World Vision United Kingdom publication: Israeli perspective on the
wall
Interview: Rami Elhanan
July 7 2004
Turning Pain into Hope
The finger turned and faced me
My name is Rami Elhanan. I am a 54-year-old graphic designer by trade. My
family roots in Jerusalem date back seven generations. I have four kids and my
wife, Nurit, is a lecturer in the school of education at Jerusalem's Hebrew
University. My father is an Auschwitz survivor who came to Palestine from
Hungary in 1946. He fought in the 1948 war and was severely wounded. My mother,
born in the Old City of Jerusalem, was the nurse who attended to him.
On the fourth of September 1997, I lost my fourteen-year-old daughter, Smadar,
(The name from the Bible – Song of Solomon - meaning: the grape of vine) in a
suicide attack on Ben Yehuda Street in West Jerusalem. It was a Thursday
afternoon and the beginning of a very long and dark night.
At first, I heard the news of a suicide bombing near where my daughter and her
friends were shopping on Ben-Yehuda St. Then, I found myself running in the
streets, from hospital to hospital looking for her. And later on, in the morgue,
this horrible finger turned and faced me right between the eyes. It was a sight
and time I will never ever be able to forget, and it changed my life completely.
Euphoric peace
As a soldier in the Israeli armored corps I fought in three wars. I was
twenty during the War of Attrition in 1969 and was stationed in the Sinai desert
by the Suez Canal. A few years later in 1973 I fought in the Yom Kippur War as a
reservist. We started this war with a company of 11 tanks and ended with three
tanks. It was a very difficult experience as I lost many friends there. In 1982
when I was older with two little children I was recalled again and fought in
Lebanon. Lebanon was the first war that I realized that something terrible was
wrong. The feeling in the Yom Kippur War was that I was defending my family, my
homeland, and my very existence. In 1982, the feeling began to grow that we are
doing something else.
After the Yom Kippur war I was an angry and bitter young man. I was angry with
the politicians for not doing the right thing as far as Israel's security was
concerned. The war was a big surprise and we were not ready to deal with the
Arab attack. (I didn't even have a gun of my own the first two weeks of the
war…) I was very angry that so many people died in vain. I came out of this
war with a determination to be detached from any kind of involvement. I built a
bubble around my self. I didn't want to be part of anything. The Lebanon war
emphasized this. In a way I became a state of my own, in exile inside my own
country, looking after my family and minding my own business.
As the 1980's came along and I was practicing my trade as a graphic designer and
I was very cynical. Because I was so detached I allowed myself to work with
almost anyone. I could on one-hand work on a poster for the committee of the
University of Bir Zeit showing Israeli soldiers beating Palestinians. On the
other hand, I could design campaigns for the right-wing nationalist Israeli
movement, Hatkhia, or for the Settler Council of Judea and Samaria calling to
raise up the Israeli flag. I felt like an anarchist. And I have justified myself
by saying that I am fulfilling a basic democratic need, to let people express
themselves, exercising their democratic right. On 1993 the Oslo process started
and there was signs for a new hope. Eventually there was the signing of the
agreement in the White House. After that, my partner and I said nice good-bye to
all our right wing clients. We hoped things would be different from now on.
At the beginning, the Oslo Process created a big euphoria between Palestinians
and Israelis. Palestinians threw candies at Israeli troops leaving Palestinian
cities and Israelis came to Palestinian villages to buy furniture. There were a
few months in which most people believed that the unbelievable happened.
Something nobody ever dreamed that was possible. All this was true until April
1994 when the massacre of 29 Palestinian worshippers by Dr. Baruch Golgstein
took place in Hebron. The revenge came after 40 days and a new wave of violence
irrupted.
I am a Zionist
I am a Zionist in the sense that I deeply believe that the Jewish people,
like any other people in the world, deserve their right to self-determination,
in their ancient homeland. Now, that brings very big and problematic questions.
What does it mean to be Jewish? What are the real Jewish values? What makes one
a Jew? What does it mean having a Jewish State?
Being Jewish is part of me. I'm a Jew as my eyes are green. It’s a destiny and
an identity which I cannot escape. It’s because of the my own history, my
forefathers, my roots, and because of the fact that I fill deep emotional
connection to this people that was murdered and persecuted and victimized
throughout history. Never the less, I believe that this huge and successful
revolution of the Jewish people in the form of its national liberation
organization, the Zionist movement, was accompanied with some great mistakes.
