Palestinians

Working with “the enemy”

In the Gaza Youth Committee campaign We Live Together, We Die Together, young Gazans hold, in a show of solidarity with Israelis, photographs of Israeli children who were killed on Oct. 7, 2023. (photo from Rami Aman)

“People must understand that the people of Gaza are not victims and they are not superheroes. We are human beings, a group of people like any other society. We love life and hate death, we love singing and we hate violence. We are not terrorists. Parents pay to educate their sons and daughters in medicine, engineering, pharmacy, art, business, English and other languages. Gaza is not Hamas, and Hamas is not Gaza – Hamas is part of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Palestinian journalist Rami Aman, founder of the Gaza Youth Committee, told the Independent in a recent interview.

JI readers may have seen on social media one of the latest Gaza Youth Committee (GYC) campaigns, called We Live Together, We Die Together. Its images feature young Gazans holding, in a show of solidarity with Israelis, photographs of Israeli children who were killed on Oct. 7, 2023. The Gazans stand amid buildings and neighbourhoods destroyed in the Israel-Hamas war. The Independent was connected with Aman by Vancouver Friends of Standing Together.

“As the months of war passed, many voices increased within Israeli society opposing the killing of Gaza’s children, expressing solidarity with their families, and calling for an end to the war,” he explained about the social media campaign. “In Gaza, we saw tens of thousands of Israeli demonstrators carrying pictures of child victims in the Gaza war. Therefore, despite the killing, hunger, siege and shortages in Gaza, it was important for us to prove that, in Gaza, there are Palestinians who object to the killing of any child, and to show their solidarity with all the child victims who have fallen in the war, Israeli or Palestinian.

“We have lost a large number of Muslim, Christian and Jewish children because of this war between Hamas and the Israeli army,” he said. “This campaign emerged from Gaza to emphasize the people’s rejection of the war and the killing of children, and the need to release the Israeli hostages, end the war and provide medical treatment for the children of Gaza.”

photo - Palestinian journalist Rami Aman, founder of the Gaza Youth Committee — Palestinian journalist Rami Aman, founder of the Gaza Youth Committee, speaking at an event. One of his goals is to hold meetings between Palestinians and Israelis to help them respect one another and determine their own fate. *(photo from Rami Aman)*

Aman started the GYC after the first Israel-Hamas war, which he described as “a turning point” in his life.

“I began thinking about trying to do something two months after the end of the war in 2009. I decided to look for a place to establish an FM radio station in Gaza that would emphasize the voice of the peaceful people of Gaza,” said Aman, who has a bachelor’s degree in electronics and communication engineering. “At the beginning of August 2009, I received my first request from Hamas security. They interrogated me for long hours, and I was subjected to repeated assaults by Hamas members in the following days. They warned me against broadcasting any radio station or publishing any media content about Gaza without their permission.”

Realizing that Hamas wanted no other voice from Gaza than their own, Aman said, “At the beginning of 2010, I decided to form an independent youth group whose goal was to spread awareness internally and to strengthen our relations externally. Our first meeting included 30 young men and women from Gaza, and we agreed on the need to form an independent youth body that would advocate for Palestinian reconciliation and spread the voice of peace from Gaza to the entire world.”

The Gaza Youth Committee currently has more than 300 members inside and outside Gaza, said Aman, “and we are still trying to reach our goals.”

“We are all working to convey the true image of the people of Gaza and to build genuine partnerships with Israelis to help Palestinians and Israelis understand and respect each other,” he said.

Over the past 15 years of activities and meetings, Aman said he has learned a lot, “including how to influence public opinion within Gaza and how to build pressure and advocacy campaigns.

“Over these years,” he said, “I’ve realized the importance of inviting enemies to dialogue, instead of fighting, and trying to shape a different image of the other. These years have helped me differentiate between the Palestinian who wants to build their society for the better and the Palestinian who seeks to achieve their own interests from the Israelis or Palestinians at the expense of others.

“After many different activities between the Gaza Youth Committee and several Israeli movements and organizations, we have built many bridges and created a lot of connections and relations.”

GYC initiatives have included the release of 200 doves from Gaza with messages of peace, Skype calls between Gazans and Americans, and Gazans and Israelis, and a cycling marathon along the border in which both Israelis and Gazans participated.

This work has not been without risk. Aman has been arrested and tortured by Hamas more than once for his peace initiatives with Israelis, as have people with whom he has worked. After a GYC Zoom call in April 2020, he was arrested, Hamas apparently being alerted by the social media post of journalist Hind Khoudary, who was consulting for Amnesty International at the time.

According to a 2020 Jerusalem Post article, “she did not tag Hamas officials in her Facebook posts against Rami Aman to get him arrested but as a protest against normalization activities.

“‘I want all the normalization activities he is doing with Israel from Gaza to stop immediately because any joint activities, cooperation or dialogue with Israelis is unacceptable, even engaging with Israeli ‘peace activists,’” she said in an interview with the Post.

To secure his release, Aman was told he’d have to divorce his then-wife, the daughter of a Hamas official, who was also among those arrested. He eventually signed the papers in August of that year. His wife had already been released at that point, but Aman remained in prison, despite what he’d been told. He was prosecuted in September 2020 for “weakening revolutionary spirit,” and ultimately convicted. After international pressure, he was released in late October, with a suspended sentence, according to a 2021 article in the Times of Israel.

His former wife traveled with a Hamas escort to Cairo while Hamas released Aman from prison one day later. The couple kept in touch after Aman’s release from prison and subsequent move to Cairo in 2021, but have drifted apart for various reasons. Intending to return to Gaza in late 2023, the war caused Aman to change his plans.

“When I first started working for Gaza from abroad, I felt strong and free, and I regained my energy,” he said. “With the outbreak of the war, I began to feel stuck. I couldn’t call on people to demonstrate to end the war while I was on Facebook. People in Gaza trusted me because I was always the first to demonstrate against Hamas, from 2011 until before I left Gaza. If I were in Gaza, I would certainly demonstrate, even for an hour every day, to end the war. Then I would call on people to demonstrate while I was on the street.”

While he would prefer to be in Gaza, Aman said technology has helped GYC’s activism greatly, even before he had to leave his homeland.

“From 2007 until now, Israel has consistently imposed blockades on the residents of the Gaza Strip,” he explained, “while Hamas remained unaffected by any crises and received hundreds of millions of dollars with the help of the Qataris and [Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu, in addition to Hamas’s control over travel through the Rafah crossing.

“The real blockade was imposed on us in the Gaza Youth Committee and the majority of Palestinians, so we used Skype and Zoom to communicate with our friends and partners outside Gaza, the most famous of which was the Skype with Your Enemy initiative in 2014.

“We also organized hundreds of meetings that helped introduce me to the world and led several organizations to extend invitations to visit them abroad. I traveled to India because of these meetings, which led to me meeting with the Dalai Lama. A few months ago, I was in Europe to speak about Gaza in several European cities.

“Most of the news coming from media outlets and news agencies will not present the truth to anyone, and it is better to communicate directly with the people in Gaza,” said Aman. “Israel has not provided us with permits to enter the West Bank and Jerusalem. Since 2010, the Israeli authorities have only granted me a 12-hour permit to attend a workshop in 2014 and permits to transit to Jordan when traveling from Gaza. For me and others, these applications have resulted in the building of a large number of personal friendships that continue to this day because they have been created between people, both Palestinians and Israelis.”

Aman has strong criticisms of the media in general, and Al Jazeera in particular, as well as UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East).

