Joel Schalit

Preoccupied Territories

Shoutout to the Border Police

On June 5th 1967, the Six Day War officially began. In less than a week’s time, Israeli forces had wrested control of the Sinai peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Though Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt in 1982, and dismantled its settlements in Gaza two years ago, it continues to retain control of the West Bank and the Golan.

Dubbed the “Occupied Territories“,  Israeli rule of these lands has had far reaching consequences for both their inhabitants and Israelis alike. On June 5th 2007, though I’d had no plans to formally mark the war’s fourtieth anniversary, I found myself doing the exact opposite of what most Israeli Jews did that day: eating lunch at the home of a Christian Arab friend, in the Israeli town of Nazareth.

The meal began with a parsley salad, followed by a plate of lamb-filled lasagna. In between, the hostess served her own home made kubbeh, followed by a main course consisting of roast beef, baked potatoes and cheese. Desert was doled out in three stages: fresh fruit, followed by a cornmeal-based creme caramel, and finally, a mix of pistachio ice cream and lime sorbet.

Even though we all knew each other fairly well, for some reason, the atmosphere was somewhat tense. Long moments of silence were followed by intense, bilingual bursts of nervous conversation in Hebrew and English. Everything felt forced. In this context, the immense quantities of rich foods served their purpose, bludgeoning all of those in attendance with their heaviness.

It was only after the meal that talk turned to politics. Using Vance’s presence as a pretext to discuss the situation in Iraq, our host expressed enormous frustration with US strategy in the region. Though I had little opportunity to overhear the specifics of his complaints, out of the corner of my eye, I could see our host’s elbows jerking right and left, as he heatedly sought to articulate his concerns.

My attention, however, was focused on our hostess, who’d sat down next to me after serving us dessert. “This is for your wife,” she said. Handing me a box of Christian Dior perfume, she told me how beautiful she found Jennifer, and how much she admired her short, bleached hair. “Your wife is very courageous to wear it like that,” she said. “Please give her my warmest regards.”

California Orientalist

The mental health ploy had worked. She’d just gotten excused from her army service, and had come to the United States to go to art school. Standing in the kitchen of my old Richmond district apartment, K. [her pseudonym]  sampled two versions of hummus: one from Trader Joe’s, the other from a local Armenian deli. "Oy, they’re horrible," she exclaimed. "However hard they try, Americans cannot make hummus."

Thus, the perennial refrain of most Israelis living in the Bay Area. And its true. In nearly every instance, American hummus is consistently terrible. Either there’s not enough tahina (or any), or for some reason, ingredients such as mayonnaise, cream and salt are present. Even the so-called ‘organic’ versions are offensive, oftentimes sporting vegetable flavorings. Imagine an exotic wheat paste sprinkled with paprika. That’s what it tastes like.

Though my Israeli house guest is long gone from San Francisco (she now lives in NYC), we finally have a restaurant where the hummus is competitive with the best that the Middle East has to offer. As good as anything I’ve had at Yafo’s Abu Hassan, or Akko’s Hummus Said, this hole in the wall, run by several wonderful guys from Jerusalem, has made the Bay Area a better place to live.

Located in the heart of SF’s Mission district, the unsurprisingly titled Old Jerusalem, serves another dish of equal significance: Salat Turki. A standard at most Israeli fast food places, try and find it in the US, and you’ll be totally disappointed. Though its not listed on the menu, it is indeed available, and it absolutely kills. A fifteen minute walk from our house, Jennifer and I eat at OJ at least once a week.

"Never trust an Israeli’s judgement of Arab food," a Kuwaiti graduate student friend once joked to me as we inhaled Turkish coffee together in Toronto. "They’re all one-dimensional orientalists." I thought about these hilarious, stinging words as a Lebanese colleague of mine worked his way through the hummus the other night during an editorial meeting we held at the restaurant.

"Bloody hell," he blustered as he dipped a thick piece of pita into the hummus. "This stuff is so good, you’d think they started this place just for us."

