In the divided city of Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, there is a memorial park for the Yugoslav partisans who fought the fascists during the Second World War. Once the most impressive of its kind in Yugoslavia, it has not been maintained since before the Bosnian War, beaten by the elements, overgrown with vegetation, and strewn with trash. I was amazed by how such a vast complex, perhaps too large for little Mostar, was in such total abandonment.
Though hoping to refrain from over-comparison, I can use the Mostar memorial to bring the patchy development I am seeing in Israel-Palestine into focus. While some only cry Jewish neglect in the underdevelopment of Arab locales in Israel and Jerusalem, I affix on my camera the lens of fragmentation. In Mostar, war tore apart the ethnically mixed city and turned it into two stunted fragments, one Croat and one Bosniak. The partisan memorial lies inside the Croat side, which I surmise would make it difficult for a Bosniak politician to campaign for its rehabilitation (an unlikely event to begin with, given the corruption and wrangling of Mostar’s politicians). Those among the Bosniak citizenry who would push to see the memorial revived probably believe others on their side of the city don’t see the point: why help the people who we fought a bloody war with? And for their part, Croat politicians and civil society also cannot muster the public momentum to save the memorial.
Unlike Yugoslavia, Israel and Palestine may have long only had more narrowly defined projects, whether Zionism, pan-Arabism, or Islamism. From the 1910s, Jews cobbled together trappings of a state in a context of being perceived acutely as outsiders by the local population. An insufficiently inclusive proto-polity descended into war with the indigenous people in a worldwide trend of decolonization. After the dust of war settled, the two continued to see each other as enemies. Arabs who remained within the Israeli-controlled side of ceasefire lines lived under martial law until 1966. Even socialist Zionists had had real war to deal with, and even Bedouins were viewed with suspicion. There was likely no room for nuance or idealism.
Suspicion and sociopolitical life not reaching all in the land have led to lopsided development. The Jews used the know-how and capital they brought with them from abroad for their own growth. We thus see the emergence of a landscape plagued with unequal infrastructure, schools, and social, political, and economic life. The power centers are largely an Old Boys’ Club, with military success a strong currency. And successive wars only cemented all of this!
Israel’s security buildup and advances in military technology make the occupation easier to maintain. Settlements in ’67 lands, once bastions for security and pragmatism, have become a formidable part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict landscape. And even now in 2015, one can see how Israel-Palestine is an unequally developed space. Some of the segregation and underdevelopment is self-driven by Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the Triangle, etc.… Some sure isn’t.
With some thought, it’s not so surprising that, given a thick history of unilateralism, there isn’t a culture of engagement and compromise here in Israel-Palestine, let alone making overtures. All issues are on the table and yet nonnegotiable. The deep gulf between leaders comes partly from them simply being accountable to their constituencies—Jewish and Arab communities that truly misunderstand each other because of long-running fragmentation and fear.
And one can see strong tendencies of delegitimizing the other side turning inward. Take how anti-normalization is sometimes a raging force hurting Palestinians themselves. Similarly, many Israelis brand their leftwing compatriots as traitors, self-hating Jews, or out-of-touch. On both sides, people misperceive the other as not being a real partner, when in fact they themselves have given pitifully little thought and effort into genuinely cooperating. No one seems to realize that a partner isn’t found after long awaiting – that partners are made.
Gaza rockets, Israeli airstrikes, unequal development everywhere, claims of “apartheid,” and Israeli actions that indeed realize that lurking apartheid – all are surface-manifestations of a larger context of blaming, fighting, and delegitimizing rather than engaging. The fragmentation is omnipresent… it’s a debilitating force unto itself.
Whether in Bosnia-Herzegovina or Israel-Palestine, few are deluded to demand full integration and cooperation in the short-term. But who outside of society’s margins are taking those baby steps? Are those cautious steps gaining courage, creativity, and vision everyday? In such small countries, perhaps no one can be exempt from trying harder, smarter, and kinder everyday.
The Medford Pact 