People Like Us (19 page)
Authors: Joris Luyendijk
But the real problem lay elsewhere, my conversational partners emphasized. The unsuccessful media policy was a direct consequence of the authoritarian organization of the Palestinian Authority. An Israeli politician wants to be re-elected; after that, he wants to be remembered. He or she will therefore try to satisfy as many people as possible, and a clever media policy helps in this. But Arafat’s first and only priority was not to be toppled from power. If a sympathetic Palestinian woman with fluent English comes across well on CNN, Western audiences want to know more about her. Newspapers and television shows come to interview her, and left-wing politicians want to be photographed with her. As she gains power, she becomes a threat to the leader. This was why the charismatic Hanan Ashrawi—a woman who had been able to eloquently defend the Palestinian perspective in the early nineties—was sidelined. This is why the Palestinian Authority thwarted mediagenic, peaceful mass demonstrations against the occupation—they might run over into protests against their own leader.
“Our spokesmen are not involved in creating effective media policy, but with keeping the leader happy,” the Palestinians outside the Authority admitted through gritted teeth. In return, the state paid for their children to study at the best American universities, and their family had access to the best hospitals, enjoyed all kinds of privileges, and became world famous. They’d lose all of these things if they did too well and became a threat to the leadership. In the top echelons of the Palestinian Authority it was loyalty that counted, not competence.
J
ust like what had happened in the Arab world, I’d been missing something all along—the Palestinians had a dictator! The repression was not as bad as the kind their neighbors suffered, but the leader and his cronies were above the law and were primarily looking after their own interests.
ust like what had happened in the Arab world, I’d been missing something all along—the Palestinians had a dictator! The repression was not as bad as the kind their neighbors suffered, but the leader and his cronies were above the law and were primarily looking after their own interests.
The Palestinian Authority had been created with European money and American know-how after the Oslo peace agreement of 1993. Israel had also given a helping hand, and that was understandable. Every few years, Israel got a new government that could put all the treaties on hold, or reinterpret them, or apply new conditions to them; but a dictator is a dictator, and if he agrees to something, he’s stuck with it. The peace process often focused on the question of what was reasonable. In Israel, the Labor Party could point at Likud and say that the Palestinian demands were simply unrealistic: “Look how much pressure we get from the opposition; if it was up to them, the Palestinians would get even less.” When it was his turn, the Likud leader could point at his supporters and say that he simply couldn’t concede any more, or his party would revolt.
The Palestinian Authority could never dismiss an Israeli demand like that, because there was no formal political opposition. It was all quite logical, and I understood better why Israel and Western governments, despite their rhetoric, would rather do business with dictators. A single strong man is easier to control and put the thumbscrews on than a democratically elected leader. When a dictator fights a media war with you, he will not send his best men onto the battlefield.
Chapter Ten
A Bloody Occupation
Working in the Holy Land was wonderful, because Dutch interest in it was enormous. This also had its downsides, though, and if I ever forgot them I only had to open the Letters page or, better still, the online guest books for the
NRC
newspaper or the NOS broadcasting station.
NRC
newspaper or the NOS broadcasting station.
People really let fly there, and there was no way of telling who was going to be annoyed by something. Usually, I covered the Palestinians in the occupied zones, while my colleague in Tel Aviv did the Jewish Israelis and the millions of Palestinians inside Israel—the Israeli Arabs. We generally balanced each other out, but at one point my colleague went on holiday. I had just written three stories about Palestinian suffering and, thanks to it being the slow season, two
of them had made the front page. I realized the reporting was becoming skewed. Why not risk my life by doing this report:
of them had made the front page. I realized the reporting was becoming skewed. Why not risk my life by doing this report:
Whoever wants to know what terrorism is doing to Israel should take a bus in the worst-hit city, Jerusalem. The hydraulic door hisses open, you mount the steep steps and instantly feel the eyes on you. Is he an Arab? Is he wearing a long coat or carrying a bag? The bus driver deliberately asks you a question to find out whether you’ve got an Arabic accent or not.
You take a seat under a sign that says: “No smoking. No throwing rubbish out of the window.” And a poster suggesting “Why not take a bus trip to the zoo!” The bus sets off and faces relax for a few minutes. The Sabbath will begin in a couple of hours and everyone is doing their shopping—an ideal time for an attack. We drive past the peddlers’ market, which has been a target and which is now guarded by bored-looking agents with metal detectors, along the streets where in early March a group of Orthodox Jews were blown up, over the crossroads with Ben Jehuda where one chilly night two bombs went off in succession amongst a group of young people on a night out.
