Tag Archives: Moriel Rothman

The Silliness of ‘Security’ and Puppets for Peace

2 Replies
Theatrical protest against closure of El Hakawati theatre. Photo: Guy Butavia.

Theatrical protest against closure of El Hakawati theatre. Photo: Guy Butavia.

For most Jewish Israelis, ‘peace’ means ‘security’. According to this mainstream ‘securitatist’ orientation (as Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling put it in his 2001 book The Invention and Decline of Israeliness: State, Society, and the Military) ‘peace’ means that Israel will be secure when both the state and its citizens will not be subject to attack by their enemies. Any image or notion of peace connotes security, as peace entails the end of hostilities. The Israeli sense of ‘peace-as-security’ also refers to security guarantees and arrangements, in the form of territorial boundaries that provide strategic depth or advantage (such as the Jordan River), or the demilitarization of the proposed Palestinian state.

Yet, the very meaning and purpose of peace is undermined and obstructed by ‘peace-as-security’ as pursued in Israeli policy. Israeli political scientist Galia Golan argued this point in her paper, ‘Transformations of Conflict: Breakthroughs and Failures in Israeli Peace Efforts’, which she presented to the 29th Annual Association for Israel Studies Conference, June 24-26, 2013, at UCLA. In light of an underlying assumption that the other side, ‘the Arabs’ will never make peace with Israel because they do not accept Israel’s legitimacy, Israeli leaders have aimed not for peace but for ‘security’ in the sense of the optimal conditions for fighting the next war. ‘Peace-as-security’ is not peace at all, but an obstacle and alternative to peace. Successive Israeli governments distrust all but the most dramatic of Arab moves to peace, such as President Sadat’s visit to Israel in 1977. When there are peace negotiations, or, (as at present under US secretary of state John Kerry’s guidance) negotiations about negotiations, Israeli diplomats stick to the self-defeating ‘security first’ formula. As a result, Israelis get neither peace nor long-term security.

Prioritization of ‘security’ also turns into a doctrine whereby every political position of Israeli governments in the context of the conflict with Palestinians is framed in terms of ‘security’. The separation barrier is the most obvious current example of security as a doctrine. For Israel governments, the Israeli Supreme Court, and most of the Jewish Israeli public, the barrier is the ‘security fence’ which prevents terror attacks on Israeli citizens. For Palestinians, and Israeli peace activists such as Combatants for Peace (who offer educational tours of areas around the barrier), it is both a means to dispossess Palestinians of the land on which the wall is built and part of a whole network of walls, fences, gates, checkpoints and travel permits that separates them from each other, their land, and vital economic and civil services. In this and similar cases, Israeli ‘security’ concerns appear cynical, undermining the governments’ case that Israeli anxieties about security are genuine, rather than veiled efforts to perpetuate occupation.

Puppets4All Facebook page

Puppets4All Facebook page

Sometimes, however, it’s not a question of cynicism but outright silliness. Two weeks ago, on June 22nd, the 19th annual Palestinian children’s theatre festival was due to open in the El Hakawati theatre in East Jerusalem. But (as reported by Amira Hass in Ha’aretz), the director of the theatre, Mohammed Halayka, was summoned for questioning by what he said was the Shin Bet security service. Then the Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch issued an order closing the theatre for eight days beginning on the scheduled first day of the festival, on the grounds that the event would be held ‘under the auspices of or sponsored by the Palestinian Authority’, which would contravene an Israeli law passed as part of the Oslo peace process. The law is designed to rebut Palestinian claims to East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed unilaterally following the 1967 war. It’s a matter of sovereignty, not security.

Riki blich , actress -Israel Pupprts4all# — with Riki blich.

Riki blich , actress -Israel
Pupprts4all# — with Riki blich.

Aharonovitch’s move also exposes the silliness of the security doctrine. There have been several Israeli as well as Palestinian protests against the theatre closure, including a petition signed by many Israeli actors, playwrights and directors (as reported by Haggai Matar on the +972 blog). On Thursday, June 27th, a theatrical protest was held, a carnival of colour, masks, music, movement, and a wonderful spoken word poetry performance by Moriel Rothman. Perhaps the best response, however, has come in the form of a Facebook page ‘Puppets4All’, on which many Israeli and other performers have posted pictures of themselves and a puppet or two with a sign reading ‘I too am a security threat’. All of which leaves Minister Aharonovitch looking not only like a version of scrooge (children’s theatre? – bah humbug!) but also like a ‘total muppet’. If Israel’s security doctrine sees danger in these puppets, then that only proves that the danger is in the eye of the beholder. It’s well passed time for Israel’s leaders – and publics – to see that actual peace is the best – the only – security.

