COLUMN: The parables of Palestine
Are you having trouble understanding the Palestinian side of the conflict in the Middle East? Many Utahns seem to have a pretty good handle on the Israeli side. After all, Orson Hyde dedicated the land for the return of the Jews, right? Too many of us, it seems like a black and white issue. The Palestinians are bad. The Israelis are good. The Palestinians are terrorists. The Israelis are merely defending themselves. God is on the Israeli side. Truth? Not quite.
To understand the Palestinian situation requires an exercise in empathy. Empathy is defined as trying to understand the other person’s reality – where other people are coming from, what they think, how they feel and why. To have empathy, it is not necessary to have personally experienced what the other person has been through. We can pretend to place ourselves in their position and imagine how they feel. To assist in this effort, I have created the following parable. Some of the analogies are fairly accurate; others are a stretch. Rather than judging the story based on its weaknesses, I encourage you to use it as an opportunity to learn empathy for Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims.
Imagine there is no United States of America. Rather, each state is a separate nation. In fact, the states are smaller than they actually are. What is now Utah is actually two nations; one north of the Point of the Mountain (Draper), which we will call North Utah, and another from Utah County south called South Utah. In this imaginary world, our economic and political structures are not as favorable as they are in reality. Pretend we’re essentially a third world nation here in North Utah.
During World War II, lots of foreigners started moving into the area. These are descendants of Native Americans who lived here 2000 years ago but haven’t lived here since. They’ve been living all over the world. They are of a different religion and race. Soon after World War II, in 1947, the United Nations decided to create a state for them, carved right out of our homeland. For lack of a better name, let’s call it Maya. Maya consists of everything in the Wasatch Front east of I-15 from Draper up to Brigham City and everything east of the Box-Elder/Cache county line at the summit of the Wellsville mountains.
Many Utahns aren’t big fans of the United Nations to begin with. After all, what right do they have to tell us what to do in our own land? But this action by the United Nations is entirely unacceptable to you. What right do they have to do this? This is your homeland. (Imagine your family has lived here not for 150 years, but rather for 2000 years.) These people have no right to come in, steal your land and take over.
The neighboring states/nations of South Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Wyoming are also outraged, and within one year they decide to declare war on Maya. Before they invade, they warn you to leave your home in Logan (inside Maya’s boundaries) and flee into the West Desert because they don’t want to be shooting any fellow Americans or Mormons. So you pack up your 72-hour kit, sleeping bags and tent, leave your home in Logan and go over to Tremonton to wait out the war.
The war doesn’t go well for our fellow American brothers, and Maya wins. Our neighbors in the other states lick their wounds, go back home and leave us to our fate.
After the war, the Mayans won’t let you return back to Logan. In fact, to add insult to injury, they allow an immigrating family from Mexico to take over your home. You still have the title and the keys to your house, but you are not allowed to go there. You are forced to stay in Tremonton. There is no housing, no jobs, little water, etc. there. You are homeless.
The best and most economically advantageous land in the area is in Maya, and you’re out in the west side of the valley, which at that time is actually part of the nation of Nevada. The University of Utah, Weber State, and Utah State are all on the east side, in Maya. The vast majority of the businesses and factories and oil refineries and recreation spots are on the east side. Most of the water resources are on the east side. The economic and cultural centers of the valleys are all on the east side of the freeway. All that’s on the west side of the valley (in the 1940s) is farmland and desert. For our purposes, we’ll call that area west of the freeway the West Desert.
To make things even worse, one of the richest superpower countries in the world, (let’s pretend it’s the Soviet Union), takes a liking to this illicit Mayan government that has stolen your land and home. Not only do they do business with them, but they send billions of dollars in foreign aid to them every year. The east side of the Salt Lake Valley prospers with economic activity while the west side does not.
Over the next couple of years many of your friends and neighbors give up and move to Nevada, Idaho, South Utah, etc. But you don’t want to go. Logan is your home. You feel wronged. This is your land. So you remain homeless. The United Nations promises to compensate you for the loss of your home, but never delivers.
In 1967, 20 years after the first war, all the neighboring states get mad and again prepare to wage war on Maya. But Maya has been successful in obtaining not only foreign aid but modern military hardware from its superpower ally, the Soviet Union. Most of this equipment has not only been supplied by but also paid for by the Soviets. (Additionally, it is widely known that the Soviets also helped, or at least “looked the other way,” while the Mayans developed nuclear weapons.)
