Two Paths

Informing Today’s Choices: contrasting stories in recent history
Fate is the subject of great drama derived from the courses of history. All the past practices and normalization into habits of a society amount to a kind of prescription of how to deal with day-to-day chores and extraordinary eruptions of normalcy. In tragedy, even the best people stick to the prescription, usually for want of creative imagination. Walking this path, we arrive at a disastrous reckoning. Why? Not because we wanted it, but because we could not get outside the system and fathom what the historical imperative demanded of us, that what Fate prescribed could not measure up to a historical reckoning that some have called the revolutionary moment.
Can Fate be mastered? Can its axioms be displaced with something truly workable — not by the standards of habit, but by the standards of revolutionary necessity? This is the subject of the Sublime.
Let’s step back in time to Israel-Palestine of 1993 and 2002 to see if we can learn anything, where we will encounter two moments of decision: one by heads of state; the other by two teenage women.
Story One
In 1993, the Oslo Accord was signed by Yitzhak Rabin for Israel and Yasser Arafat for the Palestinian Authority, calling for a two-state solution to accommodate the sovereign aspirations of the people and containing provisions for a productive economic partnership: Article XI (“both parties view the multilateral working groups as an appropriate instrument for promoting a Marshall Plan”) and Annex III (“Protocol on Israeli-Palestinian Cooperation in Economic and Development Programs”), promising work to forge meaningful relationships among the peoples. On July 26, 1996, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin delivered a message to a joint U.S. House-Senate session, with Jordan’s King Hussein present, occasioned by Israel and Jordan taking a further step forward on this path of overturning Fate:
“Each year, on Memorial Day for the Fallen of Israel’s Wars, I go to the cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. Facing me are the graves, the headstones, the colorful blooming flowers — and thousands of pairs of weeping eyes. I stand there, in front of that large silent crowd — and read in their eyes the words of the ‘Young Dead Soldiers’- as the famous American poet Archibald MacLeish entitled the poem from which I take these lines: ‘They say: whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope, or for nothing, we cannot say; it is you who must say this.’
“Mr. Speaker, we have come from Jerusalem to Washington because it is we who must say, — and we are here to say: Peace is our goal. It is peace we desire. — With me here in this House today, are my partners in this great dream. And allow me to refer to some Israelis who are with me, here with you: Amirarn Kaplan, whose first brother was killed in an accident, whose second brother was killed in pursuit of terrorists, whose third brother was killed in war, and whose parents died of heartbreak. And today he is a seeker of peace. Moshe Sasson, who, together with his father, was an emissary to the talks with King Abdullah [Jordan’s first king] and to other missions of peace. Today he is also an emissary of peace. With me, a classmate of mine from elementary school, Chana Rivlin of Kibbutz Gesher, which faces Jordan, who endured bitter fighting and lost a son in war. Today she looks out of her window onto Jordan and wants the dream of peace to come true. Avraham Daskal, almost ninety years old, who worked for the Electric Company in Transjordan and was privileged to attend the celebrations marking King Hussein’s birth. He is hoping for peace in his lifetime. Dani Matt, who fought against Jordan in the War of Independence, was taken a prisoner-of-war, and devoted his life to the security of the State of Israel. He hopes that his grandchildren will never know war. And Mrs. Penina Herzog, whose husband wove the first threads of political ties with Jordan.
“With us here in this hall are: The mayor of Eilat, Mr. Gabi Kadosh, [a city] which touches on the frontier with Jordan and will be a focus of common tourism. And Mr. Shimon Cahaner, who fought against the Jordanians, memorializes his fallen comrades, and hopes that they will have been the last to fall. And Mr. Talal al-Krienawi, the mayor of a Bedouin town in Israel, who looks forward to renewing the friendship with brothers in Jordan. And Mr. David Coren, member of a kibbutz which was captured by the Jordanians in 1948, who awaits the day when the borders will be open. And Dr. Asher Susser, a scholar who has done research on Jordan throughout his adult life. And Dr. Sharon Regev, whose father was killed while pursuing terrorists in the Jordan Valley, and who yearns for peace with all his heart.
“Here they are before you, people who never rejoiced in the victories of war, but whose hearts are now filled with the joy in peace. I have come here today from Jerusalem on behalf of those thousands of bereaved families — though I haven’t asked their permission. I stand here on behalf of the parents who have buried their children; of the children who have no fathers; and of the sons and daughters who are gone, but return to us in our dreams. I stand here today on behalf of those youngsters who wanted to live, to love, to build a home.
“I have come from Jerusalem in the name of our children, who began their lives with great hope — and are now names on graves and memorial stones; old pictures in albums; fading clothes in closets. Each year as I stand before the parents whose lips are chanting ‘Kaddish’, the Jewish Memorial Prayer, ringing in my ears are the words of the same famous Archibald MacLeish who echoes the plea of the young dead soldiers: ‘They say: we leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.’ Let us give them meaning. Let us make an end to the bloodshed. Let us make true peace. Let us today be victorious in ending war.
“Mr. Speaker, the debate goes on: Who shapes the face of history — leaders or circumstances? My answer to you is: We all shape the face of history. We, the People. We the farmers behind our plows, the teachers in our classrooms, the doctors saving lives, the scientists at our computers, the workers on the assembly line, the builders on our scaffolds. We, the mothers blinking back tears as our sons are drafted into the army; we, the fathers who stay awake at night worried and anxious for our children’s safety. We, Jews and Arabs. We, Israelis and Jordanians. We, the people, we shape the face of history. And we, the leaders, hear the voices, and sense the deepest emotions and feelings of thousands and millions, and translate them into reality.