Covering Israel

From an essay in progress

Turn to any progressive periodical in the United States today, and in all likelihood, you’ll find at least one article about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. From large circulation monthlies such as Z Magazine, and the American Prospect, to weeklies like The Nation and online dailies such as Counterpunch and Salon, reporting on the region tends to reflexively match events on the ground, either in the form of investigative articles or opinion editorials.

Coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict by America’s left press has traditionally focused on the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the plight of Palestinians living under Israeli military rule. This emphasis was sharpened during the course of the two intifadas (1987-1991 and 2000-2005) and the peace process of the 1990s, when settlement building actually increased, and the Israel Defense Forces inaugurated its policy of geographical bisections and closures in the ‘territories.

Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, this area of coverage has expanded to include analyses of Israel’s relationship with the United States, with a specific emphasis on the role of the “Israel Lobby” in formulating US foreign policy towards the Islamic world. Reflecting ongoing concerns about Israel’s purported impact on the US decision to go to war with Iraq, in the eyes of many progressive magazine editors, Israel is no longer just an occupying power, but an inordinately influential, and frequently manipulative party to US efforts to dominate the Middle East.

When it comes to domestic Israeli politics, progressive periodicals pay little attention to it, except when it holds importance for the country’s peace prospects. Thus, when trade unionist Amir Peretz was elected head of Israel’s Labor Party in November 2005, progressive periodicals welcomed his appointment, hoping that, given Peretz’ leftwing background, he would reinvigorate the peace process. Similarly, when Israel Beitenu chief Avigdor Lieberman was appointed ‘Minister of Strategic Threats’ in 2006, given his ultra-nationalist politics, Lieberman’s appointment was heralded as a threat to peace.

[For my outgoing editor's take on how Tikkun covered Israel, click here.]

Zizek for Passover

So what would be the truly radical ethico-political act today in the
Middle East? For both Israelis and Arabs, it would be to renounce the
(political) control of Jerusalem–that is, to endorse the
transformation of the Old Town of Jerusalem into an extra-state place
of religious worship controlled (temporarily) by some neutral
international force. What both sides should accept is that, by
renouncing the political control of Jerusalem, they are effectively
renouncing nothing–they are gaining the elevation of Jerusalem into a
genuinely sacred site. What they would lose is only what already
deserves to be lost: the reduction of religion to a stake in political
power plays.

From Let’s be Realists, Let’s Demand the Impossible!, In These Times, August 30th, 2006

Tanya Reinhart RIP

I just received word that Tanya Reinhart passed away this weekend in New York. She was sixty-three. What a terrible tragedy. My condolences go out to her family and friends. It was only today that I learned she’d moved to Manhattan towards the end of last year, in order to assume a teaching position at NYU.

Though I didn’t agree with all of her positions, Reinhart’s tireless efforts to end the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are worthy of the utmost respect. In the last issue of Tikkun that I edited (Jan/Feb 2007), Jerome Slater wrote an absolutely outstanding meditation on Reinhart’s most recent book, The Road Map to Nowhere. You can read it here.

Aside from a brief email exchange we’d had in the Spring of 2005, the last time I talked to Reinhart was almost exactly three years ago, when I interviewed her for LiP Magazine. An eight hundred word excerpt ended up running in the Summer 2004 issue. I just found a copy of the unedited transcript, and thought these following words would be good to remember Reinhart by:

LiP: Is there an Israeli left at this point?

Reinhart: What’s been extremely encouraging – my ray of light in these bleak days – is to observe that in the young generation there is a movement of resistance that is completely new and courageous. It’s the same generation that got its roots in the anti-WTO demonstrations in Seattle. You first noticed it with the draft resistance movement, which is now bigger than it ever was.

Another amazing new development is that there is a whole new popular resistance movement initiated by Palestinian farmers along the line of the new fence whose land is being stolen by Israelis for the fence. Along that line, in village after village, you’ll find the entire village sitting on the ground in front of the bulldozers. Together with them you’ll find young Israelis.

For the first time in the history of the Occupation, you’ll find the Israeli army facing Palestinians and Israelis together sitting together defending Palestinian land. For me, it’s a big source of hope.

This blog entry can also be found on Alternet.