A World without Maps

Why the Trope of Moral Superiority Is Self-Defeating

July 21, 2014 in family, friends, Israel, Palestine, peace, political awareness | Leave a comment

This weekend there were massive pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests in London, Paris, and other cities around the world. Friends said that there were even protests in small-town Wisconsin. You can see photos from global protests here on Al-Jazeera: Global Gaza Solidarity Protests. In the first photo, a woman in South Africa holds a sign reading, “Israel: Murder, War, Killers.”

That’s going to bring about peace, right?

I wish that these were largely pro-peace demonstrations demanding a two-state solution. They seem, instead, to be about claiming moral superiority, about blaming and hating. I can say the same about some of the pro-Israel protests I’ve seen or heard about here in Israel.

The problem with such protests is that they damage the goal they are supposed to be trying to reach.

First, they let “their side” off the hook–whatever is necessary to “resist” is allowed because they are morally superior.

Second, they harden the stances of both sides, making compromise and peace less likely.

Then, too, there are the internet memes demonstrating just how terrible the other side is. A Facebook friend who lives in the West Bank posts memes in which Israelis say awful, racist things, e.g. these of teenage Israelis calling on Twitter for the death of Arabs or this article citing racist statements made by Israelis on Facebook. A Facebook friend who lives in Israel posts memes in which Palestinians say or do awful, racist things, e.g. this meme in which Palestinians, including many children, hold up three fingers in support of the kidnapping of three Israeli children or this BBC article demonstrating that some of the images sent to media to represent the current crisis are actually from the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

These depressed me deeply. But then I thought: Wait. Many of those in these memes or starting the memes are teenagers. I’ve spent a lot of time with teenagers–I was a high school teacher in the US–and as much as I love them, trust me when I say that you should not be judging a society’s moral standards based on what a few teenagers say.

And it turns out that at least some of those pictures of Palestinians holding up three fingers may actually have been showing their support for a Palestinian contestant on Arab Idol, who was contestant number 3.

See how ridiculous these attempts to paint the other side black can be?

And what is the purpose? To show how awful others can be? Is that going to calm down the situation and allow for civil dialogue? Is it going to lessen ignorance and racism?

Here’s for some uplifting news:

In my Facebook news feed, where I have connections with tens of Israelis and a couple Palestinians, I have never seen any words of hate, but rather prayers for peace, for the safety both of the soldiers going into battle and of the innocents in Gaza.

I do see anger at Hamas and “get ’em!” statements referring to Hamas or terrorists infiltrating Israel with weapons. I do see attempts to legitimize or rationalize the Israeli point of view, e.g. to circulate Netanyahu’s statement that “if Israel were to put down its arms there would be no more Israel. If the Arabs were to put down their arms there would be no more war.”

I have also seen Israeli denunciations of the war, such as that written here, in answer to the question, How can you possibly oppose this war? (True, it has no answer about what to do about the rockets being shot … only questions about whether the escalation of this conflict is going to achieve its goals.)

But as a whole, I mostly see a strong desire for quiet, peace, and safety for all. If you want to see for yourselves, try going to the Facebook pages of “Palestine Loves Israel” and “Israel Loves Palestine.” You’ll see Israelis and Palestinians reaching out to one another and demanding peace.

It is very hard to remain level-headed and push for compromise when you fear for your children’s lives. It is very hard when you read about the deaths of children and families. It is especially hard when you have lost one of your own family to the conflict.

So I want to end by sharing one of the most heart-breaking and yet hopeful messages I’ve seen spread around the internet thus far, in which there is no moral superiority, only pain and hope for peace: A video compiled by the Palestinian-Israeli Bereaved Families for Peace.

Their message? We don’t want any new members in our organization.

“We don’t want you here.“

Life with Rockets

July 16, 2014 in Israel, Palestine, peace, political awareness | Leave a comment

The sirens began howling at 9:20 a.m.

Usually, they sound a little distant, as though what I’m hearing is from the next town over. We live in Herzliya, a town to the north of Tel Aviv, on the outskirts of where Hamas is supposed to be able to hit with its missiles. We don’t hear as many sirens as people who live in Tel Aviv, and much, much fewer than those living in the south of Israel, closer to the Gaza border.

But this time, the sirens were loud.

I hesitated. My son, who had a high fever, had just fallen asleep in his room. Should I wake him? Is there really a chance of being hit? We live on the top floor of our building, true, but–

BOOM. The building shook.

Was this a hit, or the Iron Dome defense system, intercepting the missiles and detonating them in the air? It is an enormous relief to have the Iron Dome deployed here, but shrapnel does rain down from these interceptions as well.

The sirens kept ringing: another missile.

There’s rarely just one.

I lifted up my son and then, in bare feet, opened the door and began to run down the stairs to the building’s bomb shelter in the basement. I passed neighbors outside their doors on the way. In the shelter stood several families, including one with three children wearing towels from the shower. One of the children was crying.

When the sirens stopped, we waited the specified five minutes, then began the climb back upstairs. I thought to myself, “Ok, not too bad. Pull yourself together.”

