May 20th, 2008
What does it mean that I bought a bullet necklace at the Ayalon Institute? Is it an indirect declaration of support for what the factory symbolized? I appreciated that the tour guide kept referring to the land during the factory's existence as Palestine and didn't avoid the term like many Zionists do in an attempt to devilify and avoid responsibility for the actions carreid out against the people of Palestine in the name of Israel. At the same time that he repeatedly referred to Palestine, he also completely glorified the factory- the first to produce bullets to fuel the Jewish struggle prior to the Israeli Declaration of Independence. I am beginning to understand how my childhood friend could have returned from his birthright trip ready to join the Israeli army. They make it not about the conflict or the violence or the displacement, but about the goal and dream of Israel and what it ideally represents. The problem is that this dream Israel is inextricably linked to the actions and immorality created in its wake. Do the means ever truly justify the ends? I feel in my heart so much hypocrisy linked to this country, to this place, but I'm also being told that this is my home. While I know that neither does this space belong to me nor do I to it, I can't resist the humanity of the Israeli people. It is no longer as simple as it was when I was so completely removed from and external to the land and the situation. There can not be an easy solution here. My mind couldn't fully grasp that before I came here. But "here" is now home to tens of thousands (actually approximately 7 million) Israeli people. A bullet necklace hanging on a shiny gold ball chain around my neck broadcasts so much more than the Israeli-Zionist stance. It validates and endorses, glamorizes and renders heroic the very violence and persecution that created the need for this specific bullet in the first place. But for me it goes even further.
Bullets immediately connect to armed resistance, to the Panthers, to a global solidarity for those forced to don arms. But how can that be my first and immediate connotation when I hail from a city plagued by the bullet? How can I cry at Tomas' grave and assemble an altar in his name for Dia de los Muertos, scream at the world for unjustly allowing a 19-year-old boy to be shot dead in Oakland, California, and buy and flaunt a golden bullet in Rehovot, Israel? Maybe that's why I haven't put it on yet. But I know that I will when I've figured out what it means for me. It scares me that I bought it without fully understanding why. I was drawn to it. It's part of the magic weaved by birthright. Since I've resigned to not put it on until I'm sure of why, I wonder: will I ever wear it?
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