No One is Moving Out but the Married

Amos Oz, Israel’s most celebrated native literary figure, has pointed out that when it comes to the conflict between Arabs and Jews it is to much to expect everyone to “make love, not war,” as so many idealists would claim is the solution. Instead he said, what is needed is for Palestinians and Israelis to “make peace not war.” About this peace, he says,

“I don’t expect a sudden burst of mutual love between Israel and Palestine,” and that, “Unfortunately I don’t expect anything like this. I don’t expect a honeymoon either. If anything, I expect a just divorce between Israel and Palestine. And divorces are never happy, even when they are very just. Especially this particular divorce, which is going to be a very particular divorce, because the two divorcing parents are definitely staying in the same apartment. No one is moving out.”

But what then of love? Perhaps peace between nations is the more pragmatic and desirable expectation, but does this mean love need be forgotten entirely, and forsaken.
I do not think that Amos Oz personally means for this to be the case, and the “peace” that he talks about certainly has not yet come to be. But it seems today in Israel that indeed love has been forsaken to such a degree that when it is found it cannot be met with peace.

According to a recent BBC report, this is exactly the case for one young married couple. Jasmine Avisar, an Israeli Jewish woman, and Osama Zaatar, a Muslim Palestinian man met and fell in love in Jerusalem. According to the report they have been stopped in everyway possible from making a life together. Israel, because of its strict security policies, will not let Osma into the unoccupied territories to live with his wife. Consequently they have moved to a West Bank neighborhood. However the Arab community there does not accept them either, and Osama has received threats and is told that he is a traitor. Whether it be a Muslim Palestinian community, or the Jewish Israeli State, their love, which ideally could stand as a symbol for peace, is seemingly impossible in this land of “Divorce.” For that reason Jasmine and Osama have decided to leave the country all together and move to Europe, where they hope to find, in regards to their unlikely marriage, communal and state neutrality if nothing else.

This illustrates that the situation between Palestinians and Israelis is more awkward than even Amos Oz acknowledges. “No one is moving out,” unless of course they decide to embrace marriage instead of divorce. Then they must move out.