Life goes on here; people go to work, meet up with friends for lunch, take the kids to daycare or camp. Unless, of course, you are one of the soldiers being called up for reserve duty, or family members anxiously waiting for their return. My family and I are lucky: my husband has not been called up for reserve duty; we are far from the main conflict; we have defense systems and a bomb shelter in our building. I was fine. Safe. With only a tiny chance of being hit.

Then I heard a knock on the door. It was my next-door neighbor. She had come to see if I was handling the situation all right, as a newcomer to the experience of missile attacks and as a mother alone with a baby. She told me that if I needed help, I should let them know. I replied that I was quite fine, but tears welled up and I stopped short. I hadn’t realized how upset I was.

Many things had gone through my head as I ran down the stairs. The sirens in and of themselves are scary, but along with them comes the knowledge that there is no ceasefire, or it has been broken; that there will be retaliations for this act, retaliations which might hurt people as innocent of the conflict as my son is; that for the one or two sirens I experience each day, people in Gaza and in the south of Israel have to live with many more, and with the fact that there is not always enough warning to get to shelter.

I can only detail what I know of what is going on here in central Israel. There is fear. One of my friends keeps her windows shuttered and rarely leaves the apartment; she has a three month old daughter and fears being caught outside during a missile attack. Another, seven months pregnant, was caught on the freeway during an attack and had to make a split decision: try to stop on the edge of the freeway and get out, dangerous in itself, or keep going? The recommendation is to stop and get out of the car, so she did, heart pounding. (NB: I don’t know why that’s safer. Perhaps to stop one from driving into an explosion?)

There is also anger and deep sadness, and a strong resolution to try to keep life as normal as possible. Friends with children ages 2-4 try to make the sirens into a game: “That’s when we all go out to chat with the neighbors!”

My neighbor told me to come over to her place for coffee. She took my son into the playroom she keeps for her seven grandchildren, pulled out toys and coaxed a smile from my shy boy. She chatted with me, mentioning that things had been worse in 1992 when they feared chemical weapons from Saddam’s Iraq and put gas masks on whenever there was a siren. This is a typical Israeli coping method: “Remember when it was worse, and thank god it’s not.” When handing me my coffee, she told me the phrase that Israelis repeat in times like these: “Ha-kohl ovehr.” Everything passes. This, too, shall pass.

***

Just read this July 14 Haaretz article by a friend of mine, in which many of my sentiments are echoed: “Five-year-olds know the siren drill, while Tel Aviv parents try to keep calm.”

Cf. the statement of one Israeli mother: “It’s more depressing to live this reality when you have a child, because you realize this is where you are going to raise them,” she says. Still, although the situation is tough, “neither Ayelet nor I will die, and the other side suffers more. The Gazans don’t have a safe place to run to, and they don’t have Iron Dome.”

Catch-22: The Israel-Palestine Version, or: Where are the true leaders?

July 15, 2014 in Islamism, Israel, Palestine, peace | Leave a comment

This morning at 9 a.m., Israel accepted a cease-fire brokered through Egypt. Hamas has rejected it, on the grounds that “we are still under occupation and resistance is the right of our people.”

I learned about this during a family gathering in which people were frequently glancing at their cell phones to check the news. My cousin-in-law looked up at me, disappointment and anger in her face, the moment the news broke.

I agree that the Gazans don’t have free borders (though to what degree they are occupied is debateable, as Israel has no presence in Gaza, having withdrawn all Israelis in 2005; borders were closed after Hamas sent in suicide bombers). But I don’t agree that sending rockets indiscriminately into Israeli territory is their “right,” nor is it the kind of resistance that the Gazan people need.

(Update: A recent poll of Gazans suggests that Gazans think the same: “Gaza public rejects Hamas, wants ceasefire.”)

Here is the catch-22: Security fears => occupation/resistance => security fears.

Israel keeps Gaza’s borders/airspace and the West Bank territory under its control because it fears suicide bombers and rocket attacks and worse. Its operations, by and large, are in retaliation for attacks or to prevent future attacks. Hamas, and various Palestinian resistance groups who resort to violence, attack because they are under occupation and because they hate Israel/Jews. So they continue to smuggle in weapons and create bunkers and attack (or at least spout the hate rhetoric that leads their people to attack on their own, e.g. the three kidnappings and murder). Then comes the next Israeli operation and murders of families who happen to be in the wrong place. Then violent resistance. Lather, rinse, repeat.

To break this cycle, we need a new kind of resistance: a large, powerful peace (perhaps we should say, compromise-supporting) resistance and true leaders who are willing to risk their careers, and perhaps their lives (see: Anwar Sadat, Yitzhak Rabin), to make decisions that will bring peace to their people. Israelis need to push their government not just to spout the rhetoric of support for a two-state solution, but to start implementing it on the ground. (Yes, this, in part, means not building up settlements in the West Bank, and not razing Palestinian homes.) Palestinians need voices calling for acceptance of Israel, for peace with their neighbors, and for strong institution-building, so among other things, they can thumb their nose at Israeli tariffs and products and enjoy the benefits of a functioning state much like the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan do: a state even before it is recognized as such.