“We bear the responsibility. We have the power to decide. And we dare not miss this great opportunity. For it is the duty of the leaders to bring peace and well-being to their peoples. . . We live on the same stretch of land. The same rain nourishes our soil; the same hot wind parches our fields. We find shade under the same fig tree, and savor the fruit of the same green vine. We drink from the same well, and the laughter of a baby in Amman can wake the sleepy citizens of Jerusalem. . . And just as we have been great enemies, so can we be good and friendly neighbors. . .
“Yesterday we took a giant step towards a peace which will embrace it all: borders and water, security and economics, trade without boycotts, tourism, the environment, and diplomatic relations. We want a peace between countries, but above all between human beings. . . A wonderful, common future awaits us. . . I have only dreams: to build a better world — a world of understanding and harmony, a world in which it is joy to live. This is not asking for too much.”
Story Two
So now let’s travel another path, memorialized in Newsweek’s April 15, 2002 issue. On the cover are teenagers Ayat Al Akhras and Rachel Levy. The Newsweek cover reads, Suicide Mission: A Human Bomb and Her Victim: How Two Teens Lived — And Died.
“It was a typical Friday afternoon in the Kiryat Hayovel neighborhood of southern Jerusalem. At the Supersol market, the Sabbath rush was underway; shoppers pushed their carts past shelves stripped bare of bread and matzos for the weeklong Passover holiday. A line had formed at the delicatessen counter in the back, where Sivan Peretz wrapped chicken breasts and salmon steaks and made small talk with his customers. A middle-aged security guard stood poised inside the supermarket entrance, carefully searching bags. At 1:49 p.m., 17-year-old Rachel Levy — petite, with flowing hair and a girlish gap between her teeth — stepped off the bus from her nearby apartment block and strolled toward the market on a quick trip to buy red pepper and herbs for a fish dinner with her mother and two brothers. At the same moment, another girl — strikingly attractive, with intense hazel eyes — walked toward the store’s glass double doors. The teenagers met at the entrance, brushing past each other as the guard reached out to grab the hazel-eyed girl, whose outfit may have aroused suspicion. “Wait!” the guard cried. A split second later, a powerful explosion tore through the supermarket, gutting shelves and sending bodies flying. When the smoke cleared and the screaming stopped, the two teenage girls and the guard lay dead, three more victims of the madness of martyrdom.
“Ayat al-Akhras and Rachel Levy never knew each other, but they grew up less than four miles apart. One had spent her life locked within the grim confines of the Dehaishe refugee camp outside Bethlehem, a densely packed slum whose 12,000 residents lived in poverty and frustration. The other dwelled in the shadow of a sleek shopping mall filled with cinemas, cafes and boutiques. In their different worlds, the girls were typical teenagers. Ayat was deeply politicized by the rage, gunfire, violent death and fervently anti-Israeli messages that surrounded her. Rachel did her best to shut out the violence and pretend that Israel was a normal country. In another time and another place, they could have been schoolmates, even friends. But the intifada cast them in the role of adversaries and, ultimately, executioner and victim. ‘When an 18-year-old Palestinian girl is induced to blow herself up, and in the process kills a 17-year-old Israeli girl,’ President George W. Bush said as he announced plans to dispatch Colin Powell to the region in an attempt to stop the bloodletting, ‘the future itself is dying.’
“For the most part, the world has been accustomed to one kind of suicide bomber — the angry Islamic male driven by visions of paradise who martyrs himself as he kills infidels. Since September 2000, 170 Israelis have been killed by more than 60 Palestinian suicide bombers, prompting a full-scale invasion of the West Bank last week. Now the story of Ayat al-Akhras may signal a new and terrifying phase in the Middle East and perhaps elsewhere: the spread of suicide bombing to all levels of society. There was something about staring into the almost-twin faces of the bomber and her victim last week that moved the seemingly unending tale of strife in the region to a deeper and even more unsettling place: to women and children as weapons as well as casualties of war. Martyrdom — or, depending on your point of view, murder — is becoming mainstream. As Powell’s mission goes forward , the world hopes for a resolution, or at least an end to the terrible violence of recent weeks. But the forces that pushed Ayat to become a human bomb will take far longer to defuse.
“Ayat al-Akhras grew up hearing stories of Israeli aggression and Palestinian flight. Both her mother, Khadra Kattous, and her father, Muhammad al-Akhras, grew up in a tent camp in the Gaza Strip, where their parents had fled from Arab villages near Tel Aviv at the end of the 1948 war. After Israel occupied Gaza in 1967, Muhammad migrated to the Dehaishe camp near Bethlehem, a maze of cinder-block buildings, refuse-strewn alleyways and open sewers. Khadra moved there as well, and three years later the couple were married. Muhammad found a job as a supervisor with an Israeli construction firm at the settlement of Betar Ilit, building houses for Jews as they expanded their hold on the territories. He built himself a three-story concrete house in an alley in Dehaishe, and there raised his 11 children, four boys and seven girls, alongside thousands of other families of the Palestinian dispossessed. Earning a steady paycheck, al-Akhras was able to provide his family with a better life than most. Many of Dehaishe’s residents took a dim view of his working for Israelis, but they also recognized that he needed to provide for his family.”
So, it is good that we ask today, will it be Fate or will it be the Sublime which rules our people’s minds and determine the course of current history? “I have come in the name of our children, who began their lives with great hope.
