I admit it: I am depressed. I mean I am really depressed, almost clinically. I think about the “situation” all the time. My days are overwhelmed by fear and my evenings are haunted by nightmares. I cannot shake myself out of my depression. I don’t see an end in sight to it. The parallel here, and the reason for my depression, is that I see no end in sight to the “situation” as well. Yes, I am losing hope, and anyone with a rudimentary understanding of psychology knows that loss of hope leads to depression.
In 1996, when suicide bombings struck Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, claiming many more lives than has been the case in the recent wave of terrorist atrocities, I did not become depressed. The late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat had shaken hands on the White House lawn and the Oslo accords were being implemented.
Those who killed us were enemies of peace. The Palestinian leadership condemned those heinous attacks, almost in equal measure to our own condemnation of them. Both sides to the conflict held that peace talks would continue despite the attempts by extremists to derail the process of accommodation. Hope was not extinguished, and therefore depression could not come knocking at my door.
During the Gulf War, I was not depressed. I knew that there was an end in sight to my sojourn in a sealed room. After all, America, with a grand coalition, was leading the charge against Iraq’s despot. Israeli army spokesman, Nachman Shai, soothed any fears that I had, with accurate and truthful reporting.
The first intifada did not cause me to closet myself into a world of dark images. After all, I am a liberal, and the Palestinian uprising that began in December of 1987 was a popular one — of a people who wanted to cast off the yoke of occupation. Our reactions to this initial intifada were so exaggerated that to protest our excesses made sense. From a Jewish perspective, I believed that our demonstrations against the handling of that intifada were necessary, and would hopefully alter the Israeli government’s policy in the terrritories.
Throughout all the continual turmoil, I believed that, just as we made peace with the historical enemy of the Jewish people, Egypt, so too would we make peace with the rest of the Arab world. But now, the situation is different.
I have lost that hope, and have slid down that slippery slope into a frightening depression.
Hope is what has kept the Jewish people alive throughout the generations. We have sustained the longest living liberation movement in human history. From the time of the destruction of the Second Temple, we never gave up our national dream of return to our ancestral homeland.
Facing Jerusalem three times a day, we prayed for our redemption in a restored Israel. It is no accident that, at the close of the most important theological holiday in the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, and at the end of the most important historical holiday, Passover, we say: “Next year in Jerusalem.” And as we prayed toward Jerusalem, we always beseeched God “who makes peace in the heavens to grant us and all of Israel peace.”
This hope for return, for peace, stemmed any encroachment of depression as we withstood Roman conquerors, Holy crusaders, Spanish inquisitors, Cossack raiders, Nazi murderers, Arab armies and terrorist thugs. Quite amazing when one thinks of it.
But now, it is different. There is a new reality. After Oslo, after Camp David, after Taba, and also, for us liberals, after the election of Ariel Sharon as prime minister, hope seems to have been snuffed out. The situation is so extreme that I am even finding it difficult to protest the continued human rights abuses that we are still perpetrating against the Palestinians, and the sometimes wanton and cruel responses on our part to Palestinian violence. It is depressing to think that I am losing the will to stand up for what I believe to be Jewishly right — even in times of warfare.
But mostly, and unlike in the past, I have losing hope that there is a solution to the conflict. For example, the Palestinians would deny my rights to Jerusalem. As just illustrated, their claim to Jerusalem cannot historically match ours, which is not to say that we should not recognize their emotional and spiritual attachment to the Holy City.
Further, they want to exercise the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees, knowing full well that this would be the end of the Jewish state. They want justice, of which neither side has a monopoly. But what is needed is compromise. We seemed ready to compromise. They clearly were not. And now, they strike at us with devastating blows, and we hit back with powerful attacks. There is no end in sight.
And so, this ancient homeland of mine, which was re-established after two millennia because of a sustained hope, a hope that included an expectant peace as articulated in our prayers, may continue to know only strife and terror and occupation. In great measure we are responsible for the present situation because of the continued occupation. But in rejecting the possibility to end the occupation, the Palestinians have perpetrated a ride to hell for all of us.
And so I am depressed. Both sides, together, have to stop fighting and start talking. If not, then the words of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, a Zionist ideologue whom I do not relish quoting, will be all too accurate: “He who has no hope in his heart is doomed to death.” I refuse to let my depression lead me to this inevitable conclusion.
Know this, Mr. Arafat, if hope cannot sustain me then sadly Sharon will have to. I will remain depressed, because I will hate myself for what I may yet see happen, but I will survive.