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By Martin Smedjeback *
Free photos available, see below.
Maya, 20 years old and Lior, 18, have lived their whole lives in Israel. They are part of the same people, have a common history, have gone to the same kinds of schools. Yet they have chosen two very different paths in life. While Maya was polishing her boots at a military base in Gaza, Lior was demonstrating against the Wall. But both women share a common dream that there will be peace between Israelis and Palestinians someday.
All Israeli citizens, both men and women, get a call for recruitment to the army when they are 16 years old. Two years later, one is actually inducted into the army. A few months before she received her call, Lior decided that she didn't want to serve in a combat unit and carry a gun. Later, she decided to refuse to be inducted altogether. "Most people in my class were very open about discussing military service. Most of them were curious about why I refused, and if I could imagine a world without armies and stuff like that," Lior remembers. "But my parents reacted very badly, especially my father. He was a general in the army for more than 20 years. He took it very personally."
Maya, on the other hand, felt no ambivalence about induction into the army. "No, it is the law, even if I disagreed about joining the army," she says. "I can partly understand that some refuse, because the army does things that I disagree with. But although we may look at it as a choice, it isn't really. You go into the army unless you really, really want to be a troublemaker."
In a country where military service is an experience shared by everyone - men and women, from the ages of 18 through 45 - the importance of the army in the Israeli ethos is evident. Every man must serve three years on active duty and then as a member of the reserves until the age of 45. Women serve for two years' active duty, but most don't serve in the reserves.
"The army is a really big part of our lives," Maya explains. "We grow up knowing that we will be soldiers. We have something, besides being Israelis, which keeps us together. We all experience the same things. We all shoot a gun; we all put a uniform on. …It is a part of life."
Lior acknowledges the truth of Maya's words: "Most of my friends refused military service too, so it's not so problematic. But when I meet other friends from my school, they always talk about the army. …It's hard, because I don't feel that I'm part of their conversations."
<span style="font-weight: bold; "»» Two different kinds of life
The paths Maya and Lior have chosen have led to two very different lifestyles. Maya, for instance, does not belong to any organizations apart from the Israel Defense Force (IDF), while Lior, who is living at home with her parents before beginning university, is an active member in the Israeli peace movement.
"I am not allowed to be a member of anything else as a soldier," Maya says. "And you don't have time for anything else."
Maya used to serve on a military base in the Occupied Territories in Gaza. One of her unit's tasks was to protect one particular settlement in northern Gaza. "It was pretty funny, because it didn't matter if you were right- or left-wing," she says. "Whoever came to the settlement said ‘This is the stupidest settlement in the world. It should be taken out.'" Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has agreed that this settlement will be one of the first to go if the Gaza withdrawal plan ever comes to fruition.
Despite having to protect Israeli settlements in Gaza that she herself doesn't think should be there, Maya found a reason to enjoy her assignment. "I felt that I was doing my share to help the Palestinians because I could try to make sure that whatever happened there was best for them," she explains. "If any of my colleagues misbehaved or said anything bad to the Palestinians, I would argue or yell at them."
When Lior started high school, she joined the youth wing of the largest of the Israeli peace organizations, Peace Now. There, she helped organize peace demonstrations and also had the opportunity to meet people who were more radical than her friends. These people, Israelis like herself, were attending demonstrations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and they were anti-Zionist. After a while, she began going to demonstrations in the West Bank as well. She got involved in a network called Anarchists against Fences – a group of people who carry out direct actions against Israel's "Separation Wall", some of which is being built on Palestinian land. She now goes to demonstrations almost every week, most of them protests against the Wall.
Israel prides itself on being a democracy, a tenet of which is freedom of information. Lior feels frustrated because she sees a decided lack of information in Israeli society. "Take the Wall for example," Lior explains. "Most Israelis haven't seen what the Wall is doing to the Palestinian people. I don't think they know that the Wall goes inside villages and through houses. All they know is that there is a Wall, and that it could be a good thing because maybe it will bring peace."
<span style="font-weight: bold; "»» Only a rumour
The lands of Israel and Palestine taken together are not very large, but the gulf between Israelis and Palestinians is large indeed. For many people, meeting someone from the "other side" is a rare occurrence – unless one counts soldiers enforcing the occupation and those committing acts of terror.
