Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 2001, page 16

Jerusalem Journal

 

Victims and Terrorists

 

By Samah Jabr With Betsy Mayfield

When I wrote recently that Israel uses security as an excuse for excessive violence, and that much of its treatment of Palestinians is no less than part of the long-term strategy clearly presented in the writings of Vladimir Jabotinsky (see July Washington Report, p. 15), I received an onslaught of hate mail far surpassing anything my articles had elicited before. One woman wrote that she hoped I’d die of breast cancer; another suggested that Ariel Sharon should single me out to be walled in and silenced with a mouthful of dirt—not mentioning that such dirt would be taken from my own soil.

I wondered what was so different about that article, which involved an historical explanation of the violence to which we Palestinians are subjected today. Perhaps I had touched a raw nerve of truth.

The taking of the Holy Land is not the spiritual act it purports to be. Rather, it is a violation by human beings of other peoples’ human rights. It is possible because many in our world today are capable of choosing their own ambitions over those of God. One can see the result of this here in Palestine, in Northern Ireland—all over the globe.

It was not only strangers or enemies, however, who responded to my article with hostility. Even Israeli peace activists, “friends” who have supported me in the past, wrote in anger, citing Said Al-Houtary’s bombing of himself and pleasure seekers in Tel-Aviv as evidence of Palestinian evil.

One “friend,” an Israeli journalist, wrote, “You should remember that a society that encourages death among its sons, no matter what the cause, has no future and will never have a respectable place among civilized people.”

What am I to think? Evidently, for my friend, it’s civilized for young Israeli soldiers to place themselves in harm’s way and violate Palestinians’ rights on behalf of their government’s quest for land and power. It’s another thing, however, for Palestinian young people to die for our right to live on our own land. I wonder if my “friend” interprets as another “civilized” act Israelis’ willingness to elect a war criminal as their prime minister.

In the past, I have done what another “friendly” Israeli doctor suggested I do, and criticized my own people. I have written about the psychological pain of living in a society where martyrdom is an expression of an unbalanced war in which one side has weapons of mass destruction and the other only stones and antiquated equipment. I’ve written about the unrelenting sadness of parents who see their children die for a cause when the youths are scarcely old enough to know what martyrdom means.

 

Ke young Palestinians have lived under inhuman conditions all our lives.

Sadly, for me, my “friend” appears to have dismissed my efforts at objectivity. “Prove your integrity,” she wrote to me, “and that you’re a woman of principle. Write in sympathy of innocent Israelis killed by Palestinian acts of terror.”

Perhaps I should have been flattered by her challenge, and her comment that she would “take her hat off to me” if I would condemn Said Al-Houtary and the parents of sons who have died for the Palestinian cause. Instead, I cried.

When my “friend” asks me to write a story of sympathy for the 20 people killed by Said Al-Houtary’s act, does she expect me to feel more pain for them than I do for the 600 Palestinians who have died at the hands of the IDF or rampaging Israeli settlers?

My “friends” in Israel, those of you who welcomed me before this latest intifada, I cannot stop young men like Said Al-Houtary any more than you can deny the historical reality of Zionist ambition. Nor will I condemn him. Said Al-Houtary was a young man who gave his life for his people and for the only home he ever knew. He was a young man fully immersed in war and who, sadly, learned conflict’s equation: that two wrongs make a right. He was a victim, not a hero—and not a terrorist.

I define a terrorist as someone who violently strikes out at innocent people because of his or her own ideology—not because he or she is protecting a people and a homeland, as our young men are.

We Palestinians, especially we young Palestinians, have lived under inhuman conditions all our lives. Some of us reach a boiling point and stand ready to sacrifice ourselves to the utter, hopeless frustration leveled on us by Israeli-Zionist oppression. I mourn Said Al-Houtary’s death and the death of the Israeli victims, both. I cry for you, my friends in Israel, and for me.

I also understand that, no matter how welcoming outsiders may be, there dwells in many Jewish hearts a fear that people will turn on them simply because they are Jewish. For this, I am truly sorry.

Many Jews, evidently, worry that telling the world the truth about Zionism will cause a repeat of the age of religious intolerance and “church wars.”

Zionism is not Judaism, however, and educated people around the world know this. Unfortunately, this fact seems not to connect in many Jewish minds. I am a Palestinian Muslim, but I have only respect for the Jewish religion and for many of Jewish faith. My enemy is Zionism.

Is it not the Zionists, after all, who point to their fellow Jews and say, “You, you’re Jewish, you’re one of us. Protect us, finance us, make those around you finance Israel—or the world will kill us and you along with us”?

 

Psychological Terrorism

I suggest that Zionists insist on the their fellow Jews’ support because they know that what Ariel Sharon and his government are doing is wrong and can only invite condemnation from all who seek justice. To me, this is psychological terrorism. Our martyrs are motivated by hopelessness. What is the Zionists’ motivation?

Let me be clear: our warriors are not terrorists. Terrorist come in all nationalities. All are psychopaths. They have personal agendas. Like Timothy McVeigh, they are hollow. and do not blink when they die. Our young men give up their lives for Palestine even as the Israeli government leads young soldiers to knock us to our knees. Their soldiers and ours do blink when they die, yielding up the beauty of life to protect what they love.

To my Israeli “friends” I say: you and I live in a world that sways like a rope bridge. We can either live together or swing back and forth in uneasy traverse between truce and never-ending fear—or we can embrace justice and make peace. We can do that only if both sides realize a civilized concern for each other. Neither I, however, nor you—nor our respective warriors—will be able to achieve this condition until the Israeli people and their leaders renounce the truly evil, uncivilized legacy of 1920s political Zionism.

Samah Jabr is a medical student who writes from her home in Jerusalem. Betsy Mayfield is an American writer living in Iowa.

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