terrorism – Page 11

Healing after tragedy

Mishelle Cuttler has the challenge of supervising the musical elements of The Events, which features a different community choir every show. (photo from Pi Theatre)

In 2011, while he was out with his son, who was then 12 years old, writer David Greig read the news that Anders Breivik had killed 77 people in Norway – eight using a car bomb in Oslo, which also injured more than 200 other people, and then traveling to the island of Utøya to a summer camp for teens, where he shot and killed another 69 and injured more than 100.

“My son saw I was very affected and, because he was wondering why, I began to try and tell him what the news was and its implications,” said Greif in an interview with BBC Writersroom. “He just kept repeating the question why? why? why? and I found the discussion quickly became very profound, about the nature of evil and whether it is ever possible to understand someone who shoots children for a political reason. I found trying to answer these questions became a compulsion I had to try and understand.”

The result was The Events, which came into being when Greig met producer Ramin Gray at the Edinburgh Fringe. Gray had been having similar thoughts, said Greig. “That meeting made me know it had to be a play.”

It’s a play that has been staged around the world, and presenting it in Vancouver are Pi Theatre and the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. After every performance, there will be a post-show discussion and, after the Jan. 17 preview, Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan, director of inter-religious studies at Vancouver School of Theology, will speak about various aspects of the play.

While its initial questions came from the terrorist attack in Norway, The Events centres on Claire, a priest who works and lives in her community, including leading a community choir. When The Boy attacks that choir, Claire survives the shooting, setting her on a quest similar to Greig’s – and that of most of us, when such a horrific act is committed. She needs to know, why?

There are only two actors in the production. In Vancouver, Luisa Jojic will play Claire, while Douglas Ennenberg will play six characters opposite her, including The Boy, a grief counselor, the shooter’s father, a school friend of the shooter, Claire’s lover, and various others to whom Claire speaks in her effort to find understanding. A unique aspect of this play is that the choir is “played by” real community choirs, who have practised the music (score by John Browne), sing some songs from their own repertoire, and have some lines to read, but are not given the script.

Jewish community member Mishelle Cuttler has the challenge of being the musical supervisor and accompanist for the local show, which is directed by Richard Wolfe.

“The great thing about The Events is that the choirs are given ownership of the music,” Cuttler told the Independent. “We’ve provided each choir director with the material they need to learn, and my job is to facilitate their integration into the show each night…. I’ll be visiting each choir during their regular rehearsals and hearing how they’ve interpreted the music. I’ll talk them through how they will fit into the play, but they don’t ever see the full script. There will certainly be a lot of variables onstage each night, and that’s what makes this piece so exciting. The singers will be witnessing the show for the first time along with the audience.”

And the focus will be on the dialogue and music, without many other distractions.

“There will be a very small amount of recorded sound in the show,” said Cuttler, “but the majority of the aural experience will come from the singers, the actors and one upright piano.”

Pi Theatre has spent several months planning the logistics. “Essentially,” notes the press material, “more than 220 community members from 12 different choirs will participate over the show’s run.”

It also notes that, while Claire “struggles to understand the event that changed her life, we are asked to decide whether love and hope can survive in the wake of an inexplicable act of violence.”

The Events previews Jan. 17 and runs Tuesdays to Sundays until Jan. 28, with evening and matinée performances, at the Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Ave. Tickets ($31/$26) are available from pitheatre.com/the-events.

A fine line we all walk

Left to right: Choices co-chair Debra Miller, Choices co-chair Sarah Marel-Schaffer, keynote speaker Lisa Friedman Clark, Choices co-chair Judith Blumenkrans and Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver women’s philanthropy chair Megan Laskin. (photo from JFGV)

This year marked 13 years since the inception of Choices and some 450 women gathered in the Beth Israel reception hall to mingle over dinner and support Jewish women’s philanthropy. The keynote speaker was Lisa Friedman Clark, a New York native who commanded the floor as soon as she described herself as the “luckiest unlucky woman alive.”

