Rabin square is a special place for me, It’s the place of my first adult cry, it’s the place where allsomany good things happened, and all so many bad things remained. In Israel Rabin Square is mostly a place to protest, a place to say something. It’s a big concrete square, with almost no vegetation or green areas, it’s also not a square, since it has traffic lights all over. But it’s a place, Just next to the city council of Tel Aviv.
Yesterday i got an email from “Peace Nowâ€, which is the organization that was established around 1982 to protest against the war in Lebanon, and organized the 400,000 people rally against the war back then. It was an invitation to a Hyde-Park event at Rabin Square (pictures).
I thought i just had to attend and see, for myself, what is going on and who is against who here. When i got there i realised what i was doing, I’m trying to look beyond the people and understand their wills, But i couldn’t.
There were 30 people there, mostly extreme left which called to remove violence at all cost. They all had the result: they wanted the disarmament of Hizbullah and the evacuation of Israeli forces from lebanon. (Duh…) But non of them offered a pragmatic approach. What shocked me the most was the fact that though they spoke, no one but them wanted to listen (and note that i’m still using the US:Them, as i still don’t feel a part of them). Several times people came and called them traitors, and the others came to listen. But… Nothing real happened there, it was the same people from the left wing organizations explaining to themselves why war is bad.
They were too busy talking about the lebanese refugees, that they forgot that Israel has 500,000 refugees as well. They were thinking about everything but Israel, and that’s not the way to make peace, i guess. Now, I’m feeling worse, as i am criticising the criticisers without actually having something to say. So here goes: If they want to change, they have to change the public opinion by a reasonable solution. What is that reasonable solution? I think that the establishment of a united peace force, that will be with Israeli and Lebanese soldiers, amongst others, may help.
Yup. Without an alternative solution, the criticism isn’t serious.
I guess the solution would also consist of an exchange of prisoners.
It seems like the solution is out there, but both sides want to continue the fighting in order to “win”.
“They were too busy talking about the lebanese refugees, that they forgot that Israel has 500,000 refugees as well. They were thinking about everything but Israel, and that’s not the way to make peace, i guess.”
While you are right that it doesn’t make sense to only see one side of the equation, you shouldn’t be too hard on those people. They are right to a certain point: While the vast majority of Israel’s refugees can return into their intact or only slightly damaged homes after the war, many Lebanese refugees have nothing to return to, and their jobs are gone, too. This will destabilize the fragile democracy. Although it is surprising and uplifting to see that Christians, Druze and Sunnis gave shelter to the homeless, this is only a temporary relief and will lead to problems soon, for instance when school starts again. Newspapers report, tensions are already rising, because residents start to see that the refugees aren’t likely to leave their shelters soon.
It will take about two years to rebuild all the lost housings (inofficial westimate by the government), even IF there will be sufficient money available. What shall those homeless, jobless people do during that time? They are easy voctims for demagogues, and that they are now in close procimity to other religious groups who did fare much better during the war will fuel the emotions. A very dangerous situation, and imho people are right when they concentrate on this problem and not on simple inconceniences of Israeli refugees.