Observe and suffer

Poster on a Tel Aviv street: '40 years of occupation’

Whilst I was in London, I went to the Palestine Film Festival, at the Barbican. Two of the films I saw were Matzpen: anti-Zionist Israelis, by Eran Torbiner, which charts the Israeli socialist organisation (the conscience of Israel as Daniel Cohn-Bendit describes it in the film) from the 60s to now; and Galoot, by Asher de Bentolila Tlalim.

Galoot (Hebrew for 'exile') tells how Asher, an Israeli in London, begins to see the Palestinian perspective through his friendship with Khaled Ziada, a refugee from the Palestinian town of Faluja, replaced by the Israeli one called Kiriat Gat. Khaled is president of the Palestinian society at SOAS, where Asher’s wife Ronit is doing her PhD. SOAS has a strong Arab student body. For the first time, Asher and Ronit come face to face with people who fear and dislike them simply for their place of birth: early in the film Ronit expresses her shock that someone else should be afraid of her – afraid of me? I’m a nice person.

Asher and Ronit start to examine Israeliness from the outside. As Asher says, the perspective of ‘exile’ (living in London) is ‘an opportunity to see things in a different way, giving perspective of distance, disconnection and hardship.’ Intrigued, he begins to talk to Khaled, who at first does not trust him, saying that every Israeli could be a Mossad agent. But in time, a friendship grows, and Asher listens to hard truths about the Palestinian exile that resulted from the creation of the Israeli state.

‘Faluja was the first time I understood as Jew the tragedy of the Palestinians,’ says Asher. Faluja was Khaled’s home, his only home. But now it’s Kiriat Gat and he can not return. Asher finally understands this as he visits the site of Faluja, now home to Russian immigrants, seeing Israel with new eyes.

Galoot has been criticised for not counterbalancing with ‘the Israeli point of view’. But Asher does not exclude the Jewish perspective – he just refuses to confront: ‘We must not argue. We must listen.’ He lays beside Khaled’s narrative one of his own – that of his exile from Tangier, where he was born. Forced to flee in the dead of night by political threats to the Jews, Asher’s family had to abandon all their possessions and home; and one of his wife’s – who returns to the Polish village her murdered family came from.

As Ronit confronts the fact that creation of her homeland was predicated on Khaled’s dispossession, she asks how  she can remain in Israel. You can’t live here, and you can’t live there, she says, from the neutrality of a London park. Her words echo those of my Tel Aviv friend Gal: ‘What can we do? We can not change it. We can not stay. But it is our home.’

After Galoot, there was a Q & A. ‘Have you shown your film in Israel?’ an audience member wanted to know. ‘Yes,’ said Asher. And what was the response? ‘Tears, many of the Israelis were in tears – up talking until 4am.’

‘But why?’ responded the questioner, ‘why were the Israelis in tears – surely Khaled’s story isn’t news to them? Don’t they know the history of their country? I just can’t understand.’

‘That’s because you are English,’ said Asher. ‘You are not Israeli. I mean, we do not know about this. When they hear these stories it is shocking.’ It’s true – Israelis are taught almost nothing about the Naqba, the Palestinian ‘catastrophe’, though many live near or on the site of Arab villages, which today simply no longer exist.

Only 60 years after, the villages look like ancient ruins – a pile of stone. One that I visited near my family in the North sits on the top of a hill, and only when my aunt told me what it was did I understand that we were not standing on a historical site from Roman times. No sign, no memory, no trace. Not even a smashed gravestone to marked the spot where once a people lived. Not even the broken names I found in a Polish garden, site of a Jewish graveyard 60 years ago.

Some, like the ruins of the Elokbi family home in the Negev, above, have been commemorated, after the destruction, by a sign. This one reads: Here was the house of Sheikh Suleiman Mohamed Elokbi, built 1936 and destroyed when the tribe was expelled in 1951.

‘What you study in school is lies,’ says my friend Isadora. ‘They tell us there was nothing here, that it was empty sand dunes. They recreate history, and it’s crazy because the evidence is all around us.’

Another friend, Uri, tells me: ‘I grew up in Shechmunis. I thought it was a Yiddish word until one day someone told me a sheikh lived here before – the name of the Arab village was Shekh Muwannis. So I asked my father, “where are the people who lived here before?” He told me they had fled.’

‘We must,’ says Asher after the film, ‘take responsibility for Israeli existence. How to take responsibility for Israeli existence that recognises the Palestinian rights too – that’s the question.’ But he does not seem entirely hopeful: ‘Is it even possible?’ he asks.

Zochrot, an Israeli organisation, is trying to make a start. Educating the Israeli public about the Naqba, they put up signs where former Arab communities were, restoring, at least, their names. Israeli Jews tear these signs down. This is the same as the tears. Tearing down the signs and crying are the same.

You are an ordinary israeli, trying to live, pay the bills and clothe the kids. Every day you travel on buses that sometimes blow up. Taxis are a privilege for another type of immigrant – not you. You come from Morocco, Yemen, and no, you can’t go back. Israel is your only home.

What can we do? We can not change it. But it is our home. Most people, faced with such a dilemma seek to erase – the feeling or the source. Asher suggests another way: ‘Israelis must observe the reality and suffer it.’ But ‘to observe and suffer is harder than seeing a bomb go off and eliminating the bomber afterwards’.