The Mayans are nobody’s fool. A day or two before the attack by the American country/states is to commence, the Mayans launch a pre-emptive strike and decimate the armies of our allies. Not only do they succeed in protecting the territory of their own country, but they also gain land that used to be in other countries.
By the way, there is a sizable minority of Americans and Mormons living in Maya – mostly those who did not leave in 1947. These people are citizens of Maya – second-class citizens, to be sure, but at least they can vote and obtain passports. But the people in the occupied territory (the West Desert) are given no citizenship, no vote, and no civil rights. We are oppressed and disenfranchised. How does that make you feel?
The conquering Mayan army never leaves. They become a Gestapo style occupying police force. Every basic freedom and human right we take for granted is taken away.
You have no citizenship in any country. You have no passport, so you cannot travel abroad. If you want to travel inside the territory, you must have government permission. Most of us are not allowed to go into Maya at all. Many of our children, even though we live only 30 miles away, have never even seen Logan Canyon or Bear Lake.
Some of us are getting tired of this. After all, we have a long history here in the American West of fierce independence and freedom. Some of us want to fight back. A group gets together under the leadership of a man we’ll call Orrin Porter Rockwell (because that’s basically the kind of a guy he is) to lead the resistance. They have few weapons, but they are determined. They start launching guerilla warfare attacks on the Mayans. However, before long, the Mayans force them out of the West Desert and up into Idaho.
The Mayan government calls Rockwell’s people “terrorists” because the missiles hurt innocent civilians. But so do the Mayan bombs. Why are the Utahns terrorists and not the Mayans? This is hard to understand, even for those of us who do not agree with Rockwell’s tactics.
Rockwell tries to drum up world support, but gets none. After all, nobody really likes Mormons anyway. Occasionally Wyoming sneaks them some guns and other equipment, but it’s not enough to do much good.
In 1982, Maya invades Idaho in an attempt to destroy Rockwell and his gang once and for all. In the aftermath, Idaho turns from the “Paris of the West” into a bloody mess.< /p>
In 1987, we’ve finally had enough, and the Utahns in the occupied territory revolt. This uprising results in a lot of shooting and many people on both sides are killed – far more Utahns than Mayans, of course, due to Maya’s modern military equipment. The Mayans crack down even harder than before.
Finally, in the 1990s, the president of the Soviet Union brokers a “peace” conference in Oslo, Norway. There, Mr. Rockwell sits down with the president of Maya and tries to hammer out an agreement that will bring peace. Make no mistake, Mr. Rockwell wants peace as much as anybody, but he’s got some very specific things he wants, such as:
1. Control of and access to Salt Lake City. This is not negotiable. Temple Square is there, and our people want to be able to go to the Temple and to General Conference and so on (which we have not been able to do for the last 55 years.) Also, this is the historic capitol of North Utah and we want our seat of government to be there. The Mayans say absolutely not.
2. Amnesty and the ability to return home for all North Utahns who left for Idaho, Nevada, South Utah, etc. in the 1940s and since. The Mayan president says “no way.” He’s afraid of that many Mormons living right next door.
3. A sovereign North Utah nation/state, free and independent of Maya. This is something the Mayans say they will consider, but they keep holding it as a bargaining chip and won’t ever quite agree to it.
Even though Mr. Rockwell gets none of these three things in this round of negotiations, he is encouraged by the process. He is allowed to return from exile in Idaho back to the West Desert and set up a sort of quasi-government, in preparation for what hopefully will be continued negotiations that will someday lead to a North Utah nation. The countries in Europe are very encouraged by this process and give us millions of dollars to help us build the infrastructure in the West Desert in preparation for a nation state. We build roads, government buildings, water systems, etc. After the Oslo accords, relations with Maya also improve somewhat. Many of our people in the West Desert are allowed to work in Maya. Trade between the West Desert and Maya increases, there is relative peace, and many people are optimistic about the future. There are no suicide bombings for four years.
There are, however, still many problems for our people. We are still oppressed. We still have no civil liberties. We still have no citizenship. We are still harassed by an occupying army. We still have to go through army checkpoints on Highway 89 through Sardine Canyon and Highway 30 through Beaver Dam to get into Cache Valley, which is part of the nation of Maya.