Clark’s story is compelling. Diagnosed in 1995 at age 23 with a rare form of ovarian cancer, she endured chemotherapy and survived the illness against incredible odds. Andy Friedman, her boyfriend at the time, stood by her side throughout and, two years later, the couple married and began what she described as a “storybook life.” The arrival of twin boys completed their new family and both were pursuing successful careers up until Sept. 11, 2001. That morning, Andy went to work on the 92nd floor of One World Trade Centre and never came home.

There were audible gasps from the audience as Friedman Clark described the details of the morning her life changed forever. “He called me after the second plane had hit and said he was in a room with all his colleagues and they had plenty of air,” she recalled. “Later, we found out that the plane had hit one floor above him and the damage to the stairwells was so bad that he and his 68 colleagues could not get down. His floor was the line of demarcation between life and death. Those on floor 92 and above died.”

“I was 39 years old with two 11-year-old boys whose hero had just been killed in one of the most horrific manners one could think of,” she continued. “One minute you’re rushing to get the kids off to school and, in a split second, your husband has been murdered and life as you knew it has ceased to exist.”

Friedman Clark’s message was devoid of self-pity. “We all walk a fine line between being a donor to Federation and being a recipient of its generosity,” she told the crowd. “We never know when our lives will change.”

Federation counselors, social workers and support groups in New York were trained to deal with families affected by terrorism and came directly to the aid of her family and others in the same situation, she said. “They were uniquely able to understand our needs, and they were also there with financial aid for anyone who needed it. This help was invaluable and, had it not been for the many people that helped me at Federation, I’m not sure where I’d be today.”

Another story that touched a chord with Choices attendees was that of Ronit Yona, an Ethiopian Jew who, as a child, was rescued during Operation Moses. She lived in Israel for several years and more recently moved to Vancouver with her husband and two sons. Yona recalled her early years as a child in Ethiopia, growing up in a village that was home to 1,000 Jews and a life that revolved around home, school and synagogue. At the age of 9, everything changed. “The Ethiopian government wouldn’t allow us to practise our customs,” she explained. “I found myself following my father through the jungle at night as he led our donkey and horses, all loaded with our entire life. My father told me that, if the soldiers found us, they would kill us.”

Yona and her family became refugees in Sudan, in a tent camp where there was no sanitation and dysentery was rife. She recalled walking four hours a day to fill heavy jugs with water for the family. Then, at 10 years old, she found herself on an airplane with other Ethiopian families en route to Jerusalem. “What I didn’t know then, as a child, was that we weren’t walking alone on that journey,” she said. “ORT helped my father train as a nurse in Ethiopia and, later, the global Jewish community gave its money, time and energy to the Jewish Agency to rescue the Jews of Ethiopia who were stranded in Sudan.”

“We are all here this evening because we care about the future of the Jewish community, here at home, in Israel and around the world,” Megan Laskin, chair of women’s philanthropy at the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, told attendees. “We’re celebrating making good choices for ourselves as strong women and setting a lasting example of l’dor v’dor. Women’s philanthropy is truly a force and your contributions are changing and saving lives.”

Last year, Choices generated more than $2.1 million. For information on this year’s campaign, visit jewishvancouver.com.

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

A look back at the year 5777

September 2016, Jerusalem. At the funeral of former president and prime minister Shimon Peres, U.S. President Barack Obama offers a tissue to Peres’ son Chemi. (all photos from Ashernet)

In reviewing the Jewish year 5777, one name stands out – Binyamin Netanyahu. Despite having to fend off accusations of various wrongdoings at home, the Israeli prime minister has had a successful diplomatic year.

This year, Israel welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi’s visit marked the first time since the foundation of the state of Israel that a sitting Indian prime minister had visited. Meanwhile, Netanyahu was warmly received by China in March and, a month prior to that, by Australia. Closer to home, he established good relations with Greece and Cyprus.

In September 2016, Israel bade a final farewell to former president and prime minister Shimon Peres. His funeral was attended by many sitting and former heads of state, including former U.S. presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

Last December, the Israel Air Force received its first F-35 fighter plane from the United States. In January, settlers in the West Bank outpost of Amona fought with police following a court order that declared Amona an illegal Jewish settlement.

On Jan. 8, four people were killed when a released Arab prisoner ran a truck into a group of people on the Armon Hanatziv Promenade in Jerusalem. This act of murder was referred to as the “truck intifada.” In Gaza, Hamas activists handed out sweets in celebration. This method of terror was soon to be repeated many times in countries all over the world.