“No Palestinian in Gaza watches Al Jazeera. No Palestinian in Gaza trusts in UNRWA. No Palestinian in Gaza trusts in all of these media,” Aman told UN Watch in an interview earlier this month.

In this atmosphere, the GYC continues its efforts.

“We at the Gaza Youth Committee work to strengthen the capacities of Palestinian youth, develop their skills and create a Palestinian movement from Gaza, the West Bank and the diaspora that expresses the aspirations of the independent Palestinian people,” said Aman. “At the Gaza Youth Committee, we always strive to hold meetings between Palestinians in Gaza and Israelis, helping them respect each other and determine their own fate by implementing joint initiatives and conveying their voices to the Americans and Europeans.

“Before the war,” he said, “we always tried to organize demonstrations to demand that Hamas hold elections, resolve the unemployment and electricity crises, and step back from governing Gaza. Even now, during the war, we are working to direct the people of Gaza to demand an end to the war.”

Aman contends that most Gazans want peace, despite polls that indicate the opposite.

“I don’t believe that much in polls,” he said, “but I understand Palestinian and Israeli public opinion. The two societies have been at war for years and have seen nothing but bloodshed and destruction, and wars only create enemies. Trust was lost before Oct. 7 and the distrust increased after the war.

“I have always believed in the importance of talking to enemies and engaging in dialogue instead of fighting. This is what I do through Zoom and Skype meetings. If there is one Palestinian and one Israeli who believe in a peaceful solution, then there is hope. We need courageous decision-makers who can lead their societies toward peace, not lead them toward fighting, hostage-taking and spreading hatred.”

Given his years of organizing video conferences, Aman said, “I have considerable experience, gained from speaking with thousands of Palestinians and thousands of Israelis. Their beliefs and opinions differ, but the common humanity that unites them always remains. They don’t know each other because of the media, and I believe in what I do and in every person’s right to life and safety, regardless of their religious or political beliefs.”

Working with “the enemy” has become Aman’s life mission. This, despite having been imprisoned and tortured by Hamas, having had loved ones killed or taken away from him by both Israeli forces and Hamas, and his neighbourhood in Gaza being destroyed by Israeli bombs.

“It’s true that, as a person, I suffer every day from this news and all the memories,” he admitted. “In addition to what Hamas did to me, it was horrific and psychologically and physically painful. However, there are people around me from whom I get this energy, and I always feel that I must be their partner in promoting dialogue and respect between Palestinians and Israelis.

“With every loss of a person, I always feel that they are advising me to continue my path and take care of their children,” he said. “Therefore, in my activities, I always aim to help families and individuals I know well, and I don’t want them to feel that I am far away from them. That is why I do my best to make their voices heard and that is from where my sense of responsibility for this matter comes.”

Aman is certain there are partners for peace on both sides.

“I consider myself a partner to any Israeli who seeks peace and an end to the war,” he said. “I know that there are Israelis who consider themselves peace partners with the Palestinians. I know Palestinians and Israelis who have lost their children and parents and still believe in peace, so that no more victims fall.”

He stressed the need to stand together.

“Our voices must unite to stop the war, free the Israeli hostages, protect the Palestinians in Gaza and help them rebuild their society,” he said. “We must find 50 Palestinian and Israeli leaders who will work to bring Palestinians and Israelis together.”

As Aman responded to the Independent’s questions, he said Israel Defence Forces tanks were “stationed hundreds of metres away from where my family and friends are. But I always know,” he said, “that life exists and so does death. Anyone can be the next hope and anyone can be the next victim.”

Israel and its neighbours at an inflection point: Wilf

Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt speaks with Einat Wilf, Israeli author and thinker, who shared her views on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (photo by Adele Lewin)

Israel and its region are in a moment of danger and opportunity, according to Einat Wilf, who spoke in Vancouver April 25.

The Israeli author, commentator and former Labour Party member of the Knesset, said Israel and those who wish to destroy it have been locked in a repetitive series of disasters for almost 80 years. The current moment could alter – or enforce – that dynamic.

“This is a moment when, if we do not do the right things, we will remain stuck in a loop,” she said at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue.

The cycle of conflict has dragged on because of a scenario in which, she said, “the Jews are never allowed to win, the Arabs are never allowed to lose – or at least are never allowed to acknowledge defeat.”

Wilf calls this the “tragedy of ceasefires.”

The Arab world tried to prevent the creation of a Jewish state and then, since 1948, has attempted to undo the existence of that state. This is the core of the conflict, she argued.

“When it becomes clear that they are about to fail, what people call for is a ceasefire,” she said. “But what would actually help us is not a ceasefire. What would help us is to bring back the great ideas of victory and defeat, because those are actually necessary for us to get to peace.”

Instead, the world demands that the parties go back to the negotiating table, as if nothing had happened, she said.

“People talk about the conflict constantly going on, as if it’s by some bizarre coincidence,” she said. “It’s not. It’s because the Arab side for decades has been constantly told, try again, try again. If you haven’t succeeded this time, try again.”

One of the ruptures in the dialogue, Wilf said, is the idea that the only thing standing between

Israelis and peace is the establishment of a Palestinian state. This has been the driving force in decades of peace efforts, “only to realize that this is not what the Palestinians had ever wanted.”

The problem, she said, is that many Jews and others refuse to take the plainly stated Palestinian and Arab message at face value. Many Jews on her social media feed disagree with her, she said. Many Arabs, by contrast, are up-front.

“The Arabs on my feed would write this: ‘You are settler-colonialist, white Europeans. Get out.’ I love that,” she said. “They’re saying there shouldn’t be a Jewish state.” And yet, the Jews who comment, she said, keep coming back to settlements, the occupation and other issues that ignore that the root of the problem is a Palestinian and larger Arab refusal to accept the existence of a Jewish state in any part of the region, said Wilf.

Two Israeli prime ministers, Ehud Barack in 2000 and Ehud Olmert in 2008, tried to negotiate a resolution, only to find that two different Palestinian leaders, Yasser Arafat in 2000 and Mahmoud Abbas in 2008, walked away and reverted to violence, she said. Between those two administrations, a different prime minister, Ariel Sharon, decided that, if the Palestinians would not sign an agreement, he would just give them land.

“He gets out of the Gaza Strip to the last square inch, and we know what they did with that control of the territory,” said Wilf.

The devastation experienced by Gaza and its people in the current war is a tragic moment, but also a possible turning point.

“Moments of ruin and destruction, both in personal as in collective lives, can be moments of growth and transformation,” she said. “But only if you acknowledge the possibility.”

Wilf admits that people say she speaks harshly.

“I do,” she agreed. “Because we have not benefited from people who soften the message. We try to cut corners, we don’t go to touch the molten lava that is at the core of our conflict.”

For years, long before Oct. 7, European capitals have been sending money to Palestinian regimes to feel good about themselves, she said. “But it does no good. It just extends the conflict.”

She tells European audiences to change their approach. “You want to do good?” she asks. “You need to tell the Palestinians, given that your goal in the last century was to prevent and then to undo the existence of a Jewish state: you lost, and it’s over. You can find a dignified life next to a Jewish state but not instead of it.”

Hard truths are difficult to dislodge, said Wilf, and they can be perpetuated at the highest levels. When Joe Biden, then the US president, visited Israel after Oct. 7, Wilf said, he went out of his way to argue that Hamas does not represent ordinary Palestinians.

“It’s a lie that we often tell to comfort ourselves,” argued Wilf. “Hamas is merely the most brutal and successful executor of the ideology that we’ve come to call Palestinianism.”

The ideology, she said, does not hide its goal of eradicating the existence of Israel “from the river to the sea.”

