Mutual Fear of Attacks Divides Israel Further

[Purveyor]

Oct 12, 2015 12:16 PM EDT
By Daniel Gordis

In Israel, the university academic year is about to begin, now that the Jewish holidays are past. New students and faculty are making their way to campus, and learning their way around.

Shalem College, where I work, is in a quiet, mostly residential neighborhood in south Jerusalem. A couple of days ago, one of the new Arabic language instructors, a Muslim woman from a different area of Jerusalem, requested a parking space in a usually off-limits area that is protected by security. None of the other faculty members park there, so someone from human resources asked her why. The instructor said she was afraid: The college is in a Jewish part of town, and if she parked in the regular parking, she feared that she would be attacked by Jews.

Had she known the neighborhood and the campus better, she might have known that there was nothing to worry about. Her fear is nonetheless significant. Unlike the First and Second Intifadas, it is not only Jews who are scared now -- everyone is on edge.

Some of what we’re experiencing is what we have become accustomed to. Ominously, rocket fire from Gaza has resumed. The stabbings, hit-and-run attacks with cars, and attempted car bombings all continue. But something about this round is making people particularly apprehensive. This is primarily a wave of stabbings, apparently by lone operators, and there’s no way the security forces can confiscate all the knives in the country. There is constant discussion of shutting down Jerusalem schools because teachers and parents are worried about security. On the Sunday evening news, many Israelis told interviewers that they had simply stayed inside over the weekend.

That fear is bringing out the worst in a small minority of Israelis. Now, Arabs are frightened, too. Even right-of-center newspapers are not hiding the fact that attacks on Arabs are becoming more common. An Arab casher in Tel Aviv was harassed, and protected by Jewish passers-by. In Jerusalem, three Jewish women were arrested after an apparent tear gas attack on an Arab man. Jewish Israelis have increasingly been using social media as a means of incitement against Arabs (and Arabs have been doing the same against Jews). Chants of “Death to the Arabs” have sadly become more commonplace. Israelis as a whole believe with no question that this latest round is the result of Palestinian intolerance, yet mainstream society is deploring the Jewish revenge attacks (which have been far fewer than Arab attacks on Jews, and have not caused grievous harm or deaths) in no uncertain terms.

more...

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-12/mutual-fear-of-attacks-divides-israel-further

[geek tragedy]

1. Israel/Palestine are doomed to relive the tragedies of the Balkans.

Both tribes/societies are getting more rightwing, more violent, more hateful . . .

Nationalism and violence are never the solution, only the problem.

[oberliner]

2. One thing that definitely did not work in the Balkans was a one-state solution

Certainly no one is calling for the return of Yugoslavia.

[geek tragedy]

3. in the Balkans separation and breakup was physically possible. Israel committed itself to the

one-state solution (in terms of physical reality, not platitudes) so that's where they are.

Yigal Amir's vision has become reality. He won.

as the future minority in a binational state, they should really get to work on secularizing themselves rather than following the religions Zionists and ultra-orthodox down the road to perdition.

[oberliner]

4. "as the future minority in a binational state, they should really get to work on secularizing..."

Jews won't be allowed to practice their religion when they are the minority in this binational state?

[geek tragedy]

5. they'll be allowed to exercise their religion as a matter of private faith, not public policy

Certainly none of this "god gave the Jewish people this land" horse manure

That kind of thinking was obsolete centuries ago.

The religious Zionists will have to abandon their core ideology. Or barricade themselves up on Masada or something. Whichever.