Obama's Inauguration and the Israel-American Paradox

Like so many people around the world, I watched President Obama's inauguration live on CNN from my apartment in Jerusalem. I didn't want to miss out on one of the most historic moments in my lifetime -- or at least, a historic moment that was positive instead of horrible, like 9/11 or the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.

But what I hadn't counted on was a complex internal struggle, as my two national identities engaged in a tug-of-war.

The American Ilana was tearful, excited and full of hope. In the course of the campaign Obama inspired me, in spite of my best efforts to remain skeptical. As I watched the inauguration, I felt proud to be American, for the first time in a long while.

But also watching the inauguration was the Israeli Ilana, who is quite a different person altogether: Someone who glances around anxiously during bus rides to make sure no one looks suspicious, even though I'm not entirely sure what suspicious looks like; someone who thinks twice before attending popular events because they seem like a great opportunity for a suicide bomber to bag a few on the way to a virgin-filled heaven.

I envy people who are totally fearless and think that if anything happens, it's "meant to be," but I also think they're wrong. It's not "meant to be," it happened because some nutjob strapped on a C4 vest!

If there's one thing I did not want to think about during the U.S. elections, it was whether Obama would be "good for Israel." For one thing I'm not really sure what that means: I don't think it makes a difference if the U.S. president is "good for Israel" if Israel itself has a corrupt, ridiculous government, which it does. What would be "good for Israel," in my point of view, would be an entirely new government in Israel comprising people who actually exhibit qualities of leadership and integrity.

But even so, I am still haunted by the terrorist attacks of the mid-1990s, when buses and stores throughout Jerusalem were blowing up at an alarming rate. These were the same buses I took to and from high school every day, going through the same areas. The stores were the same ones I shopped in all the time. In Jerusalem, and especially in those days, there were not a lot of choices where to shop, where to eat, and which buses to ride.

And I remember at the age of fourteen or fifteen wondering why this "peace process" was going forward, when ever since it began our city had become hell. Peeling bits of flesh from the pavement, how can that be peace?

And all this supported by Bill Clinton, whom I mistakenly came to loathe as a teenager, since to me he represented an utter callousness to my daily fear of bombs. And who I understand now, more than a decade later, to have been quite a competent president for America. And I can forgive him, because the Israeli government itself was not sympathetic to the terror victims, and that was their job -- not his.

So I suppose what I am hoping is that President Obama will not, even amid the daily clamor of politics, forget that human beings are affected by his decisions. That the "peace" of dead bodies is not the peace that Israelis want. And that the average Israeli is not represented in the Israeli government, which seems all too often to have only its own interests at heart. The three people who will be running for Prime Minister are cut off from the needs of this country, and they are the only choices we have.

It would be much easier to be purely American, to be purely hopeful, to not experience these anxieties. But even if I were living in New York right now -- as I have in the past -- I would be thinking about my parents, siblings, and friends who are living with danger every day.

As my husband and I watched the stirring inauguration ceremonies on his laptop, I leaned close to him and tried not to think about the future. This moment, I thought, is special. I hope it will not be ruined in retrospect. I do have hope.

Comments

[powercosmic]

Ilana, that this "conflict" has been taking place since 1947 when the British Government carved what we call Israel out of Palestine and that there is no end in sight should tell you and the world something, that this conflict serves the purposes of the US Government to some agenda.

That there is conflict in the middle east makes it easy for Oil Hawks in the US goverment to make the case for a military presence in the middle east, like say Iraq.

The US Military is the single largest entity CONSUMER of the worlds petroleum, then comes the American drivers, then comes industry, etc.

This conflict will persist and innocent children will DIE violent deaths in Israel and in Palestine as long as there is Petroleum to be had in the middle east, make no mistake about it.

Obama cannot and will not change anything, he has already said, so. But I will say this: The only solution to this conflict would be to STOP giving American weapons and tax payer money to Israel, force the Israeli government to realize that it must solve its problems on its own. This is the ONLY SOLUTION now that the Nuclear Genie is out of the bottle and Israel is armed with US nuclear weapons.