Terms like “right of return” hold equally brutal meanings.

“You look at Palestinian Arab texts from the ’50s, the ’60s, they are very clear about the term,” she said. “They talk about ‘We will tear their hearts out of their bodies, their fingernails from their limbs.’ That’s why you have euphoria on Oct. 7 – euphoria across the people of Gaza, euphoria across the people of the West Bank, Palestinians and their collaborators around the world. The euphoria was not [because Palestinians were] breaking out of some open-air prison…. The euphoria was that they finally saw the moment that they had been groomed for, for decades.… Hamas executed Oct. 7 on behalf of Palestinianism, on behalf of the Palestinian people – for them and of them.”

That is the only way to understand what happened, she argued, or to understand how billions of dollars in international aid have resulted not in social progress but in a militarized terror regime with hundreds of kilometres of tunnels under schools, mosques, homes and kindergartens.

“You can only do something like that among a supportive population, when you are intent on carrying out the vision of that population,” she said. “So, the enemy is not just Hamas. That’s too easy. The enemy is Palestinianism. And that ideology has to die so that Jews and Arabs can finally live.”

An ideology can indeed be killed, she argued. “In fact, it happens all the time. We all live in a world where ideologies are constantly killed and dying and replaced by others.”

A first step, Wilf contended, is rejecting what she calls “trauma determinism” – the idea that people who are collectively traumatized can only respond with violence and stubborn resistance. This manifests in the idea that Israel’s actions will only further radicalize Palestinians. “I don’t know that there is much further to radicalize,” she noted.

Trauma determinism is not real, she said – or, at least, it need not be. “Exhibit A: the Jewish people,” she said. But she also raised the examples of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. “They suffered violence. The issue is not the violence,” she said. “The issue is what is the story that gets told. That’s why this moment is so important. Because, just like nothing succeeds like success, nothing fails like failure. People begin to run away from failure.”

To move on and embrace peace, she said, Palestinians, like Germans and Japanese before them, have to acknowledge defeat.

“Embracing defeat is not necessarily a bad thing,” she said. “And that process needs to happen. I’m not denying that there is ruin and devastation in Gaza. The question is, how is that ruin and devastation understood? Because, if the story is big, bad evil Israel did that to you and you are just innocent Gazan victims of Israel’s evil nature, then nothing will change. What needs to happen is something that has never happened in the last century of the conflict, which is a connection between cause and effect, action and consequences.”

Palestinians, the broader Arab polity and the world need to understand that the ruin and devastation inflicted upon Gaza is the outcome of their ideology. Some other peoples in the region have awakened to this idea and begun to give up their fruitless hostility to Israel, Wilf said.

“It is always the mark of failed societies in crisis, looking to scapegoat, looking to find someone to blame, looking to divert attention from their failures,” she said. “It’s not a coincidence, therefore, that those countries in the Arab world who are trying to forge a modern vision, a forward-looking vision of what it means to be an Arab and Muslim, are the ones that are letting go of anti-Zionism and normalizing relations with Israel. This is the only vision forward. And I’m under no illusions. It remains a minority view in the Arab and Islamic world. But, for the first time ever, it exists, vocally.”

photo - Israeli commentator and former member of the Knesset Einat Wilf, right, was thanked after her presentation by Tracy Ames — Israeli commentator and former member of the Knesset Einat Wilf, right, was thanked after her presentation by Tracy Ames. (photo by Adele Lewin)

While they might not embrace the term themselves, Wilf suggests these parties are exhibiting what she calls “Arab Zionism” – the simple acknowledgement that Israel exists and has a right to do so.

It is voices in the West who are most resistant to change, she said.

“The tragedy of this moment is that some in the Arab world are waking up from decades of anti-Zionism as a waste and a ruin, and seeking to have a different vision,” said Wilf. “You have so many here in the West rushing to fill the void and to essentially keep fueling the conflict so that the erasure of Israel can finally be achieved. That is the tragedy. It is also, of course, remarkably dangerous. Because what’s happening now in the West, as much as it pretends to be about the conflict, it’s not.”

It’s about something more insidious, she contended. What is portrayed as anti-Zionism has historically shown itself to be something baser.

“What happens to Jews when societies allow anti-Zionism to become institutionalized?” she asked. Everywhere that anti-Zionism rises to the level of being institutionalized or legislated, the environment turns hostile to Jewish life, she said.

“In the Arab world, how did they get rid of their Jews in the two decades when anti-Zionism was at its height? They never legislated against the Jews. They legislated against Zionists. Iraq, Egypt – the legislation was against Zionists,” she said. “But the way it works is that the Jews are charged with Zionism and no Jew – I know some really try hard but no Jew – will ever be able to disavow Zionism because, heaven forbid, they just celebrated Passover and said, ‘Next year in Jerusalem.’ And that’s how it works.” If such actions are not stopped, she said, “ultimately, no Jews are left.”

“This is what happened in the Arab world, in Iran, in the history of Europe, in the Soviet Union, in Venezuela and it’s happening on American campuses as we speak,” she contended.

Now, efforts are underway in Canada and elsewhere to codify “anti-Palestinian racism,” which Wilf dismisses as a prohibition against Zionism.

On the other hand, there is, she clarified, genuine anti-Palestinian racism. “It is the racism of refusing to listen to Palestinians and take them at their word,” she said. “There is a refusal to really acknowledge them as agents in history who know what they are doing and who actually have their own rational vision of no Jewish state.”

The future depends on how Palestinians and the world interpret the destruction that has taken place in Gaza.

“We are facing a moment that has at once great peril but also great hope,” said Wilf. “Amazingly, so much rides on whether we will ensure that the ruin and destruction in Gaza will finally be associated as the consequence, the outcome, the effect of the Palestinian choice to pursue the always-destructive vision of no Jewish state, because, if they can finally be made to embrace defeat, and to begin the slow process [toward peace] then, at the end of the day, I can assure you that, if they become Arab Zionists, it would be better for everyone.”

Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt welcomed the audience and thanked the Hayes Family Israel Initiative for funding Wilf’s visit, in memory of Dr. Arthur and Arlene Hayes z”l.

המשבר הגדול של מדינת נתניהו יגיע עוד יגיע

לאחרונה דיבר עם חבר מישראל דוד שטויר, כאשר בגילו המתקדם (שבעים פלוס) כבר חווה הכל במדינה. אני הכרתי את דוד בחודשים הראשונים שלי בתהליך התאקלמות בוונקובר, אליה עברתי בחודש פברואר 2005

דוד חזר וציין בפני שאני הייתי “נביא” שראה לאן פני ישראל מועדות והוא עד היום מצטער שלא עזב כמוני את המדינה בה גדלנו, למען עתיד טוב יותר לו ולילדיו. לאור המשבר הקשה בישראל ילדיו של דוד כבר הספיקו לעזוב את ישראל. ולכן שאלתי אותו מה עוד “מחזיק” אותו בישראל? הוא ענה לי כי בתו הצעירה שהשתחחרה לאחרונה ההצבא, נקראה לשירות מילואים דחוף בן מספר חודשים בחיל האוויר. לאחר שתשחרר הבת מהמילואים היא קרוב לוודאי תעבור ללמוד בחו”ל. אז גם הוא יעזוב סוף סוף את ישראל

