National Catholic Reporter, June 16, 2006
In the name of security
Israel and the U.S. illustrate the illusion of safety without justice
By ROSEMARY RADFORD RUETHER
Both Israel and the United States have become obsessed with security. Every form of oppression of those seen as potentially dangerous is justified by this need for security. In the United States, especially since 9/11, spying on the civilian population, wiretapping without warrants and collecting data on such ordinary activities as library circulation and book buying are being justified as necessary for security.
Israel has long justified the most extensive repression of Palestinians as necessary for its security. But Palestinian life in the West Bank in particular has been characterized from the beginning of the Jewish state by increasing insecurity, in the sense of random violence and lack of any predictable rights to a secure daily life. This is made manifest in hundreds of ways on a daily basis. To gain a permit to pass through checkpoints, for example, is difficult, and even when one has such a permit it can be arbitrarily denied by the soldiers at the checkpoint. The ability to go to the hospital, to go to work, to attend school, to visit family is continually in jeopardy because of this arbitrariness. The recent building of a wall encircling the Palestinian areas of the West Bank cuts deeply into Palestinian land and water aquifers.
But perhaps the most extreme example of such vulnerability and lack of security is the Israeli army invasions into the Palestinian territories at any time, both through aerial bombing, targeted assassinations and military incursions. An example of this practice took place May 24 in Ramallah, on the West Bank, where I was present for a week’s visit with friends working at the Friends International Center. A delegation of Swedish women was meeting with the directors of this center and me at 2 p.m. Suddenly, loud explosions, cries in the street and loud gunfire were heard outside next to the Quaker meeting hall. Black smoke from explosions poured into the air. For more than an hour, the center of downtown Ramallah was a war zone.
What was transpiring was an incursion by undercover Israeli soldiers dressed as Palestinians who had come into Ramallah and entered a commercial building to arrest an Islamic Jihad leader. A crowd gathered outside the building and began to throw stones and to burn the vehicle that had transported the Israeli unit. Quickly, 15 Israeli military jeeps arrived and opened indiscriminate fire on the Palestinian crowd. Soon 35 Palestinians were injured (including eight children) and four were dead.
Going out into the street after the Israelis withdrew was a shocking experience. Just two hours earlier, the street had been bustling with shoppers. Now it was littered with stones, every shop closed up, and the stands selling fruits, nuts and falafel sandwiches disappeared or destroyed. An acrid smell of smoke lingered in the air. The livelihoods of hundreds of people had been set back, and families had to cope with the injuries and deaths of their young people. The whole town declared a day of mourning for the following day to bury the dead.
These kinds of incidents occur all the time throughout Palestinian towns in what amounts to a continual siege. In the week of May 18-24, there were 50 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza strip, killing nine and wounding scores. On May 20 there was an extrajudicial assassination of a suspected militant in Gaza, which killed three others and wounded four.
Who has a right to security? Who does not have a right to security? Surely security, in the sense of some basic protection and stability in daily life, is a basic need of all human beings, Palestinians as much as Israelis. Continually targeting Palestinians in the name of security not only subjects Palestinians to a life of radical vulnerability but does not actually contribute to the security of the Israelis. Such treatment generates a state of continual rage and resentment by Palestinians toward Israelis and is the seedbed for creating people willing to die to take revenge. Where does the cycle of violence stop?
True security lies in secure borders within oneself, when one is firmly rooted in what is just and life-giving. It flows from this inward security to the promotion of good relations with one’s neighbors, recognizing that what is good for oneself is the same as what is good for one’s neighbor and that the welfare of both are inextricably interconnected. To love one’s neighbor as oneself is the basis of true security.
Rosemary Radford Ruether is the Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif. She is also a Participating Scholar in The Religious Consultation on Population, Reproductive Health, and Ethics.
National Catholic Reporter, June 16, 2006