[breakfast]

It is one thing for individual people to have divided loyalty due to cultural circumstances. It is quite anther thing for a government to be populated by people with divided loyalty. Dual citizens should not be allowed policy making and other influential posts in our government.

[rpophessagr]

I'm pretty sure that in most countries, that allow dual citizenship, one has to give up any foreign citizenship before they accept a position of power.

[FairTalk]

What amazes me is how many Palestinians and Israelis can live together in New York, without blowing each other up.

[powercosmic]

Well the US government would not allow that, in Israel however the US goverment has an agenda, it arms Israel and supports it with $20 Billion A YEAR for the purpose of causing trouble in the middle east......­..where all that OIL IS......BL­ACK GOLD.....T­EXAS TEA

You following me?

[BADRALDUJA]

llana darling all the fear poor you is experiencing is very sad.
when i was in south lebanon i did not know if the santa claus toy,or the monkey on drums toy,or fake perfume bottle down in the field across my house where genuine toys of cluster bombs left as souviniers for lebanese kids that play in thew streets.
i also feared if i close my eyes and sleep,will i sleep forever from phosphorous bombs,i feared would i suffer the burn pain and die,or would i wake up limbless.
i also jump always,once when i was frying french fries,and burt my foot with hot bubbling oil,,you know from what?? from super somic israel planes that appear from no where shake our homes shatter our glass,damn i have paid so much for window and sliding doors replacement.

[chaos4700]

What happened in 2006 against your people hasn't been forgotten, rest assured. My most horrible regret as an American is that I, unwittingly yet in some small yet substantial way, contributed to the supply mechanism that made that atrocity possible. I know that sounds hollow, considering Lebanon still reels from the catastrophe, the US seems to be "staying the course" instead of engaging in "change we can believe in," and the crimes still go unpunished. But I hope it is some small solace, when I say, I'm very sorry.

[ObjectiveReality]

As an American living in New York, neither arab or Jewish, I have a HUGE problem with the whole Israel-American bit. Either you're one or the other. The dual citizen politicians in the U.S. government should be forced to choose, just like AIPAC. Why is it that AIPAC is not registered, like every other lobby, as working on behalf of a FOREIGN government?

With all that said, I wish for peace and am very thankful Obama is our new President. George Mitchell was a great choice for envoy to the region.

[rpophessagr]

did you actually READ the article before you posted?

[ObjectiveReality]

I did read the post & did not knock it.
I'm an American, & not exactly an Israel defender, as my country is currently in bad shape. Israel could be self sustaining, with all the industry often cited by its supporters. This is where you & I obviously would differ.

[chaos4700]

I happen to think his comment is pretty relevant, considering that Obama is already kowtowing to Israel in the first few days of his presidency. So much for change we could all believe in...

[esos]

Objectivereality, I understand your desire for people to declare just one allegiance, but I think that in today's world that isn't really possible for many people. When you have family and cultural ties in more than one place, as so many do, it is difficult to chose. I'm not even sure it would be a good thing. Having so many with multiple loyalties provides a diverse perspective and probably makes us think twice about how our actions affect others in distant countries.

[SergeantRoss45]

Your fears don't amount to what Gazans are experiencing. In fact your fears are pathetic, and your article seems to suggest that those you occupy and oppress are inherently violent and crazy maniacs. You don't know what fear is obviously, ask your government.

[Rizzle]

I don't normally make comments on these blogs, or respond to comments. So many comments are just filled with hysterics and are incredibly hostile. But your post really, really offended me. A short little post that perfectly represents such hateful thinking. Did you really just say that her "fears are pathetic"? Are you serious? Really? She didn't even discount Palestinian suffering. But, in one foul swoop, you just said that her concerns and her fears for her life as an Israeli are not founded. Why not? Does her life not matter? I don't imagine that you'd even understand what I'm getting at here. I imagine you're just a little bit too absorbed with... well, hate.

