Learning to See at the Intersections of Body,Gender,Geography,and Nationality

Chapter 1

Khan Yunis ¹ , 1993, I am almost 19 years old, a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). ² I am a noncommissioned education officer (NCO), responsible for my unit’s education program. This program includes cultural activities, combat heritage, knowledge of the country, values of the IDF, and tours and educational events intended to strengthen the sense of belonging and commitment of soldiers to the IDF and the State (IDF, n.d.).

I don’t really see the Palestinians. They are the invisible background of my life’s drama. I have no questions, no doubts about the occupation. I don’t wonder about the status of Gaza and the West Bank. I don’t question our presence in Khan Younis. I don’t ask questions about the Palestinians: not their history, not their condition, not their lives.

I think of myself as a woman of values, mainly in terms of helping others and loving my country. However, the truth is, that the main thing I care about is boys. I am almost 19 years, but I have only once gone on a date with a guy. All I want is for a guy, any guy, to notice me, to look at me, to desire me.

And then one day it happens. He is older than me, and about to be decommissioned from IDF. He is a Druze. It isn’t that much of a surprise that he is a Druze, given I am an NCO in the Druze regiment. ³ He is good looking, has green eyes, and brown hair. Although I don’t agree to have sex with him, we make out a lot. It is lovely. There is desire and physical pleasure on my side, much like what Michele Fine (1988) and other feminists hope that young women may enjoy. I do feel slightly guilty, that I enjoy so much being with him, but still refuse to “go all the way.” I stay strong and stick to my decision, because my virginity is important. It is an asset. And I am happy. I have fun, I am full of passion, and I am happy.

One day, sometime after the Druze soldier completed his army service, the regiment’s commander invites me, through my direct commander, to a disciplinary hearing for breaking the military law regarding fraternization on military bases. The intention, I am informed, is to discharge me from the regiment and to reassign me to a different regiment. I was afraid. I was terrified of the reputation that would follow the discharge, the reputation that would come from having sex with a Druze. Looking back now, I’m not sure what terrified me more: the reputation of a slut or that of a “Druze slut.” But I was a virgin. This was what saved me, because I could tell the commander, in full honesty, that I had never had sex with the soldier.

I remain with the regiment for few more months before leaving for an officer training course. Still, we never went public about our relationship, and so I wonder, how exactly did the commander learn about my relationship? Who else knew? What are people saying about me behind my back?

It is the evening of my departure. As I say my goodbyes, an officer in the unit tells me he has something important to share with me. It is then that I discover that each time the soldier and I arranged to meet in his tent, he would tell his friends, encouraging them to spy on us through a peephole in the fabric. Now, it is clear how the commander knew about my relationship—how the whole regiment knew about my relationship. Now, it becomes clear that my virginity never really saved me from being regarded as a slut.

Chapter 2

Jerusalem, 1997, I am studying psychology and philosophy at the Hebrew University. I am no longer a virgin.

I am searching for myself, for meaning, for adventure.

I am experimenting with everything and everyone that comes my way.

It’s like I’m on a roller coaster, one minute up and the next minute down. I can’t really figure out what it is that brings me up or down.

I keep a diary documenting my experiences and experiments, feelings, and dreams at night.

During the week I am in Jerusalem, and at the weekend I am in Tel Aviv. There are suicide bomber attacks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv from time to time. ⁴ It is a bit scary, but it doesn’t really get to me. I still don’t see the Palestinians, unless I am forced to see them.

I still believe in peace and equality. But I don’t ask questions about the inequality that’s all around me.

I don’t see the inequality around me, even when it hits me in the stomach and explodes in my face.

I live in a parallel universe. I think I am looking for love.

I get into strangers’ beds, let strangers into my bed. Some of these strangers become more familiar with time, whereas others melt away in the morning sun. Sometimes, it all feels so wonderful that I feel like I can’t even breathe. Other times, it is so awful that I actually can’t breathe; so I cry and keep on going. Most days, it is all the emotions that lie in between.

