Divestment on Top of Terror

It is Monday, Oct. 21, 5 p.m. The news comes over the wires that there has been a bus bombing at the Karkur junction, and the scene flashes back to mind; I know that road well.

It is early January 2002, and I wish I could close the back doors of this jeep to keep out the cold afternoon wind. I am tired and uncomfortable in a bulletproof vest, and scared of a bullet into the back of our vehicle looking for my head, or Ami’s, or Simon’s. It is reading period, and I am back in Israel for my yearly reserve duty; this time I am assigned to patrol the area between Jenin and Afula. We are five armored jeeps, our mission is to secure the famous 1967 border—a small road that runs between identical wheat fields and sometimes right through the middle of small towns. We do not want to be in the territories—we should not be there—but there we are again, pulled back against our will.

We were, I suppose, the “continual military occupation” against which the now-infamous divestment petition rails (it would be five months before professors would polarize the campus by calling on Harvard to target the Israeli economy for destruction). We were twenty soldiers in five jeeps spread out north of Jenin when Patrol One caught sight of the terrorist cell—three figures with AK-47s had just crossed the road and were running towards the Israeli city of Afula, ten minutes further north. One and Two were on it too fast for us to get over to help them; they followed the gunmen off the road, and when the figures doubled back to Jenin, they gave pursuit into Palestinian territory. We were still several minutes away when they rolled into a valley on the outskirts of the city and were trapped under the sudden heavy fire of Palestinian militants and police shooting out of apartment windows and from rooftops.

Israeli forces should not be in Jenin. If you doubt this, ask Winthrop House Master Paul D. Hanson and Pierce Professor of Psychology Ken Nakayama, who call for divestment. Ask the Israeli people, ask the eight soldiers trapped under fire in two tin boxes who called for help and for their lives on the radio for three hours. The 74 Harvard professors who call for an end to the Israeli presence in Palestinian cities will find they are in no disagreement with the vast majority of Israelis. They will, if they consult recent history, discover that Israel’s government has also agreed with them for a long time, pushing forward in a process which, by 2000, found 96 percent of Palestinians under self-rule and finally offered upwards of 90 percent of Palestinian land demands, dismantling of settlements, compensation for refugees and even a divided Jerusalem. Concepts which will be familiar to the petitioners, who, confusingly, demand of Israel that which it has been trying to offer for years.

Perhaps what is most frustrating of all is this: on a Monday afternoon, with 14 more dead because of the anger and terror coming from Jenin, we need no petition’s urging to end occupation. Threatening to choke off Israel’s industries is only an insult to be piled atop our dead. We need a partner for peace, not threats of destruction.

Let me explain: I hated being in Jenin. I was numb with the sadness of turning away dozens of workers every day who wanted to sneak across the closed border only to bring home some food. But my soldiers and I also stopped three terrorists from shooting civilians to death in Afula. I know I saved lives without ever pulling a trigger. It is hard to imagine, but sometimes the Palestinians we refused entry into Israel would stay around for a while, and we would share our dinner with them, and we’d talk about a future where they’d never have to see us again, where the Palestinian authority would take care of its own people, protect them and us from a war brought on by terrorism. And then sometimes someone would ask when this will all come to be and when we will be able to reopen our borders without fear, as they were two years ago, and we would all laugh to relieve the tension of not knowing the answer.

We do not want to rule over three million Palestinians, we do not want to prolong a war that kills children and women and soldiers. We do not ever want to see apartheid in Israel. But we also will not put our country at risk and we will not be bullied by terrorism; we will not turn a blind eye when our families are slaughtered and immolated at their weddings, Passover meals, shopping malls, and on their buses. Israel’s soldiers are in the territories only because they are, in the face of Palestinian police collaboration with terrorism, the only thing that stands between terrorists and their targets. And we’d rather be anywhere else.

The eight soldiers had sustained one injury and were running out of ammunition by the time two tanks and an Apache helicopter arrived on the scene. The rest of us approached from various angles to try and get at the source of fire; but no one let out a single shot for two hours. The tanks and helicopter could not confirm the exact source of fire and we refused to risk hitting innocents; instead we left our men helpless until we finally discerned the very muzzle flashes in the windows. The tank fired three shells, the helicopter one missile, and it was over. Three Palestinians and one Israeli were injured, and a three-story building was damaged. An hour later we reopened the border road, and Simon, Ami, and I left Jenin to resume our patrol. I whispered a prayer.

Avi D. Heilman ’03 is a computational neuroscience concentrator in Dunster House. He is a resident of Israel, a reservist in Israel Defense Forces and a former president of Harvard Students for Israel.