What Lies Beneath The Enchanted Forests Of Israel?

Revised

This is a piece that I wrote ten years ago. I was only two years into unraveling from being a Zionist. So I’ve had to edit what I now realise, was still very Zionist language. In a way it’s embarrassing to have a window into my old paradigm, but I’m choosing to focus on the fact that I have managed to evolve.

It’s also important to highlight that I wrote this seven years before the genocide.

I’ve attempted to keep the article as true to when I wrote it as possible. If I wrote it today, I would have nothing positive to say about Israelis.

Moving to Israel as a ten year old girl, was not easy. I struggled with learning Hebrew, and with no one else in the Absorption Center in the hills outside Jerusalem who could speak my language, it took me a while to make friends.

I tried to find things to do, that would keep me distracted from how much I missed my bestie and grandparents back in Sweden. So I spent a lot of time just walking around, hoping to find somewhere quiet to get away from the intensity of my home.

On these little walks, I would sometimes discover small pieces of rocks in the dirt that stood out to me. They had ridges across them, almost as if they were designed to be there. I would collect these treasures and put them in my pocket, and bring them back to my bedroom. I kept thinking they were rocks, until one day I found one that had what looked like part of a handle on it.

All of a sudden, I realised that I had a fast growing pottery collection under my bed. I was thrilled. I would admire my handcrafted pieces, and wonder what the original item had looked like before it broke.

Who had made it? Did someone get in trouble for breaking it? Maybe a little girl like me had dropped her jug of water, after carrying it back from a well. I wondered who had lived in these rocky hills before me, and how long ago?

I eventually settled into my new life in Israel. I learned Hebrew and English and made friends. My pottery collection didn’t come with me, when we moved to our new home in the center of Jerusalem. Occasionally though, over the years, I would find another piece of pottery when I hiked in the desert. By now I had a friend who knew all about archaeology, and he would explain what era of history my piece came from. I didn’t quite understand what it meant when he said that it came from the Byzantine Period, but it sounded ancient.

I liked the idea of being connected to the past through a piece of pottery in my hand. It was similar to how I felt as a little girl in Sweden, when I would look through my grandmother’s amber collection from her daily walk on the beach. I used to love holding each gem and try to guess which shore it had arrived from. Some of the pieces even had a tiny little insect trapped inside. It filled me with wonder.

I moved away from Israel in 1995, at the age of twenty, to study in Australia with every intention of returning back home.

Despite the distance, my commitment to Israel felt strong. So over the years, I tried to find meaningful opportunities to remain connected. One of those ways, was to suggest to friends that they donate money for trees to be planted in Israel, instead of giving a gift for a special occasion. It seemed like such a thoughtful and meaningful way to give back to the country that I loved.

Not for a moment, did I consider that there might be something sinister about such an eco-friendly gift.

Two decades passed, and after one failed attempt at moving back to Israel, I was now raising four kids on my own in Australia. Children who also loved to collect little treasures that they found in their travels.

Then in 2014, my world turned upside down, when I made the decision to google “Gaza images,” and a photo of a toddler’s torso in the middle of the rubble, appeared on my computer screen.

It was the first time I actually saw, truly saw, what my country was doing.

Not long after, I met someone who had just visited Israel. While there, she had traveled to one of the many forests that have been planted thanks to donations from around the globe.

She went on to tell me that as she walked through the forest, she had noticed big rocks in the undergrowth. A bit further away were the remains of a building. She was confused. These ruins didn’t look ancient. Despite all the trees, it was obvious that this used to be someone’s village not long ago.

Her guide explained that the rocks were from a destroyed cemetery, and the remains of the building were a school. He then went on to show her the village water well, hidden in the undergrowth.

As she stood there, the trees began to fade, and a small Palestinian village came to life. She could see children chasing each other. Mothers sweeping outside their homes. Old men smoking in the shade.

Tears began to roll as her Palestinian guide told her of the horrors that took place. The bloodied bodies scattered around the village. The children crying out for their parents. The grandmothers pleading for their life. She listened to how a bustling village, that used to be a place of life and belonging for centuries, was demolished in a matter of hours by the Israeli soldiers.

Survivors were forced to flee to Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Iraq. They created a diaspora and longed to return home. Treasuring any remaining piece they had held on to from their beloved village.

In order to hide the evidence of the Palestinian people, pine trees were planted by the Zionists. Thousands of them. Donated by mostly ignorant supporters from around the globe.

These non-native and highly flammable trees would grow quickly to create a forest. The acid from the dropped pine needles destroyed any sign of life and ultimately made the land unusable for the shepherds who had tended their sheep for centuries

A wave of burning shame washed over me, as I listened to her speak. How could I have not known? This was not an ancient story. Not like those pieces of pottery I would hold in my hand as a child. This was recent. Some of those villagers that survived the Nakba, were still alive today. How could good hearted people have allowed this to happen? Had we as a nation become so hardened to political news that these acts of destruction no longer triggered an empathetic response in us?

The truth hit me straight in the chest. I was one of these ‘good hearted’ people standing by in silence. The destruction of Palestinians had never stopped. It had continued on my watch.

Even as I write this, people’s homes are being demolished by my government. Homes that were built to shelter the displaced Palestinian families, are flattened in minutes by the army that I served in. How have we become so blinded by the politics of our nation, that we no longer see humanity?

I believe that as a people group we are better than this. We have creative minds, fantastic verbal skills and an incredible ability to rise above our circumstances to find innovative solutions.

Why are we using these gifts to dominate and destroy? Surely we can’t allow yet another bloody and destructive chapter to unfold?

If we choose, our legacy can be overdue justice for the Indigenous People of the land.