Meet the Cast, and Disjunction, Inertia, Action: Wha?!

I've had a bit of a weird, disjunctive week since I didn't go to Ramallah last week. Before I get into that, though, I've had a request that I talk a bit more about the people in my life here, so I'll do that first, as it leads in quite nicely to the point I'm going to go on to attempt to thrash out from the tumult of my mind.

So, I'm living with my Dad (Yehuda/Yuda/Yud [the latter is what people seem to call him here; I'm convinced it's a codename and hence a sign that he works for Mossad, but he assures me it's just a nickname based on the fact that his name begins with the Hebrew letter of the alphabet 'yud' - suspicious, but he does manage a pretty convincing impression of someone who works in sales for EMC, I suppose, so I might be reading too much into a nickname...]) and his partner, Ilana. From that little aside there you'll have already gathered that Dad works in sales for a company called EMC; Ilana works in human resources for a company called Radware. They're both very warm and welcoming. Dad is addicted to swimming, and seems to have been given lots of books for his recent birthday, as well as initiating outings to the cinema pretty regularly; Ilana goes swimming less regularly but also to the gym, cooks amazing food very casually all the time, and has a pHD in Psychology, so that she's interesting to talk to about human behavioural patterns and so on. (I hope I'm not making a hash of meeting the above request: I don't really know quite what information people are looking for, so am wildly improvising.)

The other place I stay when I need to be in Central Tel Aviv (Ramat Hasharon is a suburb next to Herzliyah) is with my sister, Anna. Anna is a self-professed workaholic at the moment, for a marketing and communications company called Tamooz. Her job looks really cool, working on these giant marketing booths that pharmaceutical companies use to market their products at big symposiums of doctors, very creative. She also has lots of really fun friends who she's been kind enough to introduce me to: her flatmate, Ben, who works for the African Refugee Development Centre and has a cool accent and an impressive DVD collection; her friend Keri, whose Brummy accent sounded Australian to me at first, and who always strikes me as very chilled out and cheerful; her friend Aviva, who passed on wisdom from working as a mother's helper with a very funny mime of changing a nappy in the Mediterranean Sea the other day; her friends Sheni and Chen, who she works with and lives near to and are both very friendly and fun. Anna herself can be very playful and silly, which is fun, but also really good to talk serious issues through with, although things can get a bit heated if we find ourselves disagreeing, but what's family for if not to be truly yourself and descend into the odd argument with?

Inbal and Iran are Ilana's daughter and son-in-law; Inbal's English is very good because she lived in Canada for a while, and she did some English Literature modules at Uni so we have that in common, and she's very animated and lively; Iran is very friendly but seems to be most comfortable in Hebrew, which is a good incentive for me to speed up my progress as much as possible! They live just around the corner from us in Ramat Hasharon, and are having a baby this month, which is VERY exciting! Orneet, Inbal's older sister, lives in New York with her husband Dino and their two children Omer and Dafna, but they're coming to visit soon, so yay! Osnat, another sister of Inbal's, had reportedly disappeared when I came here, but we went out for a meal with her the other night. I always have the feeling that I've seen Osnat on TV, but I think I've mentioned this in the past and she denied it!

Turning from family to friends, Jude has just made Aaliyah and Jono has been here studying Hebrew over the Summer: they're the people I was going to go to Ramallah with, and I know them from studying English together at Cambridge Uni. They're people who share my interest in politics, and are also a bit mad and unpredictable, so great people to meet with no idea of your plans and have an adventure! Jono is sadly going back to Cambridge for his final year today, but he'll be back in December, so that's cool. Tali has just arrived as well; I know her from the lefty scene in England, and she'll be working for Magan David Adom (the Israeli branch of the Red Cross) and staying with her UNCLE, AMOS OZ, at some point!!!

Maya is the daughter of Dad's best friend from uni, lives just down the road from us, and is very cheery, fun and artistic company. She's always made me feel very welcome (and spoken English with me!) when I've been in Israel for shorter visits, so I'm glad to have some extended time to hang out with her in. Her friend Lenoy, who I've met a few times, is also very friendly and fun, so hopefully I'll see more of her too.

Yael is a friend I met in a hostel in Vienna whilst inter-railing round Europe a few year's ago: she's been having back problems, so I've only managed to see her once so far, but hopefully we'll be able to see more of each other from now on. She's what would be known in Cambridge as a 'Mathmo' (Mathmetician), and very friendly and thoughtful.

