francaisdeutschenglish

“Kidnapping”: An Interview of Dominique Caillat
By Timothy Rearden (October 2004)

<< back

What about the movement calling for a single bi-national state?

This is the solution put forward by Palestinians who hope that they will demographically swallow Israel. It would probably mean the end of the Jewish State as such.

It is nevertheless also advocated by some Israelis, who view a division as a sham: there is an obvious interdependence between Israelis and Palestinians, so why not go all the way and be a truly democratic, bi-national state? I respect this opinion, which calls for a pluralistic, tolerant and really democratic society. But I regard it as a utopian, futuristic vision that does not take into account the emotional and political realities on the ground.

A bi-national State presupposes reconciliation, which is unlikely yet: Too much blood has been spilt; there is too much hate, distrust, and a blatant ignorance of one another’s reality. Until the year 2000, Palestinians were able, to a certain extent, to cross the border. Many of them worked in Israel, they met and befriended Jews and vice versa. Since 2000, Palestinians have been more or less trapped in their homes and Israelis are forbidden to cross the Green Line. There is a total separation, made very concrete by the erection of a fence or wall throughout the land. The only Israelis whom Palestinians get to meet are heavily armed soldiers who humiliate them at checkpoints. Young Palestinians have never met a civilian Jew – the settlers aren’t really “civilians”: they are part of a political-military plan to conquer land. Every settler household has weapons, which are regularly overhauled by the army. In contrast, a Palestinian who carries a weapon is deemed a militant and can be imprisoned or even shot.

It is a mistake to think that reconciliation can or should precede peace. On the contrary, one first makes a “cold”, unsentimental peace, which allows citizens, at last, to lead a normal, reasonably secure life. Only then, with time, can people get used to one another and build bridges between their societies. Peace in Europe was not achieved on the basis of love, but of economic reconstruction and civil rights. Even now, after 60 years of successful economic and political ties, Germans are hardly loved and certainly feel unloved, for better or for worse. These things change slowly. The enemies need to die out. New generations are born, which have less reasons for prejudice. On a national level, what is needed is security and freedom, not love. Love belongs to the personal sphere.

Anyway, in a bi-national State you would have two people with different cultures and values forced to live together. The absence of a common set of values would automatically lead one of these people to dominate the other. Which one? The Palestinians, who would presumably soon have a majority? Or the Israelis, who are stronger and richer? I would say the latter. But the once again dominated-humiliated Arabs would presumably soon rebel and resort to violence… A nightmare starting all over again.

But aren’t Israelis and Palestinians actually quite close to one another? Aren’t there many cultural similarities?

You mean Isaac and Ishmael, the rival brothers? Yes and no. I think the Israelis rather envy the Arabs who, if nothing else, seem so rooted in the landscape. Even if they never had a State, never had any concrete legal title to the place, they just look like they belong there, and they do: the way they look, dress, speak, build their houses, cook their food, do music, understand nature. Israelis are adopting some of these traditions – for example food habits and music –, slowly becoming a little more Mediterranean.

But the cultural difference remains immense.

On the one side, you have Israel, a West-oriented society on the US-European model: libertarian, democratic, individualistic. There may be particular, purely Israeli cultural aspects, but these don’t change the main direction. For me, it’s no problem living there, I feel perfectly at home in this very dynamic and communicative society.

Palestinian society is different. Of course, there is a Palestinian elite – lawyers, doctors, university professors, artists, even some politicians – who is like any intelligentsia in Paris, Berlin or Tel Aviv. But a large proportion of the Palestinian people lives in a world and according to traditions that remain foreign to us.

The most obvious difference regards the position of women (mostly the Muslim women), who are confined to a submissive role in a strongly patriarchal society: arranged marriages, concealment behind headscarves and long veils, mass production of children, isolated life at home, death penalty for adultery or other “crimes” considered a breach of the family’s honour, etc. are widespread practices. There are exceptions of course, particularly in larger, modern cities like Ramallah, but the archaic treatment of women remains the rule.

A further element of estrangement is the clan system. This is a social structure we basically understand nothing about but which is a fundamental principle of everyday life in Palestine. Clan and democracy are contradictions in terms. The basic unit is the family, not the State; loyalty is to the family, not to the whole community. “Tribal” traditions, for example the laws of revenge, honour, or hospitality are likely to supersede any abstract national legal system. A Palestinian in Hebron once told me that a ranking police officer is obliged to name his relatives at other key posts in the police force in order to protect himself against acts of revenge from members of other clans he might imprison or penalize in the course of duty. If he didn’t, he would endanger his life.

Democracy as such doesn’t exist although it is sometimes faked: when Arafat ran for the Chairmanship of the Palestinian Authority, it was necessary, for the sake of international recognition, that the process be deemed democratic. So a candidate was selected who had no chance at all of winning: over 70 years old, a Christian (!), a woman (!!), and terminally ill with cancer (!!!), as if to make sure that if she did win against all odds, she wouldn’t last long. She did die a few months after the election, in which she amazingly collected as much as 12 % of the votes. The world applauded.

I am not saying this is right or wrong. It is simply different, and not really compatible with our western sensibility and way of life.