At regular intervals during the year, announcements were made concerning important archeological finds all over Israel. Israeli law states that the Israel Antiquities Authority must be notified as soon as there is indication of archeological remains and that, only after specialist examination and, if necessary, excavation, can the development proceed.

The year also saw the celebration of the 50th year since the reunification of Jerusalem in the Six Day War ( June 1967).

It has been an outstanding year for Israel’s high-tech sector. In particular, 2017 saw the largest business deal in Israel’s history when Mobileye was bought by Intel for some $15 billion.

The Jewish year ended with a bit of confusion, as the region once again became unsettled as Iran attempts to get a stronger foothold in Syria, along with their continued efforts to arm Hezbollah.

photo - November 2016. A serious fire breaks out near Latrun in the Jerusalem corridor following yet another dry, hot summer. Some 140 firefighters are needed to bring the blaze under control. — November 2016. A serious fire breaks out near Latrun in the Jerusalem corridor following yet another dry, hot summer. Some 140 firefighters are needed to bring the blaze under control.

photo - November 2016. A high school student taking part in an organized excavation in Yehud, near Ben-Gurion International Airport, finds a 3,800-year-old jug from the Middle Bronze Age, seen here during its restoration. — November 2016. A high school student taking part in an organized excavation in Yehud, near Ben-Gurion International Airport, finds a 3,800-year-old jug from the Middle Bronze Age, seen here during its restoration.

photo - December 2016, Jerusalem. Left to right: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu hold historic tripartite talks to improve cooperation between the three eastern Mediterranean countries — December 2016, Jerusalem. Left to right: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu hold historic tripartite talks to improve cooperation between the three eastern Mediterranean countries.

photo - December 2016. The first of 50 F-35 stealth fighters arrive in the Israel Air Force base in Nevatim. The IAF was the first air force outside the United States to receive this state-of-the-art fighter plane — December 2016. The first of 50 F-35 stealth fighters arrive in the Israel Air Force base in Nevatim. The IAF was the first air force outside the United States to receive this state-of-the-art fighter plane.

photo - January 2017. Four pedestrians are murdered in Jerusalem’s East Talpiot neighbourhood by a truck driven at speed; 13 others are injured. The terrorist is shot dead by police — January 2017. Four pedestrians are murdered in Jerusalem’s East Talpiot neighbourhood by a truck driven at speed; 13 others are injured. The terrorist is shot dead by police.

photo - February 2017. Following a High Court ruling, the illegal Jewish settlement of Amona, 20 kilometres north of Jerusalem, is forcibly evacuated by police and security forces. The court ruled that the settlement had been established on Palestinian-owned land — February 2017. Following a High Court ruling, the illegal Jewish settlement of Amona, 20 kilometres north of Jerusalem, is forcibly evacuated by police and security forces. The court ruled that the settlement had been established on Palestinian-owned land.

photo - February 2017. Some ultra-Orthodox riot over government insistence that all able-bodied young men be drafted into the army. While heads of many Charedi yeshivot have encouraged their students not to report to induction centres, there are many Israel Defence Force units that have ultra-Orthodox soldiers in their ranks — February 2017. Some ultra-Orthodox riot over government insistence that all able-bodied young men be drafted into the army. While heads of many Charedi yeshivot have encouraged their students not to report to induction centres, there are many Israel Defence Force units that have ultra-Orthodox soldiers in their ranks.

photo - February 2017. Binyamin Netanyahu is the first incumbent Israeli prime minister to officially visit Australia. The picture shows Netanyahu and his wife Sara at the Sydney Jewish School of Moriah — February 2017. Binyamin Netanyahu is the first incumbent Israeli prime minister to officially visit Australia. The picture shows Netanyahu and his wife Sara at the Sydney Jewish School of Moriah.

photo - March 2017. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Netanyahu, together with a business delegation, made the visit to China to expand trade between the two countries — March 2017. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Netanyahu, together with a business delegation, made the visit to China to expand trade between the two countries.