דוד אומר כי כבר למעלה מחמישים אלף ישראלים עזבו לאחרונה את ישראל. לדבריו מספר העוזבים צפוי אף לגדול לאור המשבר הגדול שישראל נמצאת בו, והוא צפוי להחריף. תשמע רוני הוא אמר לי נחרצות: ישראל היום נשלטת על ידי משפחת פשע הלוא היא משפחת נתניהו. הם עושים מה שהם רוצים, ובעלי התפקידים לצדו של נתניהו הם נוכלים וחסרי כישורים. נתניהו יצר פילוג בעם שאי אפשר לתקנו כך שאי אפשר לגשר בין “הביסיסטים” למתנגדיו של נתניהו

כשאמרתי לדוד כי הכיצד יכול ראש ממשלת ישראל להחזיק בן כלומניק בפלורידה (יאיר נתניהו) שאפילו לא עובד, והמדינה מממנת את שירותי הביטחון שלו שעולים הון ובתקופת מלחמה? דוד קטע את דברי בחריפות: רוני זה כסף קטן לעומת מיליארדי השקלים שנשדדים מקופת המדינה על ידי נתניהו וחבורתו, בין היתר לטובת החרדים שאפילו לא משרתים בצבא.ווהוא (נתניהו) עוד טס מטוס מפואר שעלה מיליארד שקל

לאחר השיחה עם דוד ישבתי וחשבתי לעצמי על ישראל ועתידה ובמחשבותי הצטיירה תמונה עגומה מאוד. אלו שחושבים שבקרוב יפרוץ תהליך שלום חדש בין ישראל למדינות ערב ובעיקר עם סעודיה, חיים בחלום. סעודיה הודיעה כבר מפורשות! שכל תהליך שלום עימה חייבה לכלול פתרון גם לפלסטינים – והוא הקמה מדינה עצמאית עבורם. הימים שישראל תעשה הסכמי שלום בדמות הסכמי אברהם, ללא פתרון הבעייה הפלסטינית עברו מן העולם

יש בישראל כיום שמהללים את נתניהו כביכול על הצלחותיו מול החמאס והחיזבאללה, בזמן שהם שכחו את הכשלונותיו הרבים, שהביאו למחדלי השבעה באוטובר. וכן ויתור על החטופים כדי שיוכל להמשיך ולשבת על כיסא המלך. מבחינתי זה כמו להגיד שלגודלה מאיר היו הצלחות רבות במלחמת יום כיפור מול המצרים והסורים, תוך התעלמות מאחריותה למחדל הנוראי של התקפות הפתע של צבאות האויב על ישראל

בכל מדינה מתוקנת ראש ממשלה היה מתפטר מיד לאחר מחדלי השבעה באוקטובר, ונעלם מהציבור לעולמים, אך כמובן עומד למשפט העם במסגרת ועדה חקירה ממלכתית. אך את נתניהו הנוכל נורמות ויושר אינן תכונות המאפיינות אותו למרות שהוא דורש זאת מאחרים

נתניהו אחראי להעברת מיליארדי דולרים לחמאס מקטאר, והוא אחראי לפגיעה קשה ברשות הפלסטינית. נתניהו חיזק אפוא את הקיצונים בפלסטינים (חמאס) והחליש את המתונים יותר (הרשות). נתניהו אחראי גם על עיבוי והוספת ההתנחלויות בשטחים הכבושים שרק מרחיקים את ישראל מפתרון הסכסוך הממושך עם עולם הערבי והשגת שלום

בתקופת שלטונו הארוכה בת שבעה עשרה השנים של נתניהו, ישראל נחלשה מבפנים בצורה משמעותית. המדינה הפכה למושחתת, יותר דתית משיחית, יותר קפיטליסטית והרבה פחות הומנית

שיחה ישראלית

ישראל נמצאת בסכנה קיומית מהיום שהתחלתי לנשום לפני למעלה משישים וחמש שנים ואני לא אומר זאת כדי להפחית מחומרת העניין. מצער מאוד שחבורת פושעים בלתי אנושית של החמאס וחבריהם “הזכירו” שוב לישראלים בשבעה באוקטובר, כי הם גרים באזור מסוכן ביותר. ישראל ישנה והישראלים כהרגלם התעלמו מכל התרעה אפשרית לחדירה כה קשה כפי שאירעה באוקטובר

פרופ’ ישעיהו ליבוביץ אמר לאחר כיבוש השטחים כתוצאה ממלחמת ששת הימים שנכפתה על ישראל, כי זהו דבר חמור שיגרום נזק גדול לישראל, ישחית את המדינה ואולי אף יביא לקיצה. כל יום מאז התבגרותי הרגשתי עד כמה דבריו החמורים של פרופ’ ליבוביץ נכונים, ועד כמה הישראלים ברובם לא ראו שום בעייה בנושא החזקת השטחים הכבושים. להיפך: שטחים אלו יצרו גל הולך וגדל של תנועה משיחית של יהודים פנאטיים, שמאמינים בכל ליבם שאת השטחים הכבושים הם קיבלו מאלוהים ומצווה עליהם להתיישב בהם. תנועה משיחית מסוכנת זו שמספר תומכיה גדל משמעותית כל שנה, ממשיכה במלאכת בניית התנחלויות והרחבתן בשטחים, תוך שמתקבלות תמיכה ועידוד רב ממשלות נתניהו השונות. בנימין נתניהו ראש הממשלה הנצחי של ישראל שיושב על כיסא המלך כבר כשבעה עשרה שנים, מיישם את תפיסתו ותפיסת אביו – שיש ליישב יהודים בכל ארץ ישראל, כולל ובעיקר בשטחים הכבושים. תפיסה זו שמקובלת על ידי חלק נרחב מתושבי ישראל כיום, מונעת כל אפשרות של הקמת מדינה פלסטינית בשטחים שנכבשו. וכך גם נמנע מישראל לחיות בביטחון מלא תוך אפשרות של שלום עם מרבית מדינות ערב. מי שמתעלם מהבעייה הפלסטינית בעצם מתעלם מהאופציה היחידה לפתרון הסכסוך הארוך והנוראי הזה בין ישראל לשכנותיה. בין היהודים למרבית המוסלמים בעולם

הישראלים רוצים בדומה לאזרחי מרבית המדינות בעולם לבלות, לטוס לחו”ל וליהנות מהזריחות ומהשקיעות כאחד. אך הישראלים מעדיפים לשכוח כי מי שרוצה להחזיק בשטחים של עם אחר לא יכול לחיות חיים אזרחיים רגילים, אלא חיים מלאים בצבא, ביטחון, כוננות והתרעות. כאמור מחבלי החאמאס הוכיחו לישראלים מה קורה שישנים באזור מסוכן זה

טעה מי חשב שהחזרת רצועת עשה לתושביה יפתרו כל בעיותיה של ישראל. אי אפשר להפריד בין תושבי הרצועה לבין התושבים הפלסטינים בשטחים הכבושים. לא היה שקט באזור אחד אם לא יהיה שקט גם באזור השני. ועובדה היא שהמלחה בעזה מעוררת את הפלסטינים להתעמת עם צה”ל והישראלים ופיגועי הטרור הולכים גדלים מאז באוקטובר

כשאומרים לישראלים כי לא בטוח לגור בישראל הם עונים כמעט אוטומטית כי לא בטוח לישראלים ויהודים לגור בשום מקום אחר בעולם. האם פעם אחת שאלו תושבי ישראל מדוע אחיהם בגולה לא בטוחים? השנאה והאנטישמיות הולכות וגדלות משמעותית מאז השבעה באוקטובר? האם יש שמבינים כי מה שצה”ל עושה ברצועת עזה הוא נוראי – גם לאחר המאורעות הקשים ביותר שאירעו בשבעה באוקטובר? האם זה מובן שהנקמה צריכה לבוא בכל הכוח, ללא הפסקה ולהביא למותם של אלפי פלסטינים חפים מפשע בעזה? האם בישראל מבינים שהתוצאות הקשות של המלחמה בעזה יגרמו נזק קשה מאוד למדינה ולישראלים והיהודים בחו”ל

בישראל לא אוהבים לראות את התמונה הכוללת ולחשוב על העתיד. קל יותר להתנהל מהרגע להרגע, ללא תכנון וללא ארגון. נתניהו מנהל את המלחמה הקשה הזו בעזה שלא מביאה לעתיד טוב יותר בישראל, בדיוק כמו שהוא נכשל בהגנה על גבולותיה של המדינה. נתניהו רק חושב על נתניהו ועל רצונו להמשיך ולשלוט על המדינה שהוא הורס

Hope amid the conflict

We are still reeling from what happened in Israel on Oct. 7 and the war that has ensued.