Indeed it is.

Update: this post has now been published in Hebrew at Nana. You can read the Hebrew version here.

Comments

[yuyume]

Thanks for these thoughts.
I feel that to be so true. Do you know if the "Galoot" movie is available at "HaOzen " by any chance.
I somehow missed seeing it.

[Leila]

Hi Yuyume - I don't know whether you can find it at Haozen - but you can email Asher at galoot2003@yahoo.com and ask him where it is available. Leila

[Uri ZACKHEM]

Liked the article and the images!
Here's a link to Faluja:
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Gaza/al-Faluja/index.html
Sheikh Muwannis:
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Jaffa/al-Shaykh-Muwannis/index.html
Cheers

[Leila]

Uri, thanks for the feedback and links - and for your generous teaching. L

[Joseph Mutti]

"Tearing down the signs and crying is the same". Wow.

How is it possible to be unaware of the historical context of such things happening at your own back door? Yet information can always be found when one has the desire or the conscience.

This article is very powerful in its exposure of the comfortable acceptance most of us wallow in when our governments do such terrible things - which includes trying to hide our own histories from us. Not that we make much of an effort to uncover the past. We simply DON'T WANT TO KNOW the injustices that history will dig up. It will complicate our simplistic good or evil judgment

So, what's the answer to this denial of our own history? Not just in Israel but in England, the USA, everywhere.

"Every day you travel on buses that sometimes blow up."

Is this really the ONLY way to keep us even mildly conscious of the injustices perpetrated in our name? The dilemma is overwhelming.

This is a very important piece you've written Leila. I hope you get it published for more people to read...

[Eamonn McDonagh]

Very interesting piece. A lot of other countries could learn from Zochrot. Ireland and Argentina, where I am from and where I live, for starters. The Irish War of Independence included significant ethnic cleansing of Protestants and mass murder, bordering on genocide, of the indigenous population, was a sine qua non for the foundation of the modern Argentine Republic. Very few people in either place seem too bothered about it

I´d say that most, if not all, nation states are based on the crushing of another people´s dreams and in many cases the crushing and expulsion of the people too.

Another thing, the guy in the audience who said "Don’t they know the history of their country? " Assuming that he was British, I wonder how much he knows about his own country´s history and how well he sleeps at night if he thinks about it.

[Nizo]

Thank you for a beautiful and touching post.

In case you are interested, my family is from the village of Al-Bassa, now Betset, Israel.

We harbour no ill-will towards you and understand that what happened was within the context of a war. People are people.

Salam.

[Leila]

Joseph - thanks always for the encouragement and support.

Eamonn - thank you for the feedback and perspective.

Nizo - the most moving comment since I started the blog. I'll try to find Al-Bassa. And thank you. L

[Lisa]

I saw Galoot when it was broadcast on Channel 8 a couple of years ago. It's a fascinating, very well made film that left a strong impression. Well worth seeing.

Leila, thanks for this lovely post. It's one of your best, I think. xoxo

[Leila]

Lisa! Thanks darlin' x

[Nilly Oren]

Leila dear, this is one amazing piece of writing. its interesting, and moving, and therefore excellent. also, i had never heard of this film, so thanks for the info, ill really try to get and watch it, sounds incredible.

the only thing is - for some reason i cant see some of the pics (to be exact - the second, third and fifth) in this post. can u fix it please, or is it a problem only i encounter?

[Leila]

Nilly - thanks, and it's so great to hear from you. The thing with the pictures is odd - there are only three, but for some reason they come out as duplicates, and then you can't seem the duplicate. I can't fix the code either, although I tried. L

[BGS]

What a wonderfully riveting article -it encapsulates perfectly the dilemma facing Israel. M.

[Alice]

Leila!

I read 'Observe and Suffer' and thought it was so good. I continue to be impressed by how tenderly you tackle the big issues. I was particularly fascinated to hear the history which Israelis are taught. Your ability to combine this observation with the human perspective - of people simply surmounting their daily challenges - is so very powerful. I suppose the question beneath it all is whether recognition of previous Palestinian existence could pave the way to peace? Or if this is an uncomfortable fact which would undermine the narrative of the state? Either way, I herald your courage in proposing 'observe and suffer' as a way to move forward, and I agree with the comments of one of your audience when he points out that Israelis are certainly not alone in having uncomfortable national truths to face - which makes it all the more impressive when you do.

Much love as ever, and speak soon,

Alice xx

[Leila]

dear Alice

thank you so much for this feedback. i do appreciate it. it takes sensitivity to respond as you do to this complex issue.

in answer to your question - whether recognition would encourage peace, or undermine the narrative of the state - i think that it would do both.

i believe that like anyone who has been wronged, or feels s/he has been wronged, the palestinians will let anger go when their grievance is acknowledged. this is human. we are all human in this situation - there are no, or few, monsters.

to let anger go is not the solution (which is practical, political), but it is a necessary step on the path to peace.

such recognition would undermine the narrative of the state, but the state exists now, and we deal with present reality, which is that israeli jews live here (whatever your take on the historic right to do so). the accommodation of two peoples in one land is the issue - whether it be in a secular single state, or two national states, one for each.

much love

leila