25.08.24. "HistoryThere's noEnd
A seductive tale of love and hatred, longing and despair, and above all of suffering and conflict for endurance in Palestine, the Holy Land, the Promised Land, which cannot accommodate all who consider themselves to be its sole rightful owners.
So Polish reporter, Wojciech Jagielski, is characterized by a book in a cover sheet honored with the Pulitzer Prize in the field of fact literature in May of that year. Nathan Thrall 1 Day From Abed Salama's Life Monika Bukowska, Marka, Kraków 2024). Noam Chomsky, a world-class linguist and philosopher, defines it with 1 word: “shocking.” In subsequent notes writers – South African and Australian Nobel laureate from 2003, J.M. Coetzee, and the American, Adam Hochschild, point to its currentity as a captivating study on the ever-lasting tragedy of Palestine. However, at the same time, the multilayerity of the reporter's communicative of Thrall seems peculiarly important.
In the foreground there are strong, individual emotions of people experienced by a tragedy caused by a road accident. In the background of the book pulsates history. Closer – concerning the conflict and the different relations between Israel and the Palestinians – and further, deep. The 1 that covers thousands of years of judaic life in the diaspora is in dispersal throughout the full virtually world. The 1 that evokes the question of who is the only rightful owner of a tiny full territory – reportedly 14 times smaller than Poland – or Earth characterized in the Bible as Promised. This question may necessarily be tantamount to questions about the human identity that stems from the spiritual affiliation and past of the nation. This was not the case – let us add to the margin – that for 2 1000 years or even longer, so from the time of Titusus Flavius (the first century C.E.) or even from the time of Nebuchadnezzar (the 6th century B.C.E.), or from the beginning of the judaic dispersal in the diaspora after the failure of the state, to the second time of its creation in 1948, no 1 settled there for hundreds of years, as it seemed to be the problem of Zionists spreading the slogan "A land without land." It may have meant that those who live there simply request to be removed so that Bible justice, especially after the horrendous experiences of the Holocaust, will be done. What's happening in Gaza right now is someway connected to this story...
In any event, the disaster that gave emergence to Thrall's reporter enquiry occurred on 16 February 2012 on 1 of the Palestinian roads close Jerusalem. The main character of this communicative is Abed Salama, Anata's resident. The main focus is the causes and tragic consequences of the accident in which he lost his five-year-old son.
An extended review of Thrall’s book will be found in the June issue “Books. Magazine for Reading’ (see Emilia Dłużewska, Don't look away, pp. 14-15). The reviewer emphasizes that it is an addictive reading, although she would like to believe that this communicative did not truly happen. He besides writes, which I can confirm without hesitation, that after respective twelve pages, somewhere the memory of the fact that we are dealing with a reportage alternatively than literary fiction disappears. All you gotta do is master abroad names and, however, survey the attached maps at the appropriate times, due to the fact that if individual does not deal professionally with the problems of the complicated situation and past of the mediate East, they mostly know small about them or have besides superficial knowledge. In fact, it is rather hard to keep up with the remarks about the demarcation of the space presently occupied by the Palestinians and Israelis...
Among another things, due to the explanations on these issues, it is worth looking at the published a fewer days ago (3 August) in the Krakow edition of “Gazeta Wyborcza” Agnieszka Jucewicz talks to Nathan Thrall About his book.
The author of the study is simply a journalist. He was born in San Francisco. He graduated from Columbia University. His grandparents were judaic migrants from the russian Union. He presently lives in Jerusalem. The circumstances of the accident, which gave asumpt to the full multilayered reporter story, are reported by Thrall in the above-mentioned conversation:
It was a nasty rainy day erstwhile a group of kindergarten teachers with teachers from a Palestinian village on the outskirts Jerusalem took a journey to an amusement park located as far as Ramallah, West Bank.
They must have crossed a long and dangerous detour, due to the fact that they came from an enclave that on 3 sides is surrounded by a separation wall, and on the 4th road 4370 called the apartheid road, divided in half a barrier – on 1 side there are Palestinian cars, on the another – Israeli cars.