I believe–and the majority of Jewish Israelis believe (see this poll from February 2014 or this one from May 2014, which found that 68.4% of the Jewish public were in favor of peace negotiations even if they didn’t think it would actually lead to peace)–that the Gazans and the West Bankers have a right to a state, or two states, of their own. That Israel and a Palestinian state can live in peace to the benefit of both nations.

But Israelis point out again and again the following problem: that Palestinian leaders have historically focused very little on state- and institution-building and much more on resisting Israel by whatever means possible. From the early days of Palestinian resistance movements, that has meant terrorism. PFLP, PLO, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and others each in their turn. (The Palestinian Authority under Abbas is different, however; Abbas has cooperated with Israel many times and is even seen as an Israeli lackey in the West Bank …) They claim that the reason Israel doesn’t pull out of the West Bank is that it fears another Gaza: a new place for missiles to be shot from, even a new territory for violent jihadis like ISIS to hang out in.

I find this argument difficult to dispute. Hamas, in its charter, states that it seeks the destruction of Israel and that “there is no negotiated settlement possible. Jihad is the only answer.” How does one negotiate for peace with a group like that? How do you give them control of their air and water space, in the full knowledge that they will use it to import weapons meant to kill your citizens?

Kurdish leaders in Iraqi Kurdistan didn’t choose terrorism; they built institutions on the ground so that the world would see they were ready to be their own state. South African leaders, under Nelson Mandela, DID create a militant faction, but Mandela was arrested before he did much; and in the end, Mandela and others chose to sit down at the table and make agreements with their enemies, not refuse to discuss terms at all costs.

It’s true that these situations are more complicated and happened in the context of international pressures and political wrangling. But I do think the international community would have treated these groups differently had their leaders publicly supported violence as Hamas do.

And we can turn this back again to Netanyahu: How does this operation create greater security for Israel? All I see is Hamas gaining more sympathy. Why is Israel targeting homes, even of militants? If these are assassination attempts, they are spectacularly generalized to include entire families–and merely create vacancies for the next militants growing up under occupation.

So I ask again: Where are the leaders willing to make the hard compromises? To make sacrifices for the betterment of their people?

Israel: The Darling of Activist Hate Campaigns, or: Sorry, Justin Timberlake!

June 13, 2014 in Israel, Palestine, peace, political awareness | Leave a comment

[This post was written in May/June 2014, prior to the current war between Hamas and Israel.]

Sometimes I wish that I had never visited Israel, never delved into its complex, emotional, difficult history and politics. Then I could be free to boycott it, to picket it,and to point out everything I see wrong with it, without bothering to spend months actually reading up on the issues or, perhaps, without noting that many of the issues I have with Israel are not so very far removed from issues that I have with the United States. Say, the use of drones and the unnamed number of civilians the US of A has killed in the last few years, with nearly no oversight or outcry.

The latest victim of the “if you have even one positive thing to say about Israel — all of it and all its people — you must be an evil, evil person” is Justin Timberlake. (See here: “Cancel Apartheid Israel Show.”)

I am not unsympathetic to some of the aims of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions [against Israel]) movement. There are evil things that happen in Israel and the Palestinian territories. They need to be stopped. I’m just unclear as to how a cultural and academic boycott is going to accomplish this. Too often it seems as though the boycott is simply a hate festival and does a better job of alienating Israeli liberals, who do love their music, than it does of inciting internal national reflection.

I used to work as the editor of an academic journal centered on reviewing books concerning the Middle East and North Africa. The tricky part was that to ascertain the relevance of these books, I needed to invite noted scholars to review them. Once I received a most uncourteous reply from an American scholar of Egypt and feminist movements. She wrote that she wouldn’t work with me because she supported the BDS and was boycotting Israeli academics and academia.

It took all my willpower not to respond to her. “Lady,” I wanted to say, “do you realize that you are communicating with a group of liberals at a mostly liberal academic institution, many of whom are actively working to achieve your objectives on the ground here in Israel, and that by boycotting them, you do nothing but add fuel to the fire of their political opponents here?”

Israel is not South Africa. Israelis are scared that they will be wiped off of the map of the world. BDS plays into those fears of isolation, fears of hate.

What if instead of “anti-Israel,” we saw more “pro-peace,” “pro-two state solution” campaigns?

The Problem of Historical Narrative

November 4, 2011 in books, Israel, Palestine, peace, political awareness | Tags: arabs, conflict, history, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestine, peace, politics, West Bank | Leave a comment

“In the remembrance,” Fouad Ajami writes of Palestinian memories of life in what is now called Israel, “Haifa is the ‘lighthouse of the Mediterranean in culture and art,’ a port city second only to Marseilles in the waters of the Mediterranean.” Ajami recounts Fatima’s story: “On cold winter days we would gather around the brazier to hear grandmother tell us stories about how half the land in Irak al-Manshiyeh belonged to our family […] We always regretted the loss. She would tell us about the oranges, about the cows, how no butter ever tasted as sweet, and about the grapes.” Fatima’s eighteen year-old cousin had just blown himself up on a Jerusalem bus (February 25, 1996), killing twenty-five passengers.

