The Fourth Choice: On Leaving Israel
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During a return visit to Israel in 1990, I was interviewed by the editor of "Chotam", an Israeli newsletter, to discuss my culturally unpopular decision (at that time) to leave the country I loved (and still do), Israel. I mapped for him the three options I had if I were to have stayed and thus, however indirectly, have been party to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank: 1. As the Dissonance Theory predicts, I would have gradually become more right wing in order to justify my actions and my country's immoral occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. 2. I would have become more politically involved in order to fight the occupation and promote peace and non-violent co-existence between Israel and its neighboring Arab countries, similar to what my sister did as part of Women in Black. 3. While keep hoping for peace, I would create and live in a bubble, not attending to the whole peace/war/occupation issue altogether... 4. None of these options were acceptable, so I chose a fourth option... to leave.
In other words, leaving Israel was partly related to my interest in avoiding acting like a "passive bystander" (i.e., bystander effect) in regard to the immoral Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
The choice, an objection, a dissent,
A moral decision to stand up against
the Israeli occupation of the West Bank;
Had been agonizing for me,
Leaving my homeland, the country I fought for
was wounded for, had risked my life to defend
My decision, culturally unpopular,
But morally correct