On Bombs, Checkpoints and Ancient Houses

Dear Resident of Turmos Ayya;

As like most of you, I was shocked Thursday evening upon hearing what had occurred in Tel-aviv, another suicide bombing. Days away from our elections, something this bad was waiting to happen, only to make it harder for voting and proceeding with the campaigns.

Please reread this passage from your last message.

Although I'd like to believe otherwise, the simple reading of your words is that the distressing aspect of the suicide bomber attack was the possible negative effects on the elections. This kind of apparent "insensitivity" creates the feeling that Arabs are heartless and cruel. What do you think? Was it a simple slip of the pen (as you are writing as a non-English speaker) or is there something deeper culturally as to which aspect of this tragedy is predominate in your mind?

Although in an earlier statement of 'checkpoints', I did not mean they shouldn't be enforced, rather I questioned why only we the Palestinians had the trouble of going through them, for every nation has the right to hold any sort of security run-throughs in order to ensure their own safety.

I definitely agree with you. In fact many of the suicide-bombers succeeded in entering Israel in order to commit their vile acts by being transported in vans or taxi's sporting yellow (Israeli) licenses. I too agree that these vehicles should be checked, no less than non-Israeli vehicles.

I will mention though, that when you travel from Canada to the United States, there are separate lanes for non-Americans or non-Canadians when you enter each respective country, and separate lanes for citizens of each country. In short, this is not necessarily a discriminatory act.

My Shilo friend noted earlier abut the Tel here in Turmos-Ayya. Well, it consists of many old houses, dating back (written on stone blocks) to the early 1900's and of course earlier. ... Although very old and partially ruined, I still see and think of it as a beautiful part of our city which we can remember our past relatives and how they lived. In fact, my father and his fathers once live in these old stone houses, early in the 1950's. What's amazing is that till this day, many of these houses are lived in, and used by the 'poor' residents.

I have a couple of questions for you ... straight forward, no tricks. A sincere attempt to try and understand what happened here in our valley over the past fifty years:

1. When did Turmos Ayya start building outside the "Tel" area?
   
2. When did you finally receive electricity and piped water?
   
3. Where do you send your children to school?
   
4. How many mosques are there in your village?
   
5. Do you have an infirmary or health clinic in Turmos Ayya?
   
6. When you go to larger urban centers to shop etc where do you go? Nabulus? Ramallah? Some place else?

Looking forward to your reply,
Yoel Iben-Ibrahim
Shilo, Benyamin

Between Shilo & Turmos Ayya

Who Can Go Where:

As a Palestinian, I dare not cross the valley that both belongs to and is forbidden to be entered by us, for which the Shilo city "controls." I know this as a fact, since many have suffered by going there. I also know many who own lands there and cannot harvest crops in it......What a loss.

Dear 'Resident of Turmos Ayya',

I hear the issue of the road blocks. If only they had been more effective twenty nine people wouldn't be hospitalized tonight.

Yes the issues are difficult, but somewhere you and I have to be some kind of starting point upon which we agree ... from there we can disagree and even agree-to-disagree, but otherwise this is not a dialog but "the conversation of the deaf", two monologs that don't listen to one another. Where shall we start?

Do you know the Tel in Turmos Ayya is probably twenty-five hundred years old? You know the elevated section with all the older buildings from before 1948 - essentially the original village before it started expanding into the lower lands around. I'm facinated by archeology and would love to explore that part of your village, but it would be safer to run zig-zag in the middle of a busy street. A Jew cannot just walk in Arab controlled land as Vadim Norzhich and Yosef Avrahami learned when they mistakenly entered Ramallah on October 12th, 2001. Yet I see Arabs from both 'East Jerusalem' and the villages surrounding Jerusalem shopping in the stores in every neighbourhood in Jerusalem. Why is that?

Arabs from Turmos Ayya are not welcome in the areas inside the communities of Shilo nor their surrounding areas. Since the 28th of September 2000 we are at war. It is an ugly war where Arabs try to kill as many Jewish civilians, especially women and children as possible. As a result the Jews of Shilo, like many other communities, have seen fit to minimize the potentially hostile Arabs from entering, working or even visiting their communities. It wasn't always like that. The Jews who lived here until the first Intafada in 1987, not only shopped in the surrounding villages, and hired their nreighbours to help build and plant, but more than once the participated in family celebrations, and invited their Arab neighbours to join them in theirs.

I won't pretend to get involved into the details of land claims and counter claims. I'm certain there are mistakes made and I am certain that to some extent the disputes are as much political as they are legal. None-the-less I must say that one of my favourite photographs of the Shilo Valley (Emek Shilo in Hebrew since Biblical Times 1295 years before the common era) shows the wide fertile valley as it looks at the end of the winter, during the spring plowing and planting. Yes, from the road on, toward the Industrial Area and neighbourhoods of Shilo, Arabs are definitely not welcomed. But right up to the three metre wide road, the residents of Turmos Ayya, and the Beduin they hire to work their fieds, plow and seed and harvest without impedment.

So yes the situation is not easy. Why are we at war? Why do we have to protect ourselves from vicious attacks on our women and children? Lets try to find a root for the strife we are both suffering from and see where we can go from there!

