This article appeared in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. A journalist named Scott Anderson travelled with a group of Israeli reservists.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/12/magazine/12IDF.html (Link requires registration.... I'm really overloaded with RL stuff at the moment -- if you would like me to send the article, e-mail me and then please be patient. I'll try to get it out to you by next weekend.) Excerpt: Since the Palsars choose command posts for their spaciousness and their height, for the view they provide of their immediate surroundings, these house seizures tend to fall most heavily upon wealthier Palestinians, as is the case here; the family living in the pleasant home with its modern kitchen and formal sitting room was simply told to pack up and find somewhere else to stay for a few days. To a man, the soldiers profess to be extremely uncomfortable with this house-seizure policy, and that unease is evident as they gingerly explore their new surroundings. In the couch-and-coffee-table arrangements in the living rooms, in the posters and clutter of toys in a child's bedroom, they seem to find a reflection of their own homes such a short distance away. That sense of familiarity goes only so far, however. In the television room just off the kitchen, the Palsars come upon a large framed photograph of the patriarch of the family, a white-haired man in his 60's. Tucked into a corner of the frame is a smaller photograph of a boy of 5 or 6 -- presumably the man's grandson -- dressed in a Palestinian fighter's outfit and clutching an oversize toy Kalashnikov. Beside a plate of oranges on an upstairs coffee table, they find a wood carving showing Israel and the occupied territories joined as one nation, but a nation wrapped in the colors of the Palestinian flag. These discoveries help to remind the Palsars that despite the touches of frozen domesticity that surround them, they are in enemy territory, a place where it is dangerous to linger too long beside a window or doorway. At the same time, they take a certain quirky pride in trying to minimize the effects of their presence. Within minutes of their arrival, they roll up the family's better carpets, moving them, along with various breakable objects, to one corner of the upstairs sitting room. There are chickens in the small backyard, and one soldier is given the task of making sure that they are regularly fed and watered. By longstanding policy, nothing of the family's is to be used -- not the onions sitting on the kitchen sill or the soap in the bathroom -- and on the day the Palsars leave, a cleanup crew will give the house a quick scrubbing, perhaps even leave behind a bit of money to compensate the family for its inconvenience. Such are the tactics and considerations of this peculiar war. Additional Excerpt: The Palsars often debate among themselves the cause of this international criticism -- whether it is rooted in a latent anti-Semitism or the West's desire to curry favor with the Arab oil states -- but for Yaniv Sagee, it stems from something simpler and, for Israel, irremediable. ''It's because we're occupiers,'' he says. ''Now, we can give all kinds of reasons for why we are occupiers -- and some of them you can argue are quite legitimate in the current situation -- but it doesn't change the basic point that this is Palestine and we should not be here. This is exactly what I'm struggling with myself, because as much as I'm trying to be moral, as humanely as I try to treat the Palestinians, I've put myself here to do something that is basically immoral.'' He gives another of his self-rebuking, incredulous laughs. ''You see how complicated it is?'' Jon _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
