Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Breaking the Silence, the Israeli anti-Occupation group composed of IDF veterans, is sponsoring a photo exhibition in Philadelphia and Boston. It consists of photographs shot by active duty IDF troops during their service in Hebron. The shots run the gamut from the most banal to the most deeply disturbing. They all document what it is like to defend a tiny Jewish settler minority from the massively larger native Palestinian population. There is boredom, insults, play, fellowship, hate and fear inscribed in every image.

I’ve published my first article in the Jewish Forward, Warring Views, about the exhibition. I must thank Vanity Fair writer, David Margolick, who arranged a shiduch with Alana Newhouse, the Forward’s arts and culture editor, who asked me to write this piece. I should also thank Alana for her interest in my work. Thanks to Breaking the Silence co-founder, Mikhael Manekin for his interview.

The article is quite short. I plan to publish an expanded version here in the coming days.

Breaking the Silence Exhibit:
Israeli Soldiers Talk About the Occupied Territories

March 1 – March 16
Beren Hall (second floor) at Harvard Hillel
52 Mt. Auburn Street
Exhibit open hours:
Mon – Thurs: 2 pm – 8 pm
Fri: 10 am – 4 pm
Sat: Closed
Sun: 12 pm – 8 pm

Opening Night Reception on Saturday, March 1 at 7 pm

tags breaking-the-silence-photo-exhibit, hebron, israeli-occupation, jewish-forward, jewish-settlers, warring-views

The Forward carries a review of what promises to be a wonderful collection of poetry by Israeli-American poet, Rachel Tzvia Back. Though I studied for a PhD in Hebrew literature until 1983, I haven’t kept up with new developments in the field and her work is unfamiliar to me. But after reading this review I long to hear her give a reading and read more of her work:

Many of the poems in “On Ruins & Return” have strong political implications — razed homes and wells, ambulances stopped at roadblocks, Arab families forced to stand outside in the cold night as soldiers in jeeps search their village — but a political agenda does not dominate. Back’s images of near-daily Israeli trauma during the height of the intifada — “mangled/metal blood flesh/to be scraped off the street/collected in sandwich bags”(“On the Ruins of Palestine”), “burnt out bus carcasses” (“A Dream”) and “mothers watching/soldiers on their knees/sifting and searching for body parts/do not think of next worlds/they think only of/lost worlds” (“Soldiers on Their Knees in the Sand”) — are searing, and unforgettable. Back’s words stem from a place in the heart that does not distinguish Palestinian from Israeli, but rather weeps for lost limbs, marred bodies and drops of blood, regardless of nationality…

The collection’s finest, most chilling pieces, “A Fable and a Nursery Rhyme” and “Their Sons, My Sons,” are companion poems of sorts, the first inspired by a Palestinian bombing of a Jewish school bus, the latter written after an Israeli bomb fell on an Arab strawberry field. Whatever your political affiliations, both poems — with visceral scenes of Back’s three children searching for the body parts of three children their own ages, and an Arab mother gathering in a head scarf her sons’ flesh among strawberries — will grab you in the gut.

tags A-Poet-of-Israels-Pain-And-Its-Hope, israeli-occupation, jewish-forward, jewish-literature, poetry, rachel-tzvia-back

The following is a newsletter article that David Sokal, owner of Olive Branch Enterprises, importer, bottler and distributor of Peace Oil, wrote for a Seattle church which is partnered with a church in Nazareth. Peace Oil is a for-profit, ethical business which imports Palestinian and Israeli olive oil to the US thus encouraging the two peoples to work together in a mutually beneficial business partnership. The American product, Peace Oil, should not be confused with a similar but entirely independent product also called Peace Oil marketed in Great Britain. I hope you’ll visit David’s site and make a holiday purchase (I know I’m a little late on that):

Hidden in the hills in the northern Galilee region of Israel is the small Arab-Israeli village of Raineh. Raineh is next door to the much better known town of Nazareth, Jesus’ childhood home. The Nazareth metropolitan area, which includes Raineh, is home to 100,000 Arab citizens of Israel. Raineh itself is home to 15,300 people, 80% Arab Muslim, 19.3% Arab Christian and the remainder Druze Arab. Raineh is also the home to The Holy Family Episcopal Church.