photo - March 2017. Mobileye is bought by Intel, but the headquarters of the company will remain in Jerusalem. Left to right are Amnon Shashua, Eli Cohen, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Brian Krzanich and Ziv Aviram — March 2017. Mobileye is bought by Intel, but the headquarters of the company will remain in Jerusalem. Left to right are Amnon Shashua, Eli Cohen, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Brian Krzanich and Ziv Aviram.

photo - May 23, 2017. U.S. President Donald Trump, seen here with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, made Israel one of the first overseas countries he visited since becoming president — May 23, 2017. U.S. President Donald Trump, seen here with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, made Israel one of the first overseas countries he visited since becoming president.

photo - May 2017. On May 20, Jerusalem was illuminated to celebrate the 50th year of the city’s reunification following the Six Day War — May 2017. On May 20, Jerusalem was illuminated to celebrate the 50th year of the city’s reunification following the Six Day War.

photo - July 2017. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, becomes the first sitting Indian prime minister to officially visit Israel. Accompanied by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Modi meets with Moshe Holtzberg, 10, who survived the terrorist attack that killed Moshe’s parents and seven others at Mumbai’s Chabad House in November 2008 — July 2017. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, becomes the first sitting Indian prime minister to officially visit Israel. Accompanied by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Modi meets with Moshe Holtzberg, 10, who survived the terrorist attack that killed Moshe’s parents and seven others at Mumbai’s Chabad House in November 2008.

On restitution

The government of Canada has apologized to Omar Khadr and awarded him $10.5 million in damages. Khadr is a Canadian citizen whose parents took him as a child to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Fifteen years ago, on July 27, 2002, a firefight took place in which Khadr, then 15, was wounded and a U.S. soldier, Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer, was killed.

Khadr was arrested and incarcerated at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he pleaded guilty to throwing the grenade that killed Speer. Khadr later said he confessed falsely in the hope of returning to Canada. However, the facts of the firefight, whether Khadr was guilty or not guilty, whether he was a terrorist or a coerced child soldier-victim, are not relevant to the apology or the compensation.

The decision to apologize and pay Khadr millions of dollars is a result of a $20 million civil suit that Khadr launched after the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously determined that the Canadian government’s interrogation of Khadr while he was at Guantanamo “offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects.” The civil suit claimed that Canadian officials violated his rights, interrogating him when he was a minor, in the absence of legal representation. He also claims to have been subjected to torture, which would be consistent with the history of Guantanamo and evidence in the public realm.

The decision to apologize and compensate turns on this point: even if Khadr were guilty, the government of Canada did not adequately protect the rights and well-being of one of its citizens; indeed, it was complicit in their violation and acted outside of the rule of our own nation’s laws.

We can all make our own assessment of right and wrong in this case. But the Supreme Court of Canada made the key judgment about the legal foundation of Khadr’s case and the federal government – facing the alternative of almost certain failure in defending itself in the civil case, resulting in a much greater cost to taxpayers – opted to pay Khadr $10.5 million.

Whether it is First Nations land claims and residential schools payouts, symbolic payment to the Chinese-Canadian community for the head tax on their ancestors or compensation to Japanese-Canadians who were deprived of their property and forcibly sent to internment camps during the Second World War, money and an apology are poor substitutes for justice.

Money and an apology will not return lost years or family members. They cannot heal physical or mental wounds, though the money can help pay for medical and psychological treatment. Apologies and reparations cannot undo the harm done. But they can help hold our government and society accountable and, ultimately, that serves us all well.

Mourning, traveling, celebrating – Israel in photos

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with David Malka, father of Border Police officer Hadas Malka, who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist outside Jerusalem’s Old City on June 16. (photo by Kobi Gideon / Israel Government Press Office via Ashernet)

photo - Prime Minister Netanyahu and his wife Sara, with El Al’s first ultra-Orthodox female pilot, Nechama Spiegel Novak, as they set out to Salonika, Greece, on June 14 — Prime Minister Netanyahu and his wife Sara, with El Al’s first ultra-Orthodox female pilot, Nechama Spiegel Novak, as they set out to Salonika, Greece, on June 14. *(photo from IGPO via Ashernet)*

photo - More than 200,000 people attended the Tel Aviv Gay Pride Parade June 9 — More than 200,000 people attended the Tel Aviv Gay Pride Parade June 9. *(photo by Guy Yechiely via Ashernet)*

photo - Netanyahu in his office June 7 with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley — Netanyahu in his office June 7 with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. *(photo by Amos Ben Gershom / IGPO via Ashernet)*

photo - Netanyahu is welcomed to Monrovia by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on June 4 — Netanyahu is welcomed to Monrovia by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on June 4. *(photo by Kobi Gideon / IGPO via Ashernet)*

