Holidays of Little Cheer

It's New Year's Eve and low clouds came rolling in off the Mediterranean this morning. It truly seems like this holiday season has been especially cheerless in this part of the world, but it's got nothing to do with the weather. As I walked around campus, Billie Holiday's version of A Foggy Day immediately sprang to mind and I got a little nostalgic for a place I spent only one terribly rain-soaked afternoon. You could see no more than a hundred feet in any direction. Only the outlines of the buildings were perceptible and unfortunately for the pro-IDF demonstration that was to take place at noon on the courtyard, less than a hundred people showed up. Visibility is an essential ingredient to any good public gathering--otherwise the flags, banners, clever sayings hastily scratched on posters all come to naught. Instead, they are just angry voices in the mist, chanting muffled slogans and diatribes. I spoke to two friends who, in the hope of seeing some real public upheaval, had attended. They told me that there weren't enough people for anything exciting to happen. Sometimes I guess I don't mind a little inclimate weather around the holidays.

Yesterday, a friend gave me a Palestinian scarf for a Christmas present and today, the student organization was handing out Israeli flags to everyone that would take them. My American roommate asked me what happened to our little peacefully co-existent campus and, in turn, I asked him where all the good holiday cheer had run off to. I have stopped counting the number of conversations I have had on the recent Gaza War, not that it's not immensely interesting because war is exciting yet I just seem to be having the same conversation over and over. Instead, I have begun to count the number of times I hear the phrase, from either side, "I hate them," or "they don't make any sense" and "what did they think was going to happen?" Otherwise, life seems to continue on much as normal: classes attended, bars packed, movie theaters full, and to my disappointment my Finals week proceeds. Maybe it's that they have gotten used to wars in this part of the world? Surely, if I had gone to University in the South, life would be very different for me as rockets have hit Beer Sheva, Ashdod and Ashkelon. Israelis, rightly, are very concerned and angered by this but none of even my more dovish friends have ever once mentioned their misgivings about the numerous missiles killing innocent Palestinian men, women and children not supportive of Hamas' tactics. Collateral damage, I guess. Similarly, you hear very little outspoken condemnation of Hamas' behavior in the Arab street. But this is a bigger problem than just misperception and enmification. There are a small number of people on each side that are holding empathy and moderation hostage and through the use of violence, whether or not it's legitimate or illegitimate, seem to hold sway over the rest of their constituency. I like to think of it like our current weather on the top of this mountain: the clouds have arrived and no one can see very well so those with the loudest voices are the ones leading everyone blindly through the fog. Additionally, the short term is the only thing that anyone is concerned about. No one seems to offer any longer-term solutions. The really depressing thing is that many believe that there can never be peace in the immediate or distant future. So Israel, in the words of an editorialist here is "teaching them a lesson, again" and the government and many others say that this war will destroy the Hamas infrastructure and make them think twice before bombing the South. I'm not convinced. It's pretty apparent that this is exactly what Hamas wanted and the longer this conflict goes on, the more legitimate and popular Hamas will become. Some call this Israel reestablishing its deterrence against a terrorist organization but I think this grossly misinterprets how Hamas came to be in power and its role in Gaza. Others, like David Brooks of the New York Times claim that in this current conflict, violence does not necessarily beget violence but sometimes prevents it. I disagree. For a starving, unemployed, overpopulated 140 square miles in Gaza, killing and violence will almost always call for a similar response. What do they have to lose?

So the once cautiously integrated communities here at the University of Haifa are polarized and distinctly separated now, after powerful nationalist emotions have sprung forth. Racialization, already well embedded within society here, only becomes a stronger force as both sides seem to be saying you are either one of us or one of them. Many wear the Palestinian scarf or an Israeli flag. But I refuse to pick sides. I wonder what would happen if I put on the Palestinian scarf my friend gave me while waving one of the Israeli flags. Is this a contradiction? Can there be no middle ground? Looking out my window, the clouds appear to be settling in for the last night of the year. I hope the new year brings a break in the weather so that maybe, someday, the sun will come out.