Alma Zohar
Photo: Doron Adot
The riots in Akko
Photo: Eran Yofi Cohen
Violence without ideology
Akko Riots feature two sides that in fact have no idea what they want
I heard about the riots in Akko at the end of Yom Kippur, on my way back from my parents’ home in Jerusalem, where I fasted. The news immediately took me back to my mixed childhood in Jerusalem’s Old City, among the Arabs and ultra-Orthodox; the sense of latent threat, of tensions below the surface, while above the surface we saw the smooth flow of prolific business ties. It took me back to the first Intifada that turned the alleyways of my childhood into a fire zone; ever since then, I have not regained the sense of safety while walking through them. It took me back to the moment when the violence erupted.
The world was different back then. It was not a small global village; rather, it was very large. Things that happened overseas seemed to have happened on another planet. There was no Internet. We had one official television channel and cassettes. America was a distant galaxy.
We lived in the periphery. We were an ethnic minority with unique national folklore in a world that was made up of ethnic minorities and was yet to be grinded into consistent dough of chain stores and telecommunication giants. Politics was local too. Instead of globalization, we had the Cold War. The world was divided into good guys and bad guys, and you knew which side you’re one. All of us were political at the time. We didn’t have “American Idol” back then and malls were yet to be built. In order to entertain ourselves, we would aimlessly walk around downtown and wait for something interesting to happen.
The only interesting thing that ever happened was terror attacks. We had the ideological zeal of soccer fans. We were willing to die for what we believed was the right way. We went to demonstrations. We wore t-shirts with symbols printed on them. There were no brands at the time; instead, we had values.
Values are a romantic thing. They stir powerful emotions. Today it sounds perverted, but we admired political leaders. There was no Tzipi Livni back then. We had Peres and Shamir and Rabin and Geula Cohen and Rechavam Ze’evi. People you could love or hate. A true emotional storm. We monitored their actions anxiously as if they were current-day celebrities. When our candidate won, we celebrated in the streets. When he lost, we cried. When he was murdered, we lit up candles.
Deep identity crisis
There was no free porn on the Internet yet, and we were teenagers filled with urges and searching for action; we engaged in street clashes with far-rightists and provocations vis-à-vis police officers during demonstrations at Paris Square.We are the children of the 1970s, the last generation of the ideological era. The last generation of people who didn’t know how to use a computer. The last generation of people who were ashamed to dodge military service. The last generation of youth movements. By the time we grew up, the values we were raised on became irrelevant. The world changed at alarming speed. The traditional division between Left and Right collapsed around us. The Arabs ruined our peace. The Kibbutzim were privatized. The Twin Towers collapsed. And we found ourselves facing a deep identity crisis.
Yet the thing that happened to us, radical leftists, also happened to our bitter enemies on the Right: Nobody today cares about their settlements; nobody is willing to die for the greater or divided land of Israel. People prefer to die in car accidents en route to a Paul McCartney show. While the settlers were evacuated from Gaza, the public switched to the comedy channel. Even we don’t really hate them anymore. Their way, just like our way, ended in miserable failure. All sides ended up losing in the last round. On Yom Kippur, we meet at the small synagogues in Jerusalem, and all the leftists become newly religious.
Plenty of violence erupted in Akko. Violence without ideology. Violence that does not aim to bring change. Violence between two sides that in fact have no idea what they want. Violence between Arabs who will never agree to join a Palestinian state and Jews who are no longer willing to pay the price of occupation. Violence that stems from frustration, helplessness, and losing one’s way. Violence pitting people who don’t know who they are against people who don’t know where they’re going.
This violence includes some longing to that black and white era. Us and them. Good guys and bad guys. In that era, even if everything was crappy, at least we knew who to blame.