Part of this enclave officially belongs to the administrative area of Jerusalem, meaning that almost half of 130 1000 local hybrids pay city taxes in Jerusalem, but in return they receive nothing but nothing.
There are no sidewalks or playgrounds. Garbage burns in the mediate of the street due to the fact that the city's cleaning services seldom come here. Schools are in terrible shape, and children learn to change. A place so neglected that emergency services don't come here without military or police escorts.
The kids couldn't usage the amusement park due to the fact that he's not there. They could not go to the playground on the another side of the wall, in the judaic part, due to the fact that only a part of parents had “blue” evidence allowing entry into Jerusalem, and another evidence “green” that prevented it. So they have a park close Ramallah.
Just past the checkpoint, a speeding truck hit the bus. The bus fell over and started burning. The first Israeli fire truck arrived at the scene only half an hr later. Six children and a teacher died.
The place where the accident occurred belongs to the alleged area C – located in the West Bank, but is entirely under Israeli jurisdiction. That means Palestinian rescue services can only enter there on the basis of a peculiar licence to be issued. It is the Israeli police who hand out tickets on this road, and it is the Israeli emergency services that are liable for what is happening on it. [...]
Ordinary people, Palestinian witnesses of the accident heroically pulled the children out of a burning bus and unsuccessfully tried to extinguish the fire. 1 of those people was the teacher of Ula. She died from injuries. Second – Salem, a local resident. They saved respective twelve children.
People with “green” evidence took the wounded to the infirmary in Ramallah, while those with “blue” took them to hospitals in Jerusalem. Abed Salam, the father of the five-year-old Milad, came to the scene of the accident. He saw a burnt wreck of the bus and asked, “Where are the children?” He received various answers: in east Jerusalem, in western Jerusalem, in an Israeli military base at the end of the road, in a infirmary in Ramallah.
Abed had “green” evidence, so he could only go to Ramallah. Relatives with “blue” evidence asked them to check whether his boy was in any of Jerusalem’s hospitals. It took him 24 hours to find what happened to Milad.
Rapid aid from the Israeli side was possible, but it did not come. As for the direct causes of the accident, it was both the fact that the truck was driven by an unskilled driver and the fact that the bus carrying the children was twenty-seven years old and a wooden roof, and on the road was slippery. However, in commenting on specified findings, Thrall states that in addition to the immediate causes of the disaster
everything that happened after the truck hit the bus was a completely predictable consequence of the strategy that closed those children and their parents in a place surrounded by a three-way wall and radically stripped them of their choice – a good, safe school, fun in safe conditions, freedom of movement, fast access to medical assistance, etc. Besides, it's not the first time this strategy has caused a tragedy.
And he adds:
In describing what this day was for Abed, but besides for another Palestinians and Israelis, whom he someway touched in any way, I wanted to first of all show how profoundly unfair this strategy of control and segregation is. In order to do this effectively, I needed a strong communicative that would let readers to identify themselves with a hero and not only to see, but to feel how this strategy translates into the everyday life of a peculiar person.
He explained the complexity and the degree of the territorial divisions and the regulations involved. erstwhile asked why he chose Abed Salama as the main character, he replied:
Abed's biography allowed me to tell through the past of his life what Israel's business for the Palestinians was. Abed comes from a household that erstwhile had vast areas in Anata, a village partially annexed by Israel. Abed's grandfathers belonged to the local elite, they were flies, and present on their lands stands an Israeli military base. Abed himself during his first intifade was recruited by his brother-in-law to the left-wing faction of the OWP [Palestinian Liberation Organisation—stock] and became its local leader at a very young age. Like many another Palestinians, he was later arrested and went to a immense recently built prison in the Negev Desert, where he was tortured. After his release from prison, he received peculiar evidence that prevented him from leaving his hometown, and he rightly predicted that the licence and pass strategy introduced after Oslo [1993, the common agreement between the OWP and Israel, signed on 13 September in Washington, D.C., as the basis for the peace process in the mediate East—the uk] would become a regulatory system, in fact controlling and obstructing the lives of Palestinians. In the following years, he experienced increasing disappointment with Palestinian politics, etc. It can be said that his biography reflects the past of Palestine.