Your Neighbour,
Yoel Ben-Avraham
Shilo, Benyamin

Technorati : arab jew israel palestine dialog
Del.icio.us : arab jew israel palestine dialog
Ice Rocket : arab jew israel palestine dialog
Flickr : arab jew israel palestine dialog
Buzznet : arab jew israel palestine dialog
43 Things : arab jew israel palestine dialog

Life in the West Bank?

Dear Pen-Pal from Turmos Ayya;

Between Shilo & Turmos Ayya:

I'd like to know a little more about Jewish life in the West Bank, do you find it difficult? For us it is an ongoing struggle. We have the Israeli army vehicles coming into the city everyday, and were not given our primary rights. Its just an ongoing struggle.

Its difficult to answer this: What is Jewish life in the West Bank like? It's life, like in Jerusalem or Beer Sheva. Yes I see the occassional "Check Points" on the road between Shilo and Jerusalem when the Israeli security forces have received information of a possible suicide bomber or the planned movement of some known terrorist. I'm certain you'll find it hard to believe that I'm sorry to see it is still necessary to do this. At the same time, it is difficult to feel sorry for the population suffering from these actions when you see the Palestinian polls that demonstrate their broad support for suicide bombing.

I prefer to travel in bullet-proof buses, but will take a ride in a regular vehicle when I have to get somewhere quickly. In the same way I no longer stand on the roads to catch a ride, after twice being mistaken as a target by some thankfully poorly trained Arab marksman. In reality the only place I really fear for my family is when they run around the streets of Jerusalem. There two my children have thankfully been spared injury from Palestinian suicide bombers, once in a totally miraculous fashion.

But all the above does not really affect us. Oh we do recognize the dangers and pay the price of living so far from school or work - but we believe in what we are doing - living here in Shilo.

Let me digress for a moment. Shortly after I and my wife married, we moved to Jerusalem. I remember the feeling I had preparing for the festival of Passover. For almost two millenium our families had wandered the globe, Europe, Russia and North America - each year celebrating Passover and at its conclusion saying or singing "Next Year in Jerusalem". I'm certain that in many generations there was a brave or fool hardy member who didn't just 'say it' but actually made the attempt to return to the Land of Israel. Here we were celebrating Passover in Jerusalem.

What I want to share is this: it was not just our own private sense of wonder and accomplishment. No I sincerely felt that we were realizing the collective aspiration of generations of ancestors that were not capable of returning. Our celebration was theirs as much as ours! They who had "kept the faith" all those generations, had passed the traditions down to their children generation after generation - we were the culmination of everything they strove for! Got a feel for it?

Thats how we feel when we wash our dishes, weed our garden, take the dog for a walk or stroll up to the post office to collect our mail. Every single simple mundane activity is a kind of realization of the aspirations of the entire Jewish People and in that context the fulfillment of G-d's prophecies as written in the Bible. We're home. It might not be easy to be home, it might even be dangerous or 'expensive' but there is no place like home.

I look forward to hearing from you soon. I'd like to better understand what you mean by "primary rights".

Yoel Ben-Avraham
Shilo, Benyamin

Technorati : dialog Jewish Arab Palestine Israel West Bank
Del.icio.us : dialog Jewish Arab Palestine Israel West Bank

Hello from Turmos Ayya

Hello Yoel,

I am writing now from Turmos Ayya, since I'm now renting a house here for the time. Thank you for replying, and that's a great picture you've sent.

I'd like to know a little more about Jewish life in the West Bank, do you find it difficult? For us it is an ongoing struggle. We have the Israeli army vehicles coming into the city everyday, and were not given our primary rights. Its just an ongoing struggle.

By the way, could you send more photographs, that would be great. I'm sending you a picture of Shilo from our view. I'd like you to show me how Shilo is in the inside, they say its relevant to America.

well thanks,
I'll keep you posted
Turmos Ayya

So Near But Yet So Far

I've been "living on" the Internet since the early 80's. Definitely you can find my "fingerprint" on websites and discussion forums throughout "cyberspace", and despite dire warnings to be careful, my personal policy has always been to use my own identity. It certainly was not surprising to find 'fan' mail in my inbox from anti-Semites and self-hating Leftist Jews, and the occasional righteous Arab. What was surprising was to receive a polite straight forward message from an Arab who lives less than 2 kilometers away from where I live.

We exchanged a couple of innocent messages from time to time and I have to admit, the idea of this being some kind of ploy either to lure me into becoming a hostage or to divulge information (readily available elsewhere) that might weaken the security of my community was always in my mind. Yet I did not want to walk away from an opportunity to use this small opening to learn more and share ideas. At some point I realized the answer was staring me in the face. Daily I invest hours updating several personal and many professional blogs! Why not create a blog - co-authored by myself and my Arab neighbor to share our exchange of messages so others can read them and discover together with us the two worlds that appear to be in inevitable conflict.

So I invite my Arab correspondent and you to share what I hope will be a fascinating exploration of two worlds in collision. Maybe through our efforts we can find a way to contribute in some small way to finding a way to coexist.

Yoel Ben-Avraham
Shilo, Benyamin

Postscript:

To protect my Arab correspondent I set up a dummy email address so messages to and from him (or her?) cannot reveal his/her real identity. There are forces in the Palestinian world that might see such an open public exchange as treason-to-the-cause for which the Palestinians have only one answer - kangaroo courts and a lynching.