Yup. Back in the early Oslo days (daze?), I was working in wooden kit home construction in towns and villages around Jerusalem. One morning, at Tzur Hadassah - a community south of the capital and adjacent to Palestinian Authority-held areas - I struck up a conversation with our Palestinian building engineer as we inspected a slab for wall-framing.
There were no other workers in the vicinity, so both of us felt free to speak our minds in a friendly, non-confrontational chat.
Concerned, I noted to him that he seemed exhausted and tired-eyed at the start of the day; he'd not been allowed back into PA areas due to a security incident, he replied, and had had little sleep for three days, sleeping in his car.
He complained to me about how the IDF strictures, and the duress it subjected he and his family, and that he missed his young children, with his wife having to cope without him.
As we kneeled down to measure where the water and electrical conduits would come up behind the drywall in one of the bathrooms, I countered that I could absolutely sympathize with his difficulties and predicament, with our infant triplets having recently come into the world.
I then suggested, hopefully (although I was deeply suspicious of the whole endeavor and the cabal of illegal backchannel machinations that birthed the travesty on the nation), in a sense of shop-floor camaraderie that with the onset of the Oslo Accords better days for him and his family were ahead, and that Arafat and Co would help to stabilize their status.
He looked me in the eye, shaking his head at what he viewed as my naiveté and snorted in derision, "Are you kidding?"
He concluded in a bitter sentence I'll never forget:
"You've just brought in the Mafia," turned away, and continued his inspection.
Interesting Dave. I just assumed that my workers would be pleased that the "Sole Legal Representative of the Palestinian People" was coming to town. We had been working together for years, long hot days in the greenhouses, and we had avoided talking politics like the plague. We had bonded over work--manual labor will do that, as you know. I saw an entire people fall into depression. Later, of course, it got worse when Hamas took over.
"It was supposed to be a harbinger of peace, but it never worked out that way. The entire thing was an Arafat ruse. The Palestinians killed the Oslo Accords before the ink on Yasser Arafat’s signature was dry."
Yup. Back in the early Oslo days (daze?), I was working in wooden kit home construction in towns and villages around Jerusalem. One morning, at Tzur Hadassah - a community south of the capital and adjacent to Palestinian Authority-held areas - I struck up a conversation with our Palestinian building engineer as we inspected a slab for wall-framing.
There were no other workers in the vicinity, so both of us felt free to speak our minds in a friendly, non-confrontational chat.
Concerned, I noted to him that he seemed exhausted and tired-eyed at the start of the day; he'd not been allowed back into PA areas due to a security incident, he replied, and had had little sleep for three days, sleeping in his car.
He complained to me about how the IDF strictures, and the duress it subjected he and his family, and that he missed his young children, with his wife having to cope without him.
As we kneeled down to measure where the water and electrical conduits would come up behind the drywall in one of the bathrooms, I countered that I could absolutely sympathize with his difficulties and predicament, with our infant triplets having recently come into the world.
I then suggested, hopefully (although I was deeply suspicious of the whole endeavor and the cabal of illegal backchannel machinations that birthed the travesty on the nation), in a sense of shop-floor camaraderie that with the onset of the Oslo Accords better days for him and his family were ahead, and that Arafat and Co would help to stabilize their status.
He looked me in the eye, shaking his head at what he viewed as my naiveté and snorted in derision, "Are you kidding?"
He concluded in a bitter sentence I'll never forget:
"You've just brought in the Mafia," turned away, and continued his inspection.
Interesting Dave. I just assumed that my workers would be pleased that the "Sole Legal Representative of the Palestinian People" was coming to town. We had been working together for years, long hot days in the greenhouses, and we had avoided talking politics like the plague. We had bonded over work--manual labor will do that, as you know. I saw an entire people fall into depression. Later, of course, it got worse when Hamas took over.
Oslo: The Peace Deal That Never Was
by Jeff Dunetz | Nov 7, 2022
"It was supposed to be a harbinger of peace, but it never worked out that way. The entire thing was an Arafat ruse. The Palestinians killed the Oslo Accords before the ink on Yasser Arafat’s signature was dry."
https://lidblog.com/oslo-never-was/
That's a great article Jon. Thanks for the link.
Jope Ruonansuu sings about Yasser Arafat's visit to Finland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEa6SVVdAek
Wow, I'm in it. I want to hear more.
Coming soon to a screen near you!