Come together, right now

Canadians – and concerned citizens worldwide – are reeling from the horrific attack on a Quebec City mosque (the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec) on Jan. 29 that left six dead and others wounded. Amid the revulsion and grieving, here are some possible lessons.

We can’t ignore the Trump factor. While Islamophobia has long preceded U.S. President Donald Trump, by all indicators, Trump’s hatefulness – capped by his wide-reaching travel ban – has unleashed additional hatred against Muslims and other minorities.

Since the election, the Southern Poverty Law Centre has recorded more than 700 incidents of “hateful harassment” across the United States. Despite our ingrained public ethic of multiculturalism, Canada is clearly not immune.

Price-tag-style attacks might have come to Canada. What West Bank Palestinians are tragically used to, Canadians might be now experiencing as well. It is probably no coincidence that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stepped forward to declare his government’s intention to take in refugees barred by Trump’s executive order. But Trudeau’s welcoming pledge might also have unleashed more hatred in dark corners of Canada against anyone who can too easily be “othered.”

West Bank Palestinians are all too often the target of this kind of retribution. Whenever the Israeli government appears to retract support for the settlement enterprise – in the form of evacuations of illegal outposts, for example, violent settlers enact what they call “price-tag” attacks against Palestinian life, limb and property. These, too, of course, are terrorist attacks.

Some Israelis have created a counter movement – rather than price tag (tag mechir), they enact acts of kindness and solidarity (tag me’ir, light tag). The many Women’s Marches in Canadian cities countrywide to coincide with the Women’s Marches in the United States were an example of this approach. So was the vigil at Ottawa’s Parliament Hill the day after the murders, to stand in solidarity with the victims of the mosque attack. We will need many more moments of connection in the weeks and months to come.

Quebec has a fraught history with multiculturalism. Is it a coincidence that the attack occurred in Quebec rather than in a different province? Maybe. But just maybe this hateful violence stems from the province’s difficult relationship to multiculturalism. While Canada enshrined multiculturalism into law in 1971 – the first country to do so – Quebec’s history with multicultural policies, probably owing to the province’s concern with maintaining its own minority-language identity, is much more fraught.

In 2013, Quebec attempted to enact a failed Charter of Values (Charte de la laïcité), which sought to ban “conspicuous” religious symbols from being worn by public sector employees. A decade ago, the town of Hérouxville, also in Quebec, issued its own “code of conduct,” widely seen as a dig at immigrants.

Said one storeowner in 2013 interviewed for the Globe and Mail, “Immigrants are welcome to come to Quebec, but when they come, they have to adapt to our ways.”

Banning religious symbols – as the province had sought to do in 2013 – is not the same as murdering people in cold blood, of course. But this kind of flat intolerance against religious expression can all too easily become twisted in the mind of a hateful and violence-prone individual to commit the unthinkable.

It is terrorism. Despite the bigoted propensity by some to use the word terrorist to delegitimize and dehumanize certain ethnic or religious groups, this term does have a clear definition and we should use it when warranted, if only to make sure we keep using it correctly. Simply put, terrorism is violence for political ends.

An attack on a centre of worship is intended to instil fear in society around that target group – the worst kind of collective dehumanization. This is politics of the ugliest and most hateful kind.

Misinformation unleashes further hatred. On the Monday morning after the attack, the media were reporting the names of two supposed suspects, one of whom was apparently of Moroccan origin. Some right-wing news outlets made hay from this, circulating the information even once the media clarified that he was apparently a witness, not a suspect. As of now, the sole suspect is 27-year-old Alexandre Bissonnette, who has since been charged with six counts of murder.