Hamas carried out a brutal terror attack on Israel that targeted civilians, murdering 1,400 people and kidnapping more than 200 Israeli hostages. Jews worldwide are grief-stricken, angry and scared. It is hard to see the hope, as images of dead Israelis mix with images of dead Palestinians.

There is no doubt in our minds that Hamas needs to be incapacitated – its covenant explicitly states their intention to eliminate Israel and kill Jews. On Oct. 7, they reasserted their intention with a vengeance that cannot be ignored. Their unambiguous goal is genocide.

Posters we see around Vancouver that simultaneously accuse Israel of genocide for defending itself and call for the genocide of Israelis – “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” – are abhorrent. People who support Hamas’s genocidal actions, implying, or outright stating, that Israelis deserve such cruelty do not care about humanity, do not believe in peace.

The people who are putting up the posters that ask, “Do you support indigenous rights? Then you support Palestine” are implying that Jews are colonizers and, therefore, deserve to be expelled, no matter how. But the Jewish connection to the land goes back thousands of years; we were dispossessed of it but never ceded it.

There are some two million Palestinians in Gaza, and they cannot be similarly dispossessed. More than half the population has been asked to leave their homes. Reports are that more than 4,500 have been killed from Israel’s bombing campaign.

Our hearts break at the type of war that fighting Hamas entails. The terror group uses civilians and civilian infrastructure as shields, ensuring that hundreds or thousands of innocent Palestinians die every time Israel defends itself militarily, even when it adheres to international law in its actions, including allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza.

One way or another, the people who live between the river and sea must find a way to coexist. That is quite literally the only way forward. As simplistic as this sounds, it is nevertheless true. That is impossible with Hamas as the controlling force in Gaza. But, when they are removed, what then? Replacing the figures at the top – whether in Gaza or in the Israeli government, the latter of which is something that will certainly be discussed in the aftermath of this horror – will not automatically negate deep mutual distrust among populations.

There are so many complexities and no end of theories as to how we have arrived at this point. What will happen next is less discussed, though there is the all-too-real possibility that the conflict will become regional – already the 22,000 residents of Kiryat Shmona, the largest community in the Vancouver Jewish community’s partnership region of the Upper Galilee, are being evacuated because of terrorist attacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon, which are expected to increase once Israel begins its ground offensive in the south. Some fear that the Hamas attack is less the main event than a distraction, a trap to lure Israel into an even more existential fight on multiple fronts.

Closer to home, there are security threats to Jews in the diaspora. Thankfully, Hamas’s call for a day of rage on Oct. 13 did not result in serious incidents. But the fear is real, and that is the purpose of terrorism. Jewish organizations and law enforcement agencies are working together to keep us safe. We must continue to live our lives as Jews, and not hide.

Some of our local community members have gone to Israel to fight. Other community members are rallying, marching and postering to make sure that the Israeli hostages being held captive in Gaza are returned home. More than $15 million was raised for Israel in just two weeks by the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s emergency campaign.

And, there are Israelis (Jewish, Muslim, Christian and others) and Palestinians who, despite the terrorist attacks and the war, continue against so many odds to work for peace. Groups such as Standing Together, Women Wage Peace, the Parents Circle, and others are working to shore up hope for peace, equality and coexistence. These groups deserve our support, moral and financial.

At the same time as we support our family and friends in Israel and one another here, as we call for the immediate return of the hostages and as we raise funds for aid, we must also support those activists and dreamers on the ground who advocate for a better postwar world.

Celebrating defiance – Shira Herzog Symposium

The 13th annual Shira Herzog Symposium, hosted by New Israel Fund of Canada, took place on Oct. 15. Originally intended to be a discussion about the challenges facing Israeli democracy, the topic was changed to Celebrating Defiance, in light of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.

NIFC president Linda Hershkovitz said the new focus was an opportunity “to comfort each other, to grieve and to hear how our community in Israel is responding to this moment.”

She said, “Today, we still gather to celebrate defiance – defiance against terror and extremism, against giving up hope, and against allowing violence to drive Jews and Arabs further apart.”

Opening remarks underscored that among the more than 200 hostages taken by Hamas was ivian Silver, a 74-year-old Canadian-Israeli activist for peace and women’s rights, known to many of those in the audience.

The main speakers at the symposium were Orly Erez-Likhovski, director of the Israel Religious Action Centre (IRAC); Eran Nissan, a peace activist and executive director of Mehazkim, a progressive digital group in Israel; and Amal Oraby, a Palestinian lawyer, human rights activist and member of the board of directors of Amnesty International Israel. Journalist Andrew Cohen was the moderator.

“I stand before you with a lot of fear, a fear that our lives will never be the same and a fear for the safety of my family, my friends in Gaza, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. In Israel, there is no room for voices who seek to see the reality with open eyes and acknowledge the occupation, and to refuse making the same mistake and expecting different results,” said Oraby, who serves as NIF’s Arabic media coordinator and has written extensively for the Israeli media.

Nissan, who was a combat soldier in the special forces canine unit, said every time there is a flare-up of violence, it represents a setback for both Israeli and Palestinian societies which will, in turn, drive more anger, animosity and distrust.

“In the days since Oct. 7, we identified narratives that we needed to push through our social media platforms,” Nissan said when asked what his organization did immediately following the attacks. “We understood that the first days after such an event are a crucial time when the heroes and the villains are being chosen.”

The Israeli government, he said, was framing the narrative as a struggle between Jews and Arabs. His counter-narrative is to highlight stories of shared experiences and heroism, such as Bedouin truck drivers who risked their lives to rescue Jews from the Hamas attacks and paramedics in the Negev fighting to save lives while under fire.

“This not a popular time to talk about a shared society or about empathy,” said Nissan. “Civil society organizations have been under attack. The amount of hatred and incitement we see is horrific. What we are trying to do is boost our capacity to tackle the challenges that we have right now.”

“We are very concerned about the rise in racism and violence,” said Erez-Likhovski, whose organization aims to defend equality, social justice and religious pluralism in Israel and serves as the public advocacy arm of the Reform movement.

“It’s important to talk about the current feeling in Israel,” she added. “People feel they have been abandoned by the government and by the state. The feeling is that the state system is not functioning. It’s a direct result of this government bringing in incompetent people to any post possible. And it’s taken its toll over the past year.”

Since the attacks, IRAC has worked to help the people who were evacuated, assisting with food and clothing, and helping with pastoral care, among other services.

Oraby was not optimistic about the latest change in the Israeli cabinet: bringing in opposition leader Benny Gantz. He views it as a “war government,” not an “emergency government,” and pointed to a strong civil society as the way to deescalate the situation. “Where Israeli and Palestinian leadership have failed, the civil society is succeeding,” he said.