Another stop. Twelve buses have been bombed already during this intifadah. Eighty people have been killed, five hundred have been wounded and thousands of eyewitnesses have been traumatized. When asked if he keeps an eye on who gets on, soldier Menachim answers, “Always. I look to see if the person looks suspicious, tense or even just aloof.” But a bomb is a bomb and even Menachim admits that a terrorist has plenty of time to press the button in the few seconds it would take to overpower him. Terrorists are getting ever more inventive and disguise themselves
as ultra-Orthodox Jews, soldiers or hippies, complete with bleached hair and a guitar, containing the bomb. And since the arrival of
shahidas
—female suicide bombers—on the scene, you have to watch out for the women as well. Add to this the fact that at least a quarter of Israeli Jews are of Middle Eastern origin and therefore look very similar to Arabs and it becomes clear how much mortal fear the bus passengers endure. Why do they continue to take the bus? Menachim says that the army forces him to. “We’re not allowed to hitchhike because life has to go on as if there weren’t any attacks, otherwise the terrorists win.” But many Israelis take the bus for another reason. The country is experiencing its worst-ever financial crisis. The rich buy cars for their children and give them extra pocket money so that they don’t have to take on weekend work in pizzerias or other dangerous places. Recently the Israeli press published a list of prominent politicians who had sent their children to safety in American universities. It was a long list.
as ultra-Orthodox Jews, soldiers or hippies, complete with bleached hair and a guitar, containing the bomb. And since the arrival of
shahidas
—female suicide bombers—on the scene, you have to watch out for the women as well. Add to this the fact that at least a quarter of Israeli Jews are of Middle Eastern origin and therefore look very similar to Arabs and it becomes clear how much mortal fear the bus passengers endure. Why do they continue to take the bus? Menachim says that the army forces him to. “We’re not allowed to hitchhike because life has to go on as if there weren’t any attacks, otherwise the terrorists win.” But many Israelis take the bus for another reason. The country is experiencing its worst-ever financial crisis. The rich buy cars for their children and give them extra pocket money so that they don’t have to take on weekend work in pizzerias or other dangerous places. Recently the Israeli press published a list of prominent politicians who had sent their children to safety in American universities. It was a long list.
That’s the only real protection—leaving the country. “Palestinian operations are a message to all Jews in the world, ‘Stay where you are, don’t go to Israel,’” Hezbollah reminds us on its satellite channel after nearly every attack. Hamas leader, Mahmud Zahar expresses it with cutting simplicity: “The bombs are supposed to make the Israelis so afraid that they’ll leave.”
Leaving is not something that many Israelis do, but they are afraid. “I feel guilty every time I get off because an Arab has got on,” said one young man who preferred to remain anonymous. “But what am I supposed to do?” As we reach our final destination, Menachim asks, “Are you afraid?” When he gets an affirmative answer he nods
slowly, strokes his gun and says consolingly, “There’s no reason to be afraid.” His smile is understanding but his eyes remain fixed on the bus door.
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slowly, strokes his gun and says consolingly, “There’s no reason to be afraid.” His smile is understanding but his eyes remain fixed on the bus door.
10
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This piece made the front page, too, and I thought that balance in the reporting had been restored. However, the pro-Israeli correspondence club
take-a-pen.org
thought differently. They keep an eye on all the media, and encourage members to write angry letters. This was what they said:
take-a-pen.org
thought differently. They keep an eye on all the media, and encourage members to write angry letters. This was what they said:
Take a Pen friends. (...) What do you think about this sentence—“the only real protection against terrorist attacks is to leave the country?” Given that this isn’t a quote by a bus passenger, I think he’s giving away his own opinion, which neatly concurs with Hezbollah’s and Hamas’s goal. NRC email address: [email protected]. Regards,
It was followed by the name of the lobbyist. One of the members sent this reaction to the
NRC
:
NRC
:
Shalom, I saw that you were getting wound up about that stupid drivel too. Don’t you get it, mate? Jews should just LEAVE. Why don’t those Jewish bastards get that? AWAY WITH THEM. Why do they still fail to understand this after about 4,000 years of Jorises making it obvious?