Come together, right now. In a statement following the attack, Trudeau said it is “heart-wrenching to see such senseless violence. Diversity is our strength and religious tolerance is a value that we, as Canadians, hold dear.”

While I hesitate to use the kinds of binaries that have arguably led the world to this point, I am tempted to say that the coming days and weeks will reveal two types of people on this continent: ones who are here to support one another against the forces of hatred, Islamophobia, antisemitism, misogyny and xenophobia; and ones who are aiding and abetting those terrible forces. Among those who stand on the side of goodness and compassion, the time is now for solidarity across every fissure.

Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She is a columnist for Canadian Jewish News and contributes to Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward, among other publications. A version of this article was originally published on haartez.com.

The complexities of terrorism

Dr. Tami Jacoby, associate professor at the University of Manitoba, has been studying Middle East politics and international relations for nearly 20 years. (photo from Tami Jacoby)

Dr. Tami Jacoby, associate professor at the University of Manitoba, has been studying Middle East politics and international relations for nearly 20 years. She not only shares her expertise with students at the university, but the broader community as well, via books and lectures. She is currently teaching an eight-week class at Winnipeg’s Rady JCC called Terrorism and Political Violence.

After working toward her undergrad degree at the Hebrew University, Jacoby finished her studies at U of M. She then went back to Hebrew U for her master’s degree in political science and international relations. At that time, Jacoby made aliyah and started a family and life in Israel. Later, she moved to Toronto to do a doctorate in political science at York University. She eventually returned to Winnipeg, where she currently resides.

While doing her PhD, Jacoby traveled back and forth regularly between Canada and Israel, and did field work in Israel, conducting interviews and research on women’s protest movements.

Over the years, Jacoby has written several books, including Women in Zones of Conflict: Power and Resistance in Israel (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005). Using the framework of “a case study of three women’s political movements in Israel: Women in Green, the Jerusalem Link and the lobby for women’s right to fight in the Israel Defence Forces,” the book, according to the publisher’s description online, “challenges the traditional view, which suggests a natural connection between women and pacifism, based on the feminine qualities of caring, cooperation and empathy.”

“What I did was a number of years of interviews and research on women’s protest movements … and the book that came out was a book on the diversity of feminism in Israel, but as a level of extremism,” Jacoby told the Independent. “I was interested in how women in one national context could have such radically different views on the same things, like feminism, the Arab-Israeli conflict and just run-of-the-mill party politics.”

One of the interesting things Jacoby found was that many women on the left were interested in things like dialogue with the Palestinians about a two-state solution, and feminism. In contrast, right-wingers’ idea of dialogue with the Palestinians was through protest, the media and policy.

“They were very driven by their fear of not only losing the state of Israel, but of losing their identity as Jews, as Israelis,” said Jacoby. “And the left-wing portion of the Israeli women’s movement was very interested in dialogue with Palestinian women. They wanted to get together with them and have cultural programs and social events. They wanted to listen to and get to know the stories of Palestinian women, to be able to walk in their shoes and completely understand them.”

The class that Jacoby is teaching at the Rady JCC – which started last week and runs to March 21 – looks at terrorism in Canada and the legal and political/social aspects of it.

“This class I’m teaching at the JCC is, in a sense, piggybacking on other research and teaching that I’m doing right at the moment,” she told the Independent before the course began. “So, I’d assume the people in the class will be interested in the kind of terrorism that Canada and Israel deal with…. But the class takes a step back and looks at the phenomenon of terrorism as a philosophical and structural issue….”

While Jacoby is teaching the class, she is also a student of sorts, as she is interested in hearing what people have to say.

“People have a lot to say and it’s not just off the cuff; it’s substantiated by empirical evidence and anecdotes that are based on experience,” she said. “What I try to do is open a little window on something that I’ve been very heavily researching … and open a discussion about things that people may not have thought of before … so people can bring things to the table and we can work to enlighten ourselves about the topic.”

Touching a little on what will be examined in the course, Jacoby said, “One of the things I’ve come to realize about terrorism is that it has a particular dynamic to it, no matter where it is and what period of history it is in. And that is, you have a small group of people trying to terrorize, make afraid, a large group of people … so they start to feel their life is untenable and then pressure the government to act. That’s the case with literally every terrorist group, regardless of their philosophy, background or tactics. That’s the logic of terrorism. I’m interested in seeing how case studies fit into that logic.”

