New Babies Show that God is an Optimist

June 21, 2009

We have or CalAuto rental until Monday, so we drove to Kfar Vitkin to meet Neta, Atar’s new baby, born on June 4. Neta had just fallen asleep as we arrived. Over an Israeli breakfast, including cheese from Gil’s mother and father who raise beef cows, just 200 meters down the road in the moshav, the lively conversation moved quickly from small talk. After Rachel explained her job, Atar asked, “what’s your model?” demonstrating yet again how she gets to the heart of a matter. Once Rachel caught her bearings, we all discussed different social service models and the barriers to implementation in a resource poor setting like D.C. We then moved on to a discussion of our visit with Aref, a few weeks ago. My question for Atar was that when Aref proclaims an end to the occupation, does he mean the disputed territories or in reality Tel Aviv, that is an end to the State of Israel as a Jewish majority entity. She was of the opinion that he meant the former, but we ended up in a discussion of colonialism. To me colonialism is one of those terms in this conflict that ends discussion, does not enlighten or encourage it. By any conventional definition of colonialism—a wealthy European power that rules a native population in a foreign land and exploits its resources—it’s hard to describe the waves of aliyah in the 19th and early 20th century in those terms. Jewish immigrants were not sent by Europe or controlled by Europe, indeed the opposite is probably the true case. They came to develop a desperately poor and harsh land. Israel’s presence in the territories, on the other hand, may come closer to a definition of colonialism, but the motivations and conflicting interests are complex to say the least. These types of labels—colonialist, racist, international law violator and others—need to be “unpacked’ before any real discussion can begin, it seems to me.

As we were about to depart, Neta awoke and her mop of dark hair makes her especially adorable.