In the Shadow of Gilad Shalit's Captivity

When I made the decision to live in New York after spending much of my life in Israel, there was an accompanying emotion that most people didn't know about, and even fewer would have sympathized with. This emotion is best described as a voice that would enter my head every time I saw a new and terrible news headline. That voice would hiss, Where are you? and Why aren't you there?

Where are you, while buses on Jaffa Road are being blown to bits, the people inside them becoming ground meat on the pavement? Where are you, while your younger sisters are taking buses and your younger brother is being groomed for the army? Where the hell are you and why aren't you here?

I was safe in New York. I didn't have to worry about blowing up as I had lunch in a restaurant, and certainly didn't think twice about taking the bus to the Forest Hills station. And I was there to work in a dead-end office job and get a degree in English Literature, something I could easily have accomplished in Jerusalem. The utter lack of idealism in such a gesture could scarcely be believed by the people who knew me.

What they didn't know was that the guilt of not being here was a constant ache. It led me to write short stories about grief and death in my creative writing class at college, which my classmates derided as unrealistic. I tried to hide tears on the subway on the way home from work, after reading the latest outpouring of hatred against Israel on the internet. Dreams about deaths in the family were a regular occurrence.

I wouldn't be surprised if these symptoms, or something similar, would be familiar to other Israelis who left home for calmer shores. What I know is that such a life is not by American standards a "normal" life, and that although I was safe, I have never felt more alone.

Yet although I am in Jerusalem now, yesterday I felt a brush with that familiar shadow. Yesterday it was all over the news here, that the talks to free Gilad Shalit had fallen through, whatever that even means. And every time I think of that boy being kept in unspeakable conditions for the crime of being an Israeli soldier, I wonder at our ability to go on with our lives--meeting deadlines, going to the gym, meeting friends for coffee--while very close by such an atrocity is taking place. How can I go to bed at night knowing that Gilad probably has no bed?

In September, Hamas deputy politburo chief Mousaa Abu Marzouk, in an interview with the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat, responded to allegations that Shalit is injured:

[Shalit] may be injured and he may be healthy. This question is of no interest to us anymore...We are not interested in his wellbeing at all, and we are not giving him any special guard since he is as good as a cat or less.

For Hamas' 21st anniversary, this is how they celebrated:

Hamas paraded a mock-captive Israeli soldier before thousands of supporters during a rally Sunday to celebrate the militant group's 21st anniversary. The mock-soldier was dressed in an Israel Defense Forces soldier uniform and stood before the crowd begging in Hebrew to be returned home."I miss my Mom and Dad," said a Hamas loyalist, in a clear reference to captured IDF soldier Gilad Schalit.

Where are we? And why are we not there, with him?

Comments

[nomoredead]

Israel blocked 7 Fullbright recipients and over 500 students seeking college from leaving Gaza last year.

[darthmaul]

'As Palestinians marked the Prisoners National Day on Thursday, official records showed that Israel still holds 9750 Palestinian political detainees.­"

So I guess the ratio of prisoners is about 10,000 to 1. Forgive me if I can't sympathize with Israel over the "tragedy" of having a single soldier locked up, while 10,000 Palestinians are imprisoned.

[nomoredead]

I believe it is up to 11,000 now in prison.

[BubbaC33]

How many of the prisoners are innocent? How many have not committed the crimes for which they are in prison? Until you have examined the case files of each and every Arab held you ccannot make a reasonable argument against their incarceration.

[nomoredead]

Then the US could send a team of attorneys and reporters to check on the innocence or guilt of these 11,000 prisoners. Israel wouldn't mind , would they ?

[Doris]

Good luck with this crowd, Llana. You'll be crying on your way home after reading the comments. There is something really dangerous brewing.

[rpophessagr]

I was discussing Ilana's courage with a friend and he described her writing pro-Israel articles for this particular left-wing audience is like a Zen Monk folding origami and then dropping it into the river. (thanks Nathan)

[arvay]

"There is something really dangerous brewing."

Yes, the American people are waking up.

Let's see if the censors will post this, fourth try.

[BubbaC33]

Mishegoss

[asiswhen]

maybe the fact that all new yorkers have equal rights under the law has something to do with the safety you felt on the bus.. just be careful crossing queens blvd!

[BubbaC33]

Arabshave every right I enjoy as a citizen of Israel, with one exception. Arabs are not required to serve the nation, as is every Jew. I guess you could argue Arabs are getting the benefits of living in the only democracy in the region without having to pay the full price.

[darthmaul]

It might be difficult to follow orders from the Israeli military from Arab citizens of Israel:

The Israeli army has been forced to open an investigation into the conduct of its troops in Gaza after damning testimony from its own front line soldiers revealed the killing of civilians and rules of engagement so lax that one combatant said that they amounted on occasion to “cold-blooded murder”.

The revelations, compiled by the head of an Israel military academy who declared that he was “shocked” at the findings -NY Times

Oh and what about the Haredi -Orthodox Jews military deferrement? I guess they are also "living in the region without having to pay the full price."

[gazmac2]

No, that's just desperation dressed up with religious fervour. As the Algerians said when they were kicking out the French: 'if you would give us fighter planes then we would use them but as we don't have any we put bombs in the cafes where you eat', to paraphrase.

And you can see where the desperation comes from when you're up against a militarised society armed to the teeth by the US

http://gazasolidarity.blogspot.com/search?q=white+phosphorus

[rpophessagr]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/the-phony-war-crimes-accu_b_160050.html

[gazmac2]

I suppose Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch... just make these things up for the hell of it.

[gazmac2]

With 1,400 dead I think Hamas's indifference to the well-being of one prisoner of war is quite understandable.

I would respected suggest that Israel has more important things to worry about:

http://gazasolidarity.blogspot.com/2009/03/cia-predicts-collapse-of-israeli-state.html

According to respected international lawyer Franklin Lamb a recent CIA report gives the Israeli state 20 years before it collapses. Apparently members of the US Senate Intelligence Committee have seen the report which argues that a two-state solution is no longer realistic and that a one-state solution is the only viable democratic option. It predicts:

"an inexorable movement away from a two-state to a one-state solution, as the most viable model based on democratic principles of full equality that sheds the looming specter of colonial Apartheid while allowing for the return of the 1947/1948 and 1967 refugees. The latter being the precondition for sustainable peace in the region."

[rpophessagr]

It doesn't seem to my that there is indifference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0wJXf2nt4Y

"We desire death as you desire life"

[msfsi]

Oh yeah, utube a very nuanced expose on the middle east conflict i'm sure.