I’ve been reading relevant chapters of Sara Roy’s Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict and I’m convinced it’s one of the best books out there on the conflict. Dr. Roy is a Jew herself whose parents are Holocaust survivors and she supports the existence of the Israeli state, while offering burning criticism of its illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (and now imprisonment of the Gaza Strip). I have many good excerpts to share with you, but I’m starting w this one:
“Children are increasingly incapable of conceptualizing authority in traditional terms, since their parents and teachers, unable to protect them from constant mistreatment and danger, have ceased to exist as authority figures.†(Roy, 59) “One question asked of ten 9-year-old boys and girls was, ‘Do you know what a cinema is?’ Only one child, a boy, knew the answer, and described a cinema as ‘a big room with a big television in it.’ Thirty 15-year-old boys were asked, ‘What does authority mean?’ All answered that ‘authority means the enemy.’ When told, ‘But authority can mean your teacher as well,’ several of them replied, ‘You mean our teacher is a collaborator?’ ‘Do you have authority at home?’ was another question. ‘Yes,’ they replied, ‘the authorities have entered our home many times.’ (Roy, 71)
Pouya, I know Sara Roy is one of the main experts on the farce that was the “Gaza Withdrawal”. Does this book talk about the dynamics and mechanisms of the occupation of Gaza post-withdrawar?? And please continue to enlighten us with her writings.
Pouya do you know the name of the movie (Arabic w/ English subtitles) that contains scenes depicting a Palestinian family with greenhouse that the Israelis keep tearing down? They also end up sharing their apartment building with Israeli soldiers. I saw it on sundance and I never wrote it down and I need to reference it. I’ve been googling with weird search criteria and no luck so far. Thank you.
I’m sorry, I haven’t heard of it, but it sounds interesting. Does anyone else know the title?
Mr. Smiley Face, I didn’t go through the whole book, but I will when I get a chance. It’s really well written and research but I’ll continue to post interesting excerpts from what I’ve read thus far.
This is what Arash supports: “‘After two months in Rafah, a [new] commanding officer arrived… So we do a first patrol with him. It’s 6am, Rafah is under curfew, there isn’t so much as a dog in the streets. Only a little boy of four playing in the sand. He is building a castle in his yard. He [the officer] suddenly starts running and we all run with him. He was from the combat engineers.
‘He grabbed the boy. I am a degenerate if I am not telling you the truth. He broke his hand here at the wrist, broke his leg here. And started to stomp on his stomach, three times, and left. We are all there, jaws dropping, looking at him in shock…”
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2195924,00.html
Pouya, there is a lot here in this article. Pretty shocking.