Neve Gordon

'Omer Post Office – For Omer Residents Only!' says the headline in a pamphlet distributed by a party running in the local elections in the rich southern suburb near my hometown, Beer-Sheva.

This is the way the results of the elections are being presented in the Israeli press: Centre Left Bloc Right Bloc Other, perhaps more accurate ways to present the election results:

Why is Israel calling up 75,000 reserve soldiers, when during the last ground invasion of Gaza it called up only 10,000? Such a massive mobilisation is no minor matter, not least because its cost to the Israeli economy is enormous. There are four possible motivations: 1. The call-up of reservists is meant to deter the Palestinians. 2. Israel intends to invade Gaza; however, it needs to take into account the change of government in Egypt and deter its southern neighbour from joining the fray. 3. Israel is worried about developments in Jordan and will consider deploying forces to help King Abdullah if the protests there gain momentum. 4.

A few weeks ago I told the story of my friend Hussein, who had to advertise his flat under the pseudonym Rami in order to rent it out. The other day, my neighbor Yifat, who owns two flats in our block – she lives in one with her two children and rents the other out – told me about her attempt to raise the rent from 4000 to 4500 shekels a month. The tenant, she said, tried to haggle, offering her 4100 shekels. Yifat was willing to come down to 4400, arguing that many military bases are being relocated to the Negev, which would surely lead to a steep increase in rents. Indeed, an air-force pilot had already contacted her and was willing to pay 4500. The tenant didn't yield. She said she was willing to meet halfway, but no more.

Last year I gave the Israeli artist Amir Nave an old Hebrew copy of Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace, which I teach every so often in my Introduction to Political Theory class. He took the book, flipped through it, ripped out the title page, turned it upside down, signed it and returned it to me. Nave, an Arab Jew of Iraqi descent, didn't say anything, but the gesture was eloquent enough: we are living in an era of perpetual war, and peace emerges, if at all, in the interregnum. Nave’s children go to the same school as mine. It’s called Hagar, after the biblical figure who wandered between different peoples and cultures in the desert not far from where I live. Hagar was founded by a group of Jewish and Palestinian parents who wanted to create a shared space for their children. It’s the only non-segregated school in the Negev region, which is home to about 700,000 Israelis, more than a quarter of whom are Palestinian Bedouin.