A mere 9,000 miles away is St. Andrews Episcopal Church ensconced in the very comfortable, middle-class American neighborhood of Greenlake. Assuming Seattle is similar to the US in religious composition, it is closer to 70% Christian and 1% Muslim. Quite the opposite of Raineh.

As different as the climates, demographics, cultures, politics and even flora and fauna may be from Seattle to Raineh, inside the walls of these two churches are a shared set of values and beliefs that link the congregants together across time and space.

In Israel itself, the separation between Jews and Arabs is ever present. In the Galilee there are Jewish towns and Arab towns. In the large cities, there are Jewish sections and Arab sections. Of course there are exceptions. Haifa is relatively integrated and there is the remarkable small village of Neve Shalom where Jews and Arabs live side-by-side.

This is not to say that Jews and Arabs never have positive, normal interactions in the streets, buses, stores and other public spaces. There are also close bonds between Jews and Arabs who meet through work or in more integrated neighborhoods. Almost half of Israel’s Jews are from Arab countries and are very familiar with Arabic culture and maintain many of its traditions. It is important to note that to this day, mizrachi Jews, (Jews from Arab countries) are still disproportionately poor compared to their European Jewish brothers and sisters.

The ultimate separation between Jews and Palestinian Arabs is represented by the barrier wall that meanders along the pre-1967 border of Israel occasionally wandering outside of that line and slicing through West Bank towns, cutting off families from loved ones, neighbors from each other, and farmers from their farmlands. Most Israelis recognize the problematic nature of this barrier, but also point out that since it has been built suicide bombings have stopped almost entirely.

Despite the intractable nature of the conflict, literally thousands of Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Arabs are beginning to build bridges across this gulf. Efforts at rapprochement have been made by the more open-minded members of both cultures from early on in this historic struggle over the land. But now it seems these efforts are expanding more rapidly than in the past.

…Also, there are successful commercial ventures that mutually benefit both communities. Peaceworks, started by a Russian Jew named Daniel Lubetzky has been selling food products made by Palestinian processors since 1994. Their original line of Mediterranean condiments was humorously dubbed, “Moshe and Ali.” Daniel has been heavily re-investing his profits in the One Voice Movement and successfully encouraging other wealthy donors to support this cause as well.

Recently, Fareed Zakaria, host of PBS’s “Foreign Exchange” covered the agreement between Dr. Bonners Magic Soap and two fair trade groups in Israel and Palestine. Dr. Bonners is a US company that was started by a German Jewish immigrant in the 1920s. They make high-quality, organic soap. They have agreed to buy olive oil for use in their soap from Canaan Fair Trade, a cooperative of Palestinian farmers based in the West Bank, and from Sindyanna of Galilee a group of Arab and Jewish women.

On a much smaller scale, but closer to home, David Sokal has started Olive Branch Enterprises here in Seattle. He also buys olive oil from Sindyanna and Canaan Fair Trade, as well as Green Action Israel. He bottles and sells the oil as Peace Oil.

Peace Oil has been enthusiastically supported at St. Andrews Episcopal. The outpouring of generosity goes well beyond a love for good olive oil. It comes from the deep yearning to reach out to those that are suffering due to conflict and violence. This yearning has the power to heal and close the gulf created by fear and resentment.

As sister church to The Holy Family Episcopal Church in Raineh, St. Andrews in Seattle has a spiritual connection to the people of Israel and Palestine. Now with a little olive oil from the Holy Land, that connection is consecrated.

I hope you’ll visit David’s website, www.peaceoil.biz, and make a purchase. It is an excellent gift for the holiday season or any other occasion. You’ll also enjoy using it in your own kitchen.

tags canaan-fair-trade, david-sokal, israeli-occupation, palestinian-peace-oil

Thanks especially to Amir Terkel (and also Judith Kolokoff), I was the first news source outside Israel to report that Israel’s Los Angeles consul general, Ehud Danoch, smeared Brit Tzedek, Combatants for Peace, and Breaking the Silence, accusing their national tours of being “bankrolled by Palestinian groups.” Now, Brit Tzedek’s national leadership has answered the foreign ministry report with a letter of their own which I quote in full:

January 30, 2007

Consul General Ehud Danoch
Consul for Media and Pubic Affairs Gilad Millo
Consulate General of Israel
6380 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90048

Dear Sirs:

We write to express profound dismay about a report transmitted by your office to the Israeli Foreign Ministry and to all of Israel’s representatives in North America condemning the tour sponsored by Brit Tzedek v’Shalom featuring representatives of the Israeli-Palestinian group Combatants for Peace. As covered by YNET and Maariv, your report also called for actions against these individuals, whose military service has turned them into conscientious objectors, to stop “their negative effect on Israel’s image.”

As a supporter of Israel, Brit Tzedek v’Shlaom celebrates Israel as a vibrant democracy, whose citizens have not only diverse opinions but the right to express them publicly. That groups like Combatants for Peace and Breaking the Silence speak out against the current government’s policy of occupation, or that they might hold minority positions, does not diminish the obligation of your government to acknowledge their right to be heard.

The Israelis in these groups have dutifully served to protect Israel and the principles for which it stands. It is from their firsthand military experience that they have come to the realization shared by many Israelis, Palestinians and Americans alike, that only a diplomatically-negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will bring real peace and security to Israel,.

Like Israelis, American Jews are also overwhelmingly pro-Israel and have a wide-range of views about how to ensure the future of the Jewish homeland.

We certainly share Combatants for Peace’s concerns about the negative impact of the occupation on Israel. Yet a primary goal in our hosting the Combatants for Peace tour is to stimulate discussion in Jewish communities across our nation of the many ways to connect to and work on behalf of Israel.

As you are already aware, we are sponsoring a presentation by Combatants for Peace in Los Angeles on January 31st at the Skirball Center. We would be honored to welcome you and would also be pleased to meet with you privately to discuss how the exchange of ideas presents opportunity to strengthen the American Jewish community’s support for Israel.

Sincerely,

Marcia Freedman, President
Diane M. Cantor, Executive Director

In my opinion, the reply was entirely too polite considering the mendacity in the diplomatic report as quoted by Yediot. I don’t know how Brit Tzedek plans to pursue this matter. I hope they do. It deserves to be reported in JTA, the Forward and the Jewish Journal (L.A.’s Jewish paper) so that American Jews know about the mendacity of the L.A. foreign ministry staff. I have personally contacted editors at the Journal and Forward to inform them of the story in case they didn’t know. We’ll see what, if anything they say.

It’s instructive to hear what an Israeli refusenik himself has to say about this scandalous document. Amir Terkel, who conveyed the original Hebrew version of the story to me writes:

I can speak for many of the Israeli refuseniks who I met, and am one of myself, that this actually is not a deterrent, but more a confimation that the message is going out.

This is Amir Terkel’s scan of the original Hebrew article and the sanitized English version on the Ynetnews site.

tags brit-tzedek, combatants-for-peace, ehud-danoch, israel-consul-general-report-attacks-refuseniks, israeli-occupation, yediot-achronot, ynet

I’ve written two posts about the heartbreaking death (or was it murder or negligent homicide?) of 11 year old Abir Aramin, a Palestinian schoolgirl shot dead by Israeli Border Police recently. But Gideon Levy has published a full profile of Bassam Aramin, her father and co-founder of Combatants for Peace (or as Haaretz more aptly translates, “Fighters for Peace”). In the profile, Levy offers Aramin’s own account of his daughter’s death in the fullest statement I’ve read anywhere in the media.

I’m choosing to quote a large portion of the concluding section because it is so poignant, so tragic and so damn powerful. Read it and weep, as they say. It begins below with Aramin recounting his release from an Israeli prison in which he had been held for his activities as a young Palestinian militant:

“When I was released in 1992 an atmosphere of hope had already become evident. I got married and started to have children. I would always dream about them, that they wouldn’t live the bad life my generation lived. I wanted to protect them. To explain everything to them so that they wouldn’t grow up like me, not knowing anything. That they would know what Palestinians are and what Israelis are … that they would fight against the occupation and help develop a good economy, that they would play, create and study like all the children. All the children want to be doctors; actually Abir wanted to be an engineer. That’s the way I wanted to raise my children.

“I found myself in Fighters for Peace and after the first meeting we knew that we were going to be together for a long time, and that we had a great responsibility to fight for life, for freedom, to explain the value of human life, because we are the instruments of war on both sides. To explain to the Israelis who don’t know what occupation is that their sons are becoming cruel murderers who think that they are protecting security and are doing the opposite, endangering security.

“Once a female student approached me after a lecture in Hatzor Haglilit - I was told that it was a very difficult place that had been the target of many Katyushas - and she said to me: You’re the first Palestinian I’ve met. She embraced me and said to me: ‘Now I’ve made peace with the Palestinians. I will no longer believe the news, or the government, or all the lies. I’ve simply understood.’ That greatly encouraged me, because here there was someone on the other side who understood and accepted you.”

“Last Tuesday I was still sleeping when Abir went to school. She had a math test. At 9:30 I went off toward Ramallah to work. Abir had told me a day before that she wanted to go to a girlfriend’s house to study, and I said to her: Oh no, you won’t. I’ll help you study.

“I was riding in a taxi, looking out for my daughters who were coming out of school. On the left I saw a Border Police jeep. I looked at them and thought: Why are they coming now? To abuse our children? Inshallah, nothing will happen. My daughters will only inhale gas. When I arrived at the Al-Ram intersection a teacher from the school called me and told me that Abir had fallen, and asked that her mother come to school to pick her up. I called home to tell her mother, and Arin, my older daughter, who is 12, was crying. I didn’t understand a thing. A neighbor took the phone and told me: The soldiers fired at your daughter’s head and she’s been wounded.

“I called the school and they told me they had taken her to Makassed Hospital [in East Jerusalem]. I immediately drove to Makassed, on the way I saw the Border Police jeep next to the local council building, but I thought that there was no time for speeches now. When I arrived at Makassed they told me that her condition was very critical. They told me she needed an operation. I was afraid and I told them that she had an Israeli ID and I wanted to take her to Hadassah Hospital. In order [to] speed things up I contacted the Peres Center for Peace, whose staff really helped me and sent a Magen David Adom ambulance and took her to Hadassah. There they decided that no operation was necessary. Thank God, I said to myself.

“At 7 P.M. her condition deteriorated; suddenly she needed an operation. We have to hope for a miracle, the doctors told me. I understood that my daughter needed a miracle and there are no miracles these days. I told myself that I didn’t want to take revenge. The revenge is that this ‘hero,’ whom my daughter endangered and shot at, be put on trial. Afterward she was officially declared dead.

“From what I was told I understood that the children threw stones and the Border Police threw a grenade at Abir’s head, from behind, from a distance of four meters. At first they said she had been wounded by a stone. I’m familiar with that game, but I didn’t believe that they would sink to such a despicable level - sorry for using that word - when they said on Channel 2 that Abir had been playing with something that exploded on her head. Her fingers were whole and her head exploded? They’re contemptible, I said. Liars. They send a boy of 18 with an M16 and tell him that our children are his enemies, and he knows that nobody will stand trial and therefore he shoots in cold blood and turns into a murderer.

“I’m not going to exploit the blood of my child for political purposes. This is a human outcry. I’m not going to lose my common sense, my direction, only because I’ve lost my heart, my child. I will continue to fight in order to protect her siblings and her classmates, her girlfriends, both Palestinians and Israelis. They are all our children.”

Combatants for Peace leaders (though not Bassam) will speak here in Seattle in early February:

Thursday, February 8th, 7 pm, Seattle University, Schafer Auditorium, Lemieux Library, (Columbia & Broadway)

Friday, February 9th, 8:00 am, Temple De Hirsch Sinai, 1511 East Pike

If you live here, attend and help Abir’s death have some meaning beyond the pointless tragedy that it is.

tags abir-and-bassam-aramin, combatants-for-peace, fighters-for-peace, gideon-levy-article, haaretz, i-lost-my-heart, israeli-border-police, israeli-occupation, non-violence

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