HOLES

The first thing I noticed after transiting the checkpoint separating Israel from the West Bank (or Palestine, or the Occupied Territories, or Israel, depending on your perspective) was the trash. It was everywhere, in the streets, in the parks, and in the markets. Our guide, Ibrahim, a Palestinian Christian, told us that there are at least two reasons for this. The first is that Arab culture does not have a strong inclination towards maintaining “the commons”. While individual homes may be immaculate, the areas held in common can be much less so. The second is that Palestinians living in the West Bank cannot dig holes. More on that in a moment.

Recently I had the opportunity to travel to Israel, Palestine, and Jordan with a group of friends from Canyon Creek Presbyterian Church in Richardson, Texas. It was a multifaceted trip; part pilgrimage, part archeological tour, and part fact finding. As pilgrims, we visited many of the sites considered significant to Christianity, such as the Sea of Galilee, the Church of the Beatitudes, Gethsemane, and the Mount of Olives. As armchair archeologists we visited Petra, ancient Roman and Jewish sites such as Capernaum, and sites occupied since paleolithic times such as the Citadel in Amman. As fact finders we visited and spoke with Elias Chacour, a Palestinian Melkite Catholic archbishop, author, and founder of the Mar Elias Educational Institution in Ibillin, Tomme Magzal, a Palestinian whose village, Bir'im, was destroyed by the Israeli Defense Force on Christmas Day of 1951, and Johnathan Cooke, a reporter living in the West Bank with his Palestinian wife and family.

Perhaps now would be a good time to set the stage with a short, very simplified history of the region historically called Palestine. The term "Peleset" is found in Egyptian inscriptions referring to a neighboring people or land starting about 1150 BCE during the Twentieth Dynasty. The first unambiguous use of the term “Palestine” referring to the entire area between Phoenicia and Egypt was in 5th century BCE Greece when Herodotus, writing in "The Histories", wrote of a "district of Syria”, called Palaistinê, which included the Judean mountains and the Jordan Rift Valley.  The people of Israel occupied this region off and on for centuries BCE, maintaining their capitol at Jerusalem. For all intent and purpose, however, the ancient “state of Israel” ceased to exist in 70 CE with the destruction of Jerusalem and the second temple by the Roman army under Titus.

For the next 1800 years the people of Jewish heritage and faith were scattered across the known world in a state that came to be know as the Diaspora. It wasn’t until the rise of Zionism in the late 1800s that Jews began to return to Palestine in any organized fashion. Zionism emerged in Central and Eastern Europe in reaction to anti-Semitic and exclusionary nationalist movements in Europe. At this time, Palestine was occupied by the Ottoman Turks. 

This all changed with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War 1 in 1918.  In September of 1923 the League of Nations relinquished administrative control of Palestine to the United Kingdom as part of the British Mandate for Palestine. The UK administered Palestine from September of 1922 to November of 1947. In response to the horrors inflicted upon the Jewish people during the Second World War the newly-constituted United Nations proposed partitioning Palestine into two distinct regions (UN resolution 181), one to be governed by the new nation of Israel and the other to be governed by a proposed Palestinian state. Regional Arab nations rejected the partition plan, however, and the plan was never implemented.  Nonetheless, the State of Israel came into being on May 14, 1948. Palestinians continue to cite Resolution 181 as the international justification for an autonomous Palestinian state based on the proposed partition boundaries.

In 1967 Israel launched a preemptive strike on Egyptian forces massing in the Sinai. In what has been called “the Six-Day War” Israel defeated the Egyptian forces and captured the Sinai Peninsula.  At the same time, Israel used this opportunity to capture the Palestinian territory on the west bank of the Jordan River as well as the Golan Heights from Syria.  In response to Israeli occupation of the West Bank the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 242 in November of 1967 which calls for the:

        (i) Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;

        (ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.

Syria accepted the terms of Resolution 242 (included in Resolution 383) in 1973. Israel withdrew from the Sinai after signing a peace agreement with Egypt in 1979.  In September 1993, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed a Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, commonly referred to as the “Oslo Accord”. And this is essentially where the situation remains today. 

After that historical digression allow me to return to my original thread. 

Perhaps the most meaningful part of my visit to Israel was the time I spent at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. Of course, the Center displayed many images of the horrors inflicted up on the Jews (and others, most notably the communists) under Nazi Germany. Oddly enough these images were not what impacted me most. You see, I’m a big fan of The History Channel going back to the days when it was called, euphemistically, “the Hitler channel”, for its seemingly non-stop airing of documentaries about the Third Reich. Ergo, I had already seen most of the images on display at Yad Vashem.

What impacted me the most at Yad Vashem was a small, out of the way exhibit describing, in detail, the rise of fascism in Germany. A fascist dictatorship did not appear overnight. The German people did not arise en masse one morning and decide to institute a totalitarian regime and kill all the Jews on Earth. No, the Nazis terror was built over time on a series of small, incremental steps, with each small step rationalized at the time as being good for the country. I characterize these steps as follows:

Create fear and anger. In 1920s and 30s Germany there was no shortage of fear and anger. Germany had suffered a humiliating defeat in WWI, culminating in an armistice agreement requiring Germany to pay debilitating reparations to the victorious allied nations. The Wiemar Republic, established at the end of the WWI to bring democracy to Germany, was in disarray. The resulting chaos caused the collapse of the German economy. 

