Then again, what do I know? I come from a culture that tends to indulge our youth and spoil them with indulgences like a good education, racial and social equality, minimal threat of home invasion and the absence of collective punishment. I'm only suggesting that perhaps...just perhaps...that if they didn't have a responsive audience they might be less inclined to cause a raucous? Perhaps, if there are no Israeli soldiers driving up and down the street then there is no real incentive to throw stones? If a trashcan gets set on fire, perhaps the appropriate response is to put it out with a fire extinguisher? Or maybe just let it burn out as the pitiful little protest it is. After all, these events are not occurring in West Jerusalem in front of skittish tourists from Calgary. They are happening in the Arab neighborhoods. Wee little Mohammad's dad will eventually come out and say, "Son, you're stinking up the laundry your mom just hung on the line whenever you burn that rubbish. Please knock it off." It's just a guess. These are good people here, let them reign their own children in. I doubt they'll use firearms and crowd control devices to do it.
A resistance movement usually requires grievance, catalyst, and obstructive force. Take away any one of those ingredients and you've got nothing to worry about. I am suggesting that perhaps the patrols of Israeli soldiers serve any one of those three functions. Let's get Zen about it: If a group of children protest the Israeli occupation by throwing rocks and there are no soldiers around to see it, is it an intifada? These are just some thoughts that have popped into my head lately. Although, I shouldn't take credit for original thinking; I'm just being moderately observant. I seem to recall similar interactions with children somewhere before. Now where was it...kids were throwing stones... and the military responded with a disproportionate amount of force. Huh. Let's see... if I recall correctly, the whole world gasped in horror when they saw the images. Now where the heck was that? Oh wait...wait just one cotton pickin' minute! Wasn't it here..during the first intifada...and the second one, too....I wonder if there were any lessons we could have taken from those events. Naw, that's crazy. I doubt it.
So, I can already hear people rumbling about lack of respect for authority...if these kids have nothing to hide then they shouldn't fear the police...there is something wrong with a society that can't control their youth...blah, blah, blah. Let me just say to those people that perhaps lack of authority among pre-teens and teens isn't necessarily exclusive to the Palestinian population. I know for a fact that in highschool I was not the only person who ever hopped a fence when the cops busted the underage kegger in which I was in attendence. Nor was I the only teen who ever used the five finger discount at the local mall. Don't even get me started about spray paint, edible fungus, Spring Break and summers at the Shore. All in all, I was tame compared to others in my crowd. So, if we could all be so rebellious in a society that was relatively free of grievance, why can't kids who live under daily military occupation act out without being labeled "terrorists". At least they are rebellious about something that matters. There is something far more noble about a teen who rebels through political protest than a kid who rebels by puking up Jungle Juice on their neighbor's labrador retriever.
So, the pictures below are from my 'hood. This first one shows Israeli jeeps blocking the intersection as the soldiers run up the street to the school where kids are acting up. School lets out at 1pm, and the soldiers have been doing a couple of laps up and down the street in anticipation of recess.
The pattern goes like this: shots are fired, people scream, "sound bombs" are detonated and tear gas canisters are hurled...then people continue on their way. Now, before you ask "Well, what did the children do to provoke the soldiers?" I ask you to go back and re-read the pattern outlined above, and then take a long hard look at your own children/cousins/nieces and nephews/kids running around your table at Starbucks/an Anne Geddes poster...and you'll find that the only logical answer to that question is "like it matters".
...and repeat. Did I mention it's a school for children?...human children?...you know, gifts from God?
I watched all of this from our deck. The road was chaotic as cars tried to make u-turns to avoid the roadblock. As an Israeli woman drove past a bunch of Palestinian teenage boys, she started to curse at them. One of the boys stood in the street yelling vulgarities after her. Just then, a van full of guys in their late teens and early twenties pulled up and they all drove off in hot pursuit. I was washed over by a wave of nausea at that moment. I could only imagine what they would do to her if they caught up with her car. It is horrifying enough to see military violence, but there is something absolutely chilling when civilians hunt one another down. As much as I feared for this woman's safety, I thought: "How do you drive through a neighborhood that is already rife with tension and start talking smack?" I hoped that they wouldn't be able to find her, but I couldn't stop thinking about the hubris on her part. A short time later the van returned and I can only hope that she lost them.
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