military domination?

What do we do?

The Americans at that table that night wondered if forgiveness is possible. That launched a half-hour discussion about the nature, and quality of, forgiveness. Can you remember the last time you sat around with teen-age boys and discussed the concept of forgiveness?

As they should have been pondering their reading assignments for World History, hoping to get to their Biology lab report and Pre-Calculus problems, we discussed forgiveness. One boy thought these acts were “unforgivable.” What is unforgivable? How do you move past unforgivable-ness? We then discussed and compared how Islam views forgiveness and how Christianity views forgiveness. Do you need to be in a position of power to forgive? One boy thought so. We talked about unconditional forgiveness—we agreed that forgiveness may be the most difficult act in our human repertory. This boy said, “I know that in Christianity we are taught forgiveness is a mandate. We hope to be forgiven, so we must forgive others."

The conversation ended in a bit of stalemate—they always do—but we had discussed lies and mistakes about the past, governments and political expediency, peaceful co-existence, and the hope that forgiveness might triumph.

I thought of that conversation this week as I attended a performance of the play Waiting for Godot here on campus. I will be the first to say I did not look forward, should I joke and say, ‘to waiting’ for Godot to arrive on stage. I had not been a fan of the Beckett absurdist classic play. But Tristan, our young drama director, framed the play for the audience superbly before the performance. He observed: “Many people hate this play. I love it and I want to share it with you. I see this play as a simple play about relationships. We have friendships in life, and we have slave/master relationships. Isn’t this most of life?” All of a sudden this play took on a new life in my head: Which kind of relationship, the one of support and kindness, or the one of expropriation, will triumph? How can we work to make one thrive, and the other become a historic artifact? Can I do something about it?

Much of the play is aimless wandering. The play is about what we do while we are waiting for life to unfold. But Tristan framed it in such a way that delighted the audience and opened it up in a profound way. The two leads—the friends—reveled in a kind of schtick like Vaudevillian veterans. Indeed, they even looked like Laurel and Hardy. And the master and slave had a subservient man named Lucky toiling for a ridiculously vapid woman. Toward the end of the play one of the friends turned to the other and wondered,
”Were we sleeping when others were suffering?”

Tristan created a simple set design, but it even looked a little like the scrabby land here in the Middle East. And I sat, trying to process the governmental policies and fears, and intentions, the despair and cries of the innocent, aghast that schools and hospitals are destroyed, wondering how to pick themselves up, and waiting for relief.

And that one line has resonated in my head ever since.