Greek Samarian tragedy

Judea and Samaria, the Occupied Territories and the West Bank are three names that describe the complex reality of almost 6,000 square meters of rolling hills punctuated by gentle slopes.  Of all issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is the true Gordian knot, almost irresolvable.

The names reflect the strong emotions attached to this area.  For religious Jews and fervent Zionists, it an integral part of Israel and a homeland, inhabited by Jews as early as there were Jews.  Israel without it is a shadow of itself. For Palestinians, it is their land slowly and unremittingly being usurped by Israeli colonists.  As much as Jerusalem, it is the core of Palestine as they see it. Geographically, it is a beautiful landscape matched by its gentle climate, warm during the day and cool and night. In short, it is a beautiful place prized by conflicting parties.

A naïve person would say that there is plenty of land for everybody.  95% of the population there (and everywhere) simply want to make a living, raise their family and live in peace. With such a preference for pacifism, it would seem obvious that neighbors of different faiths could live in reasonable harmony as they do in the Galilee.

Alas, each side fundamentally wants the other side to disappear, one way or another. This hope for total victory, however improbable, opens the field to extremists among Moslems and Jews to call for hate and violence. The result is absurd: Jewish settlements and Palestinian villages adjoining each other but without relations of any kind due to the heavy distrust of each other. Not only that, a mythical return to the pre-1967 borders is as realistic as a return to pre-Cromwell borders in Ireland.

In my view it is a human tragedy above all. As is generally true in the Middle East, there are no angels and devils in this story, merely two groups of people justifiably insisting on their right to reside in the land of their forefathers. As for the solution, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, the answer is blowing in the wind of those beautiful but contested hills.

Camels and Israel

One of the strangest tourist purchases in Israel is a wooden camel with the word “Jerusalem” printed on it.  First of all, there are and were no camels in Jerusalem.  Secondly, its continued sales suggest that tourists view Israel as a great desert, a smaller version of the Sahara if you will. The reality is that Israel is a small country with a rather wide variety of landscapes, flora, fauna and climates.

The coastal region is flat and humid, albeit with some sand dunes where developers have not yet received building permits. Inland, north and south are very different. The Galilee gently rises from coast, reaching its peak at Mount Hermon, some 9,000 feet above sea level and dropping to the Sea of the Galilee, some 700 feet below sea level.  Rain is plentiful by local standards, meaning that flora thrives most of the year. The summers can be hot, but are far less humid.

Continuing eastwards, the Golan Heights, barely an hour’s drive from the Galilee, is a high volcanic plain, punctuated by gorges and flowing rivers (streams in other countries).  Hot in the summer and cold, even snowing, in the winter, it is a place rich with plants, including wineries, and animals with few human inhabitants.  My wife and I recently spend a weekend there and enjoyed the view and noise, specifically the tweets of all the birds at our window unaccompanied by rumble of vehicle motors.

In the center of the country, a steep road leads to Jerusalem, some 2000 feet above sea level, surrounded by mountain forests. Eastwards, the rolling hills of Judea and Samaria reflect a somewhat dry climate, green in the winter and brown in the summer but attractive in any case.

Traveling southwards, somewhere past Gadera, the Negev desert begins, reaching its arid peak at the Dead Sea. Yet, even here, the landscape is not uniform.  The northern part does receive some rain, creating incredible but short lived fields of flowers. The horizon is broken by protruding rocks, dry steam beds and crevices.  The closer to Eilat, the Southern tip of Israel, the drier and sandy the view becomes. However, at various oases, such as Ein Gedi, date palms flourish.

Of all the places I mentioned, the only real place you will find camels is in the Negev, where you can actually ride a camel, a surprisingly pleasant experience. That is why the Jerusalem camel is so absurd. On the other hand, a wooden rock hyrax, a much more common site, would be much harder to explain.

Jerusalem of gold, copper and light

Trump’s controversial announcement to move the US embassy to Jerusalem has elicited a larger than usual number of skew comments.  What I mean is that the various reactions do not relate to the same Jerusalem although the name of the city is the same.

