Yesterday I listened to this podcast while walking around the track at the Friends School, where there were "Sports for Life" teams practicing while mums and dads chatted on the sidelines.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/570/the-night-in-question
Daniella Weiss, interviewed in the last segment of the story (starting around 50:00), is a right wing Israeli whose goal in life, as she puts it, is to further the settlement movement in the West Bank. Israeli settlements are established when Israelis (illegally) claim land in the West Bank, and build a wall around it that separates it from Palestinian land.
It was bizarre to listen to this women determined to a woman so bent on taking away the land that belongs to the families seated on the grass next to me, watching their young children play football after school on a Wednesday. Over the roofs of Ramallah, the Bet El settlement, where clashes have occurred during recent weeks, was clearly visible on the hill.
In talking to my colleague Elaine, who knows much more about the Palestinian situation than I do, I gained an appreciation for the way this TAL episode highlights the deep rifts within Israeli society. Too often, so says, the story is told as if the only problems are between the Israelis and Palestinians, but there are significant, irreparable fractioning forces in Israeli society by itself. If peace within each side is a prerequisite for peace between the groups, the prospects look dim, as dim as they would be if they depended on all Americans sharing a view on gun control.
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| Football practice on the pitch behind the Friends School |
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/570/the-night-in-question
Daniella Weiss, interviewed in the last segment of the story (starting around 50:00), is a right wing Israeli whose goal in life, as she puts it, is to further the settlement movement in the West Bank. Israeli settlements are established when Israelis (illegally) claim land in the West Bank, and build a wall around it that separates it from Palestinian land.
It was bizarre to listen to this women determined to a woman so bent on taking away the land that belongs to the families seated on the grass next to me, watching their young children play football after school on a Wednesday. Over the roofs of Ramallah, the Bet El settlement, where clashes have occurred during recent weeks, was clearly visible on the hill.
In talking to my colleague Elaine, who knows much more about the Palestinian situation than I do, I gained an appreciation for the way this TAL episode highlights the deep rifts within Israeli society. Too often, so says, the story is told as if the only problems are between the Israelis and Palestinians, but there are significant, irreparable fractioning forces in Israeli society by itself. If peace within each side is a prerequisite for peace between the groups, the prospects look dim, as dim as they would be if they depended on all Americans sharing a view on gun control.
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