Another topic will be how to pair counterterrorism with policies like multiculturalism, democracy and liberalism.

“The human tendency is to look for people who might look like them, causing a whole range of Islamophobia, antisemitism, racism and xenophobia,” explained Jacoby. “These are the kinds of problems not specific to any one particular form of terrorism, but that fuel a broader understanding of terrorism in general.”

Jacoby sees political violence like terrorism as a way in which people express themselves at the extreme end of the spectrum. “Political violence is quite broad,” she said. “It could be something quite innocuous, like threatening someone or inciting someone to violence … or, it could be throwing a fist or a bomb, or using nuclear weapons as a scare tactic.”

The Middle East will likely be discussed in terms of the ongoing cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia and their backers, as well as both American and Russian policies.

“One thing that people seem to not understand nowadays is that people may oppose a terrorist group’s tactics, but they may also support the underlying goals … which can be quite honourable,” said Jacoby. “For example, terrorists might use violence to press their point about Muslim victims in the Middle East, [while] a moderate person might say they are against and shocked by the high casualty rate of Muslim victims. There are a lot of divisions out there, of which terrorists only represent a very small group … [an] active, vocal, radical, but miniscule, minority. While we may not like the tactic, many people may support the ultimate goals, which include justice and peace. The reason we can’t see the ultimate goals is because terrorism destroyed them … [and] in the end, makes it worse.”

As for possible solutions to terrorism, Jacoby said it “is one of the most difficult tasks to respond to.”

She explained, “I would say this: the effect of terrorism is more psychological than anything else. Fewer people die from terrorist attacks every year than from faulty wiring or furniture falling on them when they sleep. But, because of the media and the dramatic nature of its coverage of terrorism (pervasiveness, images, taboos, fear), people spend more time worrying about terrorism than any other more concrete and actual danger to their lives. My suggestion is we, as a society, need to be more ‘comfortable’ with the psychological discomfort that comes with terrorism. We must continue to be vigilant, but also live our lives to the fullest so that the terrorists won’t ultimately win.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Syrians speak in Israel

From left to right, at Hebrew University’s Truman Institute Jan. 17: Issam Zeitoun, Sirwan Kajjo and Ksenia Svetlova. (photo by Reuven Remez/Truman Institute)

“You are living in a paradise in comparison to the Syrian people. Shame on you. We are being killed,” said Issam Zeitoun, who lives in the Syrian portion of the Golan Heights, in response to Arab-Israeli students who accused him of being a traitor because he was speaking in Israel.

Zeitoun was one of two Syrian opposition figures who addressed Israelis Jan. 17 at Hebrew University’s Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace in Jerusalem. The Syrians shared their plight and vision, and overcame an attempt to disrupt their message. A third Syrian opposition member gave remarks in a video message.

Moderated by Member of Knesset Ksenia Svetlova (Zionist Union), the event featured Sirwan Kajjo, a Syrian-Kurdish author and journalist from the city of Qamishili in northeastern Syria, where his family still resides, and Zeitoun, who is from the village of Bet Jan, which is situated minutes from the border with Israel.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war about six years ago, Zeitoun has served as a liaison between rebel groups (such as the Free Syrian Army) and international players, including Israel. He maintains daily contact with rebel commanders in southern Syria.

Zeitoun’s address was interrupted by four Arab-Israeli students who were sitting in the audience and began protesting the willingness of the Syrians to visit Israel and address the public here. They heckled Zeitoun and shouted slogans against “the Israeli occupation” of the Golan Heights.

Svetlova attempted to restore order, telling the hecklers, “You are welcome to protest outside the event. If you wish to remain, you are welcome to do so if you are silent and let our guests finish the session.”

Kajjo, a refugee living in the United States who regularly visits Syria illegally, is wanted by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. He was in Syria as recently as last July, and maintains contact with Kurdish armed groups such as the YPG, which is on the frontline in the war against Islamic State.

Speaking to JNS.org after the event, Kajjo said he is in touch with a network of activists in the northeast Kurdish area of Syria, and that he is keen to tell the Israeli people about what is happening in his homeland.

