A Doves Eyes Opened

(Listening notes: Dedicated to cussed Irish beekeepers everywhere: The Pogues, The Specials, The Fall, U2, and The Chieftains)

Over at Captains Quarters I noticed this:

Every time war footage from Lebanon flickers across the flat screen television in my apartment on the 30th floor of a high-rise in mid-town Manhattan, I am overwhelmed by a deep feeling of sadness. When I scan through the news on the Internet each morning, I’m overtaken by anger. The result is confusion: I go to sleep at night thinking I am a dove and wake up in the morning to find out I am a hawk.

It’s gotten so bad that I have even started missing Ariel Sharon, the former prime minister of Israel who has been lying in a coma for the past six months. I find myself writing screenplays in my mind: Sharon wakes up, stares at the TV screen, and sees Israel invading Lebanon. Sharon, I think, would presume he has landed in hell where he is damned to relive the most dreadful moments of his political career.

The very fact that I am reminiscing about Sharon is shocking — many people of my generation can’t stand him. The man led Israel into its traumatic “optional war” of 1982 when we invaded Lebanon — an experience that left behind numerous scars on the Israeli population, both physical and psychological. The soldiers who fought in southern Lebanon then did not understand why they where there; why they lost their friends, their youth and their innocence; why they had to fight against an unknown enemy and patrol the streets of Lebanese cities — passing by civilians who were drinking coffee and playing backgammon in the cafes.

We learn how Zeev Avrahami became a prominent peace activist:

I became confused about who the good guys were and who were the bad. When I finished my mandatory service, I decided never again to be a soldier. When I was called up from the reserves and ordered back to Gaza, I refused and became an outspoken and active opponent of the Israeli occupation. I spent a total of 45 days in military prison for my refusal to serve.

But now he, and the generation that fought for peace so long, fought for the pullout from Lebanon, from Gaza, feel:

There is a feeling that every positive step taken in recent years has been answered by punishment. Now we are prepared to do whatever it takes to turn Israel into a safe place, even if this means invading Lebanon once again. We also want to sip coffee and play backgammon. We’ve had enough of rockets from the north and south and suicide bombers from everywhere. We also want to lead a normal life, just like the people in New York, Berlin or Rome who don’t have to look up every time a stranger enters their favorite cafe…..

I too am turning back the clock. Eighteen years after finishing my military service — almost two decades after swearing that I would never again wear a uniform — I called the Israeli consulate in New York and gave them my phone number. If the army needed me, I told them, I would be the first on a plane back to Israel.

I am not saying what the proper response of Israel should be, but as I pointed out here, we have to come to terms with who Israel is fighting and what their goals are. Unlike Zeev I do not feel betrayed; my feelings are still as they were that morning in 1989 when my young friend opened my eyes to the pleasant face of fanaticism, and my classmates’ unwillingness to acknowledge it in front of them. Before we ask the Israeli’s forbearance I suggest we have to give them reason to feel that they will be better off, not just George Bush’s international standing. Even the hardened doves from Israel, who convinced themselves that concessions and demonstrations of solidarity with the Palestinians and their allies would make a difference, are now changing their mind.

More here.