[Veronica]

I agree...I have felt frustrated by Ms. Teitelbaum's blogs in the past because I didin't think she addressed the suffering of Palestinians enough, but Sergeant Ross' post was ridiculous. She even admitted Israel's government was corrupt and ridiculous. And she seems to say that the "what's good for Israel" obsession is more important to American Jews than Israelis themselves, who see the complexity of the situation to a greater degree.

[rpophessagr]

Sometimes I think that people don't even read the post before spewing hate... Thank you for speaking up.

[BADRALDUJA]

your right i forgot to mention the poeple of gaza,how selfish of me,i only mentioned my fear as a lebanese victim of israel.

[sbrown80]

I remember when George W. Bush did his war crimes, and thought in the end people will forget. but Americans didnt and booed him out of office. We will never forget Israel's war crimes. Israel's leaders are on the wrong side of history. George Bush's tactics are no longer acceptable.

[InjunTrouble]

Why don't you go live in Gaza for a while and find out how a Palestinian Ilana would feel?

[Lon]

The Israelis and the Palestinians are in a difficult position, the Palestinians lives being worse than the Israelis due their current situation. And there are always people who benefit from conflict who will try to stand in the way of peace. Hamas deserves more hatred for those mid-90s bombings to derail peace than anything they have done since. But the enemies of peace should not be rewarded for their violence as Hamas was then.

Oslo produced a very peaceful period on the Israeli side in the late '90s. It is a big mistake for blaming it for the preexisting violence around the time the peace process was initiated.

[Lon]

It is difficult to live with terror, but it is a mistake to blame Clinton and Oslo for the rise in suicide bombing. Based on Israeli figures on deaths due to terrorism, terrorism was on the rise prior to Oslo. The year after Oslo was signed was a truly awful year, but that was the year Arafat and the PLO returned from exile so it is not shocking that it took them a year to get their house in order. After that deaths due to violence fell steadily, with one exception. When Peres called for elections in the hope of getting the legitimacy needed to finalize a peace deal, Hamas managed 4 serious attacks aimed at getting Netanyahu elected. Unfortuantely the Isrealis rewarded Hamas by giving them what they wanted, and Oslo was sidetracked.

Teitlebaum does not give her age, but it seems reasonable to suspect that her association of Oslo with increased violence comes from that period during which Arafat was establishing control of the territories. But even then violence reached the levels that it appeared to be heading pre-Oslo.

And of course the death toll for Israelis were significantly worse after Sharon abandoned Oslo and begin his policy of assasinating chosen Palestinians during the Bush years.

[LiteSleeper]

The only part of your history that I disagree with is when you say Hamas attacked in order to bring Netanyahu to power. If I remember correctly, Hamas didn't start suicide bombings until after the Hebron massacre by a crazy ultranationalist settler and after the Israel kept killing Hamas supporters and other Palestinians even though it kept a closure on the West Bank and Gaza and demanded that there be zero violence within the territories.

[curlgirl]

She clearly states that she MISTAKENLY blamed Clinton.

[singforpeace]

Thank you for your reflections Ms. Teitelbaum. It is difficult to deal with the reality of terror, yet know that certain political calculations are just plain problematic. The situation in Gaza raises many of these questions. I cannot imagine what living with the daily threat of terror is like. Our encounter with it on September 11th has certainly given Americans a taste of it, but for most of us, it remains a somewhat abstract concept. Although many of us had family or friends who were directly impacted by the horror of that day, we are still able to have some distance from the very personal emotional impact of that fear and anxiety. For those I know who were directly impacted, many are still able to recognize that the terror they experienced did not justify Iraq or the massive killing of Iraqis who, prior to our invasion of their country, did not necessarily harbor intensely anti-American feelings. Following the Gaza situation has been so difficult. Understanding why my American friends who are now living in Israel have been intensely in favor of the government''s actions, I have been reluctant to express to them my deep concern for what seems to me to be an error on the scale of the U.S.'s Iraq assault. Your reflections beautifully express and remind me to consider the mixed emotions associated with living with daily terror and the desire for a rational, humane governmental response to that terror. Thank you.