2023-10-10 07:49:07
Zaragoza 10/10/2023 at 09:03 CEST
A young woman who has lived in Israel for eight years assures that only “a partial reality” is shown
“We Jews are always the bad guys in the movie,” says an Israeli living in Zaragoza
The three of them’s voices falter at many moments during the conversation and sometimes they remain silent to cry. The three of them are united by the fact that they currently live in Zaragoza and that their minds and hearts are in Israel. Mar Gimeno is from Zaragoza but has lived in Tel Aviv for eight years; Elena is the daughter of an Aragonese woman and a Jew of Hungarian origin and she arrived in Zaragoza when she was five years old; and T. (she does not want to give her name) is Israeli and has been in the Aragonese capital for many years. Although all three have family in Israel, T.’s family experienced Saturday’s Hamas attack firsthand, as she lives in one of the kibbutz attacked and her loved ones have been evacuated. “I already know who is alive or dead or who is kidnapped,” although she has yet to locate anyone, she explains with pain. In Aragon there are no records of how many Israelis live; But there are fifty who belong to the Jewish community, between Israelis and Jews.
“In Israel we worry regarding our own, that fewer civilians die,” says the Israeli
The message they send is one of sadness and “concern” for the escalation of violence that is lived and by the image that is given of the country, since they believe that there is “incomprehension” because a partial image is given of what is lived there. “In Europe we are blind,” acknowledges Mar, who also had that partial image when he arrived eight years ago. “Many people don’t understand what is happening until they talk to me,” he points out.
Elena and T are more vehement. The former points out that “the people of Israel and the Jews are always the bad guys in the movie and when they attack us it doesn’t matter,” while the latter complains that following Saturday’s attack , now we only talk regarding the Palestinian casualties and that Spain “did not condemn it.”
Called up
The stories of these three women are different, although now they are united by a sadness that breaks their voice when they talk regarding how “they have called the younger ones back into the ranks”explains Elena, who remembers the phrase of a nephew, for whom The hardest thing “is not dying but having to shoot.” T.’s nephews are also in the same situation and tell him “horrible stories.” They will not be able to forget the images they have seen of how Hamas terrorists entered a festival and “dedicated themselves to shooting”, entered houses and “cut off heads. They are horrible stories, of total hatred, barbarism,” asserts T. , which recognizes that the families “are grateful from there that we are attentive.”
In the case of Mar Gimeno, it is her husband – and her three brothers – who have been called up. She lives in Tel Aviv, where she came for work and married an Israeli. She did not experience Saturday’s attack, which caused more than 800 deaths, almost 300 at a festival, but rather she was on vacation in Greece and caught them at the airport to catch the return flight. She didn’t get on the plane. “It was a very long trip” until Sunday she landed in Zaragoza, but she is still “in shock.” Her husband did not hesitate to board. “They are very patriotic and used to it,” he says. For this Zaragoza native, it is not the first time that she has experienced “missile operations” in which she has had to protect herself, but this time… “I don’t even have words,” explains, before adding that on this occasion “it was not a land invasion in which they confronted the army but rather they killed civilians, elderly people, young people who were unarmed, who were at a party, not to mention the hostages.” who have been kidnapped. It’s all terrifying and incredibly cruel.”
Elena also emphasizes this hatred and the comments heard once morest Israel. “Attacks on the country are continuous,” she says, adding that “as there are few victims, it is not counted.” And it is because in Israel when the sirens sound the population goes to the shelters. When “you do that, it changes your vision of things,” says Elena. She appears hurt because she has been told that Israel “wins by a landslide” in terms of fatalities, “when you kill someone, it hurts” and furthermore, “they don’t realize that Israel’s vision is to defend its population”.
In Israel “we have a great defect and that is that we worry regarding our own, so that fewer civilians die, but we always talk regarding the Palestinians,” T says angrily. For her, there are also myths to banish and that is that in Gaza ” “People are overcrowded” when it is not true and when it is said that they are without electricity or water, but it is “because they use water from Israel, but there is not enough.” That is why she asks that history be studied and see the proposed peace treaties and why they have not come to fruition. “Israel reached out but from the Palestinian side it doesn’t happen and you get tired of being the good guy,” she says. And she adds: “Anti-Semitism is still very much alive.”
Mar Gimeno: “It is an open country, I don’t know when I will return but my home is there”
The three women emphasize that coexistence between cultures in the country is “acceptable.” Mar, who lives in Tel Aviv, explains that day-to-day life is “that of any European city, a coastal place, a super-technological city and, except if there is a specific conflict, you feel safe,” she points out, although she points out that she lives in the center of the country. In fact, “the biggest difference between living here and there, and“I know that in Israel I work from Sunday to Thursday” instead of Monday to Friday, she explains. Mar’s family is “relieved” that she is here and at the moment she is not going to return but she will because “my house is there.” ; and also his job, although now he can telework. In his office there are no conflicts due to countries or religion “and everyone lives together without taking into account the country of origin.
Multicultural country
T. and Elena also highlight multiculturalism and respect. “25% of the population is not Jewish” and on the beaches there are “bikinis, triquinis and everything,” Elena points out, but “that is not the image that is seen of Israel.
As for the future, T. assures that “as long as Palestinian mothers hate the Jews more than they love their children” this war will not end. She remembers that she was born in a kibbutz next to the Gaza Strip and “until the year 2000 there was no border. On my birthdays we went to eat in Gaza and at her wedding (the first) of the 150 guests, 30 were Palestinians. There is no hate but politics”, an idea that she reaffirms with the phrase that there are two million Palestinians and 5,000 are extremists. For Elena, the Palestinian population “is prisoners of their leaders”, to then assure that she does not blame the people because “the people always pay.” But he also asks, “Which Palestinian people are being defended? The oppressed or the one who hangs a person for being gay? Who is not allowed to protest? “The one who promotes clan fighting?”
“We cannot see the East with the eyes of the West, nor a country at war with eyes of peace,” says Elena
What is clear is that “the suffering created will last for generations,” he says. Elena believes that “you try to see the East with the eyes of the West and you cannot compare it; nor can you see a country that is at war with the eyes of peace.” Another mistake is “not condemning the attack on Israel.” The area, now, “is a tinderbox” ready to explode, with more and more countries involved.
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