Some of the letter writers were so aggressive that I found it increasingly difficult to imagine that they had anything valuable to say. Their reasoning was often reminiscent of that of Arab regimes: Criticism of our group is forbidden because our enemies might use it, and so whoever is critical must belong to the other side. I gave a few lectures in
the Netherlands; sometimes, impeccably dressed, eloquent people would come up to me afterwards. They’d wait timidly while the younger generation asked what it was like to be in a bomb attack or requested tips for their forthcoming holiday to Jordan. Then it would be their turn. “Thank you for your reading, but my husband and I sometimes have great difficulties with the things you write about Israel.” You get your answers down pat, and mine was: “Are you bothered by what Israel is doing or by the fact that I am writing about it?” And then I’d get a glassy stare—he’s one of
them
.
the Netherlands; sometimes, impeccably dressed, eloquent people would come up to me afterwards. They’d wait timidly while the younger generation asked what it was like to be in a bomb attack or requested tips for their forthcoming holiday to Jordan. Then it would be their turn. “Thank you for your reading, but my husband and I sometimes have great difficulties with the things you write about Israel.” You get your answers down pat, and mine was: “Are you bothered by what Israel is doing or by the fact that I am writing about it?” And then I’d get a glassy stare—he’s one of
them
.
Tirades by sympathizers of the Palestinian cause were something I tended not to read either, especially if they were written by people who didn’t speak any Arabic. If even 5 percent of Palestinians get further in English than “Israel is very bad,” that’s a generous estimate. If you care so much about the Palestinians, go and learn their language so that you know who you are supporting, I’d have thought.
The fervor was no less because of it, and it didn’t help either when my boss said in a radio interview, “You can’t do anything right when it comes to Israel and Palestine. If the criticism is a little balanced, we’ve done well.” It was impressively honest of him to admit that he didn’t have a position regarding the situation, and tried to adopt the middle ground; but by publicly admitting this, he encouraged the lobbyists to shout even louder and become more extreme. The more they pushed to the extremes, the greater the chance that the middle position would move with them.
In fact, there was only one group who never attacked me, who were consistent in their support, and who praised my work whether its import was more negative for “the” Arabs or “the” Jews: The neo-Nazis.
T
he disadvantage of unreasonable criticism is that it blinds you to well-considered criticism. At least, that’s how I explain why it took me nearly two years to understand the criticism from the Israeli peace movement and a few other champions of the Palestinian cause. Their criticism of the media was not that presenting both sides of the story was disadvantageous to the Palestinian viewpoint; they went a step further, and criticized the underlying approach that if two sides are fighting they must both be at fault. In their opinion, the conflict should be covered the same way that the Apartheid regime in South Africa had been covered in the 1980s. Peace activists said that while violence should be denounced, and terrorism absolutely so, when people with superior military strength suppress an essentially defenseless population, that fact should be central. No one said during the Apartheid regime that when blacks and whites fought, both were wrong.
he disadvantage of unreasonable criticism is that it blinds you to well-considered criticism. At least, that’s how I explain why it took me nearly two years to understand the criticism from the Israeli peace movement and a few other champions of the Palestinian cause. Their criticism of the media was not that presenting both sides of the story was disadvantageous to the Palestinian viewpoint; they went a step further, and criticized the underlying approach that if two sides are fighting they must both be at fault. In their opinion, the conflict should be covered the same way that the Apartheid regime in South Africa had been covered in the 1980s. Peace activists said that while violence should be denounced, and terrorism absolutely so, when people with superior military strength suppress an essentially defenseless population, that fact should be central. No one said during the Apartheid regime that when blacks and whites fought, both were wrong.
I’d heard this criticism from my first visit to the Holy Land onwards, but it had never sunk in. The reason was simple: I hadn’t really understood what living under occupation was like. During the final year of my posting, this changed because I went to live in occupied East Jerusalem.