Some Israelis sound very similar to Fatima when describing historic Palestine. They speak of a “united, undivided Jerusalem” as though the boundaries of the city were cut in stone; of “Judea and Samaria” rather than the West Bank or Palestine, as though their ancestors had left the territory yesterday.

Case in point: the question of “who came to the territory first.” Aluf Benn, in an article for Foreign Policy called “Understanding History Won’t Help Us Make Peace,” notes, “A 2003 Israeli textbook aimed at teaching the conflicting narratives side by side shows how pointless our debates have become: The Jewish narrative relies on the Bible to link today’s Israelis to the ancient Israelites while the Palestinian counternarrative reaches back to the Jebusites, who ruled Jerusalem before King David’s occupation, as the forefathers of contemporary Palestinians.”

What is the use of arguments like that, of going further back into ancient history, of “claiming” land that one has moved away from rather than trying to make a better place where one has ended up? Why always look backwards to a supposedly better time and place rather than forwards towards a better future? Such rhetoric encourages destruction and segregation rather than creation and collaboration.

The Haifa that the grandmother describes no longer exists, and possibly never did; nearly every grandparent tells such stories of their youth. Everything always looks better in memory, especially if one was young and strong at the time. Does that mean I should go back and reclaim the land my grandfather grew up on? Or — a subject close to my heart and work — that Somali refugee youth in the United States should go back to Somalia to claim the land their parents left rather than try to build a future for themselves in the States? In fact, rhetoric like that above has worked to encourage some Somali boys to return and helped turn a few of them into suicide bombers, too. If that is what such rhetoric brings, why would parents ever indulge this, encourage this? It’s self-annihilation.

Benn argues that it is only those leaders who have put history aside to focus on the future who have gotten anywhere. To create historical narratives is frequently to assign blame. To create peace is to find common ground and a future.

I want a future for the people of Israel-Palestine. The historical narratives can be written later.

Enough with the Settler Construction

November 2, 2011 in Israel, Palestine, political awareness | Tags: Israel, Palestine | Leave a comment

I woke up this morning to the following announcement on BBC News and Ynet: “Israel to speed up settler homes after UNESCO vote.” WHAT? What happened to the two-state solution? What kind of game is being played here?

It’s not as though we don’t have enough problems here deciding what’s “Israel” and what’s “territory,” who is Israeli (and what it means to be Israeli) and who falls into national no-man’s land. Now this ridiculous move to counter the “tragedy” of a desperate Palestinian Authority seeking UN recognition. Enough with the wishy-washy pretense of supporting a two-state solution, Netanyahu. If you’re going to take us into another war, at least be honest about your intentions. What this move says to me, to Palestinians, to the international community, is that you have no intention of ever allowing Palestinians to have their own, independent state.

Frankly, I’m not here to quibble about whether or not Israel should have been established in the first place, or whether it should have been established in historic Palestine or in Europe or in the mountains of Uganda. It exists, it has been recognized by the major international institutions, it has spilled blood and won wars and basically done everything that every other modern state institution has done to come into existence. I believe in its right to exist and I understand the desire of the Jewish people to have a nation, a country in which they are not a minority. But by killing the peace process, Netanyahu, you’re killing Israel and dishonoring those who fought for it to be a democratic, just country. You have Arab citizens and control over Arab-majority territory, and you have a responsibility to them as well — and even if you choose to ignore this, demographically, they will always be a “threat,” a bigger threat than your short-sighted, short-term settler constructions.

Wouldn’t an independent, democratic, functioning Palestinian neighbor be more secure than frustrated and disenfranchised Arab semi-citizens?

Islamism in Somalia

October 1, 2011 in political awareness | Tags: conflict, peace, politics | Leave a comment

Here’s a link to an article I wrote for the Moshe Dayan Center’s Tel Aviv Notes on “Islamism in Somalia,” with the text below:

And another important link about ways to donate to help famine victims on Nicholas Kristoff’s blog.

Islamism in Somalia
Teresa Harings

On July 20th, the UN declared a famine in two areas of southern Somalia and later extended the designation to five of the country’s eight southern regions. In doing so, it incurred the wrath of the Islamist group that controls most of Somalia’s southern territory. Harakat Al-Shabab al-Mujahideen (“Movement of the Warrior Youth”) began restricting and banning foreign humanitarian organizations in 2009, accusing them of acting as Western spies and Christian crusaders. In response to the exigencies of the drought, it lifted the ban on July 6 only to impose it again following the UN’s declaration. An Al-Shabab spokesman accused the UN of political propaganda in applying the term “famine” only to the territory under its control, claiming that the situation there is not any worse than other drought-stricken areas in the Horn of Africa. Yet hundreds of thousands of Somalis continue to leave their homes in the countryside for Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital – from which Al-Shabab withdrew on August 6th, citing “tactical reasons” – or for Kenyan and Ethiopian refugee camps. Is the Islamist group’s popularity waning, and if so, what does this mean for the future of Islamism in the region?