The most disturbing and destabilizing thing of all, however, is that some radical Mayans are moving into the occupied lands in the West Desert. They want to take over the occupied territories conquered from Nevada during the 1967 war and make them part of Maya. Of course the Mayan government can’t allow that to happen as long as we’re living there, because then the Mayans would lose political control in elections. So these extremists want us to leave. But, this is our homeland – or at least what little is left of it. We’ve stuck it out for 55 years and we’re not giving up now.
So these religious extremist Mayans start building new towns out in the occupied West Desert land. They come in, confiscate some farm or grazing land (without compensating the farmers), build a town, build a big fence around it, tell us to stay away, post army guards around it, build special roads to it (which we are not even allowed to drive on), and shoot any Mormon who dares to get too close to it.
Amazingly, the Mayan government not only allows these settlements, it actively promotes them. There is no single bigger obstacle to peace in the area than these settlements.
One year ago, one of these bigoted religious extremists who was running for president of Maya surrounded himself with 3,000 armed army troops as guards, walked into the Salt Lake Temple, climbed to the top and waved. This was broadcast over national Mayan TV. His reasoning was, “This is Maya. Any Mayan can go anywhere in Maya he wants to go.”
This single act shattered the fragile peace that had prevailed for the better part of a decade. Not all North Utahns are Mormons, but the vast majority are and they were both appalled and outraged by this man’s actions. Even the non-Mormon Utahns were offended. As a direct result, there was another revolt in the occupied territories. This uprising was both from religious groups (the Mormons) and from secular ones (the Utahns).
As the violence escalated, Mr. Rockwell came under intense pressure from the president of the Soviet Union to control us. He made some feeble attempts to do so, but doesn’t really have complete control over the actions of many North Utahns. So, the terrorism continued to increase.
But most Mormons are not evil. The vast majority of Mormons are peaceful, kind people. In fact, they are horrified by the extremists. The actions of the few suicide murderers from the West Desert cause the press all over the world to label all Mormons – and all Utahns – as terrorists. Unfortunately, they are scorned and suspected as terrorists, because of the distorted and biased news coverage that shows Mayan busses blown up, but does nothing to discuss the real problems.
To make things worse, on Sept. 11 of last year, a group of American excommunicated ex-Mormon religious fanatics hijacked some airliners and flew them into the Kremlin. When this happened, 99 percent of the North Utah people in the occupied West Desert territories were shocked and in mourning for the people of Moscow just as was the rest of the world. A half dozen radicals in one of our towns, however, were openly rejoicing. A news camera picked them up and broadcast the pictures all over the Soviet Union, conveying the inaccurate impression that Utahns are heartless, evil people who hate Russia.
The leader of the suicide hijackers, a lunatic named Ervil LeBaron, comes from a very wealthy family. He was raised in Hollywood, but 10 years ago California kicked him out and he now lives in New Mexico. Now, because of him, everyone all over the world thinks all Mormons and all Americans are terrorists.
By the way, that radical extremist politician, partly because of his antics on Temple Square, got himself elected president of Maya. The first thing he did was promise to stop building Mayan settlements in the occupied lands. But it was a lie. Instead, he went on a crash building program.
In the name of fighting terrorism, the Mayan army has also leveled entire towns, bulldozed entire refugee camps and made thousands homeless. They destroy power, water and telephone lines. When our children pick up rocks (which are the only weapons they have), the Mayans are ordered to shoot to kill.
The Mayan army imposes a curfew for days at a time and allows no one in Tremonton to leave their homes except for just a few hours a week to shop for food.
Sometimes we are puzzled by the world characterizing us as terrorists. What is a terrorist? Yes, the suicide bombers are terrorists, but are they the only ones? What is terror, anyway? Terror is precisely what the Mayans have been doing to us for the last 35 years of occupation. What would you call watching a tank drive across a field at full speed towards your car with its cannon pointed directly at you, if not terror? This happens all the time in the occupied West Desert territory – not just during uprisings and invasions.
Not all Mayans agree with what’s going on. Some army reservists are refusing to fight. They are called “refusenicks” and are scorned by most Mayans. Several dozen of them are in jail so far, simply for having a conscience.
Now, the secretary of state of the Soviet Union is trying to get the two sides to sit down and reason. It would be so easy for the logical, rational, moral people on both sides to do this, but the fanatics on both sides ruin it for everybody.