Nissan agreed that the current cabinet is only setting military objectives, adding that it is not considering what will happen following the conflict.

Erez-Likhovski also commented that the new coalition was not presenting any long-term vision of how to solve the conflict.

At the end of the discussion, Nissan acknowledged the gravity of what occurred on Oct. 7 in terms of Israeli history and its effects on the national psyche. His hope, he said, is that a new story for Israel can be written out of the pain, and the crisis the country is confronting.

The event was co-presented with ARZA Canada, Canadian Friends of Peace Now and JSpaceCanada. It was held at the Toronto Reference Library and on Zoom.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Did Judeans cede their lands?

The Kotel (Western Wall) in Jerusalem (photo by James Blake Wiener)

Two weeks ago, 34 student organizations published a letter blaming Israel for the violent attacks that occurred on Oct. 7, on the holiday of Simchat Torah, that killed hundreds of Israelis in a brutal fashion. The letter claimed that Israel is entirely responsible for all unfolding violence and further claimed, “today’s events did not occur in a vacuum, for the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison,” according to ABC News.

On the Stanford campus, an instructor in a civil, liberal and global education course asked Jewish students to take their belongings and stand in a corner, saying, “This is what Israel does to the Palestinians.” According to the Forward, the teacher then asked, “How many people died in the Holocaust?” The students answered, “six million”; the response from the instructor was, “Colonizers killed more than six million. Israel is a colonizer.”

Those of us who grew up in the West in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s always thought Hitler was the embodiment of all evil and the Nazis were the greatest evil known to mankind. The merging of pure hatred and technology created an evil unmatched because of its scale and virulence. However, in today’s world there appears to be a sin worse than that of being a Nazi, that is to be a “colonizer.”

The theory of (Western racial colonizing) was made famous by a professor in whose class I studied, Edward Said. The New Yorker several years ago reflected that Said’s most famous book, Orientalism, “proved to be perhaps the most influential scholarly book of the late 20th century; its arguments helped expand the fields of anti-colonial and post-colonial studies.” The crimes of colonialism cannot be ignored … including many tragedies such as the Trail of Tears, residential schools, the partitioning of India and more.

The reflexive hatred of Israel, even as its citizens are being slaughtered and taken hostage, stems from those who believe the Jewish presence in Israel is among the last vestiges of colonialism. Such rationalization theorizes that civilians are really a military asset because they advance the aims of the conquering nation and, as such, civilians are a legitimate target.

Hamas uses a similar thought model for its theory of mind for the Israeli population. Haviv Rettig Gur, a columnist for the Times of Israel, wrote the following: “Arab opponents of Israel speak of it often as an artificial, rootless construct doomed to collapse in the face of Palestinian faith and resilience. It is at heart, they say, a colonialist project that for all its outward power lacks the inner authenticity and conviction to survive.”

That interpretation of Israel isn’t just a put-down; it’s a call for action, including especially the kind of sustained terrorism and cruelty that pushed other colonialist projects out, from the French in Algeria to the British in Kenya. This interpretation of Israel is the basic logic behind Palestinian suicide bombings, rocket fire and the whole slew of terrorist tactics employed by Hamas on Oct. 7.

One thousand years ago, as the Crusaders were first launching the military campaign to recapture the Holy Land from the infidels, Rashi was musing about land rights as well. Rashi wanted to explain why a lawbook, the Torah, does not begin with laws, but rather with the story of Creation. Rashi says that the nations of the world will ultimately call the Jews thieves, or colonizers in a more (contemporary) flexible translation. The Torah, therefore, begins with the story of creation to establish that all the land belongs to G-d and G-d gave title to the Children of Israel. Nachmanides, another great medieval scholar, argues that Rashi’s explanation ignores the important stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The land of Israel is the land of their stories, of Moriah, Beit El, Chevron, Be’er Sheva. This is where our ancestors are buried.

Did the tribe of Reuven ever cede its land to Aram? Did Ephraim ever cede its land to Ashur?

If you were to walk the archeological sites in the land of Israel and look at the graves, the etchings on the walls, the seals from sites dated between 3,000 and 2,500 years ago – this is the Iron II period, from 1000 to 586 BCE, between the time of Solomon and the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon – what names would you find? The vast majority of those names carved into stones and pottery are names that end with YHU or YH’L these are Hebrew names for G-d: names like Yishayahu/Isaiah, Uriah and Or Samuel, respectively. (Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 134, No. 4, October-December 2014; pp. 621-642) The stones speak the names of tribes that never willingly gave up their land to their conquerors.

The Judeans also did not cede land to the Romans. When Omar ibn Khattab conquered Jerusalem from the Romans in 638, he did not establish a treaty with the Jews, he did not trade high-value consumer durables for the land. He conquered it and, in 717, less than 100 years later, his successor Omar II forbade the Jews from praying in Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, a policy that was to last through Muslim rule of Jerusalem.

When Omar conquered, he brought Arabic into Israel for the first time. Hebrew inscriptions in Israel were already 1,500 years old when Arabic first arrived in Israel with the conqueror’s sword. Compared to the thousands of Hebrew inscriptions from the time of Solomon, there is only one find of an ancient dialect of Arabic, likely from a traveler.

We Jews are not colonizers, we are the people from the unceded lands of Judah and Benjamin, Naftali and Ephraim, Dan and Zevulun. Our language has always been Hebrew.

Prof. Yeshayahu Gafni of Hebrew University notes that, if you want to read a letter written by a Jew 2,000 years ago, you need to know Hebrew. Jews have always spoken, read and written Hebrew. If you want to write a letter to those who will be your descendants 2,000 years from now, you should write it in Hebrew.

We Jews have to make sure there is no daylight between our identity now, and the identities of our ancestors whose graves and etchings can be found from Tel Dan to Be’er Sheva. We need to embrace our language. There is no reason not to know it; it is ours.

Furthermore, we need to know the story of who we are, of the land and the people in it. We need to know who is Yeshayahu, who is Yehoshaphat, and Yoav, and Chizkiyahu, and Uziyah, and Abigail, and Jezebel and Atalyah. And we need to know how an Ephrati pronounces Shibbolet. These names figure prominently in the story of our people and our land. We need to embody the identity that holds their story true.

When we carry that identity together, we do not allow them to call us imperialists and colonizers. We are the people of the unceded lands of Judah and Benjamin. We must embrace that identity.

Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt is senior rabbi at Congregation Schara Tzedeck. This article was originally published on the synagogue’s special Israel page at scharatzedeck.com.

הסכסוך במזרח התיכון הגיע גם לקנדה

המפגינים צועדים ברחוב רובסון מלווים בכוחות המשטרה שסגרה את הכבישים הסמוכים בדאון טאון ונקובר
(רוני רחמני)

הסכסוך הקשה במזרח התיכון בו מעורבת ישראל בימים אלה כולל ארגון הטרור החמאס, ישראלים יהודים וערבים בישראל ופלסטינים וכוחות הביטחון בשטחים – הגיע כצפוי גם לקנדה. הפגנות רבות משתתפים נערכו בימים האחרונים מצד תומכי הפלסטינים ומצד תומכי ישראל, בערים המרכזיות של קנדה. במרבית הפגנות נשמר השקט והסדר בצורה מכובדת, אך במספר אירועים בעיקר באלה שבטורונטו ומונטריאול, הותקפו אזרחים יהודים תומכי ישראל על ידי אזרחים מוסלמים שתומכים בצד הפלסטיני. המשטרה ביצעה כבר מספר מעצרים והיא מנהלת חקירה מואצת לעצור חשודים נוספים באלימות הקשה שהופנתה נגד אלו שתומכים בישראל.