Somali Islamism arose in the context of a broader international movement for the revitalization and reform of Islam. This movement corresponded with a political awakening in Somalia following its independence in 1960. As Somalis began studying and working abroad, they were exposed to the teachings of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Saudi Wahhabis. Upon returning, they established organizations parallel to those in Arab countries, including Al-Islah, the Somali branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Wahda Al-Shabab al-Islami, also modeled on Egyptian Islamist networks. These movements did not enjoy popular support until the late 1970s, when they began to oppose the brutal military regime of General Siad Barre, who had seized power in a 1969 coup. Islamist activity was muted until 1975, when Islamists demonstrated against family legislation promising legal and economic equality for women. Numerous clerics were arrested and ten were executed. Islamist activity went underground until the late 1980s, when the Wahhabi-inspired group Al-Itihad al-Islami (AIAI) was formed. Following Siad Barre’s ousting in 1991, a variety of Islamist movements emerged, among which AIAI was the most powerful. It is credited with influencing and training the militants who later formed Al-Shabab. In the late 1990s, AIAI began disbanding due to internal divisions and, later, a loss of funding following US sanctions designating it a terrorist organization in 2001.

Al-Shabab emerged in 2003 in Mogadishu as a youth wing of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), a coalition of shari`a-based courts formed in the political vacuum following Barre’s departure. The ICU became popular for its reputed discipline and good conduct. It employed its own militias and took control of Mogadishu in July 2006 – the first time in fifteen years that the city was under one force. However, the international community feared the ICU would offer a safe haven to Al-Qa`ida and establish a Taliban-style rule. (There were members within the ICU who did advocate extremist ideas, but the degree to which these ideas were accepted among the organization as a whole is unclear.) Six months later, Ethiopia (with US support) led a military mission that overthrew the ICU on behalf of the internationally supported Transitional Federal Government (TFG). The Al-Shabab militia, however, continued to fight the Ethiopians and the TFG.
The lack of security since the advent of civil war in 1991 has given Al-Shabab, which has an estimated seven to nine thousand fighters, political clout. Though Somali people are relatively homogenous ethnically, linguistically, and religiously (over 95% are Sunni Muslim), Somali society is organized into kinship-based clans. Islam is seen as a means of overriding clan ties to create a unified national identity. A Somali scholar who visited Islamist-controlled Mogadishu in 2006 saw “euphoria in the streets,” giving him the impression that the Islamists enjoyed popular support. The Islamists offered social services, ran the schools and health centers, and, for a tax, provided security to businesses. Despite its relatively small numbers, Al-Shabab has been able to control much of southern Somalia because clan leaders in those areas have been willing to cooperate with the group.

Since 2007, Al-Shabab leaders have pledged allegiance to Al-Qa`ida. However, the strength of this association is a matter of debate. Until recently, the groups’ ties appeared mainly ideological. Like Al-Qa`ida, Al-Shabab has actively recruited foreign fighters, particularly from Somali populations in Western countries. Western recruits’ passports and language skills make them valuable, and their deaths bring more attention to the group’s cause. Many of Al-Shabab’s recruitment videos employ American cultural signifiers like slang and rap music, and are narrated by Omar Hammami, a.k.a. al-Amriki, an American who uncovers his face, speaks English and vows with a smile to kill “all the enemy” and help establish an Islamic caliphate. He has recorded simple, catchy rap tracks to accompany footage of young men carrying weapons through the outback and preparing for a battle; one rap includes the lines, “Word by word, [George] Bush said the truth: You’re with them or you’re with the Muslim group.” The videos promise glorification in the name of Islam.

The June 8th killing of Al-Qa`ida operative Fazul Abdullah Mohammed in Mogadishu and the July indictment of Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, an alleged al-Shabab liaison to Al-Qa`ida, offer evidence of operational ties between the organizations. Yet Al-Shabab reportedly turned down an offer by Ayman al- Zawahiri to change its name to Al-Qa`ida in East Africa. Despite its diaspora networks and jihadi rhetoric, Al-Shabab has not attempted to extend its reach beyond Somalia. Foreign recruits, including three Americans who became suicide bombers, have so far been involved only in attacks related to developments within Somalia. And while on July 11, 2010, Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for twin bombings that killed more than 70 people watching the World Cup in Uganda, these bombings – the group’s first and only major attack outside Somalia – were linked to a domestic agenda: they were intended to pressure the Ugandan government to withdraw its soldiers from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), an ally of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

Furthermore, Al-Shabab’s poor handling of the drought situation – particularly its limitation on international humanitarian aid – has tarnished its image and reportedly exacerbated a division in the leadership. The group’s general leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane, who is trying to forge closer ties with Al-Qa`ida in the Arabian Peninsula, seems to have been behind the ban on aid, against the advice of his deputies Muktar Ali Robow and Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys. Additionally, the UN’s Special Representative for Somalia suggested that Al-Shabab’s funding has decreased significantly, due in part to instability in the Middle East and North Africa, where some of its financial backers reside. With its withdrawal from Mogadishu, Al-Shabab appears to be losing its influence.