My class at Ulpan (Hebrew School!) is full of fun, friendly people and we've had various outings to the beach and whatnot. They're from all around the world, with India, Mexico, Indonesia, France and Peru being just a few examples, and a heady mix of Jewish, non-Jewish and partially Jewish! Some of them have married Israelis and either made aaliyah or moved here to be with them/spend some time here with them; some are younger and have just come for a bit of fun pre- or post-uni; some have just come to work on their Hebrew and spend more time here; some are hoping to move here to work. Patrick, who was the first person from Ulpan to give me his mobile number, deserves a special mention: he's very mean to me, but apparently it's because we're such good friends and I'm mean to him too. There are also Aline and Lian ('The Mexican Girls'), Tamar and Iman ('The German Girls'), Becky from France, Cara who's very posh and has thus out-Englished me, Bertille who walks in slow motion and seems very kind and patient, Enrique who dropped everything to come here with his girlfriend of three weeks and sits next to me in class; the list goes on! Emma is someone I met through a TEFL workshop but who studies at the same Ulpan as me, has a very comforting, familiar London accent, and studied English like me.

The final people to mention are of course Dani, the mother whose helper I am, and Amalia and Lian, the eleven month old twins, and Arabella, the two year old. Dani is very nice, and studied at Oxford, so understands about how Cambridge works. The twins are absolutely adorable, as is Arabella, if going through the slightly posessive phase I think is common at two. The other day she decided briefly I was trying to steal the pram with the twins in, but seemed to forget her suspicions a minute later, so that was OK.

So, this last week, there's been stuff happening in Ramat Hasharon and with family for Sukkot, and having a job has kept me a bit busier, and admittedly I had one of those really nothingy days mid-week where I couldn't make myself do anything productive. The point is, there's a disjunction between just living out your daily life here, spending time with family, working, studying Hebrew, going to the cinema or to the shops; and knowing what things are like in the Occupied Territories, wondering how to resolve it all, and discovering, irony of ironies, that the weekend I didn't go to Ramallah, a bomb was planted outside the Dizengoff Centre, where I go all the time. Jude and Jono came back from Ramallah, and later from Bethlehem, really distressed by what they'd seen and heard, so that in the space of a week I went from feeling crazy left wing around them to almost feeling right wing!

The point is, though, the stuff they're shocked by, I know it's happening. It doesn't shock me anymore. It's there, all the time, as I eat my frozen yoghurt or swim in the sea or play with the babies I work with. And it's bad, don't get me wrong, it's very very very bad. Settlers shooting at Palestinians, people getting shot for walking too close to the wall, being held up at check points in their underwear for hours or tortured by the IDF; maybe these are just stories people tell tourists, but I doubt it. It's real, and you might understand it as self-defence or survival or measures that were necessary after the intifada but, if you're going to value all human life equally and call a spade a spade, it's wrong.

But the question is, what does obsessing about it and worrying about it and feeling guilty about it and arguing with my family about it actually achieve, other than stress and distress and no change to the situation? Does it absolve me that I'm mad as hell about the settlement freeze not being extended and the peace talks falling apart if I can't think of anything to do about it other than boycotting settlement goods and deciding not to risk being the next Rachel Corrie? Added to which, the most apt analogy for the situation here that I've come across is by Amos Oz: imagine that Israel is a person who's been drowning for centuries and finally grabs a boat and hauls themself up, only to push Palestine, also imagined as a person, into the sea to start drowning. So one side is still haunted by memories of drowning and constantly fears drowning; and as a horrible, ironic consequence, the other side is now drowning. Of course, I don't know how to extend the analogy to include the role of the old imperial powers and how the Palestinians are treated in the Arab world and so on, but the point is that seeing and recognising the reality of the situation in Palestine shouldn't compromise one's ability to see and recognise the situation in Israel, without descending into liberal proposals that we all just have a cosy chat over falafel and don't make too fine a point of the occupation. And let's not lose sight of the fact that the situation in Palestine catagorically isn't the worst one in the world, even if that doesn't really help anyone and isn't an excuse, it's just a question of keeping in mind the fact that all the vitriol against Israel from people in countries that are occupying Iraq and Afghanistan ought really to be more contextualised.

So what I've decided is that, whilst my views on what needs to happen haven't really changed, if I'm not doing something concrete to bring it about, I'm going to allow myself to enjoy being in Israel with my family. If I can have a productive conversation with someone about the conflict, then I will, but if all I'm doing is going round in circles and driving myself and the people around me mad, then is that really any better than allowing myself to forget about it for a while? That way, I can hopefully have the energy for action!

Suggestions for what action to take on a postcard to the usual address, please (i.e. as comments, although feel free to write a comment about something else!)