About Jewish and Arab co-existence in Acco, Israel

Talking to the other
By Diana Bletter

Wednesday, October 22, 2008 opinion piece International Herald Tribune

SHAVEI ZION, Israel: It was a few days after the recent riots in Acre, Israel - a 10-minute drive from my house - and my youngest son and I were walking through the winding alleys of the souk in this ancient city.

There were several reasons why this was not such a smart idea. The riots pitched Arabs against Jews, the souk is predominantly Arab, and neither Ari nor I look the part.

But I wanted to go to eat humus at Said's Restaurant, the souk's most famous eatery. More crucially, I wanted to step over the invisible divide that has cleaved the city in two.

The riots began on Oct. 8 after Yom Kippur services had just ended. People and children were milling about on streets in Acre that had become pedestrian zones for the night. An Arab man drove through a Jewish neighborhood - witnesses say he was driving recklessly - and Jews surrounded his car and threw rocks.

Perhaps the Jews overreacted, but people were wary: Last year on Yom Kippur an Arab driver deliberately drove his vehicle through a similar crowd in a nearby town and killed a nine-year-old girl.

The latest incident left the driver unhurt but a rumor spread that he had been killed and Arab-instigated riots began. The first night, Arabs shouted "Death to the Jews," and smashed cars and store windows. The following two nights, Jews shouted "Death to the Arabs," and threw Molotov cocktails into several Arab homes.

As a well-seasoned peace protestor who grew up listening to John Lennon's "Imagine," I felt heartsick. I moved to Israel in 1991 thinking we can overcome, and yet I'm confronted daily with how much hatred and hurt there still is to overcome.

Jewish friends in Acre complain that their daughters cannot walk alone down the streets because Arab teenagers harass them (I've seen it happen). Arabs friends say that religious Jewish families are moving into Acre not so much for the real estate or for reconciliation but as a political move with no sensitivity toward their neighbors (I've seen that happen, too).

What could I do? I attended an emergency meeting of my Acre peace group consisting of Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Druze women and we talked about rising religious extremism and fanaticism. We made plans to organize more meetings and workshops to bring both sides together. And the only other thing I could think of doing was...to eat humus.

There had been calls during the riots for Jews to boycott Arab businesses. Going to the souk, therefore, was not only a culinary outing but also an act of good will, an attempt to start the reconciliation process all over again.

As we walked through the passageway, normally crowded with noise and sounds and jostling but now eerily empty, I felt that my son Ari and I were goodwill ambassadors.

He's also aware that people's lives in this country are intertwined. I've tried to teach him and his siblings tolerance and the importance of communicating with "the other," which is why Ari began studying Arabic. Not for use in the military (he just finished his three-year service in the Israel Defense Forces), but because he wanted to speak the language of his fellow countrymen.

So there we were, eating humus at Said's. On an ordinary day, we'd have to wait a long while for a table but now we sat right down among Said's diverse crowd of Arabs and Jews. Ari talked and joked in Arabic to the waiters and to Sultan, the owner's son (who sometimes plays soccer with my oldest son and stepson), and I was kvelling over the linguistic skills of my nice American-born Jewish son.

After we left, we stepped into another store to buy a can opener. Ari spoke in Arabic to the store owner, who began searching for the opener. Then I stopped dead in my tracks.

In front of me was a map that looked like Israel with Arabic writing and the date 1948. To me, that date represents the birth of Israel, my adopted country.

But it was obvious that the map showed the land without Israel, thereby erasing our existence from reality. This wasn't a map of nostalgia, I realized, it was a map of negation.

So there I stood listening to my son chat away with the owner who said he didn't have a can opener but he'd be happy to order us one. I stood there trying my utmost to hold onto my naïve belief that we can work it out while feeling deep down that our predicament is far too overwhelming for a couple of well-meaning folks to tackle.

Diana Bletter is a writer living in Israel.