בחלק מהפגנות התמיכה בפלסטינים החזיקו המפגינים כרזות עם דברי נאצה ושנאה מבישים נגד ישראל והיהודים בכלל, בהם: צלבי קרס, “ישראל פעלת נכון, היטלר יהיה גאה בך”, ישראל=נאצים”, “מוות לישראל”, “מה ההבדל בין ישראלי לנאצים” ועוד.

ההפגנה הגדולה ביותר התקיימה על ידי תומכי הפלסטינים בטורונטו ונכחו בה למעלה מחמשת אלפים משתתפים. באותה הפגנה נעצרו כבר על ידי המשטרה המקומית שלושה אזרחים מוסלמים, שתקפו קומץ של מפגינים יהודים שעמדו מולם, וכאמור מעצרים נוספים צפויים בימים הקרובים. המפגינים היהודים ספגו אבנים ובקבוקים, ואחד מהם אף הוכה במקלות, הוא נפגע בראשו ונזקק לטיפול רפואי דחוף. ואילו בהפגנה של תומכי ישראל במונטריאול נאלצה המשטרה המקומית להפעיל גז מדמיע לפזר בכוח אזרחים מוסלמים, שביקשו לפגוע באזרחים יהודים שהפגינו בעת שנערכה הפגנה בעד הפלסטינים.

ההפגנות של שני הצדדים בעד ונגד ישראל נערכו בין היתר בערים הבאות בקנדה: טורונטו, מונטריאול, ונקובר, קלגרי, אדמונטון, אוטווה, ויניפג, הליפקס וסנט ג’ונס.

המפגינים פונים מרחוב ג’ורג’יה לרחוב טרלו בדרכם למשרדים של הקונסוליה האמריקאית בדאון טאון ונקובר
*(רוני רחמני)*

אני עקבתי מקרוב אחרי הפגנה של תומכי הצד הפלסטיני שנערכה בוונקובר ביום שבת האחרון. כחמש מאות מפגינים בהם אזרחים מוסלמים, ילידי קנדה, אינדיאנים, תומכי המרקסיזם ואפילו קבוצה של ארגון שמאל יהודי קיצוני “הקול היהודי העצמאי” – השתתפו בה. תחילה התכנסו מאות מפגינים בכיכר שממול האולפנים של רשת השידור הציבורית הקנדית הסי.בי.סי, ברחוב המילטון בדאון טאון. לאחר סדרה של נאומים וקריאות נגד ישראל שנמשכה למעלה מחצי שעה, החלו המפגינים לצעוד באישור המשטרה כמובן, אל עבר הקונסוליה האמריקנית בעיר, שנמצאת ברחוב פנדר בדאון טאון. רחבות שלמים נסגרו על ידי השוטרים הרבים שנכחו במקום, והצועדים ללא התפרעויות עשו את המסלול מאולפני הסי.בי.סי, אל רחוב רובסון, משם לרחוב ג’ורג’יה ומשם המשיכו בהמוניהם עד לבניין בו שוכנת הקונסוליה האמריקנית.

בין סיסמאות הרבות של המפגינים בעד הפלסטינים, לאור פעולת צה”ל בעזה, שנאמרו בהפגנה או שהופיעו על שלטים בהם החזיקו הצועדים: “אין צדק אין שלום”, “לשחר את פלסטין”, “פלסטין תקום בין הנהר לים”, “הפסיקו את שפיכות הדם”, “הפסיקו את ההפצצות”, “הפלסטינים הם מפלסטין”, “יש לעצור את המלחמה”, “יש להציל את שייח’ ג’ראח'”, “רציחת ילדים איננה נחשבת להגנה עצמית”, “הגידו במפורש את השם פלסטין”, “שתיקה היא אלימות”, “יש לחקור את פשעי המלחמה שמבצעת ישראל”, “יש לתת הגדרה עצמית לפלסטינים”, “יש להחרים את ישראל”. על הדלת הכניסה לקונסוליה האמריקנית שהייתה סגורה בעת ההפגנה, נכתבה הסיסמה באדום: “יש לשחרר את פלסטין, יש להפסיק את רצח העם וכן יש להפסיק את הכיבוש”.

בתגובה לתקיפת המפגינים היהודים בטורונטו, ציינו בארגון המרכז לענייני ישראל והיהודים בקנדה: “אנו מגנים בחריפות את ההתקפה והשנאה שהופנתה נגד יהודים. אין הצדקה לאלימות פוליטית ואלה ששונאים את ישראל שונאים גם את קנדה”.

Olive trees have long history

Volunteers help pick olives on a windy day in the fair trade grove of Emek Yizrael. (photo from Yoram Ron)

For thousands of years, olive trees have grown in Israel. Neolithic pottery containing olive pits and remnants of olives have been discovered in Israel’s Mount Carmel region, proving that early people produced olive oil by pulverizing the ripe olives in small pots. Some ancient trees reportedly still exist – in the Palestinian village of al-Walaja, residents claim they have the world’s oldest olive tree, supposedly 5,000 years old. More realistic is Beit Jala’s claim to an 800-year-old olive tree.

Olives for making oil are picked around December or January, so it is probably no coincidence that Chanukah comes so close to the picking season. As you know, Chanukah’s miracle revolves around the story that a very limited amount of olive oil burned in the Temple menorah for eight nights.

While the olive branch is a symbol of peace, the olive harvest in both Israel and the Palestinian territories is a challenging time. For Palestinian olive growers, extremist settlers and Israeli government policy have turned their harvest into an uncomfortable, if not a physically and economically dangerous event. Documented cases show some settlers assaulting Palestinian farmers – threatening them, driving them off their own land, physically attacking them or throwing stones at them. Sometimes, settlers vandalize Palestinian vehicles and damage farming equipment. In other cases, settlers jump-start the harvest, stealing the fruit from hundreds of trees. In the saddest of cases, settlers vandalized hundreds upon hundreds of Palestinian olive trees, in what appears to be a gross violation of Deuteronomy’s 20:19 bal tashchit precept. In this law, we may not uproot or cut down a fruit tree if we do not have an acceptable reason to do so. In the early part of last year’s harvest, the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that 25 Palestinians were injured, more than 1,000 olive trees were burnt or otherwise damaged and large amounts of produce were stolen.

Since the construction of the separation barrier, some Palestinian olive growers have ended up with their groves located on the other side of the barrier and farmers must obtain special permits and go through special gates to get to their trees. The B’Tselem Organization has documented situations in which Israeli soldiers have blocked the access gates or held farmers up, and there have been reports that soldiers have used anti-riot material on the growers.

In a few cases, the separation between olive groves and homes means that growers have to travel some 25 kilometres round trip. Moreover, the growers are given fixed times to get to their trees and, sometimes, the periods available are not long enough to finish all the picking. Related, Palestinians are sometimes put into a situation in which they have to pick their fruit while the olives are still strongly attached to the branches. Olive picking is largely a manual procedure, so, to dislodge the unripened olives, growers either hit the trees with a rod or shake the trees very hard. This can result in damage to both the trees and the olives.

photo - Two men loading freshly picked olives in the organic grove of the Galilee’s Kfar Deir Hanna, November 2020 — Two men loading freshly picked olives in the organic grove of the Galilee’s Kfar Deir Hanna, November 2020. *(photo by Itiel Zion)*

The current pandemic has caused financial havoc all over the world, including in Israel. This harvest season, Jewish Israeli olive growers have had tons of olives stolen. In the Emek Yizrael area, the Border Police found about 10 tons of olives in a nearby sheep pen. The olives had already been bagged and the gathering containers were standing to the side. The alleged thieves live in Zarzir, a village some 10 kilometres from Nazareth. Shomer Hachadash (the New Guard) tries to prevent these incidents using dogs and heat-sensing drones for nighttime surveillance. Some very bold olive thieves have even been spotted in daylight hours.

