Racism abounds

The past few days have been most interesting here in Palestine. I was in Jerusalem for a day and a half taking a brief break from Balata---a friend and I stayed at an Israeli activist's flat in the western (Israeli) section of the city. The place was quite nice: there were western toilets, a kitchen stocked with all the comforts of the American vegan home, and an actual bed with an expensive mattress and cotton blankets. Just a minute's walk from 'Zion Square', the flat felt like a five star hotel.

I left it only briefly on the one night we stayed in the city; on my way to an ATM machine to refill my pockets, I heard the loud drumming and chanting of a group of settlers from the West Bank who had decended upon the largely young and fashionable crowd to protest the eternally distracting 'disengagement' from Gaza.

Jerusalem is a strange place. Though it feels closer to the occupation than the coastal, seemingly aloof city of Tel Aviv, the closeness is not necessarily of a positive nature---this in a country wherein people often know more about what is going on in America than in the territories its sons and daughters are busy occupying only kilometers away. In Jerusalem, alas, the right-wingers have free reign and lots of support. Thus: the occupation is more tangible, but only because so many people adamently support it. In Tel Aviv people are often too busy getting drunk and laid, tryin to forget what they and their comrades have seen and done.

This supposition, like most others, does not hold true in all cases. Indeed, the young activists who gave us the key to their west Jerusalem flat were busy, respectively, at a court hearing (for damaging part of the apartheid wall at a protest---the young man's fifth arrest in as many weeks), planning an activist festival, and travelling to Europe to prepare for the upcoming protests against the meeting of the world's richest nations, the G8. As I write, an activist 'festival' of sorts is happening in the mixed Jewish and Arab town of Lid, located inside Israel's 1948 borders. Without much to do on a Friday, my friends and I decided to go and see what activism people in Israel are up to while their tax dollars and peers make possible the brutal occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.

The festival was quite strange. Many tents were scattered in what appeared to be an abandoned parking lot sans asphalt located in one of Israel's poorest neighborhoods. Naturally, it is a brown neighborhood: Ethiopian Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel live together in what can only be described as a ghetto, reminiscient of many public housing projects I have seen throughout American cities.

According to our hosts, crime, drugs and prostitution are rampant in the 20% Arab town, and though the communities live among one another, there is definite segregation socially, culturally and politically. One self-proclaimed Israeli-Arab youngster went so far as to denounce Palestine and remove himself from his history. His young Ethiopian friend, obviously quite stupid, remarked in the next breath that he 'hates Arabs'.

The conference, or festival or whatever, was needless to say a strange experiment in advocacy. Many 'white' Israelis who had never been to Lid descended on the town with their tents, organic food and acoustic guitars, ready for a weekend of lectures, music and parties. Most of the people in attendence looked like me. The people who live in the projects adjacent to the festival seemed to be too busy to pay attention to the gathering and took little notice. The interactions with the people from Lid that I had were depressing: for example, while talking to one of the many (maybe 20) interesting Israeli anarchists at some info table, a young Ethiopian-Israeli boy approached the table to ask about whether we could make a certain section of tents an 'Arab-free zone'. Festive indeed.

Clearly the rampant racism in Israeli society has hit the Palestinians who remained after the Nakba hard. In a strange twist, recent immigrants to Israel from African and Middle Eastern countries are often the most racist and brutal in their treatment of Palestinians during their army service. Perhaps people feel as if they need to prove their Jewishness, their Israeli-ness, to the Ashkenazi who run the country. The phenomenon exists for whatever reason. It's depressing to see those so neglected and oppressed turn against who would appear to be their natural allies---but it is a sight I am unfortunately familiar with, for example when the rural American poor supported the tragic war on Iraq that further impoverished them and killed their sons and daughters.

Another strange experience came as I spoke to some young American women in the 'Veggie Bar' tent. One of them, Shelly, told me that she has been in Jerusalem for about six months working for the Jerusalem Open House, a queer safe space in the western part of the city. After getting into somewhat of a detailed conversation with her about her experience in Israel and my work in Balata, I asked her about her thoughts on the call to boycott the Open House's plans for a 'World Pride' march to take place in Jerusalem this coming August. Though the plans had been cancelled because of the 'disengagement'---set to coincide with the gathering of gays---she had lots to say about the importance of Israeli pride events, even in the face of criticisms made by such radicals as members of the Israeli group Black Laundry and the director of Palestine's only queer organization, Aswat, Rauda Morcos.

These folks say that they find a celebration of homosexuality grotesque if it ignores the occupation of Palestine and all that goes along with it. As one Israeli queer activist, a 27 year old woman from Tel Aviv, put it: "There is a connection between our oppression as lesbians, homosexuals and the oppression of the Palestinians. Since the intifada, the city of Jerusalem is covered with posters and graffiti saying ‘Expel the Arabs.’ Yesterday the city was covered with graffiti saying ‘Expel the homosexuals.’ I don’t want this [parade] to be a fig leaf for the abuses of human rights. A few kilometers from here there are people under siege, people who are hungry."

Another woman from Black Laundry, Gali, a 22 year old, explained: "We protest against the festive nature of the pride parade [because they’re] doing it while the occupation is going on. Pride is a political thing. We can’t celebrate our freedom while other groups are oppressed."

The American queer working for the Open House had heard these arguments, she said, but was disturbed by them. "For example," Shelly went on, "I think it's too bad that this festival was organized to coincide with Tel Aviv pride. I'd really like to be there, but I thought I should come and support this instead. I shouldn't have to make that choice." I was, frankly, appalled. I have seen pictures of Tel Aviv pride and heard about it from Israeli friends. One picture I saw depicted some soldiers in uniform with their guns holding rainbow Israeli flags. Militarism and support for gay rights? Not my style. I then suggested that such celebrations did little to confront the most important issues to work against in Israeli society, issues that breed and encourage both racism and homophobia.

"Well," Shelly continued, "maybe it's different for you because you aren't Jewish. But I have to say that coming to Israel and working with Jewish queer people has been super important for me. It's just different, to be with your own people." I asked her why she had to come so far to find this community. "Have you ever been to New York or Boston?" I asked. "Half of the queer people I know in those cities are Jewish." Her reply was like a crystillization of everything about the conversation that made me uncomfortable. "But Boston and New York are not my home. Seattle is." I held back a scream: and JERUSALEM?

That an American would suggest her belonging or right to be in Jerusalem over Boston or New York is a manifestation of the problematic nature of Zionism. While Palestinians whose families have existed on this land for thousands of years have little to no right to even pray at the sacred Al-Aqsa mosque, let alone move to Jerusalem to live or work, this American girl felt not only permitted but entitled to come to experience 'her people'. We had little to talk about after this.

Alas, the racism is rampant here. Hitchhiking to Bir Zeit to go to a friend's going away party we were picked up by a settler and his girlfriend. As we got out of the car at our junction, a Palestinian taxi was turning down a road in the direction of Bir Zeit. The Israeli settler behind the wheel visibly tensed and said quickly and sharply in accented English: "See that car? Arabi. Do not go with the Arabi. Not Yehudi."

"Thanks," we said, and quickly rushed to catch the ride.