The idea of “a land without people for people without a land” was terribly
wrong and totally blind. Even so, I think you can not correct one evil or a
wrong by creating other evil and more wrong. Today after all the blood that was
spilled and the heavy price that was paid by the two sides, all the mistakes,
all the brutality by the two sides the only way out of this endless cycle of
violence, is the “Two states” solution…
From fear came anger
The average Israeli welcomes the wall. The average Israeli is very angry,
disappointed and insulted. The average Israeli thought that shaking hands on the
balcony of the White House was enough and that they didn't have to give up
anything. The average Israeli thought that the rejection of the Israeli hand of
peace by the Palestinians was insulting, unpredictable and unwise. They really
couldn't understand why the Palestinians couldn't accept the 'very generous
offer' that was offered to them by Barak in Camp David.
Most Israelis thought we were having some kind of a love story with the
Palestinians and that we were going to kiss and hug and get married in the end.
They did not realize that we were actually having a divorce process and that we
were fighting over the kids and furnitures. Most of the Israelis are ignorant
about the facts. They accept the myths that are provided to them without any
questions. When Ehud Barak came back from Camp David saying, “There is no one
to talk to” (and so, there is nothing to talk about, and we don't have to give
up anything) most of the Israelis agreed. Most of Israelis never saw the other
side. They never understood the other side…not the anger, not the pain…not
the story…not the narrative… nothing. When the other side started to bite
back, after 37 long years of humiliating without any democratic right, Israelis
were overwhelmed and shocked. When the first suicide bombers went off, Israelis
could not understand how someone could kill himself and little kids. There was
no explanation. From this fear came the anger. From the anger came a very strong
public demand for a wall to hide behind.
The wall was first presented a few months after the beginning of the second Intifada
in September 2000. The army was not able to overcome the uprising and the waves
of suicide bombers. As many Palestinians as we killed, they came in and killed
more and more of us. People became very angry and frustrated. You couldn't send
your son to school by bus. You couldn't walk on the streets as the ”murderous
Palestinian terror” was getting into every Israelis mind and the pressure was
unbelievable from all kinds of Israelis and from all sides of society. In fact,
the only ones who were against this wall were the right wing and the settlers.
They never wanted this wall in the first place and the fact is they don't want
this wall even today because the wall means division of the land and defining of
the final borders.
After the very bloody year of 2002, the pressure was so severe that the
government gave in and started building the wall. And they built it as a
compromise between the settlers and what was seemed to be the need for security
- what they thought was defensible. Most Israelis do not even know where the
fence is going. They simply want a wall to hide behind and they really don't
care where the wall stands. An average Israeli says it is not a permanent wall.
It is just there to protect us. "Walls can be moved, lives cannot be
retrieved."
Israel created this wall as they do everything, in a big way, as a very decisive
and pioneering act, without many thoughts about the ramification of it all. The
country's full energy has been put into this wall and it has been built in a
very short time in order to stop the Palestinian suicide bombers
You will not find many Israelis that are against it. Most Israelis say the
Palestinians have brought it on themselves. It is rationalized because of the
viciousness and cruelty of the suicide bombing and because of the need for
self-defense. Suddenly this wall became the ultimate security answer for every
Israeli representing views from right wing to left wing.
But for myself, personally, I don't believe in walls. I do not think walls
create good neighbors as the poet Frost once wrote. Walls create hate especially
if you build it in the middle of your neighbor’s living room instead of your
own backyard. If the wall had been built on the 1967 border, I still wouldn't
have believed in it, but that would have been more acceptable and understandable
by people and countries all around the world. When the wall is being built
inside the house of your neighbor, more and more hate and anger is created. The
wall divides Palestinians from their lands, from their schools, from their
doctors, from everything. The anger and rage it creates will make them hit back
and there is no wall on earth that can stop the one determined suicide bomber
who will go under it or behind it or above it. If they find a crack they will go
into it and people who will lose their lives in vicious suicide bombing will not
be comforted by the existence of the wall. They will either be victims
themselves or have one of their loved ones as victims. The more we will get
fortified the more they will look for this inevitable crack. If they are not
able to find it they will attack anywhere they can – even on a Jewish
kindergartens in Belgium or a landing airplane somewhere...