For the radical Mayans, the goal is to destroy or drive out every last Utahn from the occupied territories and take the land for themselves as a religious right. In the meantime, their immediate strategy is to systematically strip the Utahns of human dignity and make them essentially slaves in their own land. On the other side, for the radical Mormons, the goal is to destroy the nation of Maya and exterminate every last Mayan off the face of the earth. In the meantime, their immediate strategy is to hurt them where it hurts the most: Children, mothers, parents, family members in the Cache Valley Mall or Lee’s Marketplace blown to bits. Good people on both sides are horrified not only at the actions of their enemies but also their extremist neighbors.
So there’s my parable. Pretty sad, isn’t it? Yet, that is precisely what’s happening in the West Bank right now, to the innocent, good-hearted majority of Palestinians, who are being relentlessly harassed and brutalized by the Israeli army.
Terrorism is wrong, and good people everywhere – including Palestinians – condemn it, but is it really so hard for us to understand what causes the terrorism? It’s not so different from the school shootings in Columbine and other places. Teen suicide is rampant in many societies – even in our real world in the USA. What causes it? The answer is, the feeling of hopelessness. And what causes teens who are committing suicide to take a few others out with them? Hopelessness combined with hatred. The West Bank is filled with hopelessness and hatred. Unfortunately, Israel is doing nothing to reduce the level of hopelessness nor hatred among young Palestinians.
I find it fascinating to observe how quickly we forget the lessons of history. For example, why do so many Mormons who are descendants of polygamists act toward today’s polygamists precisely the way the people of Missouri and Illinois acted toward their own ancestors? Similarly, why do the Jews act toward the Palestinians precisely the way the Nazis acted toward their ancestors? Don’t we ever learn anything from one generation to the next? When victims get the power, how often they become abusers. Even the Israeli slogans “Never Forget” and “Never Again” are hypocritical – they have forgotten what it feels like to be disenfranchised, and they ARE doing it again to someone else.
The bottom line is, there are good, kind people and also evil, fanatical ones on both sides. It’s not a simple black and white situation. The Israelis are not the good guys and the Palestinians are not the bad guys. Regardless of your interpretation of Biblical prophecies, it is a mistake to assume God is on the side of the Israelis and agrees with what they are doing. Just because something is prophesied does not make it right or good.
Muslims are not terrorists any more than Mormons are polygamists. Neither are Palestinians. Neither are other Arabs. Muslims, Palestinians and Arabs have legitimate concerns about the Israeli occupation. The Israeli settlements in occupied lands, the violations of human rights, the blatant and flagrant gall and condescending disrespect of Mr. Sheron to desecrate Islam’s third most holy site, the issues of compensation and reparations, and the destruction of the entire infrastructure of the West Bank, are all legitimate issues that must be resolved. Until then, no matter what Colin Powell does, the cycle of violence will increase. Far from “rooting out terror,” the current Israeli military action is merely creating more and more disenfranchisement, despair and hatred, which will surely act as the seeds of future terror and bloodshed.
Given the current leadership on both sides, I see little reason for hope. Arafat is impotent. He has little control over the terrorist groups, and any semblance of control he used to have has been systematically dismantled by the Israelis in the last couple of months. Additionally, to be frank, Arafat is also not that bright. He’s far more comfortable with an AK-47 in his hands than with a camera in his face. He hasn’t figured out the Ghandi and Martin Luther King way of forcing change through nonviolent disobedience and winning world opinion to his cause, and I don’t think he ever will. He only has one tool in his toolbox, and it’s the tool of guerilla warfare and terrorism.
On the other side, Sharon is a complete idiot – a fanatical, religious zealot on a par with Khomeni and Bin Laden. He cannot be trusted to do anything he says he will do, any more than Arafat can. Many Israelis are appalled and embarrassed by what their government is doing. It is NOT equivalent to what the USA has done in Afghanistan. It has little to do with security and fighting terrorism; it has more to do with humiliation, harassment, viciousness, and revenge. It is evil and wicked. There’s no moral high ground in what Sharon is doing. It is not a coincidence that the violence on both sides has escalated since he has become Prime Minister. He is not interested in peace; he is interested in enslaving and terrorizing the Palestinians.
So there it is: The other side of the story. I may not have changed your mind, but I hope I have at least opened your eyes and given you food for thought.
Irv Nelson is a professor in the School of Accountancy. Comments can be sent to irv.nelson@usu.edu