Focus the fear and anger. Find a scapegoat for all that is wrong with the country. In this case the target was obvious. The Jews in Europe had long been the villain when times were tough. To further vilify the Jews, the Nazis created a mythology around the target group – the “global Jewish conspiracy”. It was easy to shift amorphous German anger and fear to them.

Control the message. Create an official state communications organ and suppress all others. Jews were no longer able to publish newspapers or own radios.

Isolate the target group. Separate the target group from the general population. Jews were required to register with the State. Jews were forced to carry papers identifying them as Jewish. Jews were required to wear yellow star of David on external clothing. Jewish children could no longer attend school with other German children. Jews forbidden to attend social events such as plays and concerts.

Strip the target group of their civil rights. Create a different set of rights for the target group.  Jews were deprived of their citizenship and right to vote. Jews could no longer own businesses. All Jewish assets were forfeited to the German State.

Limit the movement of the target group. Jews were required to turn over driver’s licenses and auto registrations. Jews were subjected to curfews and exclusion zones.

Concentrate the target group. Concentrate the target group geographically. i Jews were forced into ghettos and, ultimately, moved to concentration camps.

OK none of this is news. So why did it bother me so much? While reading through the materials in the exhibit it occurred to me that Israel has taken many of these actions against the Palestinian people. Let’s look at each in turn.

Create fear and anger. Israel casts itself as the lone bastion of civilization in the region and in a constant struggle for its very survival.

Focus the fear and anger. The focus of Israel’s fear and anger are the Muslim nations in the region and, by extension, the Palestinians.

Control the message. Palestinians are not allowed to own or operate radio or TV stations.

Isolate the target group. While a small remnant population of Palestinians possessing Israeli citizenship remains in Israel, the majority live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. All Palestinian vehicles are tagged with green license plates for easy identification. Israelis are forbidden, by law, from entering Palestinian territory. Palestinian children and Jewish children cannot attend the same schools. A Jewish child may never encounter a non-Jewish person until they are over the age of 18.

Strip the target groups of their civil rights. Palestinians, even Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, do not enjoy the same rights as Israeli citizens of Jewish heritage.

Limit the movement of the target group. Palestinian movement within the West Bank and Israel is severely constrained. Palestinians living in the West Bank who work in Israel must wait for hours to cross the border each way, every day. Palestinians are not allowed to drive in Israel. Palestinians who leave the country do so at the risk of not being allowed to return.

Concentrate the target group. To understand this we must look at the Oslo Accords. The Oslo Accords divide the West Bank into three distinct security zones. Zone A is the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority. Zone B is jointly secured by the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Zone C is the sole responsibility of the IDF.  Zone C is by far the largest zone within the West Bank. The IDF is firmly in control of Zone C and can lock down the Palestinian population at a moment’s notice. Zone C is also the focus of Israeli settlement activity whereby the Israeli government is planting Jewish settlements in violation of various UN resolutions. Zone B has been slowly disappearing since the implementation of the Oslo agreements. Zone A includes only urban areas such as Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Ramallah.

And this brings me back to holes. Remember them? One of the reasons the West Bank has such an accumulation of trash is because the Palestinians in the West Bank cannot dig holes to bury it. The Oslo Accords gave the Palestinians the right to “live on the land”. The Israeli government takes this right quite literally. In their interpretation, the Palestinians cannot use any underground resources, such as water or minerals (or holes for landfills), or above the ground resources, such as radio/TV or mobile phone frequencies or wind power. They cannot build airports or create a national airline. Palestinians may not build on the land they own without a permit, permits which are rarely granted. They may only live on the land. By making life for the Palestinian people as difficult as possible Israel is playing the long game. The Israeli government is forcing the Palestinians to make a choice, either leave the country or concentrate in Zone A territory where they can be controlled.

Now I am in no way comparing the modern state of Israel to Nazi Germany. I do not believe for a second that the Israeli people have any intent or desire to implement a “final solution” to their Palestinian problem. But, while their methods may differ, the goal is the same. The goal of the Israeli state is to establish a pure Jewish state on their biblical homeland that is free of all religious minorities.

But as I became aware of the parallels between the German persecution of the Jews the Israeli treatment of its Palestinian minority, I was struck most by the parallels between the rise of fascism in Germany and what is happening in the United States. Are we hearing the rumblings  of fascism reverberating through time to us today? 

• Have we not heard those in power characterize people of the Muslim faith as a group to fear and hate? 
• Have we not heard tales of the “global Muslim conspiracy” to implement Sharia law? 
• Have we not seen requests to build Muslim places of worship, and even cemeteries, denied out of fear?  
• Who has not seen the reports of mosque burnings, threats of violence against Jewish temples and communities, and, most recently, the vandalism of a Jewish cemetery?
• Who has not heard the steady drumbeat of "radical Islamic terrorism" from elements of our news media? 
• Who has not not heard the calls to limit where Muslim people may live or travel in our country?   
• Who has not heard the demands for a Muslim registry, or special Muslim identity cards, or even implanted microchips?

Fascism has a way of creeping up on you. That is why it is important for all people, but especially people of faith (think Dietrich Bonhoeffer), to push back against even the smallest attempts to move us towards totalitarianism. It can happen here, and it will happen here, unless we all remain vigilant.  As Lutheran pastor Martin Niemolle stated so eloquently in his poem “First They Came”:

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.