Who, encouraged by reading the study by Israeli Thrall, would then like to read another works thoroughly and from different perspectives explaining the issues presented by him, will, for example, find a guide to his interests in our small book of Palestinians, author and lawyer, published in June, who, after graduating in London, returned to his hometown of Ramallah, headed by the thought of opposition to Israeli occupation. Work talk Raja Shehadeh Why is Israel afraid of Palestine? Anna Sak, Annex Ala Qandill, Kraków 2024). By the way, the resumption of another book by this author has just appeared, namely his Palestinian wanderings (Col. Anna Sak, Kraków 2024).
More insights about the geography, history, politics and culture of Israel can be provided by excellent reporting works published by the Black Publishing House Paweł Smolenski (1959-2023): Israel will no longer fly (2006), Eyes filled with sand (2014), Joshua’s Grandchildren (2019) or Balagan (ed. II amended, 2021) – a volume that consists of the improvement of concepts essential to the described world. These books are great. This first publisher advertises:
Paweł Smolenski leads us in the streets of Israeli cities, towns and kibbutzes, beaches, pubs and temples. Everywhere, in the surviving rooms and in the bazaars, he talks to people. And he writes: about the lives of settlers in the Gaza Strip and about the liquidation of judaic settlements, about the illness called the "Syndrom of Jerusalem", about the kibbutz of Beverly Hills in the Negev Desert, about the wall separating Israel from the Palestinian territories and regular life on both sides, about rabbis and marijuana sellers, about the Hasids and those who came to build a fresh state, about Israel Amos Oz and Edgar Keret, about the unique crucible of cultures, religion, times, customs. He writes about the “idea which was first” and the land on which it came to be realized (Israel will no longer fly, 4 pp. cover).
In view of the mention in this paper of drug dealers, it could be added here on the ground that in late June the book was published. Artur Górski. The Israeli Gangs (Warsaw 2024), which recounts facts that make you truly dizzy. It's not just marijuana that's the focus of attention...
On the another hand, erstwhile going back to Smolenski's report, it is worth noting that in planning his travels, he used, among another things, the book Amos Oza On the land of Israel, i.e. from a collection of reporter accounts of this writer, which concern his expedition to Jerusalem and the mountains surrounding it from the south, east and west, and people with very strong views expressed by exclamation marks, as well as places where men do not give women much chance to talk (On the ground..., p. 15).
Smolenski tells us that Oz’s book “ fell into his hands many years ago. A small dusty, standing on a shelf in a tiny bookstore that's gone today. It was published by a non-existent publishing house. You won't even witness it in antique shops" (Israel will no longer fly, p. 7). There's no specified problem now. The Black Publishing home in 2023 reopened the book Oz with the introduction of Smolensk. In this introduction we read that the author captured in his work
The most crucial thing is the emotional state, the intellectual state, the way the planet sees, the knowing of the past, to the times of the Bible, the present and the future which he saw in his listeners. That's what made you On the land of Israel It's not only a evidence of what was, it's a journey in the next decades. It is simply a warning, a informing against what is now and possibly in the future. It worked out great. Amos reports, though they are already mature, do not odor like naphthalene (Prophet, in: On the ground..., p. 9).
About Amos Oza (1939-2018), let us note that this excellent author and university lecturer in Beer Szew was co-founder of the “Peace Now” organization, erstwhile lived in the kibbutz, working there as a farmer, and was besides a associate in the wars of six days and Jom Kipur, while he created in Hebrew. Translations of various of his books are available to us. This is simply a strong book entitled To fanatics (Transition from Hebrew Leszek Kwiatkowski, Poznań 2018). It consists of 3 texts focused on the analysis of fanaticism and fanatic behavior. In the coverage On the land of Israel There is besides a description of examples of fanaticism. Their reading should be recommended as mandatory for all who search a language and categories to describe many of the behaviors characteristic of our present and not only those in Palestine. At the end of the 3rd of these essays, Oz writes with a clear amount of sarcasm:
I'm afraid of the fanaticism and force that's becoming more and more popular with us, and I'm ashamed of them, too. But it's good to be Israeli. I am pleased to be a citizen of a country with 8 and a half million prime ministers, 8 and a half million prophets, 8 and a half million messiahs. And we all have our own redemption prescription or at least a solution. Everyone screams, and only a fewer listen. It's not boring. Israel can be annoying, outraged, disappointed, sometimes provoked frustration and anger, but it frequently fascinates and kidnaps. What I saw in my life is much less, and much more than my parents and grandparents dreamed (To fanatics, p. 134).