Yet the international community should not expect Islamist movements to fade from the political scene. Islam is a strong part of Somali identity and cannot be ignored in the state-building process. As the scholar Andre Le Sage points out, Somali Islamist movements’ ideologies and objectives “cover a wide spectrum of political philosophy.” Al-Islah, for example, promotes Islamic values through non-violent means. Perhaps with Al-Shabab losing ground, Somalis and the international community can find more flexible ways to incorporate Islamic values into a functioning government system. Until then, the hope is that humanitarian aid can be extended and increased. The drought is expected to last another six months, until the next harvest season in January 2012.

Taxi Driver Wisdom and the Road to Ramallah

July 25, 2011 in Israel, Palestine, political awareness, travel | Tags: Israel, Palestine, West Bank | Leave a comment

Last week, my friends and I found ourselves taxi-ing from Jerusalem’s central bus station to the Arab bus station that would take us to Ramallah in the West Bank. I’ve found that one of the best ways for me to practice Hebrew is by chatting up complete strangers, and so, after answering the driver’s usual “Where are you from?” I turned the question around and asked him the same. “Palestine,” he responded, then laughed. “Ok, I say Palestine when speaking to Jews and Christians and Israel to Muslims.” (He’s Arab-Israeli.) He said he likes to see the reactions.

This quickly turned into a conversation about the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the driver’s opinion, it was not solvable, because “too many people benefit from the conflict. Everybody gets money” – the Israelis from the Americans and the West and the Palestinians from the NGOs and Muslim states.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of truth in that.

For more about NGO involvement in the West Bank’s economy: “Palestine – ‘Occupation Incorporated.'”

For our part, Victoria, Sarah, Chanah and I all had a great time in Ramallah, a city that Israelis are forbidden to visit. (I understand that most Ramallans and other West Bankers, in turn, cannot go into Israel unless they have a visa or are Israeli citizens, e.g. living in East Jerusalem.) It’s one of the ironies of the conflict that foreigners like us can jump over boundaries without trouble, whereas these neighbors are frequently denied access to each other. When I tell Israelis that I’ve been to the West Bank, I get one of two reactions: (a) “Wow, you’re so lucky. I wish I could go. What was it like? Were the people nice? Tell me everything” or (b) “What, why? That’s so dangerous. Was it worth the risk?” Fortunately, among my associates, I’ve gotten more (a) responses than (b).

And yes, for me, it was worth the “risk,” though we encountered no trouble whatsoever. In fact, people were incredibly nice – helpful when we lost our way, friendly when we asked questions. Even the guys who honked or whistled at us didn’t come across as aggressive as, say, Tel Avivans at the beach. The food was delicious, and cheaper than in Israel – 4 shekels for falafel with pita, 3 shekels for a 1 L bottle of water – a phenomenon we attributed to some form of subsidy.

Ramallah is a bustling combination of old-school street markets and spice sellers hawking their wares and trendy stores, restaurants, and cafes equipped with wi-fi. There are dilapidated buildings and beautiful mansions, private schools run by Pennsylvania Quakers and Arab universities, women who cover their hair and those who don’t, foreign nationals and natives who’ve never been out of the West Bank. And Yassir Arafat’s mausoleum, a huge marble memorial guarded by soldiers, a curiously grandiose and empty place for the man who stuck to the following uncompromising stance: (from a sticker placed behind the driver of our Arab buses)

The tensions are obviously there. On my first trip, I ended up talking to a girl from East Jerusalem who goes through the checkpoints every day to attend university in the West Bank (Birzeit University). She said of the checkpoint, “Do you see what the Israelis have done to us?” She mentioned the daily inconvenience, the long waits, the occasional humiliations she experienced, being checked every time she wanted to travel a few kilometers to school. I thought very hard about how to respond. What was an inconvenience for her was a life-and-death matter to Israelis who fear suicide bombers. I knew what the response to this would be: If there were no occupation, there would not be any bombers. To which I could say: not necessarily, as there are those who do not accept a two state solution. And so on. In the end, I just continued to ask questions rather than insert any more opinions into an opinion-saturated debate.

The Wedding that United the Nations

March 25, 2011 in friends, holidays, travel | 2 comments

Ali and Misha, husband and wife.

Misha, a dear friend, was my flatmate in Tucson for almost two years: co-dishwasher, co-teacher (that’s “Ms. Misha” to some of you), co-Pride-and-Prejudice compulsive watcher. We even went speed-dating together. Once. That was both funny and embarrassing when, afterwards, we realized that we were receiving phone calls from the same four gentlemen. Luckily, Ali called her first and that was that. Ali, originally from Turkey, is a computer engineering professor at the University of Arizona. (His research area is “reconfigurable computing specializing in application-specific reconfigurable architecture design space.” Say that three times fast.)

