OVERCOMING TERROR - @MidEastTruth

OVERCOMING TERROR

On Israel's Independence Day, one has to marvel at the country's compulsion to defy violence and get back to normal after attacks

By Gil Troy

Montreal Gazette
7 May 2003, A31

As we left Ben-Gurion Airport at the start of a recent visit to Israel, my 5-year-old asked: "Where are the ruins?" Alas, he was not looking for the 2,200-year-old archaeological site he and his sister would help excavate a week later; he was searching for the "ruins" from the Palestinians' war of terror against Israel.

My son's question reflected the prevailing misconception about Israel today. Despite enduring years of terror, Israel is not a war zone. On this 55th anniversary of Israel's founding, to focus on the carnage is to miss much of the story. Western democracies should look to Israel as a model for how to cope with terrorism. The true headline should be that Israel continues to thrive, with its first-class universities and cutting-edge technology firms, with its cacophony of cultures and its sometimes chaotic democracy.

One cannot minimize the pain so many individuals have suffered, or the fear lurking in the back of so many minds. Random decisions -- to go to the supermarket rather than to the pharmacy first -- can ruin lives. Yet what most strikes a Western visitor is the Israeli compulsion to defy terror, the Israeli commitment to restoring everything back to "normal" after attacks, as the Pentagon workers did in rushing ahead to rebuild after Sept. 11.

The attacks that "succeed" are tragic anomalies that should not define Israel's image. When suicide bombers penetrate Israel's tightened security net, six million citizens pause, mourn, then resume their routines, showing up for work and school, creating massive traffic jams morning and night, crowding their cafes, restaurants, theatres, symphonies, discos, and synagogues, sometimes with guards posted, sometimes without.

Israelis have developed pet theories to fight their phantom enemy. "Homebodies" trust familiar surroundings and define somewhere they rarely frequent as the danger zone. "Trinitarians" pick three places or activities to avoid -- for those who can afford it, riding buses is the activity most frequently shunned. "Strategists" try to assess whether the site they plan to visit is a worthy target. "Statisticians" balance the relatively few moments of terror that have killed people against the number of potential targets (six million) multiplied by the number of waking moments the individuals have been outside over the past two years. "Fatalists" accept the notion that they cannot control their destinies, maintaining routines with a shrug.

These coping mechanisms keep Israelis moving. In fact, contrary to the terrorists' intentions, the Palestinian onslaught has triggered an ideological revival in a country that in the 1990s seemed to be drifting. Post-Zionism is passé. Some intellectuals distanced themselves from their earlier tendencies to blame Israel first. An icon of the left, Amos Oz, has excoriated Israel's radical intelligentsia for developing an unprecedented "scale of hatred for the entire self-existence," not just the present government, but the culture itself. "I see sweeping hatred for the architecture, for the music, the folk songs, the memories, for everything," Oz lamented.

In this post-post-Zionist era, patriotism is returning, this famously fractious nation is more united, despite the recent campaign rhetoric. Headlines last spring focused on 300 officers who refused to serve in the disputed territories; the true story was in overwhelming response of civilian reservists to the call-up in April, after terrorists murdered 131 Israelis in March.

While Israelis still proudly maintain their black humor and cynicism, there is a growing fascination with Israeli history and the ideals of yesteryear. Public sing-alongs and Hebrew music, key elements of the nationalist Zionist culture of the 1950s, were mocked in the 1990s, but are enjoying a revival. In a charming mix of the old Israel and the new, every other Thursday night young people crowd into a 49th floor club atop one of Tel Aviv's gleaming Azrieli Towers to sing the old standards. The daily Ha'aretz attributes the resurgence to "the security situation, which has created a longing to curl up in the bosom of familiar, old Israeliness."

What started happening in the United States after Sept. 11 is happening in Israel as well. A sense of community is being rediscovered. Patriotism, idealism, altruism, and the best kind of nationalist collectivism focused on common values are reviving. The terrorists have indeed terrified millions, and traumatized thousands, but they have not demoralized America or Israel. "We've won," one Israeli war veteran, a produce wholesaler, told me. "Now we just have to shape the peace." To the extent that terrorism is a form of psychological warfare, such ideological resolve, reinforced by military might, offers the only effective response.

Bowing to Israeli resolve, the new Palestinian Prime Minister has declared that "there is no military solution to our conflict." The world awaits evidence that Abu Mazen will reinforce those words with action and begin weaning Palestinian society from the nihilistic cult of terror and murder that has festered over the years. Meanwhile we must applaud the resolute citizens of sister democracies who demonstrate that terrorism is not just evil but unsuccessful. Israelis and Americans are proving that terrorism can kill and terrorism can terrify but terrorism cannot and will not win.

Gil Troy is a history professor at McGill University.