Border Issues

I don't blog politics.  Why is that?  Maybe because there's no trace of balance in politics, making it a lost cause from the start, as far as this blogger is concerned.  I also prefer not to compare apples and oranges, but in this case I'm living, or have lived, close enough to each of these situations to feel the relevancy.

I am referring to state borders and the fences that demarcate them.   This piece appeared in last Tuesday's NY Times, with an accompanying slide show. I found interesting the photo below, showing the simple barbed wire that later progressed into a taller, chained-linked fence, and which is now on its way to being a double fence separated by a no-man's land. 

Pat Nixon, the former first lady, at a dedication of Border Field State Park in 1971. "I hate to see a fence anywhere," she said. 

I know next to nothing about the former First Lady's politics or belief system, but I believe that she did hate to see a fence, probably because it reminds her of the suffering that has always accompanied the building of border fences -- the splitting up of families, suffering of children, economic upheaval, sickness, and loss of hope for the future.   

Seeing the fence would put her human, emotional side at odds with her intellectual understanding of the need for such a fence, and the ramifications of not having one. Forty years ago, the U.S. could only begin to imagine the effects of a mass illegal Central American immigration on the state and national economy, health care and education systems, water needs, and many, many other sectors of society.

So by now you've probably figured out the other border that comes to mind what else I'm thinking about... the wall (alternately referred to as a fence, since in places it does alternate between the two) marking the boundary between pre- and post-1967 Israel, and clearly visible from our house.  

(This view is actually from our neighbors' back garden, since it's clearer than the one from our balcony).

I remember the days before the wall was completed... the multiple car and animal thefts, the helicopter searches for potential terrorists in the valley below our moshav,* the afternoon shut-down of the mall in the city a few kilometers away due to terror warnings (apparently the bombers reached the mall, realized something was amiss, and were caught by the border patrol as they tried to cross back over the border).  Make no mistake:  I am happy the wall is there, because I know that without it, our lives were directly threatened.

I'm aware, as Mrs. Nixon was, that we pay a human price every time we demarcate a boundary and reinforce a border, and also that we pay a different price, both human and economic, every time we don't.  For years we have continued to live for years with a boundary situation that does not fit into a neat category, about which we as a nation have not reached a consensus, and concerning which most of the world feels an obligation to judge us, time and again, despite a naive and simplistic analysis of a very complex situation. And if that weren't enough, we are being "led" by politicians who cannot seem to get their personal or national priorities straight on the most basic of levels.

When I first read the NY Times article, I felt a moment of, Ah!  Take that, California, before you continue to condemn us for protecting our country and its citizens.  

No, this is far from a new issue.  California, and the entire U.S., have been dealing with immigration issues for years, long before President Bush, and long, long before 9/11.  Despite the numerous differences, do we have something to learn from U.S. policy?  Perhaps, but -- bottom line -- most of their considerations are still economic ones.  As much as economics has a direct effect on people's lives, for the most part in the U.S. it isn't considered to be an issue of national survival.  (Well, maybe these days it is...)

As for our multiple difficulties over here, I'm trying to keep a long-term perspective;  after all, with 158 years of statehood under their belts, even California is still trying to figure things out.  

I'm not sure if we should find that scary or reassuring.

.שבת שלום

Keep the balance,

ALN

_____

* In case you're wondering, our moshav was incorporated by Jews of North African descent in 1964 who chose to come to Israel but wanted little to do with the state's policy of dumping them upon their arrival in what was then the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night).

Names and Implications

Though I've chosen not to use this blog as a forum for political commentary, we expatriot Americans in Israel are facing two important elections, and some of the issues that come up along the way are too important -- and interesting -- to ignore.

One semester of linguistics does not a cultural linguist make.  But as a dabbler in the topic, especially one concerned with civil liberties, I found Brent Staples' NY Times editorial on racist use of language to be worth a read. The piece isn't long, but here's a taste:

Mr. Obama seems to understand that he is always an utterance away from a statement — or a phrase — that could transform him in a campaign ad from the affable, rational and racially ambiguous candidate into the archetypical angry black man who scares off the white vote. His caution is evident from the way he sifts and searches the language as he speaks, stepping around words that might push him into the danger zone.

I'm very aware that for many Jews, Obama's campaign has raised eyebrows and questions regarding how an Obama presidency would or wouldn't benefit Israel.   Regardless of your views in that regard, the Mr. Staples raises here are a jarringly important reminder that there are many, many people out there for whom basic issues of race are far from resolved.  Wish it weren't so...

Keep the balance,

ALN

Whose Village Is It?

Today I saw an ad for an exclusive property somewhere in California -- the kind with "architecturally masterful residences on spectacular view lots,"  and a private country club on the grounds.  The three photos in the ad show, respectively:  a stone mansion, a family standing around a poolside dinner table, and a man looking proudly at his son as the two of them meander across a golf course.  