To explain, to religious and ideological Jews, Jerusalem is the soul of Judaism, the basis of the faith, and is symbolized by the Wailing Wall and Temple Mount.  Without Jerusalem, Israel has no anchor for existence. While this image is very strong and commonly felt even by non-religious Jews, it ignores many facts. A Jewish state without Jerusalem in ancient times did exist when there was a split between Judah and Israel. Secondly, administratively and population wise, East Jerusalem is more Jordanian/Palestinian than Israeli.  Many of its key institutions are directly or indirectly run by Amman, including the educational system and Waqf. Despite the fact that Jerusalem was united more than 40 years ago, it remains a divided city.

That does not mean that the official Muslim portrayal of Jerusalem is any more accurate. In the eyes of many Muslim, Jerusalem is the city from where Mohamed rose to heaven. Its holiness is symbolized by the Golden Dome Mosque, Al-Aqsa. Jewish control of the area represents a spiritual threat to the religion as a political threat to the Palestinians, who also consider Jerusalem as their religious anchor. This approach ignores the fact that the mosque is build on the ruins of a church, which is built on the ruins of the two ancient Jewish temples, which was built in the area conquered by the Jewish King David from the …….  There is no certainly no clear Muslim or even Arabic title to this land. Moreover, the Koran does not even directly mention Jerusalem, although the city may be referred to indirectly. Thus, to claim that Jews have no title to the city is ridiculous.

The “neutral” international attitude to Jerusalem is muddled. Jerusalem has an important place in Christianity. Yet, Christian access is not threatened either by the former or new US position. More importantly, the world is bewildered by the fervency and lack of rationality in regards to any discussion regarding the city’s status. Thus, it prefers to bury the issue under the carpet and allocate to later discussions between the disputing parties, who so far cannot agree on far simpler matters. On the other hand, like any fundamental dispute, the status of Jerusalem and its holy places will continue to heighten tensions to everybody’s loss. It is a bit of a Gordian knot. It is often forgotten that Jerusalem is not only a symbol but also a real city with people trying to cope with a complicated geographical, architectural, political and social structure.

My view is that fundamentally Trump’s declaration and eventual implementation changed very little. In any case, the US Embassy would be located in West Jerusalem. This move would not in fact prevent the Palestinians from having their own state and making East Jerusalem their capital if such a solution is ever agreed upon. The facts on the ground should (but do not always) determine the reality.  The two state solution is theoretically possible with Jerusalem as a divided city, albeit not necessarily according to pre-1967 borders on the condition that freedom of religion for all is maintained and the parties can agree.

Yes, I know the John Lennon song Imagine comes to mind, hopefully or cynically. In any case, we need a bit of Naomi Shemer‘s light to enter the Middle East and allow people to live their lives in peace. Let all of us pray to the peace of Jerusalem, whichever city you have in mind.  If we can make that happen, anything is possible.

Conventional Relevance

I just returned from my 5^th Israeli Translators Convention.  Attending such an event requires a significant investment of money, time and energy.  Many people, translators and non-translators alike, ask what the return on this investment is.

The most obvious benefit is knowledge, whether immediately practical or not.  Dubbing, subtitling and faction translation are not even a marginal part of most translators business, all of which were explained in a wonderful clear manner, Yet, I feel somehow richer understanding the requirements and challenges of those fields since it expands my vision.

Of course, there were numerous technical workshops on various translation tools, including the MemoQ and SDL CAT tools (Computer Aided Translation), Abbyy Fine Reader and Word.  The concentrated and immediate access to experts is invaluable and really only available at conferences.

Of course, there were countless niche-specific presentations.  For those involved in the specific niche, the lecture provided priceless information. 

Finally, the conference was blessed by fascinating speeches from non-translators, ranging from Simcha Jacobici (the Naked Archaeologist), journalist Eetta Prince-Gibson, a Jerusalem based reporter, and Israeli writer Dorit Rabiniyan. 

