Many people have expressed surprise at the recent violence in Acre.
Particularly amusing was the mantra that rolled off the tongues of
government officials, their eyes wide open: "How could such a thing happen
in a city of coexistence?"
There are two possible explanations for the bizarre logic behind this
sentence: stupidity, or a cynicism that insults the public's intelligence.
It is of course difficult to attribute stupidity to the seasoned public
servants with wit enough to climb to positions of power, close to the
goodies. They also know how to numb the minds of the sheep while arousing
their base instincts. Since the fear instinct in these parts is overly
combustible, its manifestations appear immediately: arrogance and hatred
toward all Arabs. And when all of these combine to form a near-chemical
compound, it will be difficult to put out the fires they ignite simply by
spraying them with slogans.
In Acre, as in the rest of the Greater Land of Israel, there is no
coexistence. In Acre, there is pain and bitterness, built up over decades.
It began not on Yom Kippur of this year, but rather since the ships filled
with refugees left the city's shores; since the residents were placed in the
handcuffs of military rule; since tens of thousands of their countrymen
became victims of a violent, colonialist occupation; since a conscious,
intentional policy of national suppression and racial hostility was
instituted against them; and since they, living in their homes facing the
city's beaches and on their land, began to be described as a demographic
threat.
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There are more details to this ugly picture: Acre has poor Jewish
neighborhoods, where the ruling establishment sees to it that the building
rage of the inhabitants is not turned against it. It is not a conspiracy in
the classic sense, the kind found in fiction, but rather the product of all
of the governmental interests. Because a thinking public is a public that is
dangerous to its rulers. So where does this rage get channeled? To the usual
suspect, the Arabs. Here is where racism takes on a very popular expression.
The Jewish victims of the regime become a weapon against the ultimate
victims of the same regime. There you have it: an explosive vicious circle.
For years, Acre's local government officials have been babbling, in the
spirit of the times, about the need to Judaize the city. Groups of settlers
and of young religious people, who have undergone right-wing
nationalization, were brought to the city. And Acre's Arabs ask themselves
what this Judaization means, if not their actual and symbolic removal; have
we been disinherited once again?
In recent years, religious tendencies have grown among significant
"non-white" segments of Israeli society. It turns out that the "opiate of
the masses" effect has not skipped over the People of Israel. And in a state
where hostility regarding matters of identity has spread to every part --
social rifts, in sociological lingo -- even Yom Kippur has become an
opportunity to exercise hatred, in utter contradiction to its religious
meaning. Instead of requests for divine forgiveness, there is an increase in
violent rituals against anything that moves. Maybe some people need a Yom
Kippur II, to ask forgiveness for their actions during Yom Kippur I.
Acre, of course, is not alone. There is the "coexistence" model of Jaffa. In
that city, greedy real-estate developers and pseudo-artists have infiltrated
the Old City and live in walled fortresses, because it's so much fun to live
in such an exotic area. With regard to the adjacent areas of poverty,
suffering and oppression, however, their eyes -- and especially their
conscience -- have remained sealed. And there are those who are enchanted by
the idea of implementing this model in the Old City of Acre, too. The Arab
residents and their representatives speak of an accelerated assault in
recent years of real estate acquisitions. They are convinced, justifiably,
that it is a creeping takeover that will end with in their exclusion and
even expulsion from their living space. It is not for nothing that the
concept of Nakba appears in their reactions.
So there is nothing surprising in what happened in Acre. I suggest to all
the potentially surprised individuals to get ready for more "surprises" in
other locales. Unless, of course, a a practical, sincere, strategic decision
is taken to change Israeli policy concerning the "Arab question" -- both at
home and beyond.
In the meantime, the Arabs of Acre, like all Arab citizens of Israel, have
no magic formula for coping. What is available to them is the lesson learned
in the shadow of the Israeli regime: It's called sumud ["steadfastness" in
Arabic], holding on to the homeland and waging a stubborn struggle for full
civil and national equality.
Hisham Nafa' is an author and a journalist.