The clan system, for example, has very positive aspects, quite apart from the fact that it is rooted in Arab tradition. In August 2004, the great Israeli journalist Amira Hass wrote an interesting article about this. She wondered how it could be that the social structure in the Palestinian cities had not been destroyed by the effects of occupation, in spite of the total collapse of the economy, the disintegration of the Palestinian Authority, the violent battles between rival movements (not to call them gangs), the poverty induced by occupation, and 60 % unemployment rate. Why hadn’t law and order completely crumbled down? Wouldn’t such circumstances create complete chaos in our western societies, with plummeting crime rates and a collapse of moral standards? Not so in Palestine. In Nablus, Hass wrote, you still do not need to lock the door of your house, and you can be sure that some relative will somehow keep you afloat even in the worst of times: you won’t starve to death. Not thanks to international aid, no, thanks to the clan that takes care of its own people. So the question is: do we outsiders want to destroy this well-oiled system in the name of democracy?

Do you think there is a tradition of violence in Arab societies?

Well, this is certainly a cliché. And anyway, I am not a specialist of this or that culture, so I can only give you a few impressions.

If you’re talking about the “ordinary” man on the street, I’d say he is far less “macho” and aggressive than your “typical” Israeli (although I really dislike generalizing in this way), who likes to give the impression that he is strong, supremely competent and always right! A day in the Knesset, or just a few hours driving around in Israel are pretty daunting experiences… Palestinians, with their supple bodies, slow tempo and melancholic faces have an appealing kind of softness and they are almost invariably polite and friendly.

There is a certain amount of theatricals in the loud TV-broadcasted demonstrations with much waving of weapons, shooting in the air, fiery speeches and hooded heads: the weak seem fascinated with the symbols of power. In Hebron, I saw kids playing “occupation” next to a checkpoint. I was told everyone wanted to play an Israeli, a strong guy. The “Israelis” carried sticks, frisking and threatening their little comrades who faced a broken wall, hands raised, silent. 

It is said that there is much violence at home, in society and in politics: fathers allegedly hit their wives and children, teachers hit their pupils, policemen hit prisoners. I haven’t witnessed any of this obviously, it’s just hearsay. I do have an anecdote, however, about resort to intimidation:

I once met a Christian Palestinian woman in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem. She had spent most of her life abroad, first in Kuwait, later in Germany, a hard-working single mother. After being pensioned, she returned to her home in Palestine and lived alone in a house she had inherited from her father. The house was spacious and her family became jealous. Most of all, it was considered a scandal that she dared live alone and do “men’s” work, like gardening or keeping poultry. Every week one cousin or another would knock at her door and insist on moving in. She stood firm and politely showed the unwanted relative out. There were threats, to no avail. Then, one morning, she opened her front door and found her cat lying dead on the mat. She took the animal to a veterinarian, who diagnosed poisoning with chlorine. The next week, the same happened to her dog. That’s when I met her. She was angry but fatalistic. What could she do? She expected that they would soon kill her rabbits and chickens. She told me she dreamed of immigrating to Australia, which she had once visited and considered a paradise of tolerance. (In a late night conversation, this same apparently very sensible woman told me earnestly about the “holocaust lie”, the “Jewish-American world conspiracy” and the fact that “Jews had masterminded 9/11”).

This is not typical of Arabs, in my opinion, but typical of a society that has remained stuck in its old patriarchal model, in which women, most of all, are exploited.

What about terrorism, what about the suicide bombers?

Ironically, the first recorded suicide murderer in history was Samson, a Jew, who carried out his “operation” in Gaza. But I don’t want to start a polemic here.

Killing civilians with premeditation is completely perverse. The idea that a suicide bomber, unlike a pilot, actually looks at his victims, innocent passers-by, before detonating himself makes him a sort of monster in our eyes. And the fact that he is ready to explode with them frightens us. How fanatic or desperate is this killer? How can we protect ourselves from these intelligent bombs?

Suicide bombings cause bloody retaliations and a hardening of occupation. They cut the grass under the feet of liberal Israelis and strengthen the hand of right-wing hawks. They destroy the international goodwill so successfully gathered by Palestinians over the years. Today, who still cares about them?

So what is the point? Why do they do it?

I once interviewed for many hours the parents of Hanadi Jaradat, a female suicide bomber who blew herself up in a beach restaurant in Haifa, killing 21 customers, many of them Arabs. Asked what she felt when they heard of the operation, the mother said she’d been so happy, so proud. Hanadi had successfully revenged the killing of her oldest son by Israeli soldiers. She and her husband were glad that Jews were made to feel the same pain as they themselves had endured. Of course, they also mourned their daughter.

I heard this argument time and again: since we can’t win, since we’re trapped here in a miserable prison with no perspective, utterly bored and frustrated with our empty lives, since so many of our children and friends get imprisoned and killed, let them, our tormentors, suffer and fear. Suicide attacks appear to boost the morale of an utterly defeated people. And every targeted assassination by the Israeli army, every arrest, every checkpoint, every “collateral damage” fuel the hate and determination of the more fanatical and desperate under the Palestinians, usually very young men and women.

