Permits to Israel
Israeli government allowing Palestinians from the West Bank to enter Israel in the last weeks seemed like an appalling out-of-the-ordinary phenomenon to Palestinians in and out the borders of permits.
I don’t know why we are surprised that people from the West Bank are dashing to the sea or shopping in the malls. There is a whole Palestinian generation that doesn’t know how the ocean looks like.
Unless you’re wealthy enough to travel to the East Bank and the West. Lest you are privileged sufficient to belong the PA VIP category of magnetic permits to Israel, or you are lucky enough to work on a project with an international NGO and can get a free training and trip here and there; you are among the two million and so Palestinians (excluding Gaza of course) in the West Bank who don’t know how life outside the wire fences, concrete walls and delimited checkpoints look like. Any life behind that border became a fantasy.
It doesn’t matter why the Israeli government issued such unprecedented numbers of permits. Whether it was to get more benefits as usual, such as the economic cash flow that such a movement of people allowed or any maneuver Israel as usual as good ploys, what is true is that Israel’s economics will not improve because of this month money that Palestinians spent in Israel. Israel’s plans and moves are, sad to say, are far from what we see or want to know. Israel has transformed us into passive reactionaries instead of being not active planners but merely ordinary observers who lost the capacity of seeing beyond our moment. We even miss the moment.
I have been reading and hearing about “their” substantial passageway towards Jerusalem (Israel). We already became “us” and ‘them,” another sub-category of the “we “ and “them,” which makes “them” sub-category of “ we,” because we originally have a whole category of “them” relating to the Israelis.
Why do we find it so absurd that people are flowing on the seashore of the Mediterranean? What do we want from “them” and “them” (the sub-category of one of the categories)?
Do we want “them” to stay roaming inside the barbed wires and cemented walls?
Do we want “them” to keep “them” locked up in what looks like ghettos?
We want everyone or boycott Israel except us. Israel is as much vital to “them” as much as it is to “us.” Among us, those who would boycott Israel if they exist are only those who are incredibly tolerant, aware, educated, and productive. IF you are not someone with such a characteristic, then you cannot boycott Israel because otherwise, you are entirely dependent on “them.”
Boycotting needs a clear strategy with a clear, viable vision, achievable objectives and sustainable goals, and a work plan that can be accomplished. People are not just things that can be controlled by remote control, with on and off buttons.
What should we expect from people who watch their operating government drowning in dysfunctional apparatus, stinking with corruption, totally bankrupted?
One day the whole nation is set for boycotting; on the evening of the very same day, whoever announced boycotting announces meetings for negotiations.
Those patriots who call for boycott have the privilege of making their announcements from coffee shops in Ramallah that sell coffee for $5 and attend seminars in Europe every next month or week sometimes. And have magnetic permits that allow them to enter Israel whenever they want.
And “Israel” who always benefits from our continuous failures, I sincerely thank “them” for allowing “them” to have a breeze out of the ghettos, even if “they” spent their year savings or took loans in Israeli markets …
22-8-2012