The ad text contains all the code words for "exclusive community."  The small print at the bottom lists all the legal mumbo-jumbo, including the following (taken here from their website, which shall not be linked, to protect the innocent):  

And what skin color do all the models have?  I'll give you one guess.  

Now jump to an article in last Sunday's Los Angeles Times (worth reading, to gain an understanding of the context).

After he bought his first home, state Assemblyman Hector De La Torre uncovered a dark chapter in its history: A covenant attached to the original deed declared that the house, like all the others in his South Gate neighborhood, could be occupied by white people only. Minorities could stay there -- but only as servants.

It is a discovery that has startled any number of California homeowners. Many of the state's vast subdivisions, particularly in Los Angeles County, were once governed by restrictive racial covenants designed to enforce segregation. Those covenants have been illegal for more than half a century, but their offensive rules remain part of some deeds. Most home buyers encounter the issue when they are asked to sign a disclosure as part of the escrow process, pledging to ignore any racist language.

Turns out that a 1948 law declared these covenants legally unenforceable;  however, Mr. De La Torre wishes to improve on the situation:

This year, he proposed a law that would require racially restrictive covenants -- it is estimated that there are hundreds of thousands statewide -- to be stricken from the public record at the time of the next sale.

The covenants were created in the 1920's, 30's and 40's, primarily to keep Blacks (as well as "Jews, Italians, Russians, Muslims, Latinos and Asians") out of housing developments.  According to one L.A. city councilman, the unequal distribution of resources from back then, is still felt today.  (And yes, there are people protesting the law, on historical and bureaucratic grounds).

Dismaying, and yet I cannot take the moral high ground.  Why not?  Because for one, I live in a place that has a covenant of its own.  In order to purchase our house, we had to be approved by a committee of moshav members and residents. We had to show that we were Shomrei Shabbat, and that we were "stable" people (hmmm....).

Now, I'm all for stability, mental and otherwise, and after having had it each way, I would definitely choose to live in a community that observes Shabbat, since Shabbat really does require a minimum level of community observance and togetherness to be fully felt.

As for the ethnicity issue, that one's a doozy.  The founders of our moshav are of North African descent, and we in the neighborhood will forever be the "Ashkenazim," with all its colorful implications.  (Now there's multiculturalism). It's not at all clear how many people on our moshav, from either cultural background, would be willing to relinquish racially-based housing covenants, were we to have them. 

Israel is made up of many types of communities.  There are cities, such as Yaffo (Jaffa) and Haifa, as well as smaller communities in the Galil, where people different cultures live together with a certain level of ease not found in, say, Jerusalem and its surroundings.  There are stories of Muslim families who have fought legal battles to live in Jewish-owned neighborhoods and apartment buildings in Tel Aviv and its environs, and stories of Jewish families staking out claims in Muslim neighborhoods.

If these examples are too intense for you, let's get back to something most of us can agree on, like all the Ethiopians we air-lifted on rescue missions, only to confine them to dead-end "development" towns like Dimona and Ofakim.  And what about "guest" workers?  They're not even on the map.  We invite them in to do our dirty work, only to chase them down and throw them out.

Bottom line:  these covenants --  both written and unwritten -- certainly exist today, within Israel and without, at all levels of society.  I think all of us can do better.

Keep the balance,

ALN

liberal? yes. "Liberal?" Absolutely not

For now they're playing an endless running loop on the news, since that's all they have, but we know it will be replaced soon with an update, or some other news.  For the parents of Udi and Eldad z"l, that endless loop might never stop playing.

The "Left" will say, It's all Israel's fault -- the Occupation, of course.  They have no choice.

A person with any sense of humanity will say:  Nothing justifies this.

Two mangled, tortured bodies, and those of others of our soldiers, returned to their families after two years of almost no word.  In "exchange" for what?  One live murderer, four additional terrorists, and nearly two hundred bodies, including those of of terrorists.  

What have we come to?

True, this is one of the highest mitzvot, redeeming Jewish POWs.  It is crucial closure for those families who lost their sons, husbands, fathers, and brothers in Lebanon.  It closes another chapter of our country's pained history.

But at what price?  

Every time we apologize, every time we justify, every time we capitulate, it weakens our country and ultimately threatens our lives.  Our troubled civil rights conflicts, our loudly corrupt and undeserving leadership, our painful national decisions -- these are all a legitimate part of life in a democracy.  

The countries around us do not ever apologize for human rights violations or breeches of international warfare laws.  No one ever expects them to.  I am waiting, in vain, for the capital-L Liberals to notice and correct this irrationality.

Hizb'Allah has clarified its goals:  Political manipulation, human torture, ethnic cleansing and displacement, outright warfare.  And that's how they treat Lebanese Christian Arabs.  For Israel the stated goal is total destruction.  

Let's not act like idiots, let's not be confused.    Hizb'Allah is not confused.  

Keep the balance,

ALN