One day, I meet a fellow philosophy student. I go back with him to his place. He lives in Musrara ⁵ , which is cool. He lives in a one-bedroom flat. There’s a broken window, a mattress on the floor, incense and real herbal tea. It’s just like a scene from one of my favorite songs. It is so bohemian, so cool. I feel like a free woman, living life to the full. We kiss. It is wonderful. But I don’t want more, and try to say no when he takes off my shirt. He doesn’t listen. He doesn’t say a word when he takes off his condom just before he comes. The thing is, this isn’t the first time that this has happened to me. But by the end of the evening, I want to stay and fall asleep in his arms. He wants me to leave. So, I go home and cry and listen to Bob Dylan, who sings about me:

She takes just like a woman

But she breaks just like a little girl

Chapter 3

⁶ ?איזה חלק מה "לא" לא הבנת עד לפה

Jerusalem, 1998, I am proud to call myself a feminist. It is my first march, my first demonstration, my first political act. I am marching through the Mahana Yehuda market ⁷ , together with other volunteers from the rape crisis center where I volunteer. Over the last year, I’ve been privileged to receive a fair amount of feminist empowerment: at the university, at the rape crisis center, and in private therapy. Six months ago, I still did not like the word, but I am now proud to call myself a feminist, proud to be volunteering in a rape crisis center, proud of my new friends, like me all young feminists. I feel a sense of belonging in the rape crisis center, a sense of community. I feel like together we can change the world. I’ve learned a new way of thinking, I’ve learned a new language. Now, I know that rape comes in many shapes and forms, and that when a woman says no and the man ignores her, it can still be rape. I am still uncomfortable about thinking of my own experiences as rape or sexual assault. But even so, I now have the confidence to argue, even with the men in my own family, for a woman’s right to say “no.” I now see things differently. I even go back to the man in Musrara, the one with the broken window and the mattress on the floor, to tell him what I now think of his behavior.

Chapter 4

London, 2000, A year ago, I moved here to start graduate studies. I am lonely, so very lonely. I know hardly anyone at all. One day, I see an advertisement, asking for volunteers to work with a rape crisis center. I am so excited, thrilled to think that maybe I can recreate my community once again. I am excited by the opportunity this will offer, to feel a part of something important again. I call the number in the advert and speak to a woman. She asks me about myself, and I tell her about my experience from the rape crisis center in Jerusalem. After a short pause, she tells me that I cannot be both a feminist and an occupier. She tells me that they cannot accept me as a volunteer in their center. I do not understand what she means. It feels like I am discriminated against for being an Israeli, perhaps even for being a Jew. I cannot see the connection between the occupation and rape.

Chapter 5

London, 2004, I am a PhD student. I meet a fellow PhD student, a Palestinian woman. She invites me to her room in the dormitory. She offers me nana tea and tells me about her research, about the Palestinian nation.

She tells me their history.

She tells me her story.

It is the first time that I have heard about Al Nakba. ⁸

She tells me about the devastation of her people. She tells me of people becoming refugees, losing their homes, and family members. The suffering of the enemy becomes human, vivid, and painful. She is angry at the people who have taken her homeland. I am a representative of this people. I sit quietly, mostly, listening, taking in the many new facts that I have never heard before. Although I am the enemy, she is willing to talk to me. She is nice to me and offers me more nana tea. Her room is small; we sit side by side on her bed, because there is nowhere else to sit. I try to process this new way of looking at history. Susan Slyomovics (2007) says that an alternative truth to the dominant narrative of the victor cannot even be murmured. But in that small room that afternoon, there was no murmuring. She tells me horrific stories, rapes of Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers. She tells me about the rape of a woman in front of her husband, while other soldiers stood around and watched.

I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I cry. We cry together.

Epilog

Claudio Moreira’s (2013) words resonate in my ears. “It is a world where pain and suffering is always present.” Moreira describes stories of resistance as autoethnographic performance narratives.

I started this project with the question: How did I, as a young woman, open my eyes to patriarchal values and my social privilege, and to my positioning as both oppressed and as an oppressor? I have wanted to write this piece for long time. I have been interested in my own becoming. But for weeks, I have tried to end this project and failed. I am not sure if I can include stories of resistance that belong to others in my own autoethnography. Most of all, I am not sure that I can honestly say that I do see the suffering of the Palestinians. Even as a part of an occupying state, the occupation is not part of my daily life. Those who occupy can easily ignore the consequences of occupation. I can’t say, I can’t honestly say, that I do enough to understand the suffering of the occupied, or enough to try and stop this suffering.

Each week, I write an ending, and then I delete it. I talk with others, read others, walk around with questions in my head. But I cannot find an ending.

Moreira says that the body always knows.

My body knows only my own suffering. So how can we really know the suffering of others? How can we truly say we see the suffering of others?

I don’t really see the suffering of anyone else.

I am only left with listening.

Listening to the murmuring of an alternative truth.