The essence of this wall is political. It is to show the Palestinians that the
uprising cost them a lot. Even if down the line there is talk of a Palestinian
state it will not be a viable Palestinian state given the wall's trajectory. All
the land that is being confiscated now will create a Palestinian state that will
never be able to stand on its two feet. As a Jew, the most alarming thing for me
is that my people are getting back into the ghetto. They are creating their own
ghetto. It will not protect us. It will make us give up any hope. It will make
us give up any dialogue or negotiation. It will make us give up any connection
with our neighbors. It will make us feel full of power when we are really
powerless. The price of this wall is too high. It will put the very
existence of the state of Israel in jeopardy!
As the son of a holocaust survivor, I believe the world had a responsibility for
what happened 60 years ago when my grandparents were sent to the gas chambers.
The world also has a responsibility today as well, and the world’s behavior is
a shame! Today, while these two crazy peoples are massacring each other without
any mercy, the free and civilized world led by the US is not only stand aside
but rather supporting one side unconditionally at the expense of both sides,
prolonging the suffering of both sides. More pressure needs to be put on both
sides and especially on the stronger side to return back to the negotiating
table and sit down and talk instead of killing each other.
Turning pain into hope
Two men, Roni Hirshenzon and Yitzhak Frankenthal, founded the Parents'
Circle in 1995, which is now known as Israeli-Palestinian Bereaved Families for
Peace. Roni lost his oldest son, Amir, in the Beit-Lid suicide bombing near
Netanya. Yitzhak lost his son, Arik, when he was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas
in 1995. In those days, it was an atmosphere of almost rebellion in the streets
of Israel. The Israeli right wing demonstrations against the Oslo process were
getting more aggressive and daring. They used anger and revenge of bereaved
families as a tool in their struggle. Yitzhak and Roni decided that bereavement
is a power that they can use to prevent more bereavement. From that day on,
slowly but surely, the number of member families has grown to about 300 Israeli
bereaved families and about 200 Palestinian bereaved families today.
As far as I’m concerned, the basic and most important thing about The Forum of
Bereaved Families for Peace is that it is a joint venture of the two sides. It
is a venture of people who paid the highest price possible yet are still able to
put aside the anger and the natural will to retaliate by talking. They see this
path as the only means of getting anywhere and breaking the endless and
meaningless cycle of violence. And this is really the message, if we who lost
our loved ones and paid the highest price possible… if we can talk to one
another then anyone can. We are proud that this is not a political organization.
We won’t tell the politicians where to draw the lines or how to phrase the
articles of the peace treaty because this gives us enormous power to talk to
anyone despite the very deep political divide in Israel.
When I first met Yitzhak, and saw the “kipa” on his had, I immediately
stigmatized him to be “an Arab eater for breakfast…” Later on he persuaded
me and I went to a meeting of the Parent’s Circle. I met there some Israelis,
which were (for me as an Israeli patriot), living legends. I met people like
Yaacov Guterman, a Holocaust Survivor who lost his beloved son Raz in the
Lebanon war – a pioneer who raised the flag of peace as a bereaved father in
the early 80th, I saw people like Roni Hirshenzon who lost his two sons in this
bloody war. And then I saw an old Arab lady with a long black dress and on her
chest was a picture of a six years old kid. Later on I met more Palestinian
bereaved families – People like Dr. Adel Misk whose father was murdered by a
settler and Khaled Abu-Awad who lost two of his brothers and became my own
brother…
I am not a religious person; I really can not explain this profound change in
me. But meeting these people, listening to their message of forgiveness and
healing, have touched me deep inside. From that moment on, I devote my life to
convey this very simple message: We are not doomed! It is not our destiny to
keep on dying here in this Holy Land forever! From that moment on I have a
reason to get out of bed every morning! I am going from person to person and to
whoever will listen. To convey this very simple truth: We must break down this
wall of hatred and fear that divides our two nations. We must turn our pain into
hope. Because if we can persuade only one person, we might be able to save one
drop of blood. And that’s a lot!
http://www.theparentscircle.org/ in English
http://www.cjre.org/bereavedfamilies.htm in English