Celebrating Eid al Fitr, the end of Ramadan

I've arrived safely at my destination, what an amazing journey that was, but I want to tell you about things before leaving. The checkpoints just opened today, following the end of the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashana. A few nights ago we celebrated Eid al Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan. We celebrated with a Muslim Palestinian family living in Israel in a town called Tira. We drove down streets lined with palm trees and filled with scantily clad Israeli women. A little farther down the road the street lights, women, and newly paved sidewalks dissappeared. Our hosts were wonderful people, I won't use their names to spare them an interrogation. The husband used to work for the UN but is now a genetic engineer at a university. The wife, a lifelong teacher. They invited us in for fresh squeezed strawberry juice and dates. Soon a rather ecclectic mix of guests arrived. The defense attache from the US embassy arrived with his southern belle trophy wife. The next couple came from Tel Aviv where the husband works in the defense industry and his wife is a cnosultant.

The weapons salesman immediately laid into the Defense attache, telling him "I've been having trouble with your people, they won't let this semi conductor deal go through." The DA politely explained that he had nothing to do with those transactions and that such delays were common in bureaucracies." The conversation drifted from topic to topic. My uncle said this was probably the one place where it would be ok to answer honestly about what I'm doing here. Soon the Defense Attaches wife asked "so what brings you to Israel?" I told her I was starting a teaching job. She asked where. I hesitantly said Nablus. She looked at me as if I'd just given her an enema with a popsicle. She forced a polite smile back onto her face and ended theconversation there.

Later in the evening we heard a series of loud pops and bangs. Everyone became noticably nervous until the hosts reassured us that it's customary to shoot off fireworks at the end of Ramadan. After dinner some guests left. We went outside to have tea. The air felt wonderful and it was a really quiet night. Soon we began to discuss discrimination against Israeli Muslims (the Palestinians who have sort of been absorbed into the Israeli state). The people in Tire pay the same taxesbut their town was a run down ghetto compared to Israeli Jewish city just a couple miles away. Their mayor, all the teachers and the school board have to be approved by the Mossad. I checked to make sure I heard the host correctly, you mean the Mossad like the security agency? The host explained how the Mossad simply barred well educated people who weren't willing to be minions from running for mayor, working as teachers, or serving in the school board. This is especially significant because they are Tira's only real forms of representation since it is to small to have a representative in the Knesset (basically Israels congress). During the last election they couldn't find a well educated citizen who was sufficiently submissive so they choose someone with a fourth grade education. The result was that the city was being run into the ground, the schools texts filled with offensive propaganda, and the land sold to immigrating Israeli Jews for cut rate prices.

Our host was not some gun weilding firebrand nut. He has a doctorate in genetics and chemistry, he's lived in Kenya, Toronto, Michigan, France, worked for the UN, and is now employed at a prestigious university. His descriptions didn't emerge like some out of control rant. He sat there with a profound sense of despair and quietly described the reality in the small town he loved so dearly. Their child recieved racist death threats at school, the administration refused to do anything. Because of the mothers insistence that the principal or school board do something, anything, the mother, who had previously worked at the school was barred from doing so the next year (and presumably ever). The town pleaded with the government for three years to put up 1 stoplight at a notoriously dangerous intersection, it had only recently been erected. The host hadn't seen their family, just 8 miles away, almost within sight, for 10 years because of the maze of checkpoints and refusal to issue Palestinians travel permits. The police wouldn't respond to calls, would not come to pick up known drug dealers, would not investigate crimes. The police would not do any of the things they were doing just three miles away. Before I came here I thought Israel was a bastion of democracy in the Middle East. Israel is a vibrant democracy like African Americans were equal under seperate but equal laws.

Salam
Mike