Despite this gloomy picture, however, there are promising things happening in Israel’s olive industry. Kfar Kanna’s Sindyanna is an olive oil producer. The Galilee operation is a certified fair trade establishment. In addition, it is a nonprofit organization with strong social and political commitments. Their olive oil bottles proudly say that the oil is produced by Jewish and Arab women in Israel.

Sindyanna aims to improve the working conditions and livelihoods of local Arab women, a clearly marginalized group. For example, Sindyanna provides employment training for Arab women. On the political level, Sindyanna is committed to inter-religious understanding by contracting Muslim, Jewish and Christian women. Moreover, the growers who sell their olives to Sindyanna, like the population of the Galilee itself, are a mix of ethnic groups.

Hadas Lahav, Sindyanna’s chief executive officer, said the company strongly affirms sustainable farming. Over the years, it has built strong connections with local farmers, buying olive oil directly from about 100 individual farmers and large family groups. Some of the farmers are organized into large family companies, like Al-Juzur’s seven families of the Younis clan. In Deir Hanna, the 2,500 organic olive trees belong to the Hussein family. In the Birya Forest, there are 10,000 organic olive trees maintained by Hussein Hib.

In the Jezreel Valley, there is a non-organic grove that belongs to Sindyanna in cooperation with the landowners, the Abu Hatum family from Yafi’a. In Iksal, the non-organic groves belong to the Dawawsha family. In Arabeh, the non-organic olive groves belong to the Khatib family and, at Moshav HaYogev, they belong to the Ashush family.

photo - Close-up of freshly picked olives in Sindyanna’s fair trade grove in Emek Yizrael — Close-up of freshly picked olives in Sindyanna’s fair trade grove in Emek Yizrael. *(photo from Yoram Ron)*

As Lahav pointed out, with olives, there are good years and less good years. The 2020 harvest was significantly smaller than the 2019 harvest. In a way, it was fortuitous that 2020 produced less fruit, as, with COVID-19, few permits were given to seasonal pickers entering Israel from the West Bank.

The olives picked for Sindyanna’s products are Coratina (this olive tree is highly adaptable and produces abundantly in hot dry climates, including rocky soils), Barnea (this olive was bred in Israel for oil production, but is also used for green or black table olives) and Souri (olives that are native to Israel and have been the major variety cultivated traditionally under rain-fed conditions in northern Israel). On average, in irrigated groves, a tree produces five kilograms of olive oil and, in a non-irrigated grove, a tree produces three kilograms of olive oil. The olive oil is kosher.

Here are some factoids about Sindyanna. Many of us are familiar with Dr. Bronner’s soaps, but did you know that Sindyanna of the Galilee’s organic olive oil is an essential ingredient in Dr. Bronner’s Magic Pure-Castile Soaps? KKL-JNF is also involved with Sindyanna of the Galilee – in KKL-JNF’s Birya Forest, the organic olive grove was once part of the now-defunct Qabba’a village. Not too long ago, another organic grove in Wadi Ara (planted on a former Israeli army firing range) was threatened by the construction of high-tension wires; following the protests of local farmers and the village council, the course of the power line was diverted.

Sindyanna of the Galilee sells its olive oil on Amazon and, this year, it will start selling its olive oil on select Canadian websites and in certain food stores.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

A soap-opera comedy

Yaniv Biton as Assi, left, and Kais Nashif as Salam in Tel Aviv on Fire, which screens Feb. 28 as part of the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival. (photo from Cohen Media Group)

Palestinian writer-director Sameh Zoabi achieves something altogether remarkable with his second feature film, particularly at this moment in time: he finds humour in the tattered relationship between Israelis and Palestinians.

“The whole idea of Tel Aviv on Fire is that we have more in common than we want to admit,” Zoabi said in an interview before his movie screened in the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival last year. It screens on Feb. 28, 1 p.m., at Fifth Avenue Cinemas, as part of the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, which runs Feb. 7-March 8.

“We have to break these stereotypes and talk about what’s in common between us and not what divides us,” he said. “Let’s remind people how humanity can prevail in times where the politics of post-Oslo is, ‘Let’s dehumanize the other to be able to survive.’ I want to do the opposite.”

A sharp, insightful and winning comedy that juxtaposes the delicious absurdity of melodrama with the real-life absurdity of the occupation, Tel Aviv on Fire centres on an underachiever, Salam, who works as a gofer on his uncle’s hit Palestinian soap opera. Through a barely plausible combination of chance, chutzpah and desperation, the shlemiel is elevated to writer. Then he runs afoul of the Israeli commander of the checkpoint he crosses every day, whose wife is a loyal fan of the show.

Salam has to use every iota of guile and cleverness to navigate the opposing agendas that he’s caught between – and to win back the heart of a woman he had dumped. (Even while he’s landing political japes, Zoabi cheerfully seizes every opportunity to lampoon the conventions of both soap operas and movies.)

One of nine children, Zoabi grew up in a village outside of Nazareth, where people went to his grandfather’s barbershop for his humorous stories as much as for a haircut.

“In general, my village is very funny,” Zoabi related. “That’s maybe why comedy has become very easy for me, because I grew up in a place where they don’t take anything seriously.”

Zoabi studied at Tel Aviv University and then at Columbia University in New York, where he discovered the need for Palestinian stories. Returning to Israel, he made a short film, Be Quiet, in 2005 and his feature debut, Man Without a Cell Phone, in 2010. Zoabi’s experience of receiving government funding was the genesis of Tel Aviv on Fire (2018).

“You take money from the Israelis, so suddenly you are watched immediately,” he explained. “Israelis are making sure you are not becoming too Palestinian for them. And the Palestinians are watching, ‘He took money, maybe he’s a sellout, he’s doing a comedy.’”

After presenting Tel Aviv on Fire at several international festivals, Zoabi debuted the film in Haifa and in Nazareth. It was equally well received by both audiences, which didn’t surprise him. But he did have an epiphany.

“All the screenings led to this moment,” Zoabi declared. “Finally I understood – people are fed up. People are fed up of the reality that exists, which is managing the occupation.

“[The film] reminds people of the possibility that used to exist, the feeling that we can be normal people and just get along. I think that’s a fantasy that existed among the Israelis, that we can eat hummus together in Damascus one day. But they aren’t able to see the occupation as a major reason for that not to happen.”

It’s a measure of Zoabi’s skill that the current-events commentary in Tel Aviv on Fire goes down easily for viewers across the political spectrum. The means to that success, in large measure, is Salam’s evolution of necessity from hapless underdog to diplomatic savant.

“I’m attracted to people who don’t wake up knowing what they really want,” Zoabi said. “I think they’re more inspirational for me than black-and-white [characters]. Actually, people who know exactly what they want terrify me. You can’t be so certain all the time.”

For his part, Zoabi grew up in a milieu of group interaction and lots of soap operas, because those were the only two channels the family had. He wasn’t exposed to art, theatre and film until his late teens.

“I always say I’m not an artist, really,” he confessed. “I’m probably a barber of a new era in my family.”

Tel Aviv on Fire is in Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles.

For the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival schedule, visit vjff.com.

Michael Fox is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.