Armed conflicts often lead to a form of hyper-vigilance I’ll call “war paranoia.” (There’s probably a clinical term for it.) Everyday people, objects and situations are seen as threats or dangers and met with brutal or deadly force.
Such was the case in Gaza, where an Israeli military strike targeted what was believed to be a rocket propelled grenade launcher.
It was bicycle, and its rider died in one of the most horrifying ways possible.
Even if I’ve grown more cynical about the human race—which is an occupational hazard of being in, ahem, midlife—I have continued to believe that bicycles and bicycling can bring people together. After all, I have seen people from almost every set of circumstances imaginable on bikes.
And, although I have neither had nor wanted children, I believe that people and societies are no better than how they treat children (and old people)—and those who try to help them.
So, one bit of news out of Taibe, an Arab Israeli town, shocked and saddened me.
A week ago, Alaa Amara was asleep, with his phone silenced. One could understand if he wondered whether the news he received after walking was a bad dream. Of course it wasn’t—but he wasn’t surprised.
A few days earlier, Amara, an Arab Israeli who owns a bicycle shop, decided to help evacuees from Gaza-adjacent communities. He told the Times of Israel that his friends “gave them items, food, they had what they needed.” The children, however, “didn’t have anything to do, no school,” he noticed.
So he brought a donation of 50 children’s bicycles. “I did it to benefit the children. They don’t know about war,” he explained.
Images of him delivering the bikes appeared on social media. They won Amara a champion in Yosef Haddad, an Arab Israel commentator who is pro-Israel and therefore controversial, to say the least.
Oh, and the children are Jewish. That, and Haddad’s endorsement, put a target on Amara and his business.
Which is why the news he got last Saturday didn’t surprise him: While he slept, his shop was torched.
A friend has set up a Pay Pal account and a crowdfunding effort has raised, so far, 550,000 Israeli New Shekels (about USD 137,000). Amara estimates damage at NIS 800,000 and he had no fire insurance. So, while donations could increase, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do next. If he opens another bike shop, it will be elsewhere, he said. “I am afraid to be in Taibe now,” he said.
(N.B. Please do not take anything I’ve written as an endorsement of one “side” or another in the conflict. As Alaa Amara and his situation show, the background of the conflict is too complicated to be reduced to “sides” and has as much to do with colonialism, from outside as well as within the region, as any current grievances.)