Nevertheless, a growing majority of Palestinians have apparently come to realize at least how counter-productive suicide bombings are. About 70 % of the people are said to oppose the campaign.

I absolutely condemn the terror attacks. There is and can never be any justification for them.

Do you also condemn Palestinians who attack military targets, i.e. Israeli soldiers in the Territories?

Well, I am European. I was born and have lived in peace and security. I was taught about the horrors of past wars and, not surprisingly, I am a kind of pacifist although I accept that army intervention or armed struggle may be inevitable in exceptional cases. But I truly abhor all violence. I was sometimes accused by friends from both sides of pursuing an unreal, yet comfortable dream. Such a nice, self-serving philosophy, they said derisively.

It is quite a cultural shock to come to Israel and the Territories and suddenly find yourself in a situation of extreme insecurity and permanent violence.

Inside Israel, violence is mostly seen on television reports about terror attacks. Otherwise, it is more a trauma, a permanent fear. There are security guards at the entrance of every shop and café to remind you, should you forget, that you live in danger. Nevertheless, life is as close to normal as it can be in a country which has lived since its birth in a situation of conflict or war.

In the Palestinian territories, violence is everywhere to see. It takes the form of checkpoints, military bases, tanks, helicopters, destroyed homes and buildings, impact of shots on house fronts, rubber bullets on the ground, fences and walls, barbed-wired prisons, frequent army incursions in which people get killed or arrested, and also the battle of rival paramilitary gangs. Violence is all around you.

I personally witnessed arbitrariness at the checkpoints and saw the destructive effects of occupation. I was in Rafah, south of Gaza, shortly after a very serious attack by the Israeli army (that followed the killing of several soldiers on duty). It was completely bombed out; large areas were entirely reduced to rubbles. Canalisations were cracked and the sewage flowed in the midst of damaged streets. The main school wasn’t functioning because it was used as a camp for tens of families whose houses had been destroyed with all their contents.

I met a prominent Gaza Psychiatrist, Dr. Eyad Sarraj, who specialises in PTSS (post-traumatic stress syndrome) of the civil population, dealing particularly with children. He told me that 99% of the children have seen shootings and arrests. A large proportion has witnessed someone being killed. Many were at home as Israeli soldiers came with bulldozers to flatten their houses, destroying everything that they couldn’t carry out with them – and sometimes they had as little as 10 minutes to flee. I talked to a 12-year-old boy who was wounded when he helped his family to break a wall of their home with a hammer in order to escape from the approaching bulldozers: they were afraid to get out through the front door because of heavy shooting. The ceiling fell on his head. Almost every child has cousins, or brothers, or even a father in prison. Children have a trauma of absolute insecurity. They are depressive, have nightmares and headaches, they wet their beds, collapse for no apparent reason, etc. Deep inside, they are terrified.

Dr. Sarraj contends that the only way to overcome this deep-seated fear is to fight back. When a kid picks up a stone and throws it at an approaching tank, he conquers his fear and regains control of his feelings, of his life. This act of resistance restores his self-esteem. According to Sarraj, who categorically condemns acts of violence in Israeli mainland, armed resistance against military targets in the Palestinian Territories is not only justified, it is also an important psychological help for traumatized Palestinians. They are subject to a military occupation; they are constantly victimized by Israeli soldiers (and often by settlers as well), and have the right to defend themselves. Sarraj believes this is a question of mental survival.

After several weeks in Gaza and the West Bank, I indeed began to ask myself why the Palestinians, who are being held hostage by a foreign army, should not be allowed to resist, as so many victimized people did before them with full international approval.

I know that some Israelis contend that they are not occupying Gaza and the West Bank at all, that they took what belonged to nobody and was rightfully theirs in the first place, in reaction to an aggression by Arab neighbours in 1967 and in order to prevent further attacks. I don’t regard this as a serious argument. These people just haven’t crossed the Green Line. The only Jews on the other side are settlers, a majority of whom are fanatical and violent colonial lords; and terrified or aggressive soldiers who definitely regard the local, entirely Arab population they subdue as their enemy. If this is not occupation, I’ll eat my hat.

Contrary to suicide bombings, operations against Israeli soldiers appear to be efficient. As 11 soldiers were killed in two successive Palestinian attacks in Gaza, there was an enormous peace rally in Tel Aviv, with at least 150.000 Israelis demonstrating for a withdrawal from Gaza. Everyone was asking why young Israelis should die to protect a bunch of settlers who are disapproved of and sometimes even despised by a majority of Israelis?

These are difficult issues. Most of my friends have children in the army. Every girl and boy in the country must do military service from the age of 18 till 20/21 respectively, followed by years of reserve service. Only a select few choose to refuse service, which is an extremely difficult path to follow in a country that stands patriotically unified behind its army. I have personally known one of these so-called refuzeniks, a brilliant young man who went to prison because he opposed occupation, thereby jeopardizing his entire future in a society that tends to regard him as a traitor. Needless to say, he is a devoted Israeli citizen.

Anyhow, I cannot change myself: I am still a pacifist European, who sees in violence only an incentive for more violence. But I understand the arguments of Sarraj and of many other Palestinian acquaintances.

 

top
next >>