77. Jerusalem, 2000 - The day after
In which it's quiet outside. Too quiet.
The innocence went long ago. Something new is in its place instead. 
Eleanor
13 October, 2000
It is quiet outside. All seems normal. But nothing will ever be the same here. The innocence was gone a long time ago. But now the carefully crafted trust, always on a knife edge, has been blown apart too. I don’t think I can ever look at an Israeli quite the same way again. Or Palestinians. That one could, in a mob rage, brutally lynch two soldiers and parade their bodies. That the other could bomb an unarmed, defenseless, occupied population. How can I be objective when dear friends have had to run for their lives from rocket attacks? Friends who have only ever supported the peace process. Friends who have only ever been peaceful.
Today feels utterly bizarre. The quietness of today, after the violence of yesterday, lulls me, de-energizes me. We try to go on “as normal”, but in everyone’s eyes there is a shadow, a hauntedness. In everyone’s posture and gaze there is a new nervousness, a constant scanning of their surroundings. No-one is relaxed.
It has come. Not war exactly. But the edge of it.
I cannot order my thoughts properly tonight. It is as if I am in a fog, unable to see clearly. I have little hope in the future. I expect the worst. Yet hope has not completely died. Nor compassion. Nor humanity. We look at each other differently. “You were there. You felt it. You felt the fear. We will hold hands together. We need each other. You are here. We are here. Palestine is still here.”
I am so angry that this could happen. What cold calculating mind could say, “Send in the gun ships. Fire!”. All the Palestinians I know have expressed remorse and horror over the Palestinians’ part in yesterday's bloody saga. They can understand the rage and frustration that propelled the crowd, but they do not excuse it. But Israel? No iota of remorse is shown. To question if they reacted in any way excessively is treasonous.
Seven years of slow, uneven, halting progress have evaporated in weeks. Roads recently built are bulldozed, dug up, blocked. Diplomatic vehicles are shot at—by whom, fiercely contested. In private we know it’s mostly the settlers, sometimes the IDF, occasionally Palestinians. Already it’s been Britain, Norway, the Vatican, the UN. Who is next?
Ramallah is blockaded. Towns are sealed. Palestinians are trapped. The hopelessness and despair compounds the rage at the injustice.
“It’s for security,” Israel says. It’s always for security. But never any of it for Palestinians. The new checkpoints, the new closures, they’ll stay. That’s Israel’s way. Use any excuse to create new facts on the ground, patiently wait through the outrage, wait for the news cycle to move on. And the new settlements, the new restrictions: they remain. What was new and outrageous becomes established fact. And the python continues squeezing, squeezing, squeezing.
And in the eruption of this second Intifada, loneliness and isolation descend. Those who understand what we are living through are so few. I find myself strangely missing Jacob and Francois. They would understand this. I would feel less alone if they were here. Jacob would be helping to keep us safe, using his security and intelligence contacts that are out of reach to us now.
How am I supposed to keep us all safe by myself?
I could write and write and write tonight. But it will not help. It will not expurgate the feelings of betrayal, loss, horror and overwhelming, crippling grief.
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Special Note
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