By Ori Nir 

I got acquainted with the Occupation in 1986. That year was a significant landmark of the Occupation because by then Israel had ruled the West Bank and Gaza Strip for 19 years, following 19 years of Jordanian rule.

As a rookie reporter for Haaretz Daily, I used to travel to the occupied territories almost every day. I met with numerous Palestinians, documented their life under occupation, and returned to my home in West Jerusalem, to my life as a young professional in a free, democratic environment.

At the time, there was no physical barrier between the occupied territories and Israel. Anyone, Israeli, Palestinian or foreigner, could freely travel across the Green Line, throughout the West Bank and Gaza and inside sovereign Israel. 

The Green Line was not physically delineated. Yet, when returning home from a day in the West Bank – and even more so returning from a day in the Gaza Strip – I always had a sense of bewilderment,of dissonance. I used to say to myself: How can a country that sees itself as a liberal democracy, a country that works to bolster its democratic institutions and uphold liberal values, sustain an oppressive military occupation just a ten-minute drive away from my home? And how is it that so few of my fellow Israelis seem to care? 

This sense of dissonance was shared by Palestinians. And so was their frustration with Israeli society’s apathy. On a visit to a Palestinian refugee camp just outside of Bethlehem that summer, a young Palestinian activist who had just been released from an Israeli prison for political activity relayed to me the sentiments of fellow political prisoners: “nothing will change until Israeli mothers carry their bleeding children to hospitals and cemeteries,” he said. 

This was 1986. For years, this matter-of-fact statement, coming from a Palestinian just a few years younger than me, made my blood freeze. At first I tried to imagine how things may change in the case of large scale, severe Palestinian violence. And over the years I witnessed how the cycle of violence and counter-violence, revenge and counter-revenge impacted both Palestinian and Israeli societies. How the Occupation shattered the occupied and corrupted the occupier. 

Nabil, the young activist from Dheisheh refugee camp, was born in 1967. At 55, he likely has children. Maybe even grandchildren. Like 91% of West Bank Palestinians and 93% of Gazans, he was born into the Occupation and experienced nothing but life under occupation. He is one of 700,000 or 800,000 West Bank and Gaza Palestinians who have been arrested by Israeli authorities since 1967. That’s around 40% of the adult male population of the occupied territories. Many of those were administrative detainees, who were held for long periods (sometimes as long as 18 months) without charge, as a “preventative” measure.

Like the 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and the 2 million in the Gaza Strip, Nabil was subject to some 1,800 military orders issued by the administration authorities since 1967, restricting basic freedoms and human rights of Palestinians. 

From the hill above his refugee camp, Nabil can see Jewish settlements where Israeli citizens reside, settlers who enjoy all the civil and human rights guaranteed for citizens of the state of Israel. Israeli governments have established some 132 “official” settlements in the West Bank. In addition, Israeli governments have acquiesced to the construction of some 147 illegal settlement outposts, built in violation of Israeli law, many if not most of them on privately-owned Palestinian land. Nabil has seen the construction of hundreds of miles of roads to serve the settlers. He has seen Israeli governments declare 1.4 million dumans (more than 540 square miles) as “state land,” land that was mostly allocated for use by settlements. Only 1% of that land was allocated for use by Palestinians. 

Members of Nabil’s generation and his children’s generation witnessed Israel demolishing more than 60,000 homes of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians since 1967. Most of these demolitions were not related to security considerations (punishing or deterring Palestinian violence).

And, yes, Nabil has witnessed a lot of blood, bereavement and agony. On both sides. Since the Second Palestinian uprising broke out in December 1987, more than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict with Israel and more than 1,200 Israelis. Tens of thousands have suffered bodily injuries, and an incalculable number carry the psychological scars of the Occupation. 

I have not been in touch with Nabil in over 30 years. From social media, I know he is still alive and active but not much beyond that. I can only imagine what a conversation with him today would sound like. What would he say today about the prospects of change? 

What I know is that there is still a critical mass of Israelis and Palestinians who believe in peace and an even larger segment of both societies – a majority, I believe – who would support a peace deal that credible Israeli and Palestinian leaders propose. 

55 years later, this seems like an almost impossible goal. But it’s so important, so vital for both societies, that it’s undoubtedly worth the unrelenting effort of peace advocates like us.