Misha also introduced me to Ofer. At the time, she and I were visiting Mexico City during our spring vacation. At our hostel the first evening, I, princess of the pillow, went to bed early, while Misha went out to mingle with the international crowd on the hostel’s veranda. The next morning, I remember her saying, “I need to introduce you to this Israeli guy I met last night. He’s hilarious, and you and he have so much in common…”

In Tucson in 2008, the four of us watched Obama get elected: the Czech, the Turk, the Israeli, and the American. I was the only one of us who could vote at the time.

Three or so years later, and the Israeli and the American flew to Ankara, Turkey to witness the nuptials of two dear friends.

But first, there was the small matter of convincing Ofer that it would be safe for him to go. He “only” has an Israeli passport (quite a few Israelis, if they can, have one from another country–the country of their parents or grandparents–which allows them a little more leeway if they wish to visit Muslim countries). He was nervous about being an Israeli in Turkey, even though many Israelis travel there on holiday. The Mavi Marmara blockade disaster had happened recently and tensions between Turkey and Israel were high.

Ofer had received a personal invitation from Ali’s family. Ali’s parents had undertaken a month-long visit to Tucson two years previously. Metin was a career soldier in the Turkish military and had participated in various exercises with the Israeli military over his 30+ years of service. He’s even been to Jerusalem and the Negev. This time, he was thrilled to see Ofer again and discuss Israel, which was nice to experience after months of hearing how terrible Turkish-Israeli relations have gotten. But that’s politics; this was people.

The first evening was “henna night.” This is typically also a “hen” night — ladies only — but due to language barriers and the sheer number of people who showed up from all over Turkey and the world for the wedding, this custom got dropped by the wayside.

Henna Night

Turkish henna wedding rituals are built around the custom that a daughter leaves her family when she marries. The mother and other female family members dance around the bride-to-be, singing sad songs, and eventually rubbing henna on the bride’s palms so that, in the weeks to come, the stain will remind her that her family thinks of her and misses her. As the bride’s palm is stained, so too are her mother’s fingers, and they are connected through the memory.

That wasn’t exactly what was happening in this case: here, Ali was “leaving” with his bride back to his American home. So he was henna-palmed too. At some point, I ended up awkwardly holding the “henna cake.” This looks something like a small birthday cake, only the “frosting” is pure henna. Yikes.

Neither Ali nor Misha knew exactly what was happening at any given time — it’s been years since Ali has been to a Turkish wedding, and never his own, of course, much less a henna night — and this led to some confusion. Translation rounds went as such: Misha would ask Ali what was happening; he would ask his mother (who speaks only Turkish); she would tell him in Turkish, he’d tell Misha in English, Misha would tell her mother in Czech what was happening. Then Misha’s mother would ask a question, and the rounds would begin again.

As Ali’s mother put a henna mark on Misha’s hands and Misha’s mother did the same to him, we danced, fingers-snapping, the Turkish way, shoulders-bumping.

I’m having difficulty remembering when this picture was taken – did this dance happen before or after the vows? Who knows? Events occurred in an order we weren’t used to: We were served hors d’oeuvres before Misha and Ali had even arrived at the ceremonial/dancing/food hall, and thus were munching away when the bride and groom-to-be strolled in under the white balloons, past the violinists, and into the spotlight. They danced their first dance together as not-yet-husband-and-wife, then took their places at a high table, to oversee the feast.

At some point during dessert, a robed woman came to sit at their table, soon to be joined by one of Ali’s friends, who spoke English, and Misha’s sister and brother-in-law, Lukas. The judge received a microphone, and the ceremony began. First, a few vows in Turkish. Ali’s friend translated these to English. Then Lukas translated them from English into Czech. And so on. At one point, Ofer leaned over and joked, “Shouldn’t they translate it into French, like at the UN, just to make it official?”

(Side story: I got a little confused by the plethora of languages myself. At one point, I began speaking the little Czech I knew to a Turkish gentleman sitting next to me, and I just could not understand why he was having difficulty understanding me. Ofer still teases me about this.)

Strangely, as the vows were being said (and translated), the diners continued to eat and talk. Misha’s Czech friends and I looked around, appalled. We began to “shush” people in our best teacher voices. (The gentleman to my left had the good sense to look abashed!) Following Ali’s and Misha’s confirmations — “Evet. Yes. Ano!” — the ceremony ended with a giant “POP” of a confetti grenade. (The first picture; what you do not see there is Lukas’ face of absolute surprise!)

Then came the dancing. The live band graciously allowed the Czechs to play some polka (the Czech national anthem got thrown in at some point, too, I believe). Then Ali’s cousin and another relative stole the show by performing a gorgeous dancing duel, apparently imitating a great hero from the Aydin region’s (western Turkey’s) past. I have to admit that I thought they were imitating a crane bird. Either way, it was thrilling.