Well-meaning fellow journalists who, like nearly all correspondents, lived in Israel, told me not to go. They said I’d never cope. I simply thought that, if I moved, I’d be rid of that endless commuting between Israel and Lebanon. So off I went, and my light-hearted state of mind permeated the article I wrote about the logistical hell of moving house:
It sometimes takes a while for you to realize you’re not on the ball anymore. It happened to me last week when I sat in
a fancy teashop in Amman catching my breath after three hellish days of moving house. My helpmate and I ordered soup but it arrived lukewarm. I sent it back, tasted it—lukewarm. Sent it back, lukewarm again. Sent it back and still lukewarm. Come over here, I gestured to the waiter. I spooned up some soup and put his thumb in it. Feel it—lukewarm. I pointed at the teapot. That’s how hot we want it.
a fancy teashop in Amman catching my breath after three hellish days of moving house. My helpmate and I ordered soup but it arrived lukewarm. I sent it back, tasted it—lukewarm. Sent it back, lukewarm again. Sent it back and still lukewarm. Come over here, I gestured to the waiter. I spooned up some soup and put his thumb in it. Feel it—lukewarm. I pointed at the teapot. That’s how hot we want it.
It was not just the fact that I licked the spoon afterwards (waste not, want not), what made me wonder about my mental state was that it took me five minutes to realize how strange my behavior was. The waiter was now in the kitchen thinking, “I’ve always defended Westerners, but this is the last straw. If there’s ever a fair election I’m going to vote fundamentalist.”
We’d spent the past three days moving my things from Beirut to Jerusalem. As the crow flies that’s a four-hour drive, but the border is closed and getting hold of a removal firm is tricky because Lebanon and Israel suspect every contact as espionage. You can do it via Cyprus where they repack all the stuff in new boxes and send it on, but the astonishingly corrupt Lebanese customs officials want ten dollars for every CD you export, and if the thick wad of paperwork is not in order in Israel, your belongings stay at the port and you have to pay seventy dollars a day for storage. What’s more, the Israeli removal company refused to transport my belongings from the port to East Jerusalem because Palestinians live there. Welcome to the Middle East.
This was why we jammed a taxi full in Beirut and drove through Syria to Jordan. The following day we were hoping to get into Israel through the generally lax border point at the Allenby Bridge. I pictured myself faced with a
strict customs official—me with my satellite telephone, gas mask, ten thousand dollars, and a passport full of stamps from sinister countries.
Mr. Bin Laden, I presume?
strict customs official—me with my satellite telephone, gas mask, ten thousand dollars, and a passport full of stamps from sinister countries.
Mr. Bin Laden, I presume?
The first hiccup was the Syrian border. Dutch tourists can buy visas there but not if they are journalists, and unfortunately my passport contained an expired press visa for Syria.
“Transit visa?” I asked as despairingly as possible.
“You need to get permission from the ministry and the ministry’s closed.”
“Twenty dollars?” I let my driver suggest.
“We’ll see what we can do.”
Forty dollars poorer and four hours later, but in possession of one transit visa, we drove to the real customs post. It was a tense moment because officially they are supposed to estimate the value of your possessions and take this amount in insurance. At the Jordanian border we’d get the money back. Yeah, right—as if they’d have sums like that lying around and would ever hand them out. We addressed the situation in an alternative manner, and a little while afterwards we were driving un-inspected but a hundred dollars lighter, past the snow-topped mountains of the Golan Heights. Getting out of Syria cost another hundred dollars, and then we could finally breathe because Jordan is a relatively decent country. Next, an argument with the driver over his fee, someone in the car behind us driving crazily and almost sending us into a ravine, and then the border was closed. Two Palestinian infiltrators had been caught. We were about to turn around when the border suddenly opened again.
In East Jerusalem a further setback awaited us. The Palestinian painters, plumbers, and carpenters who were
supposed to do up my house hadn’t been able to leave their villages for a week. We dumped all the stuff at a friend’s house and returned to Beirut the following morning: Taxi to the border, thirty dollars Israeli exit tax, an hour and a half waiting for a bus, eight dollars for the Jordanian government, haggling with a new driver in order to get to the airport which had flights to Beirut. It was cold and we were hungry. You know what, we thought, if we go through Amman we can stop for a bowl of delicious, piping hot soup. We’ll have earned it.
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supposed to do up my house hadn’t been able to leave their villages for a week. We dumped all the stuff at a friend’s house and returned to Beirut the following morning: Taxi to the border, thirty dollars Israeli exit tax, an hour and a half waiting for a bus, eight dollars for the Jordanian government, haggling with a new driver in order to get to the airport which had flights to Beirut. It was cold and we were hungry. You know what, we thought, if we go through Amman we can stop for a bowl of delicious, piping hot soup. We’ll have earned it.
12
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