"Before I went to the Occupied Territories," remembers Lior, "I thought it was strange that I considered myself to be a leftist and peace activist but had no Palestinian friends and had never even met any Palestinians from the Occupied Territories. I wasn't afraid to meet them, but I was a little skeptical about their opinions on the situation because the whole atmosphere in Israeli society is that Palestinians don't want peace. So I was surprised to see that it was the exact opposite! I don't think I ever heard a Palestinian who said that he doesn't want peace or that he wants to occupy the whole of Israel, which is a common opinion about Palestinians in Israeli society."
"Do I have Palestinian friends?" Maya repeats the question, which elicits a "wow" from her as she ponders it. "No, there is no connection between Palestinians and Israelis at all. We don't see them. I never saw them until I served in the army. Until then, they were only a rumour."
Maya sees that there would be a benefit to having more contacts between Israelis and Palestinians but doesn't think it would make much of a difference to her. However, she also sees that, due to the current situation, there are reasons to keep the two peoples apart.
"If I had Palestinian friends, I don't think it would change how I look at the conflict because I take them into consideration already," she explains. "But I think that it would have been very good and important for both sides to have interactions. The disconnection already started before and the Wall makes it even bigger. On the other hand, the Wall was not built to separate the people. It was built to separate the suicide bombers from the Israelis. It is a matter of deciding if you are willing to take the risk of being killed."
On the political side, Maya sees difficulty in finding a partner for peace in Palestinian society.
"There are a lot of people of really good will, and they would do anything, but these people don't have enough power or influence to really affect the rest of the Palestinian people. I can understand why this happens because they are all divided, and it is a mess, and a lot of people hate us. So it is difficult for them to go to the people who hate us and tell them that they should try harder to gain peace. It is as hard for us to go to the Israeli extremists and say that we should strive for peace."
<span style="font-weight: bold; "»» Fear and war exhaustion in Israel
Despite their differences, both women share a common dream that there will be peace between Israelis and Palestinians someday. Though they both see some positive changes in the country, their optimism is somewhat tempered by the fear that permeates Israeli society today.
"In the long-term perspective, the Israeli public is getting better," Lior says. "In the 1970s and '80s, Israelis were not ready to divide the land and allow a Palestinian state. Today, the majority of the Israeli public wouldn't have any problem in giving the Occupied Territories to the Palestinians if there was a peace agreement. But people have lost hope the last couple of years. They just think that the Palestinians… want to kill us. The Israeli public is so afraid."
Maya sees that desperation, but thinks that within it, there are possibilities for peace. "We, Israelis and Palestinians, live with each other, hurting each other all the time and at the same time trying to have a peace process. It is almost impossible. But I think that people are getting so depressed about the war that they are ready for peace. Israelis are so war-exhausted that they are willing to give up anything for peace."
One expression of that Israeli desire for peace was shown this past 15 May when 100,000 Israelis turned out for a demonstration in Tel Aviv. The message the people gave to their government was: "Get out of Gaza; start talking." Maya was among the throng at that demonstration.
<span style="font-weight: bold; "»» Death is part of your life… But so is joy
Maya talks about a time a couple of years ago when she drove near the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin. Her eight-year-old brother began to ask her some difficult questions. "Why do we have a war with the Palestinians?" he asked. "I tried to answer him as best as I could," Maya says, thinking back. "Maybe you think that this stuff shouldn't be on his mind, but when terrible things happen every day he is going to stay interested. People are dying. It is a big thing for a kid to deal with when it happens on a regular basis. Death is a part of your life. But you need to see… that the world is still a good place and that life is still good."
Before departing, Maya recommends a return to Tel Aviv "because the night life is better than anywhere in the world". Through all the pain, confusion and disagreements, Israelis still try to see that joy is also part of life.
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* Martin Smedjeback is secretary for nonviolence in the Swedish Fellowship of Reconciliation. During a prior visit to Israel and Palestine, he collected material for a book entitled Nonviolence in Israel and Palestine. He is currently working as an ecumenical accompanier in Jerusalem.
Free high resolution photos to accompany this story are available at:
wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/international/palestine/twoisraeliwomen.html
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The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) was launched in August 2002. Ecumenical accompaniers monitor and report violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, support acts of non-violent resistance alongside local Christian and Muslim Palestinians and Israeli peace activists, offer protection through non-violent presence, engage in public policy advocacy and stand in solidarity with the churches and all those struggling against the occupation. The programme is coordinated by the World Council of Churches (WCC).