Other areas of presentations included business, literary and cloud based translation.  Sometimes, it felt very frustrating only to be able to attend one lecture at a time.

The other major benefit, one that personally reinforces my energy and desire to do the best job possible, is the added proof, if one were necessary, that translation matters.  It affects how people understand the news, interpret the Bible, learn about other cultures through foreign fiction, cook a dish, understand a disease and defend their rights in court, to name just a few.  This often invisible part of the document production cycle is in fact no less important than the writing of the document itself.  In other words, even in some translators feel isolated and even neglected in their modern computer-equipped caves, we do indeed make the world better. 

So, it is back to work with a renewed understanding of why I read the small print of insurance contracts and articles of association.  We are relevant.  That confidence by itself is more than adequate compensation for the price of the conference.

Right and Wrong

There is an American story, whose name I have forgotten, about a man who gets a parking ticket and refuses to pay it.  He asks for a trial, which orders him to pay the fine or go to jail.  Always claiming to be right and refusing to pay, he ends up in prison.  It is clear to all of the readers, or 99% of them at least, that how matter how “right” the man s, he is wrong, i.e. stupid.

On a larger and more tragic scale, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has a similar theme.  It began on a small scale in the 1920’s, when Jews began to arrive in Palestine, first in trickles and then in tens of thousands in the 1930’s.  It is clear this entry of people from a different culture and religion would cause hostility.  The Jews were a clear psychological threat, whatever economic benefits their arrival brought.

This clash of cultures implied and still implies the impossibility of unity in terms of government.  According to a book that I am reading, The Palestinian Arab National Movement 1929-1936 by Y. Porth, the British in 1936 in one of their endless and futile attempts to make peace here, proposed a division of Palestine based on the population concentration at the time.  Specifically, the Jews would get the coastal plain, Tel Aviv, and Galilee.  Jerusalem and Tiberias would be administered by the British.  The rest would be run by Abdallah, King of Jordan.  While some of the Arab leadership was ready to accept the deal, the more active Palestinian leaders rejected it out of hand, rightly or wrongly.

 Jumping ahead, in 1948, the UN, the next organization to try to fix this mess, partitioned the country.  This time, the Jew would get the coastal plain, Galilee, Eilat, and half of Jerusalem.  This time, the Palestinians would have a country with the rest of the area.  After painful soul-searching, Ben Gurion and the Jewish leadership accepted this compromise.  The Palestinians, encouraged by Arab leaders, rejected this idea.  The result of the War of Independence was more land for Israel and no country for the Palestinians.

From 1948 to 1967, the Arabs and Palestinian leadership tried to use economic means to destroy Israel, refusing to negotiate.  The result was the 1967 war, which added the West Bank and Golan Heights, not to mention the other half of Jerusalem, to Israel. Of course, the Palestinians still had no state.

The Americans tried their hand as peacemakers.  The Oslo Agreement seemed to open the way to a Palestinian state, setting up a recognized Palestinian negotiating partner on sovereign territory.  Alas, the “all or nothing” mentality led to two intifadas and an extremist government in Gaza.  In the meantime, the Jewish population in Judea and Samaria has expanded, effectively expanding the size of Israel.

This is clearly a tragic story for millions of people on both sides of the conflict.  The responsibility for the Palestinian failure to accept, however grudgingly, a land compromise lies on the regional Arab leaders, local Palestinian leaders and, ultimately, the Palestinians themselves.  Just as the Irish people stopped supporting radical IRA and Protestant leaders and ended, however imperfectly, that “hopeless” conflict, so the Palestinians theoretically could one day have a viable state of their own. 

I am not so naïve as to believe in friendship in the next few generations, but it is time to end the validity of the famous comment “The Palestinians never miss any opportunity to miss an opportunity.”  Israelis and Palestinians are stuck together in a Catholic marriage.  Once that is accepted, a way to live together in harmony, if not love, can be found.  If not, it doesn’t make a difference what the policy of the Israeli government is.