Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Da Ameinu - Odessa, 1918 and the Gaza Strip, 2008-2009

02/11/2009
Odessa, 1918 and the Gaza Strip, 2008-2009
By Dan Fleshler
(Editor’s note: This article originally appeared as post in the
Realistic Dove blog on January 11, 2009 during the war in Gaza)
My maternal grandmother, Pearl Weiner, used to tell me stories about
her adolescence in Odessa, where, in 1918, she lived through the
Ukrainian Revolution. In one year, Odessa was overrun with a
succession of occupying armies and gangs, whom she invariably
described as “the Bolsheviks, the Denekinovitches [followers of Anton
Denekin, a White Russian General] the Petliuravitches [followers of
Simon Petliura, the Ukrainian nationalist folk hero],the
“morphines” [her wonderfully evocative word for drug addicts] and
various criminal gangs whose names I have forgotten. When I would ask
her about the differences between the groups, she would say, angrily,
“They were all robbers!” and refused to differentiate between them as
a matter of principle.
She worked in a pharmacy at the time, at the age of 18. Pharmacies
were considered off-limits even by the most brutal soldiers. But she
recounted all kinds of harrowing stories about the behavior of men
wearing different uniforms. If I recall correctly, she said the worst
behavior was exhibited by the Ukrainians, whom she blamed for
“pogroms.”
Decades later, I found myself in the Ukrainian Museum in Chicago.
There, I saw a portrait of Simon Petliura. The caption next to the
painting was something like “Our Liberator.” An elderly woman sat at a
reception desk nearby. My grandmother’s tormentor was her people’s
hero. I didn’t talk to that woman, but soon afterwards, read a little
Ukrainian history, and learned that while Petliura and his people were
often blamed for anti-Semitic attacks, there was little evidence that
he was responsible for them. I also read that while there were
horrible pogroms in the Ukraine for decades, there were none in
Odessa, in 1918.
Had they met, my grandmother and the woman in the museum probably
would have been quite nice to each other. But if the conversation had
turned to Petliura, there would have been no way to bridge that chasm.
They both believed what they chose to believe, based on the
information available to them and the circumstances of their lives.
I can hear my grandmother’s voice while reading the completely
different, utterly irreconcilable narratives of the Gaza conflict that
are bouncing around the Web. Ezra Klein had a nice post early in the
conflict that mentioned only the most obvious distinctions between the
narratives.
This is nothing new, this rendering of the same events in the Middle
East by people who appear to be denizens of completely different
universes. But I cannot remember a time when efforts to try to see any
validity in each side’s points of view, or to show a small amount of
empathy for the side that is deemed to be the aggressor, have been
attacked with such venom.
At times like this, the anger on both sides of the divide is
understandable. Innocent people are being torn to shreds by Israeli
bombs and mortar shells in Gaza, and those who believe there is no
possible justification for it cannot be expected to be anything other
than furious. I know I am. I think Israel’s behavior has been
appalling and nothing I have heard is going to make me change my
mind.
But I also think Hamas’ behavior has been appalling. And I am feeling
very lonely, because other critics of Israel’s assault either won’t
admit that or–worse–don’t believe it. If you believe, like much of the
blogosphere, that people in southern Israel are not seriously
threatened, and the proof you cite is the “kill ratio” (i.e., hundreds
of Palestinian civilian casualties, less than a dozen Israeli
civilians killed) , then you and I are even farther apart than my
grandmother and that Ukrainian woman. From where I sit, the trauma of
those rockets in southern Israel has been real, and unbearable, and
Israel had to do something about it. Moreover, the threat of long-
range missiles from the Gaza Strip landing in Tel Aviv and other major
Israeli cities is also real. I am not trying to rationalize or justify
Israel’s disproportionate response. But too many people COMPLETELY
deny the significance of the trauma in Sderot and the threat to Tel
Aviv, and have decided that Hamas is some kind of noble resistance
movement that was simply trying to stop Israel’s blockade of the Gaza
Strip. We don’t have much to say to each other. Our information, and
our circumstances, are too different.
What I remember, and believe, is that the rocket fire began right
after the Israelis withdrew from Gaza in 2005, when Hamas took over
property abandoned by Israel and began firing away in what at first
appeared to be a kind of macabre celebration. The rockets continued
for years. According to Philip Weiss, in a lecture given this past
February, Rashid Khalidi, (a harsh critic of Israel) blamed both sides
for the Hamas-Israel conflict. He called the rocket attacks “immoral,
illegal and politically stupid.” If you can find a way to justify
those attacks, or Hamas-directed suicide bombings that have killed
Israeli women and children in buses and supermarkets, or the Hamas
purge of Fatah activists from Gaza, then the chasm between us cannot
be bridged.
I can hear my grandmother calling out “They were all robbers!” She
passionately and angrily blamed all sides for the traumatic events she
witnessed. I used to think her remarks were amusing and I would tell
funny stories about the memories she shared. Now, I understand how
wise she was.

 her adolescence in Odessa,
città nota per la sollevazione a furor di popolo che portò Jabotinsky
alla guida del locale movimento sionista. Causando un rosicamento che
non passa (particolarmente in chi non può usufruire della Legge del
Ritorno)