Here I add that on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel the book was published Constantine Gebert A area with a view to the war. past of Israel (Warsaw 2023). Her thought and her imagination of the presented communicative is explained in Introduction:
This book [...] is an effort to tell how a political idea, born in Paris in the head of a Vienna writer from Budapest, resulted, after nearly as many years as his creator founded, the only political utopia fulfilled in the 20th century. How from the thought he became a movement, from movement – a community, and from the community – a state. How did you last that? Although almost everyone agreed that something like this could never happen; how it constantly surprises itself and the world. For better or worse.
You want it was a happy story. It's not. Not due to the fact that the way to fulfill the utopia led not only through the darkest of the abyss in which mankind had always fallen. besides due to the suffering and harm of the people whose only responsibility was that they lived in the 1 place on the earth where the utopia could have been fulfilled – but there was no place for them. So it is inevitably a book about war.
Israel was created in war and, at least in part, due to war. During seventy-five years of independency he fought 5 major wars, for more than 30 years he has been fighting a changing happy conflict against the uprising that he has not succeeded in averting to this day. Before that, a 3rd of his nation had been murdered, and before that, erstwhile the utopia was just a plan and a project, force continued to experience. There is most likely no country in the planet where war would be so present in everyday life, the sight of armed men and women on the streets so common and the military service so fundamental to all citizen.
Therefore, it is not excessive to say that erstwhile you live in Israel, you have peace with a view to war. You can see it in Israel from all the windows. Of those, of which, as at the border with Gaza or Lebanon, you can virtually see the actions of the enemy. Of those, as in many places along the erstwhile "green line", there are clashes with Palestinians opposed to Israeli business and a wall protecting Israel against Palestinian terror. You can besides see from all these remaining Israeli windows, from which it is impossible to miss young conscripts and reservists, in uniforms and under arms, rushing to their military tasks or returning from them.
The same is the view from the windows looking at Israel. In the Palestinian territory of Silvan, Jerusalem in 2022, immense eyes were painted on the walls of houses looking at the western judaic part of the capital. Located on the slope of the territory adjacent to the Old Town and Mount Olive, it is simply a place of frequent clashes between arabian residents and Jews who buy houses in it. Murale with eyes told the Israelis, “We see you, we are vigilant.” The same thing, only in a little spectacular way are said by ubiquitous Israeli tv cameras, which monitor the places of possible clashes – that is, the full country.
This omnipresence of war is all the more astonishing that the nation of Israel, through the erstwhile 1900 years deprived of the state, did not wage war at the time. Though with ghastly regularity he fell prey to them (A area with a view..., p. 10-11.
The thought of returning to Erec Israel, however, someway survived through all these centuries, and in any case it was refreshed at any point or reinvented by Zionists and obtained in its time the support of the planet powers. In any event, the State of Israel was created. It discussed solutions that would affect the constitution of 2 separate national states or a multinational one. Fights, as you know, inactive don't stop. The references to Bible stories work as if nothing and how different it could be, even considering the communicative which Smolenski in 1 of his reports evokes. It was introduced to him by an officer in charge of displacement in Gaza:
– This happened many, many years ago, erstwhile Moses brought the people of Israel out of Egyptian captivity," he said. 1 day, the Most advanced appeared to him.
Moses – we know this very well – has suffered a certain condition since his childhood. Considered an extraordinary infant, he was shown to Pharaoh. The ruler of Egypt wanted to see what was peculiar about this judaic child. So he ordered 2 barrels to be laid before him: shiny gold and red coal.