A Dueling Dance, Ankara-style

At some point, the Czech contingent decided to surprise the bride and groom – and everyone else – by “accidentally” dropping a plate especially decorated for the couple on the middle of the ballroom floor. For the first time that evening, the hall fell silent. The waiters, eager to help, ran for their brooms, but the Czechs – Irena, Martina, Lukas, et al. – held them off, laughing, and handed Ali and Misha a dustpan and broom to sweep it up themselves: their first act as husband and wife. A Czech tradition.

You can see that Irena is hiding the dustpan behind her back. Love it.

Capping the evening, the driver hired to cart all the non-Turks to and from the hotel provided entertainment of his own. First, as a dual taxi-driver and flower-shop-owner, he stopped to get us all our own flowers (boys and girls alike, no gender bias!). Then, he played dance-floor music, and made sure to get the beat going by tapping his foot on the brakes, causing the van to bounce rhythmically. Finally, he stopped to get a “drink,” and returned with beers for the guys…and himself. Beer in one hand, cigarette dangling from the other, he made sure we didn’t leave Ankara without some excitement.

Chai drinking on the Bosphorus

Next stop: Istanbul.

Ofer and I spent nearly five days there, the first two mostly sleeping. It had been an eventful weekend.

Congratulations, Misha and Ali!

Barcelona, or Strange Encounters with Joan Miro

February 19, 2011 in art, food, holidays, travel | 2 comments

Mobile World Congress 2011, Plaza de Espana, Barcelona

This past week, Ofer and members of his company were in Barcelona for the Mobile [Phone] World Congress. There, they showed off their main product, name dialing (“Imagine a world without phone numbers”).

Ofer managed to finagle me a pass to enter and wander around with all the tech geeks. My brilliant questions included the following, at the Google App stand: “What, exactly, is an App?” The girl laughed until she realized that I was serious. (Note: I did not own a smartphone at the time. Oh, how my life has changed since!)

Now that it’s been explained, I still don’t understand why I would pay to have an App when I can just open another tab in my internet browser. But considering I’m one of the few people who uses her phone simply for making phone calls, I’m obviously not representing the market.

Google’s mobile operating system (the software that runs the machine and enables other applications to run, in non-techno-speak) is called Android, and the company took full advantage of this at their “stand” (if you can call the entire corner of a building a “stand”). They also happened to have the youngest, hippest crowd of employees, who would occasionally turn the music up and start treating the hall like a disco. But since their “stand” came equipped with a slide and lavalamps, I don’t think the organizers minded too terribly.

Google Android “App” Stand, complete with tube slide and smoothie bar

Most stands had signs with slogans, along the yawn-inducing lines of “changing the face of technology,” but I giggled at “get sticky” and “quietly brilliant.” There was a company called “CBOSS,” which had hired suspiciously young-looking models to wear small pieces of fabric and prance around on a stage to get the attention of all the suit-clad geeks wandering about. It worked. When I first walked by, I could hear jaws dropping and cellphone cameras snapping. You can see them in action (and read a tech geek’s commentary) here: The CBOSS Girls. Oh, did I mention it is a Russian company?

Just to give you an idea of the tensions of being Israeli at an event like this: Ofer had some interesting experiences with gentlemen from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and so on. They would come to visit the stand (which was not near the other more obviously Israeli enterprises), begin a conversation, notice the accent, glance at his name tag, and then casually ask, “Where did you say you were from again?” Ofer: “Well, me, personally, I’m from Israel. But I get along with everybody.” Happily, the response to this was usually a laugh. (Not that anything would really happen at an event like this, but camaraderie is always a good thing.) Another member of his team, the designer, speaks fairly fluent Arabic, and was chatting with several Kuwaitis. When he told them that he was from Israel, they asked, “So are you Arab-Israeli or Palestinian?” (Needless to say, he is the third type of Israeli/Palestinian – a Jew.)

The following day we took a long-overdue holiday. Ofer and I have been to Barcelona before, and seen the Gaudi and the Gothic quarter. This time we decided to head up to Montjuic and swing by the Fundacion Joan Miro modern art museum.

Joan Miro, “Halequin’s Carnival,” 1925

Sadly, the painting above is not part of the collection; I found it on Google images. I say sadly, because it is vastly more interesting to me than those we encountered in what we came to call the “fart museum.” Most of those were like the one below, which our 4 Euro audio guide described as “a sea of gold broken up by a blue cloud that refuses to let the gold conquer all” or something along those lines. Ofer and I were listening closely, trying to answer the question “What makes this art?” Our guide continued, “There is a black line through the painting, ending with a figure on a chair.” And the recording ended. Ofer: “Is this a guide for blind people?”

Joan Miro, “The Gold of the Azure”

At one point, I noticed Ofer staring just to the left of a painting. He was looking at a security installation in the corner, which was, as he put it, “much more interesting than the paintings.” Despite listening to our audio guide, we still had not gotten an answer to the question of what made this art rather than, say, interior decorating. After noticing the title of “The Gold of the Azure,” we began to suspect it had more to do with the names than the content of the paintings. Read the title of the painting below, and let me know what you think: