Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Wrestling with complexities

In Wrestling Jerusalem, which is at Chutzpah! March 1 and 2, Aaron Davidman tries to understand the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (photo by Ken Friedman)

Most of us have an opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But how many of us have listened to others’ perspectives, really considered them and tried to understand them? Aaron Davidman has. And he will share his emotional and thought-provoking journey with Chutzpah! Festival audiences March 1 and 2.

Written and performed by Davidman, Wrestling Jerusalem, directed by Michael John Garcés, is Davidman’s personal journey, as an American Jew, to understand a situation that is often polarizing and over-simplified. The play gives voice to 17 different characters – all performed by Davidman – who represent the breadth, depth and complexity of the conflict; its political, religious and cultural aspects.

As personal as it is, however, Davidman was commissioned to write the play by Ari Roth, who, in 2007, was the artistic director of Theatre J, which is based in Washington, D.C. After 18 years with Theatre J, Roth founded Mosaic Theatre Company, also in Washington, in 2014, and is still its artistic director.

“He asked me to write a solo performance piece investigating the deaths of Rachel Corrie and Daniel Pearl and reflect on the public conversation in America about the Israel-Palestine issue,” Davidman told the Independent about the commission. “The play started there and, as I developed it, it became much more personal and those two subjects no longer relevant to my investigation, which became about the multiple perspectives and competing narratives at the heart of the conflict.”

Davidman is not only a playwright and actor, but also a director and producer. He received a master of fine arts in creative writing and playwriting from San Francisco State University and is a graduate of the University of Michigan; he received his theatrical training at Carnegie Mellon University.

Davidman was raised in Berkeley, Calif., he said, “by Jewish-identified but not religious parents, with a social justice context.”

In an interview with CJN, when Wrestling Jerusalem had its Canadian première in Toronto in November, Davidman said he “fell in love with Israel as a Jewish homeland” when he first visited the country, in 1993, at age 25. “I spent six months living there and had a really incredible spiritual and Jewish identity-forming experience. That story is in the play,” he told CJN.

In the process of researching, writing and performing Wrestling Jerusalem, Davidman told the Independent, “My views about the importance of engagement have deepened, as has my conviction that understanding the ‘other’ is a vital part of the process of reconciliation.”

The play, which premièred in 2014, has also been made into a feature film, directed by Dylan Kussman, which was released in 2016.

“The transcendent themes of the piece remain front and centre now more than ever in a world that is growing only more polarized,” said Davidman. “This piece stands for understanding multiplicity and complexity as humanity’s best chance to live together.”

To facilitate understanding, talk-backs often take place after performances.

“We try to have community conversation – I prefer that term to ‘talk-back’ – after performances and screenings because the piece opens people up,” Davidman said. “They’ve just had a fairly unique experience concerning this topic and there is hunger to process it. It’s a densely written piece and unpacking it and allowing people to hear where they each are coming from in response has proven to be very useful and moving.”

As for advice for people wanting to try and move the public – or even personal – discussion to a more nuanced or empathetic space, Davidman said, “Listen deeply. Don’t know so much. Try to connect.”

Wrestling Jerusalem is at Rothstein Theatre March 1-2, 8 p.m., with audience conversations after both performances, featuring Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom and Aaron Davidman. For tickets ($29.47-$36.46), call 604-257-5145 or visit chutzpahfestival.com. The festival’s other theatre offering combines Cree storytelling, Chekhovian character drama and comedy, performed by Edmonton-based, award-winning improv troupe Folk Lordz – Todd Houseman and Ben Gorodetsky of Rapid Fire Theatre – on Feb. 22, 8 p.m., at Rothstein Theatre. The festival also features dance, music and comedy.

Opinions from the streets

Corey Gil-Shuster has split his time between Canada and Israel for 28 years now. (photo from Corey Gil-Shuster)

Corey Gil-Shuster is an Ottawa-born and -raised Jew who spends a great deal of his time and energy asking people their opinions regarding the Middle East conflict – and doing so on camera. He has his own channel on YouTube, called the Ask Project.

Gil-Shuster has spent the last 28 years splitting his time between Ottawa and different places in Israel. He first went to the Jewish state in the 1990s for a study-abroad program at Tel-Aviv University.

At the time, Gil-Shuster said he was just happy to find “a good, safe place to travel and then, from there, to travel to other places. Then, when I was here in Israel, actually I didn’t like it very much. It was very different than I expected. I found it too chaotic…. It took me about six months to get used to it. Once I did, I started to fall in love with the place.”

In 1995, Gil-Shuster met his now-husband, Yaron. The couple later adopted a child.

Gil-Shuster said he has found Israelis to be fairly open to discussing homosexuality, and noted a level of acceptance or openness that he has not found in Canada. Even strangers in Israel have felt very comfortable asking him questions about being gay, and he has used the opportunity to educate them about the topic. On more than one occasion, once that initial question has been broached, people have invited him over for dinner to ascertain how they can move to Canada, make a good living and buy a big house.

“I found Israel refreshing,” said Gil-Shuster. “I kind of enjoyed that, because it put me in control as opposed to the opposite – at least the early 1990s in Canada – being gay with straight people in control of whether you’re accepted.”

As he acclimated to Israeli society, Gil-Shuster found himself getting into debates about how Israelis really feel about the situation in the Middle East.

“I thought, well, I have a video camera, so why don’t I just go out my front door and ask random people on the streets to answer some questions?” he told the Independent.

What Gil-Shuster initially found was that, while people had their opinions, they were not interested in asking questions themselves or in listening.

“All these people are either pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian, and they are sure they know everything about Israel,” he said. “But, nobody could come up with a question to either confirm their ideas or give the opposite of what they think. Finally, somebody said something about how Israelis won’t accept a one-state solution. Great, I’ll take that and ask that as a question. I asked neighbours, the guy who sells me fruit and veggies, and another grocery store guy.”

Gil-Shuster had to do on-the-spot translation of the comments from the street interviews. “I would translate as they were speaking Hebrew,” he said. “I put it together. I had seven or eight people and I put it in a film. I learned to edit, but I didn’t cut anything out, and I put it on YouTube.”

In no time at all, Gil-Shuster understood the power in simply letting people share their views – “how much power that can have to go against what mainstream media puts out, whether that’s Canadian, American, Israeli or Palestinian. Every country’s media has a certain narrative they want to say. They have a story they’re trying to sell to their people, and they have to frame the conflict within that.”

To make his videos more objective, Gil-Shuster started to venture further than his backyard in Tel Aviv. He began traveling the country asking people for their opinions. Regardless of what they said, he made a point of not cutting or editing the videos – even if racist or horrible comments were made that didn’t conform to his views.

That doesn’t mean he keeps silent, however. He allows himself the right to make sarcastic comments as he feels the need, noting, “It keeps me more interested. I try to make it very objective … I try to figure out, as much as possible, where they’re coming from. If their question is, ‘Why don’t you all just get along,’ I’ll reply quite naively insofar as what my follow-up questions are … thinking that’s kind of where they’re coming from.”

Gil-Shuster has been doing this for the past four years, with a growing following that comprises a mix of pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian fans and many others in between. He provides a variety of views and topics to keep people watching.

When he has to travel for work, doctor appointments or other reasons, he brings his camera along, stopping to speak with people along the way. Jerusalem and Haifa are a couple of his favourite places to do this, as he is more likely to encounter both Israelis and Palestinians.

In general, he has found Palestinians to be more open to talking, though some are fearful and only want to be interviewed if he will agree to conceal their face. Typically, in these situations, he works with a translator.

“When I first started out, my hope was to use these videos as a forum for creating peace in some way, to create a dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians,” he said. “For me, it’s about understanding. But, quickly, I realized that very few Israelis and Palestinians are interested in having a dialogue – at least, not in a public way.”

Some people get mad at Gil-Shuster, feeling he is doing something purposefully against one group or another. In contrast, he gets a lot of messages from people in the Middle East saying, “Thank you for showing me a different side of the conflict. I always had a feeling I was being lied to.”

“These are the emails I like the most,” he said. “You don’t have to like what somebody says, but I’m hoping they’re humanized as a group.”

When asked about how the project has changed his views, Gil-Shuster said he no longer thinks peace is possible.

“Israelis are tough-talking, but are willing to compromise to a certain degree. Palestinians are very open to other people in some ways, but, it’s very black and white for them. It’s all … the land was stolen by foreigners who shouldn’t be there, and that there’s no solution until they leave. Maybe someday they’ll get a leader who’ll be brave enough to tell them what reality is, but they don’t have those kinds of leaders. They always deal with Israel … [with the view that] for now, we can benefit from it, but it’s all ours, so we will get it back someday.”

To date, Gil-Shuster has created more than 500 videos. They can be found at youtube.com/user/coreygilshuster, and he encourages viewers to suggest questions.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Not on the guest list

Over the weekend, representatives of 70 countries and international organizations gathered in Paris to discuss peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Absent were Israelis and Palestinians.

A final statement adopted by participants innocuously promised “to support both sides in advancing the two-state solution through negotiations.” It also called on Israelis and Palestinians “to refrain from unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of negotiations on final-status issues, including, inter alia, on Jerusalem, borders, security, refugees, and which they will not recognize.”

The gabfest wound up with no firm plans for future action and with no tangible results save a statement of well wishes for peace and coexistence.

The official absence of the very people whose future the conference was convened to discuss carries echoes of the past. In an earlier age, European powers gathered to redraw the maps of the Middle East, among other places. More recently, in 1938, world powers gathered in Evian to decide what to do about the Jews of Europe (conclusion: nothing).

The French government, which hosted last weekend’s conference, aimed to nudge along the process toward a two-state solution.

“The two-state solution, which the international community has agreed on for many years, appears threatened,” French President François Hollande said. “It is physically threatened on the ground by the acceleration of settlements, it is politically threatened by the progressive weakening of the peace camp, it is morally threatened by the distrust that has accumulated between the parties, and that has certainly been exploited by extremists.”

The futility of the conference – and the incomplete understanding of the issues by the parties involved in it – may have been summed up in Hollande’s litany of what he sees as the barrier to two states.

Certainly settlements are not helpful to advancing an ultimate resolution and are a kind of provocation. But settlements are not irreversible. There can be negotiated land swaps or Israel can hand over settlements to Palestinians, as they did in Gaza. They are an obstacle to peace, but they are not the most grievous.

Likewise, to cite the “progressive weakening of the peace camp” without acknowledging why Israelis who have believed in peace are abandoning hope dismisses Israelis’ legitimate reasons for losing faith in a negotiated peace. Certainly there has been a recent emboldening of extremists on both sides, as compromise has seemed to float further from reach. Yet the “peace camp” Hollande referenced is an Israeli entity. Weakened though it may be, it is eminently stronger than any equivalent on the Palestinian side, where signs of compromise with the Zionist entity invite accusations of collaboration. Ordinary Palestinians who want to live in peace, too, are left feeling little hope, with their governments and extremist clergy inciting the elimination of Israel on one side and a right-wing Israeli government that has done little towards reconciliation on the other.

A solution, or set of solutions, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is complex and, at this point, hard to imagine. But, inasmuch as there is hope for one, it must come from Israelis and Palestinians. International diplomats and do-gooders can hold all the confabs they want, but all such gatherings are a pointless waste of time.

Do we seek solace or action?

Armon Hanatziv Promenade in Jerusalem on Jan. 8 following a terror attack. Four Israel Defence Forces soldiers were murdered – Yael Yekutiel, 20, Shir Hajaj, 22, Shira Tzur, 20, and Erez Orbach, 20 – and at least a dozen other people were injured when a truck driver, from the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabel Mukaber, drove at speed at a group waiting at a bus stop. The terrorist was shot dead. (photo from Ashernet)

Israel is threatened by enemies who respect no rules of engagement, as we saw in the brutal vehicular attack that killed four and injured many others in Jerusalem Sunday.

Israel has faced the challenge of maintaining the moral code of a democratic, humanitarian society under the cloud of threatened annihilation and incessant terror. At the age of 18, young Israelis are often faced with the most impossible dilemmas as citizen-soldiers sworn to uphold national security while conducting themselves in a manner as ethical as the national ideals they are defending.

When Israeli soldiers go rogue, as they occasionally do, and contravene the moral code of the country and the Israel Defence Forces, the response is often polarizing. Worldwide, critics depict individual crimes as symptomatic of the culture of an illegal, apartheid state that is rotten at the core, while defenders cite the judicial processes that follow as evidence that Israel does indeed live up to its values. Sometimes, these cases open deep schisms, as we have seen recently in the case of Sgt. Elor Azaria.

Last year, Azaria, an IDF medic, shot dead a Palestinian terrorist in Hebron who had been disarmed and incapacitated. Azaria told a fellow soldier: “He stabbed my friend and he deserves to die.”

A panel of three Israeli judges unanimously convicted him of manslaughter with a possible sentence of 20 years.

“The fact that the man sprawled on the ground was a terrorist, who had just sought to take the lives of IDF soldiers at the scene, does not in itself justify disproportionate action,” the judges determined.

The trial and its aftermath have opened a debate – or reopened an endless one – about what is moral and immoral as Israel, depending on your perspective, struggles for its existential survival or perpetuates the occupation of Palestinian lands.

The case is being depicted as a fight for the moral soul of the country, although many issues have been portrayed in this dramatic fashion over the decades.

For other countries, addressing essential questions of national morality, of right and wrong, is not necessarily second nature. Yet much of the world is facing choices as stark or starker than Israel’s.

Donald Trump is about to be sworn in as president of the United States. While governments in European and other democracies have, at times, been led by unpredictable individuals, Trump’s ascension is unprecedented for a plethora of reasons that do not need itemizing.

In responding to Trump, and to myriad other current events, we have few precedents to guide us, yet how we respond will determine what our world will become.

Do we quietly accept the presidency of the bigoted, petulant, potentially dangerous Trump, recognizing that, for better or worse, he is the leader of the world’s ostensibly greatest democracy? Or do we stand as steadfast in every way possible against the regressive parts of his agenda (as scattershot and incoherent as that agenda may be)?

Do we try to empathize with, understand and transform the economic, social and racial outlooks that led 63 million Americans to vote for him, or do we dig in our heels and declare them, if not outright racists and women-haters, at least voters for whom xenophobia, race-baiting and misogyny were not deal-breakers, and seek to isolate them from mainstream discourse?

Further afield, do we oppose with every fibre the far-right movements that are growing in France, Hungary, Poland, Italy, the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe, or do we seek to ameliorate the conditions that are leading increasing numbers of Europeans to support these sorts of ideologies?

Do we choose to view Syrian refugees as potential terrorists or, at least, as products of a society where antisemitism is deliberately inculcated? Or do we see in them the same desperate humanity of our recent and long-past ancestors?

There are situations in the world that can reasonably cause us to seek solace in isolation, to retreat to the literal or figurative woods and cut ourselves off from the daily news that is so unsettling. However, we have a tradition that encourages discourse and action, one that tells us to repair the broken world, even if we are unable to complete the task.

Importance of listening

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish (photo by Bob Talbot)

I was born in Soroka Hospital in Be’er Sheva, southern Israel. My father, an Israeli-born Jew of Tunisian descent, began his residency in obstetrics and gynecology the following year. Joining him in the program was a Muslim-Palestinian doctor from Gaza, the first to do so in an Israeli hospital. Through their respective residencies, they grew to become close friends and remain so to this day. This is the story of how that doctor from Gaza taught me the advantages of remaining level-headed during disputes, by his mere demeanour and the way in which he converts misfortunes into valuable life lessons. This is the story of how Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish changed the way I appreciate my parents, invest in my future and, most importantly, how I listen.

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish was born in 1955 in Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, in conditions most of us can’t even comprehend. His school bag was an old, fibre bag, he owned a single pair of pants sewed from scrap materials and his school eraser was so valuable he had to wear it on a string around his neck. His mother, the “Lioness,” as he often refers to her, knew education to be the most powerful weapon of choice in their limited arsenal. Consequently, she pushed him to his limits, having him work in the mornings before school and in the afternoons. His teachers saw in him a passion and competence that could elevate him and his family out of their current conditions and, like his mother, pushed him to pursue his studies. He went on to receive a scholarship to study medicine in Cairo, he then went on to receive a diploma in OB/GYN from the University of London, accompanied by a subspecialty in fetal medicine in Belgium and Italy; and onwards to completing a master’s of science in health policy and management at Harvard University.

His road out of poverty was not smooth, but 2009 brought the worst wave of hurt to his life. Only a few months after losing his wife to cancer, Abuelaish’s apartment was shelled by an Israel Defence Forces tank during the Gaza War. His three daughters – 20-year-old Bessan, 15-year-old Mayar and 13-year-old Aya – and 17-year-old niece Noor were all killed. The entire tragedy was caught on live television, as Abuelaish had been communicating with Israeli media on the effects of war on Palestinian civilians. Destroyed and devastated, his wails were heard all over the world and, for the first time during the war, the Palestinian people had a human face, and a haunting shriek.

Despite this unimaginable heartbreak, Abuelaish refused to let hatred coerce him into visceral action. “Hatred,” the doctor said, “is destructive to the hater, not the hated.” In the face of such trauma and injustice, he remained calm and rational and channeled his anger into a fight for justice, not revenge. He knew that hatred would only hurt his interests and sway him off course.

Abuelaish had friends in the hospitals he worked at, colleagues, patients and others who cared for him deeply, my father being one of the many among them. Abuelaish knew not to let the loudest of political actions silence the intentions of citizens on either side of the border. He knew to listen, to speak out with kindness and courage and through action.

I was formally introduced to Abuelaish for the first time when he came to speak at my university. “You’re the son of Bentov?” he said to me. I replied with a smile and a nod. He was ecstatic to meet me, and I could barely believe I was in his presence. We were both baffled by the coincidence, and rejoiced in the opportunity. After the lecture, the professor and several students went to a nearby café to further discuss the tenets of his talk. He inquired on the well-being of my parents and I shared my vague childhood memories of him. Upon his departure, he left his card with me and asked me to contact him again. I have remained in close touch with him since.

In the summer of 2015, Abuelaish offered to let me work in his office, hoping I could write a research paper under his guidance. Sitting in his office at Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, I gazed around the room, awestruck by the number of awards, photographs with world leaders, diplomas and gifts from supporters and friends that were on display. I remember most my reaction when I saw his bookshelf: the goliath volumes of medicine and politics were overshadowed by the collection of self-help books on overcoming trauma.

One morning, Abuelaish asked me to come with him to see the office of his philanthropic organization, Daughters for Life Foundation. After asking me whether Upper Canada College or University of Toronto Schools, both of which command some $20,000 in annual tuition, are better high school choices for his son’s education, he threw on the same black leather jacket he’s owned for at least a decade and a half, and we made our way to his 1998 Saturn SUV. The priorities he made clear that day and his mere demeanour ingrained in me a sense of proportion that drastically altered the things I hold dear in life. I am unable to articulate exactly how I felt driving in his car that day. I wanted to go home and burst into tears. His humility, his unending devotion to his children, his disregard for material goods. For the life of me, it took everything in my power not to shed a single tear during that car ride.

Before I met Abuelaish, I was an angry young man, easily swayed by inflammatory rhetoric and propaganda. I was arrogant, rigidly opinionated and impatient. When I met the doctor, my father’s friend, I saw a sobering display of the prowess of human endurance – an absolute refusal to remain defeated, even after many severe blows. I coined his philosophy “proactive pacifism,” as I could see no other way to describe it.

I began to realize the many unacknowledged fortunes in my life and the immense efforts my parents made. I also learned the value of listening and the importance of letting others voice their opinions unscathed by my bias. Most of us are quick to see differences, carelessly and lazily dividing people by economic, political and religious beliefs and doctrines. Instead of investing our energies into improving our lives, we spend it on putting or shutting down others, lest they make us work harder to maintain our place in the world or our opinions. Following the change of atmosphere in Europe and the United States, I think Canadians can learn from the valuable lessons of Abuelaish’s actions.

Instead of seeking revenge against those who have harmed him, he has chosen to empower those who have been harmed. In all of the self-help books and all of the various philosophies I have come across, I have never met anyone who embodies the “golden rule” as much as Abuelaish. I’m 20 years old and have had a life virtually devoid of struggle, in large part because my parents worked incredibly hard to provide me with all that I have. I did not fully appreciate this until I got to know Abuelaish.

After meeting him, I also saw the real benefits of allowing speech to flow freely and, when someone speaks, I now listen. As aggravating as that feels sometimes, I know that preserving this right, this freedom, is more important than my reaction to the words being spoken. I am now confident that proving a point means more than shouting out an opinion; it means putting my beliefs into action. After every conceivable reason to give in to hate, Abuelaish not only rose above his many adversities, he used them to fuel his goal of greater peace and cohesiveness between Israelis and Palestinians.

Abuelaish does not stand on the shoulders of giants; he guides them onwards. In 2011, he created Daughters for Life Foundation, which raises funds for academic scholarships for aspiring female students of Jewish, Christian, Muslim and other backgrounds from the Middle East. Abuelaish believes that, through the success of other young female students, he can bring to life the ambitions of the daughters he lost.

Abuelaish has accomplished more through dialogue than through dispute. As well, there are hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian children enjoying their lives due to his work as an obstetrician. Because of him, and the few others like him, I firmly believe in the prospect of peace in the region.

Abuelaish is far more than a mentor to me – he is my friend, he is family. The way he endures the many misfortunes in his life, the way he looks after his children, the way he helped me and the way he spoke of my parents are only examples. His many lessons transcend and translate into all aspects of life.

Following the recent election in the United States and a return of nationalist support across Europe, politics divide us now more than they have in a very long time. In an era of sound bites, protests and identity politics, it seems that most individuals have very little interest in listening to opposing viewpoints, lest these views betray their crafted narratives. We are eager to impose our opinions on others, convinced that mere criticism means that someone is an enemy of our noble cause or wants to harm us. This phenomenon is causing divides in parts of the world where diversity has been flourishing for decades. In these times, it would be wise for us to take a breath, to put things into perspective and remain coolheaded, regardless of our differences – or even our similarities, for that matter. If we invest our energies on improving ourselves, and encourage others to do the same, we should be able to get along, even if we disagree. These are just a few of the things I learned from my good friend, Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish. As he has said, “The energy you want to waste on anger. Convert it to strength and determination.”

To learn more about Abuelaish, his book I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey is available at various booksellers, including online, and the link to his foundation is daughtersforlife.com.

Gilad Kenigsberg-Bentov is a student at University of Western Ontario, where he is majoring in economics.

May defends new resolution

Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May. (photo from cjnews.com)

Federal Green Party of Canada Leader Elizabeth May said she was able to support a revised policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because it rejects the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, but still puts the onus on the Jewish state to move towards a two-state solution.

At a special general meeting held Dec. 3-4 in Calgary, 350 members voted to pass a policy titled “Measures to pressure the government of Israel to preserve the two-state solution: addendum to current

Middle East policy.” It replaced a policy titled “Palestinian self-determination and the movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions” that passed in August at a Green party convention in Ottawa.

“It needs to be said very clearly that the BDS movement does not understand the issue properly and is in fact undermining the peace process itself,” May told the CJN the day after the addendum passed.

Immediately following the August convention, May firmly opposed the policy that supported the BDS movement.

“The reason I couldn’t accept our policy in August is because it looked very much as though we were adopting the BDS movement. And the BDS movement, although there are well-meaning people who support it, when you get down to it, their core goals do not include at all … the right of the state of Israel to exist,” May said.

At that time, May considered stepping down as leader as a result but, following a family vacation, she ultimately announced she would stay on as leader, partly because the party’s executive council agreed to call a special meeting to give members the opportunity to revisit the BDS resolution.

The amended policy states, among other things, that the “Palestinian people are among the indigenous people of the geographic region now designated as Israel and the OPT [occupied Palestinian territory],” and it supports “only non-violent responses to violence and oppression, including economic measures such as government sanctions, consumer boycotts, institutional divestment, economic sanctions and arms embargoes.”

It calls for a ban on products produced “wholly or partly within or by illegal Israeli settlements, or by Israeli businesses directly benefiting from the illegal occupation,” and it calls on the Canadian government to repeal the House of Commons resolution that condemned the BDS movement last February.

According to a statement by Thomas Woodley, president of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, Green members voted 85% in favor of the revised policy.

Although the policy remains critical of Israel and still supports boycotts, divestment, sanctions and arms embargoes, its drafters were careful not to specifically endorse the international BDS movement. May insists the Green party is committed to a two-state solution.

“We condemn anyone who imagines that they don’t support, unequivocally, the right of the state of Israel to exist. That prefacing is critical to understanding the addendum,” she said.

“We’ve never been a party that was afraid to say out loud that we are critical of the decisions of the Israeli government from time to time. I think many Israelis are also critical of the decisions of the government from time to time.”

May said retired Israeli generals and intelligence officers who accuse Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of undermining the peace process and weakening security for Israelis “make the case better than we can as Canadian Greens that there needs to be a course correction on the occupation, expansion of illegal settlements and so on…. We’d rather be aligning ourselves with criticisms that come from within the state of Israel, than with a movement that doesn’t understand the critical necessity to defend the right of the state of Israel to exist.”

May said she understands that the policy won’t sit well with many members of the Jewish community, but added, “There are a limited number of mechanisms that governments and parties can use to signal to a foreign government that we think you’re making a mistake here, while at the same time, remaining allies.”

Shimon Koffler Fogel, chief executive officer of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said in a statement that the group condemns the resolution, “which confirms the Green party has been co-opted by extreme activists who – in their obsessive campaign of prejudice against Israelis – threaten the party’s own credibility and relevance in Canadian politics.

“The new policy is rife with historical distortions and places the Green party at odds with the Canadian consensus that BDS is discriminatory and counter-productive to peace. The Ontario legislature just voted by a tenfold margin to reject the differential treatment of Israel, underscoring how out of touch the Green party has become.”

The statement also pointed to the policy’s assertion that Palestinians are Israel’s “indigenous people,” and the implication that Jews have no ancestral or indigenous roots in Israel.

“Elizabeth May and the party’s leadership have turned their backs on the mainstream Jewish community, including the many Jewish Greens who no longer feel welcome,” he said, adding that despite calling attention to the Green party that the vote would take place on Shabbat, excluding observant Jews from the vote, the vote was held on Dec. 3.

Although May rejected the idea of boycotting Israel, she made a distinction between “legal Israel” and “illegal Israel.”

“I’d go out of my way to buy a product that is labeled a product of Israel from within the legal boundaries of Israel. But, personally, I prefer not to buy products that come from an area that is in illegally occupied territories, which, again, even retired members of the Israeli Defence Forces are saying are making life less secure for legal Israel.”

B’nai Brith Canada chief executive officer Michael Mostyn said he was encouraged by the rejection of the BDS movement.

“No matter how the party came to this position, it is a positive thing for Canadians that, once again, the antisemitic BDS movement has been rejected. It is especially significant given the amount of energy, time and resources being poured into the promotion of the antisemitic BDS movement by certain factions within the Green party.”

That being said, Mostyn added there is still misinformation in the policy.

“For example, the very characterization of settlements as ‘illegal’ under Article 49 of the Geneva Convention is either a deliberate misreading of that document, or complete ignorance of international law,” he said.

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com

Greens’ policy on Israel

On Saturday, Dec. 3, at a meeting in Calgary, the Green Party of Canada (GPC) passed a resolution updating the party’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict. It puts the entire onus for the conflict’s continuation on Israel, specifically on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

“The possibility of a two-state solution is diminishing directly due to the Netanyahu government’s support for illegal expansion and increasingly brutal military occupation,” reads the Dec. 4 statement on the Green party’s website. “Even over 200 former members of Israeli Defence Forces (‘Security First’ [plan for West Bank, Gaza]) have decried the worsening security situation for Israelis and Palestinians – and laid the blame directly on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s policies. The former Israeli military officers have raised the alarm of a ‘humanitarian crisis in Gaza’ and the diminishing chances for a two-state solution.

“Clearly,” continues the statement, “Canada needs to do more to register with the Israeli government that flouting international law and threatening the security of its own people while violating the human rights of Palestinians is not acceptable. In doing so, Canada must continue to condemn violence from the militant elements of Palestinian society.”

While rejecting the boycott, divestment and sanction movement – as its goals “do not include supporting the right of the state of Israel to exist” and are “incompatible with Green party policy”– the addendum to the party’s policy “is based on clear differentiation between ‘legal’ Israel, as within the 1967 borders, a democracy respecting the rights of citizens of all ethnicities within its borders, and ‘illegal’ Israel – the occupied territories beyond Israel’s legal borders. The Palestinian civilians within the occupied territories are subjected to virtual continual abuses of their human rights. The occupied territories are maintained under a brutal military occupation. Products from illegal Israel should not be granted the preferred trading status of products of legal Israel.”

With this in mind, the Green party would like to see the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement renegotiated, the “termination and indefinite suspension of all military and surveillance trade and cooperation” between Canada and Israel, and the repeal of “the House of Commons resolution condemning the BDS movement.”

According to the Dec. 3 article “Greens vote for new Israel policy without BDS” by James Munson on ipolitics.ca, “Approximately [350] members voted on the ‘compromise’ resolution that purged the party’s policies of any reference to the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, which pressures companies, governments and institutions with ties to Israel.”

The article cites Green party president Ken Melamed as saying, “The party wanted to be careful not to align with a particular organization or movement. The essence of it, I think, is that the party feels that diplomatic approaches to achieving peace and justice in the Middle East have been ineffective and it’s time to move to economic actions.”

The article said that, according to Melamed, about 85% of those who voted at the meeting supported the resolution – others opposed or abstained – but that it still had to be voted on electronically by all 20,000 party members before it became official policy.

Shimon Koffler Fogel, chief executive officer of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), condemned the resolution. In a Dec. 3 statement, he noted, “The new policy is rife with historical distortions and places the Green party at odds with the Canadian consensus that BDS is discriminatory and counter-productive to peace. The Ontario legislature just voted by a tenfold margin to reject the differential treatment of Israel, underscoring how out of touch the Green party has become.

“Elizabeth May and the party’s leadership have turned their backs on the mainstream Jewish community, including the many Jewish Greens who no longer feel welcome. Despite repeatedly flagging that the anti-Israel vote was scheduled to take place on the Jewish sabbath, senior Green party officials insisted on holding the vote today, thereby excluding many Jewish Green party members from voting. This is an alarming development and a stunning failure of leadership.”

The December resolution replaces a resolution that was passed at the Green party convention in August.

In the backgrounder to Fogel’s statement, CIJA notes, “The party’s decision to endorse economic penalties against Israel is incompatible with the wishes of the party’s grassroots. A survey of Green members conducted by the party after their convention revealed that, of 2,800 respondents, 28% agreed with the decision to support BDS, 44% wanted it repealed and 28% thought it should be amended to remove any reference to a specific movement or country.”

The backgrounder further explains, “The text’s exclusive recognition of Palestinians as ‘the indigenous people’ of the region implies that Jewish people have no ancestral or indigenous roots in Israel. This misleading suggestion contradicts millennia of archeological and documentary evidence.”

And, CIJA warns, “The one-sided nature of the resolution and its call for extreme measures against Israel puts the Green party outside the international consensus for achieving peace, which emphasizes the need for both parties to compromise and negotiate.”

Note: This article has been edited to reflect later reports that about 350 party members voted on the resolution, versus the number cited on ipolitics.ca, which was approximately 275.

Seek Peace initiative

Steve McDonald, deputy director of communications and public affairs for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. (photo from of Steve McDonald)

Every day, a handful of the approximately 500 volunteers at Road to Recovery head to one of the crossing points in Israel, pick up Palestinians who have medical permits for appointments or treatments in Israeli hospitals, and escort them there and back. Entirely volunteer-driven, this is the kind of peaceful bridge-building that rarely makes the media headlines, but that the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is hoping to highlight through its recently relaunched program, Seek Peace and Pursue It.

“This program is designed to encourage Canadian individuals and organizations who are concerned about the absence of peace in the Holy Land to rethink the issue by engaging in practical, positive initiatives that help build peace from the ground up,” said Steve McDonald, deputy director of communications and public affairs for CIJA. “Rather than getting distracted by destructive initiatives like the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, Road to Recovery is exactly the sort of thing that will bolster Israeli initiatives to bring the two sides together and keep activists focused on positive engagement.”

The idea for Seek Peace was hatched by former CIJA executive Len Rudner in 2012, after the United Church of Canada declared it would boycott Israeli settlements. At that time, CIJA reached out to UCC leaders.

“We told them BDS does nothing to advance peace or improve life for average Palestinians, we don’t think it fulfils your own interest in helping Palestinians,” said McDonald.

The efforts were in vain and the UCC continued to advocate a boycott, something McDonald says was a betrayal of average UCC members in Canada, as well as an undermining of longstanding Jewish-Christian ties in this country.

One of McDonald’s tasks is to develop CIJA’s relationship with Christian churches and leaders in Canada, many of whom are interested in Israel and want to get engaged in peace-building activities. At the end of May, he will deliver a presentation at the Toronto School of Theology to Baptist, Anglican and Catholic representatives. His focus will be on one organization: Hand in Hand, a network of Jewish-Arab integrated bilingual schools focused on mutual recognition, inclusion and equality.

“There’s tremendous interest among some of our Christian partners for this sort of work,” explained McDonald. “When they see we’re pro-Israel but not anti-Palestinian, they are somewhat surprised that the organized Jewish community is so interested in peace. We want to show them there are constructive alternatives to BDS, positive ways we can be helping build peace.”

Seek Peace is not directly about fundraising, but rather about providing a catalogue of positive initiatives. The organizations featured include Heart to Heart, where Jewish and Palestinian Israeli youth live together in a camping environment for three weeks and tackle politics, culture and identity through dialogue. There is Project Rozana, which is about delivering medical access for Palestinian-Israeli children who need pediatric intensive care, and there is Tsofen, which promotes the integration of Israel’s Arab citizens into the high-tech industry. These are just a handful of the many constructive, peace-building programs that Seek Peace is trying to bring to the forefront, organizations doing impressive work that often goes unreported.

Within a few years from now, McDonald said he’d love to see churches and synagogues partner to host events that highlight one of these particular or similar causes.

“My goal would be for this to be taken on at a local and national level by our Christian friends,” he said, “but it’s not specifically for Christians – any community can get involved.”

In Vancouver, the CIJA team already has strong interfaith relationships and is well-positioned to pitch this project to its existing contacts, he added. “I think Vancouver is a place where there could be a lot of appetite for this kind of thing,” he said.

For more information on Seek Peace, visit cija.ca/resource/seek-peace-and-pursue-it.

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.

EcoPeace crosses borders

EcoPeace Middle East is an Israeli-Jordanian-Palestinian organization dedicated to environmental peace building, primarily through water diplomacy. (photo from EcoPeace Middle East)

EcoPeace was created by Gidon Bromberg some 22 years ago after he made the connection between ecology and the lack of cooperation between the region’s various authorities regarding water issues.

At the time, he was studying for a master’s in environmental law in Washington, D.C. When he returned to Israel, he organized the very first gathering of Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian and Egyptian environmentalists. On the second day of the meeting, in December 1994, an agreement was struck to create EcoPeace Middle East.

Bromberg has been working together with Jordanian Munqeth Mehyar since then and Palestinian Nader Khateeb since 2001 to create an Israeli-Jordanian-Palestinian organization dedicated to environmental peace building, primarily through water diplomacy, and to the advancement – through both top-down advocacy and community-led grassroots work – of cross-border cooperation concerning shared water resources, pollution issues and sustainable development issues. Half of their programming is bottom-up community work through the Good Water Neighbors (GWN) project, now into its 15th year of operation.

“The second half of our work is advocacy aimed at influencing the Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian governments, as well as at garnering support from the international community in advancing dialogue and cooperation between them,” Bromberg told the Independent.

photo - The three co-directors of EcoPeace Middle East at the Jordan River. From left to right: Gidon Bromberg (Israel), Munqeth Mehyar (Jordan) and Nader Khateeb (Palestine) — The three co-directors of EcoPeace Middle East at the Jordan River. From left to right: Gidon Bromberg (Israel), Munqeth Mehyar (Jordan) and Nader Khateeb (Palestine). *(photo from EcoPeace via commons.wikimedia.org)*

The underlying assumption behind their efforts on all fronts is that regional cooperation is in each party’s best self-interest. “As altruism is not a common feature of foreign policy, particularly not in the midst of conflict, speaking to the self-interest of each side enables us to create political will for cooperation that ultimately serves the region as a whole,” said Bromberg.

Over the years, EcoPeace’s major areas of work have been focused on the rehabilitation of the Jordan River; a regional plan for sustainable development in the Jordan Valley; water and the peace process; Gaza’s water, sanitation and energy crisis; the water-energy nexus in the region; and the Red Sea-Dead Sea conduit.

Since its establishment, EcoPeace Middle East has seen many periods of extreme hostility and bloodshed in the region but, in the midst of that, has been able to make headway.

“Joint work of Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians through EcoPeace’s programs has brought the leveraging of more than half a billion U.S. dollars in recent years for water supply and sanitation solutions in the GWN communities, all with a strong cross-border effect, i.e. removal of sewage from shared resources,” said Bromberg. “EcoPeace has also been able to convene Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian government representatives together and generate dialogue between them around issues such as the Jordan River, at a time when no such meetings were taking place.”

At the community level, EcoPeace holds many cross-border youth gatherings every year, wherein kids not only learn about the interdependency of their and their neighbors’ water reality, but also about each other, in an effort to break down negative stereotypes.

One of the biggest achievements of EcoPeace in terms of bringing together people from the three countries has been the facilitation of relations between Jordan Valley mayors, who have rallied together to demand joint governmental cooperation toward rehabilitating the river.

“As far as positive ripple effects, very much due to our work, there is a growing realization amongst the various stakeholders, including decision makers, that regional sustainable development is crucial for geopolitical stability and for security in the region, for economic growth, public health and other aspects of life in the region,” said Bromberg.

EcoPeace’s notion of water as a political game changer in the region, for example, is slowly but surely becoming a part of the political discourse.

“The Jordan River is a good example of persistence that has recently started to pay off,” said Bromberg. “Ten years ago, when we were trying to convince the Israeli Water Authority (IWA) to release fresh water from the Sea of Galilee to the Jordan River, something which had then not happened for almost 60 years, one of the seniors raised his palm and said, ‘Gidon, when hair grows on this palm, that’s when fresh water will flow again from the Sea of Galilee to the Jordan River.’”

Nonetheless, by mid-2013, following years of advocacy by EcoPeace and others, the IWA released nine million cubic metres (mcm) of water into the river, committing to raise this volume to 30 mcm in the near future. This is only a drop in the bucket, however. Based on research commissioned for the project, the estimate is that 400 mcm overall is required to rehabilitate the river – and not all from the Sea of Galilee, which is in Israeli territory, but also from Jordan and Syria.

This is a very important first step, said Bromberg, who is certain of EcoPeace’s ability, with the help of many partners, to convince the relevant decision makers to allow for more significant volumes of water to flow into the river.

“Times now are particularly difficult in our region,” he said. “Hostility between Israelis and Palestinians has reached a whole new level, a frightening environment that, for the most part, does not react well to cooperation.”

Bromberg believes that, through providing youth in each of their communities with opportunities and cooperation with their neighbors, even this complex environment can be overcome.

For more information, visit foeme.org or facebook.com/ecopeacemiddleeast.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Adults ruin friendship

Samar, left, and Linor like each other from their first conversation. (photo from R2R)

If only adults could be as brave as children sometimes. The Israeli documentary Almost Friends screens as part of Reel 2 Real’s International Film Festival for Youth April 8-15. It shows just how insidious fear and racism can be, and how much a parent or grandparent can influence a child, for better and worse.

Bat mitzvah-age girls from two Israeli schools – a religious Jewish school in Tlamim and a mixed secular school in Lod – were brought together in a pen-pal program. For most, if not all, of the religious girls, this is their first exchange with non-Jews.

The success of the written exchanges leads to the Lod girls being bused to Tlamim to meet their pen pals. The teachers take the students through a couple of trust-building exercises and then give them time to interact. It is on this day that Arab-Israeli Samar and Jewish-Israeli Linor meet and become friends. They continue to write each other afterward, but the influence of Linor’s grandmother and mother overwhelms Linor and she stops writing. Samar’s concern for Linor’s safety, lest there be a terrorist attack if Linor visited her, consoles Samar over the loss of the friendship.

The most interesting development is Linor’s change of perspective. Initially, her mother is supportive of the pen-pal program and assures a then-worried Linor that there is nothing to fear from Arabs. Her grandmother is close-minded from the beginning, warning Linor that there will always be “a sting” in the Israeli-Arab relationship. Once Linor bonds with Samar, the ingrained distrust, racism, fear and insularity of Linor’s family presents itself. Their words sway Linor who, before the letter exchange, was calming her friends’ concerns about Arabs. After the negative reactions from her mom and grandmother, she is the one telling her friends how dangerous Arabs are, while one of her friends tries to convince her, “We’re alike. We’re brothers.”

There are many things powerful about this documentary. One is the reminder of how separate from each other most Arabs and Jews live in Israel. Another is how people who are kind and loving in so many ways can also be hateful and hurtful. But the documentary also reveals cause for hope – in both the religious girls’ reactions to their Lod peers and the friendships that do exist among Jews, Arabs and Christians in the Lod school.

Almost Friends is recommended for ages 13+. The hour-long film will be followed by a discussion with R2R artist-in-residence filmmaker Jessica Bradford and an R2R board member. It screens Wednesday, April 13, at noon, at Vancity Theatre. Tickets are $9 ($6 child/youth/senior, $5 each for groups of 10+) from 2016.r2rfestival.org or 604-224-6162.