Israeli fear

One of the most moving talks at the Christ at the Checkpoint conference was that of Sami Awad, Director of the Holy Land Trust.

He recounted a trip to one of the Nazi death camps, a visit he naturally found distressing in its own right. But his epiphany was when a group of Israeli school children were brought into earshot by their guide, whose detailed account of what the Nazis did to their Jewish ancestors would have penetrated the thickest skin. The guide then moved to explain that, after 2000 years of Christian anti-Semitism, the State of Israel was the place in which Jews could take refuge, the only place Jews could call home. The twist was this: but you're still not safe. Your Arab neighbours would do to you as the Nazis did to your ancestors, and it is only through the might of the Israeli Defence Forces that we can have a normal life.

The epiphany was Israeli fear. No wonder a would-be Israeli government needs to talk about security, people are insecure. No wonder some young people enthusiastically undertake to do their national service, and no wonder they behave so often like animals. They believe there's a latent genocidal desire on the part of today's Arab Other, just as there was lurking in the background of Christendom.

Sami Awad wasn't seeking to understand for understanding's sake, but because it is the narrative of the oppressor that lies at the root of oppression, and narratives can change. Of course there's nothing like fear for creating very scary monsters, and I would imagine there are plenty of people living in Palestinian refugee camps for whom the distinction between an Israeli and a Jew is trifling technicality. Likewise, the rhetoric of Ahmadinejad: a Nabulsi was explaining to me today how damaging to the Palestinian cause this kind of cheap bombast is.

But perhaps this is another reason why demos are useful. It brings children face to face: the ten-year old I wrote about with the courage to claim what is rightfully his, and the child who, a decade earlier, had been standing frozen to the spot as a teacher told him that he was hated, that he could trust no-one, that his life depends on the machines of death.