in any case there is some mental distance between the poeple on either sides of the fence. Esther Hecht writes in her blog about connections between palestinians and israelis, in the past wild fires, and in relation to a desert monastery that is not in israel but the road that leads to is was paved by the israeli ministry of tourism.
it takes an something as colosal as an uncontrolled deadly wild fire or something as esoteric as an ancient monetary to have the mere glimps of acknowledgment that there are poeple on both sides of the fence.
any old casual day to day life of the two sides never crosses paths in a formally or socially accepted way. the grocery shopping, food and for that matter any other cultural or commercial exchange one might find exists between two neighboring communities does not exists between israel and arabs. sure, yuppi telavivians eat hummus in Jaffa, and every israeli has been to east jerusalem for one reason or another.i doubt many poeple in the northern part of israel would casually walk around a village that is spitting distance across a fence, even if they could. that is a distance they cannot cross. the distance to the mental enemy is far greater then the actual physical distance.
its strange to find that this distance is immediately dissipated when the same poeple meet else where.
In boston, all of a sudden, ex patriot israelis are happy to shop at a local Lebanese run grocery shop and are happy to find and Egyptian flalfel joint (even if it is really bad). every time we buy a product of syria, we say to ourselves that it all proabably goes towards buying another katyusha. every just of olive oil we buy funds another volly. i am sure this is no different then anyone buying any israeli made product (since 16.5% of every sale of israeli products fuels its government and military, and in turn funds the occupation). i guess thats the real distance.a syrian made container of pickles will always be something from the other side, something i could only wish to be able to buy direct, and not have to be in america to do that.
on the other hand, who the fuck wants to live in israel? or syria for that matter...
actually this seemed profound to me just the other day and makes little sense just about now.
2 comments:
I just loved the last line of this post.
What about the rest of it?
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