Moses stretched out his hand for gold. But the angel gave him the coal. The boy picked up a hot lump, burned himself, injured his fingers in his mouth so unfortunate that he damaged his tongue and throat. That's why he spent his full life stammering and disliked public speaking.
But what was he to do erstwhile the Lord asked him, Moses, what part of the planet do you want for your people? Moses had the courage to say:
- Kanaaa...
The Lord interrupted the stutters: – Agreed, you will get Kanaan. This will be the land of Israel, Erec Israel.
– Kan-a-a-da, Lord, I want Canada," begged Moses.
Too late.
Some judgments cannot be reversed by the Almighty.
And in Warsaw, a hebrew from Australia asked questions that I could not put myself: – Israel? And what is that? State? How about a state of head and spirit? After a long time he replied to himself: – most likely both (Israel will no longer fly, p. 12).
Topics presented here are besides discussed Göran Rosenberg in the book Paradise lost. My past of Israel (wrote Milena Heykowska, Volowiec 2024). The publisher’s information on this work reads:
Paradise Lost This is simply a individual view of the past of the judaic state, but besides a thorough analysis of the thought behind its rise. The author seeks its historical roots, tracking the destiny of the state-generated story from biblical exile and the promise of return, through Zionism and the Holocaust, to the political decisions of the last decades. He knows the reader through times of judaic emancipation, enlightenment, socialism and nationalism. He writes about the apocalyptic shadow of the Holocaust, the extremist Zionism of state builders and the core of the Palestinian conflict, but besides about the teardrop between the concept of aggressive territorial growth and the hope of peace and normalization. This is simply a book not only about Israel as a modern state, but besides about 1 of the most powerful utopias of our time, according to the author. individual memories come with an effort to answer the question of how Israel is fulfilling the story of the Promised Land, and how much a country lost in its own utopianity.
Rosenberg himself, a Swedish journalist, the boy of the Holocaust survivors who moved to Sweden after the war, a postgraduate of philosophy, political science, mathematics and journalism at Stockholm University, explains his idea:
This book tells of Israel. It's not a communicative about Palestine or Palestinians. [...] The subtitle of the book “My past of Israel” points to 2 crucial elements, while masking respective others. My observations on Israel are considered a parabola of the wider and deeper problem of our civilization. It is equally a book on the symbol of redemption and rebirth, as well as on the judaic state in the mediate East (Paradise lost..., p. 7).
A small further:
In years erstwhile I was writing this book (1992-1996) there was just an chance to break the spiral of violence. However, the September 1993 Oslo Agreement was neither a peace agreement nor a mutually beneficial one. She was just a set of rules. But it was symbolic. It was possible to act in accordance with it or to embezzle it. It came to that last one. Now we know that. Together with the agreement, the anticipation of a mutually acceptable solution to the conflict between Jews and Arabs in Israel-Palestine was forfeited (some believe that everything from the very beginning was wishful reasoning and self-deception). [...]
For anyone who like me believes that a man can besides cope with the dangerous effects of his own actions, there is inactive hope, for she dies last.
There was a time when, after all, I imagined that this book would be my last word in this matter. What naivety! past has no end, so there is no conflict, and this book (Jw., pp. 8-10).
This is what the title of present refers to. Entries. It should besides be noted that Rosenberg systematically adds a fresh MP to the next editions of his book, including the current political situation. In their context, the main title of the book, Lost CountryIt's getting stronger and stronger.
If, as usual, at the end of this small review of reading about Israel-Palestinian, we could say that we, as in the description of Amos Oz, are "male", that is, specialists from everything, are not lacking. However, there are most likely the most experts of the school and the reading that must be read. As a rule, they show a tendency to decorate another people's brains according to their own ideas and necessarily with an attitude to repeat ready-made, another people's arrangements, excluding serious reflection on the foundations for these arrangements, including the function of myths in human life.
In this context, another book on judaic past would be worth mentioning: A fistful chosen. How education shaped the past of Jews. 70-1492Maristelli Botticini and Zvi Ecksteina (p. Joanna Gilewicz, Jagiellonian University Publishing House, Kraków 2014). The title speaks for itself...
