Dialogue: Israelis and Palestinians need time to themselves

JAMES ROSE* is pessimistic that a politically inspired peace agreement will ever stop the bloodshed in the Middle East because politics, particularly dirty politics, is not the answer.

Two hands, palms bloodied and held outwards from the top-floor window of the Ramallah police station. It is an image - taken the day of the grisly lynching of two Israeli soldiers by a Palestinian mob - that has come to define the latest cycle of insanity known as the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Newspaper editorials and opinion pieces were quick to condemn the violence and quick to condemn the murder of the soldiers by Palestinians.

But behind those two hands, behind the wild eyes that stare blankly through them, there is a story. In the Middle East, there is always a story.

Was his friend killed by Israeli troops? Did his father die broken-hearted after losing his land in 1967? Was his mother imprisoned as a "terrorist"? All possible.

Under every rock that's thrown, behind every bullet that's fired in this ordeal, there's always a story. That's rule number one in the Middle East: there's always a story.

All stories have a basis. And the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians has a rotten basis. Israelis have tended only to go to the Palestinian territories in Army fatigues. Not just professional soldiers, but reservists (the backbone of Israel's famous citizen Army) on annual duty are often assigned to Palestinian areas or, more likely, border areas.

There is an inbuilt inequality and conflict because Palestinians, to those on reserve duty, are just shapes through the visor, unknown and not understood, an annoyance that must be dealt with every year.

Palestinians, on the other hand, tend only to go to Israel as low-paid workers for Israeli bosses. Leaving home well before dawn, they must run the gauntlet of Army checkpoints to work in construction or as drivers, paid less than the average Israeli and receiving few, if any, employee benefits. That's assuming they can get work permits at all.

If not, they fester in unemployment (in Gaza, youth unemployment is among the highest rate in the world) and focus on those Israeli uniforms in their midst.

So we should not be so quick and self-righteous in our condemnation of those two bloodied hands. No one can condone the action, but perhaps we, as fellow human beings, can understand the frustration, the blind terror, the fear, the anger that explodes in such random cruelty.

If we, our families, our loved ones, our friends, were under such pressure, under siege, can we safely say that we would not stoop to such levels? Perhaps we can make a rational assertion and say "no." But this is not a rational situation. Any answer we give now is, therefore, redundant.

That's the second rule: rationality doesn't apply.

This void means that politicians, in attempting to rationalise the conflict, will never be the harbingers of a solution. A political solution in the Middle East is impossible.

That's the third rule: politicians do not hold the answer.

What is possible is a civil solution or, in more definitive terms, a social solution. I lived in Israel and the Palestinian territories for about three years in the early 1990s. The first thing that struck me was how human everybody was.

Suckled on Western television images, I half-expected to be confronted with maniacs around every corner. I clearly remember planning to go to Gaza (on a fake press pass) and being told by every Israeli that this was very dangerous and I shouldn't go.

The most violent thing that happened to me as I walked unescorted through the narrow alleys and weaved through Second World War-era traffic was when one young Palestinian refused to let me go without giving me local coins in exchange for Australian coins (which I eventually promised to send him).

In Gaza and the West Bank I saw more patience, more dignity and more random acts of kindness by people who didn't know me than I have in any other country. Yet for some reason the vomit of the fanatics has been pooled and imbibed by the political parties and backroom dealers so that the currency of peace becomes theirs. The bile of the extremists' invective is as water to political leaders, for without the fanatics they cannot survive.

Nothing can breathe here. Just suck in the air until you die. That young man whose red palms have stained front pages the world over doesn't need politics. Nor do those poor Israelis who lost their lives that day in Ramallah. Nor do the thousands whose lives have been torn apart by political failures need another round of futile talks.

They need the space to live, to breathe, to love and to dream. They must be allowed to be human.

Humanity has created a great antidote to hatred. It is born in those moments when two people have time and space to talk and understand, to sympathise and empathise. Yet, neither Israelis nor Palestinians are allowed that luxury. The loaded stories, the faux rationality, the dirty politics see to that.

What Israelis and Palestinians need is each other, not state borders or sovereignty or peace agreements. When everybody realises that, the crisis is over. A miracle.

That's the final rule on the Middle East: miracles do happen.

* James Rose lived in Israel and the Palestinian territories while completing a masters' thesis on Palestinian political society.

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