Long talk with an old friend (part II)

Part I is available here. As with Part I, any comments in quotation marks are my best recollection, and portray what was said with good accuracy, but should not be taken as verbatim quotes.

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As part of the same rambling conversation, my friend mentioned the electricity situation in Gaza. For those who are unaware, an Israeli air strike in the summer of 2006 knocked out the only power plant within the Gaza strip. Since then, Gaza has been largely reliant on fuel for generators and Israeli sources for its electricity.

However, fuel supplies are running dry, and the Israeli government recently indicated it planned to stop sending electricity to Gaza, although those plans were at least temporarily placed on hold last week by a ruling from Israel's Supreme Court.

"It's not as simple as not having lights or air conditioners," my friend said. "It's all the things you never think of, you take for granted. People in hospitals will die. Medicine which needs refrigeration will spoil. Almost all of the water in Gaza comes from the ocean. Without electricity, the desalination plant can't run, there will be no water."

She also discussed her frustrations with the situation.

She felt she had been in her position long enough she was no longer effective in it - that as she became acclimated to the day-to-day problems thrown in her way they no longer outraged her, and without that outrage her effectiveness decreased.

She gave an example of a colleague of hers arriving recently in Jerusalem, and on arrival being asked why he was there. As soon as he mentioned he hoped to work to further peace between Israelis and Palestinians he was sent back to the US and told he was not welcome to return for a 10-year period.

"When I first began, I'd have been furious," she said. "This time, I just divied up the extra work among everyone and we all continued on."

She talked about the difficulties of making treks to Gaza. Israel doesn't allow people to cross into Gaza unless they have some powerful reason for doing so, such as overseeing what money a group has sent to Gaza is being spent on. To go on a certain day she has to apply long in advance to be placed on a list. On the specified day she has to arrive at the checkpoint and go through a two-hour process to get clearance to pass through, and a similar process coming back. Any approval is only for a single day, so just getting through the border takes up a big chunk of your allotted time.

She discussed how blase she had become about having guns pointed at her. I've had guns pointed at me a handful of times in my life, and can vividly recall each of them. She clearly has lost count.

"I think I can do one more year, then it will be time to move on to another lost cause," she told me. "Maybe immigration issues here."

I'm of two minds about this. In the abstract, my friend is exactly the person I would want in Jerusalem working on such matters. She is bright, caring, driven, tactful, trustworthy, dedicated ... name a trait you would want in an individual working on the ground to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and she has it in spades. I can't think of anyone else I would prefer in that position ... in the abstract.

In reality, she's my friend, and I'll be glad when she and her family are back in the states, and she (hopefully) no longer has guns pointed at her on a regular basis.


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In part I my friend mentioned her belief that, if elections were held again Palestinians would never vote for Hamas, but Hamas will never allow more elections because they also know they would lose. Certainly, events like this just support that view.