Open Letter to Natan Blanc, an Israeli conscientious objector

3 Replies
Poster for Yesh Gvul solidarity protest for Natan Blanc

Poster for Yesh Bgvul solidarity protest for Natan Blanc

Natan Blanc

Natan Blanc

Dear Natan,
I am sorry that I cannot be with you in solidarity today on the hill opposite Atlit prison, taking part in the protest against your detention. I am far away in the Unites States, on a wintry, snowy day in Indiana, though rain or shine, I would much rather be spending my day with other activists on the buses organised by the refuser-group, Yesh Gvul, bringing you some moral support as you serve your fifth spell in military jail no. 6. Outside jail, the 20 days of this sentence, in addition to the previous four sentences since November 19, 2012, would slip by quickly. Inside, the time and boredom must weigh heavily on you. It takes a great deal of fortitude to be willing to serve one sentence after another, to persist in your refusal to serve in the Israeli armed forces. We have been privileged to read recently the intimate account by another conscientious objector, Moriel Rothman, of his spell in military jail. From afar, I can only admire your determination and commend the sacrifice you are willing to make for the sake of justice and peace.

I don’t know how much it helps you as you serve your sentence to imagine the people in Israel and beyond who want to give you their strength in support of your ethical stance. But in any case, let me say a little about myself. Some 18 years ago, as a (by then not so new) immigrant, I was inducted into the Israeli armed forces but refused to get on a bus taking us for basic training in the Occupied Territories. I, however, was lucky enough not to have to test my mettle for more than an hour, when an officer prompted me to come up with a personal problem so that I could stay at Tel Hashomer (the induction base) for another week. The same officer then released me until another induction date a few months later, and by the time that day came around I had found my first academic position in the UK and left Israel. It was hard enough to stand my ground for an hour in the car park in the face of various threats and cajolements: I don’t know what it feels like to persist and endure for more than 70 days.

Unlike myself, who grew up in Britain, for most of my teens in the warm environment of a Zionist youth movement, Habonim-Dror, you have had to find your way through the intensive socialization of the Israeli education system on the value and benefits of military service. More than that, you must have to contend with a huge amount of peer pressure, to toe the line, to do your duty to “defend” your country, to prove yourself as a man, to turn yourself into a “full” Israeli citizen, to take on your share of the burden that so many voices today clamor to share equally. In your refusal declaration, you show how clearly you see the blindness, denial, and even outright hypocrisy in all these statements about duty, defense and nationalism. As you say:

It is clear that the Netanyahu Government … is not interested in finding a solution to the existing situation, but rather in preserving it. From their point of view, there is nothing wrong with our initiating a “Cast Lead 2″ operation every three or four years … and we will prepare the ground for a new generation full of hatred on both sides. As … citizens and human beings, [we] have a moral duty to refuse to participate in this cynical game.

Somehow in your 19 year old wisdom you have already learned to see through the ingrained militarism of Israeli culture and society. You already practise the principles of New Profile, the feminist anti-militarism organisation that opposes the occupation, advocates the right of conscientious objection to military service, and supports you and other refusers practically. In their charter, they write that:

we refuse to go on raising our children to see enlistment as a supreme and overriding value. We want a fundamentally changed education system, for a truly democratic civic education, teaching the practice of peace and conflict resolution, rather than training children to enlist and accept warfare.

So, you do not see military service as a value, but instead have taken on another burden, another duty, an ethical duty to refuse to participate in the ongoing oppression and violence of the occupation.
But I do not share equally with you the burden of that duty. Nor when I was 19 could I see as clearly as you do now. No doubt at some point you will be – have been – called a coward. But you are braver than your conformist accusers. You will be told that you are naïve, a lover of your enemies. Yet, you are wiser than your detractors, the purveyors of hate. You will be told that you are a shirker, yet you have taken on a greater burden than any of those cogs in the machines of war and occupation. Thank you for your service.