a hip party and the politics of conflict

Last monday I went to the hippest party I've ever been to. It involved performance art; live discordant music; paint by numbers on a re-appropriated billboard; a DJ spinning a really wonderful combination of hip-hop, eighties music and Arabic pop; and vegan food (or parve, depending on your outlook) cooked and sold by my friend Oliver. The entire shebang took place on the streets of a quiet neighborhood on the border of East and West Jerusalem, not far from the Old City. Actually quiet neighborhood is the wrong way of describing it. The party was not exactly quiet, nor was the pissed off old lady on the third floor of the neighboring building. The party seemed like a good time, but my lack of Hebrew kept me from really engaging anyone other than the three friends I came with.



Someone made mention of leaving and after six or so minutes of saying goodbye, using the bathroom, giving phone numbers and finding lost jackets we left. Walking home, we heard gunshots. They were loud but not as loud as one might imagine, and eleven shots (says the army) from an automatic weapon happen very very quickly. The shots were close enough that we ducked behind a building, and watched as cars pulled crazy illegal U-turns and blew their horns in alarm about whatever was going on ahead. Minutes after that, police cars, army vehicles, ambulances, first responders on motorcycles, and unmarked governmental SUVs arrived, more sirens than I have ever seen. Bewildered, we turned around and walked the long way home.

Turns out we were about 100 yards (or meters) from where a car driven by a young Palestinian man drove through a crowd of off duty soldiers, one of whom then shot him eleven times. The official story is that the young man had just proposed marriage and been turned down. The IDF claims he had ties to Hamas, and after his rejection went on a rampage with his father's car. But it just seems so much more complicated than that. And the responses from either side are just ridiculous.

The Haredi, (ultra-orthodox Jews) for instance, somehow heard about the incident and within minutes began streaming from one of their neighborhoods to the place it happened (right next to the Old City). Watching this mass migration I gave them the benefit of the doubt, that they were on their way to the Western Wall for the prayers of repentance that happen late at night in the week leading up to Rosh Hashanah. I was wrong, they were going (angry mob style) to harass and chase any Arab they could find. My friend Oliver said that they found a few, and made trouble. He also said the secular folks at the party went toe-to-toe with the Haredim

The Israeli government's response isn't wholly more enlightened. Before having a full story (especially difficult when the driver of the car is dead), the IDF prevented the family of the driver from erecting a traditional Muslim tent of mourning. Defense Minster Ehud Barack called for the demolition of the home of the family of the driver. It turns out this is a standard policy, to demolish, without due process, the homes of suicide attackers. This seems akin to putting the family of a criminal in jail.

I remember watching Bowling for Columbine the first time, and being slightly shocked at the apparent craziness of James Nichols, the brother of the Oklahoma City Bomber Terry Nichols. Nonetheless, there would be a righteous uproar if in retaliation for Terry Nichols' part in the Oklahoma City Bombing the FBI demolished his crazy brother's farm.

Hamas, for their part, has done a great job of conflating this stupid kid's love sick frustration (if that's the story) with General Eisenhower's invasion of Normandy...that the forces of good will cast off the Zionist oppression, etc. etc. Although the number of responding sirens and helicopters might confirm Hamas' statement, truthfully there are worse car accidents much more frequently. Sometimes, the people who are hurt in those car accidents have to wait much longer before the police and Magen David Adom (ambulance corps) arrive. There was an accident on my street a month ago, (no one was hurt), but the police didn't arrive to deal with it for an hour and a half, leaving the people involved in the accident to direct traffic and try and keep calm.

The kid's family deny his affiliation with Hamas, and have stated their hope for the speedy recovery of soldiers hurt in what they insist must have been a traffic accident. The families of suicide attackers don't usually deny Hamas affiliation, or wish for the recovery of those injured. I should also point out that his attack only became a suicide attack when the soldier fired into his car eleven times (it had crashed into a wall). My sense is that it wasn't a traffic accident...It just seems difficult to injure 19 people with a car by accident, even if you've just had your heart broken.

But that doesn't change the attention getting tactics of both the Israeli Government and or the Palestinian radicals. Nor does it change the fact that house demolition with due process, like the death penalty, seems a pretty questionable deterrent. When it is done without due process, it crosses a moral line in the sand and the fourth Geneva Convention...but that's another blog entry.

I came here to learn about this conflict, about the politics, the economics, the history, and the personal stories etc. This week, trying to process all the new information has been a crazy one. I hope to come out the better for it.