The Kurds have succeeded in securing most of their areas and ridding them of Islamic State, he said, and are currently trying to push into the de facto Islamic State capital of Al-Raqqah. “This is important strategically, to capture Raqqah with Arab partners and to ensure that there is no threat to the Kurdish areas,” he said. Kurdish fighters, backed by the United States and the international coalition against Islamic State, have been extremely effective in beating back the jihadist terror group, Kajjo said.

“This fight will only continue, because the Kurds are determined to eliminate ISIS…. It’s true that the Kurds are Muslims, but moderate Muslims. This is a different form of Islam – completely different from what exists in other parts of Syria. It is very important to keep ISIS and its ideology out of Kurdish areas,” he stated.

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.

Where will the money go?

The Canadian government has announced that it will resume funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The government made the announcement last week, allocating $20 million to UNRWA’s budget and an additional $5 million to support the emergency appeal issued by the organization in order to aid Palestinian refugees affected by the catastrophic war in Syria.

In a statement, the government said, “with this funding, Canada joins all other G7 countries in supporting UNRWA’s efforts to meet the ever-increasing needs of Palestinian refugees, assists in providing basic services for vulnerable people, and contributes to some stability in the region.”

Canada’s previous Conservative government backed away from supporting UNRWA, reducing funding from $32 million in 2007 to $19 million in 2009 and, in 2010, cutting funding entirely. The justification at that time was that UNRWA has ties to the terrorist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.

The $20 million just announced is expected to support health, social services and education “for millions of vulnerable Palestinian refugees,” according to Ottawa. But the announcement comes just days after renewed reports that raise concerns about the more than 200 Palestinian schools sponsored by UNRWA, which teach students between first and ninth grade.

One expert on the subject told a conference organized by the Centre for Near East Policy Research (CNEPR) this month that the textbooks reflect the educational principles introduced by Yasser Arafat when the Palestinian authority gained control over the education system in the West Bank and Gaza, and have not been cleansed of hate, antisemitism and incitement. Participants in the conference obtained textbooks from the warehouse that supplies Palestinian schools and they claim the books still encourage a violent struggle for the liberation of “Palestine,” which is defined to include all of present-day Israel, the rejection of historical facts about Jewish holy places and the demonization of both Israel and of Jews.

A spokesperson for UNRWA outright rejects the accusations, saying that two significant analyses of textbooks, including one by the U.S. Department of State, debunked the assertions of incitement in the curriculum. However, David Bedein, director of CNEPR, said he was prepared to present the U.S. government with evidence that contradicts the state department’s findings but told the Jerusalem Post he was rebuffed by the White House.

These conflicting reports are disconcerting. It should be possible for funders who send hundreds of millions of aid dollars to find out for sure whether their money is funding genocidal incitement. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is certainly correct in declaring that donor countries “have a responsibility to ensure that aid is used for the purpose for which it is given, and we are pleased Canada has taken the lead in establishing a robust accountability protocol.”

In announcing the renewed funding, the federal government promised “there will be enhanced due diligence applied to UNRWA funding … accompanied by a very robust oversight and reporting framework, which includes regular site visits and strong antiterrorism provisions.”

This would be a positive step, to say the least. It would also be a positive step if these Canadian funds do actually provide health, education and social services to people who need them. But this, too, will be difficult to discern. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that an analysis by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicates that the Palestinian Authority budgets about $75 million a year to support Palestinian terrorists – about 16% of foreign donations the PA receives. A lack of transparency about where the rest of the money goes means the world has been unable to determine how much money is lining the pockets of cronies of the dictatorship and what proportion is making positive social and economic contributions in the lives of Palestinians. Notably, the Palestinians receive more international aid per capita than any other people in the world – by far. Even as the catastrophe in neighboring Syria has seen 250,000 killed and 6.5 million refugees displaced, Syrians receive $106 per capita in international aid, while Palestinians receive $176.

One could argue whether Canadian funds are needed by the Palestinian Authority at all. And, clearly, we cannot be entirely confident that funds are going to the places they are intended. But, if the Canadian government does indeed follow the money, as promised, and determines whether it is making life better for Palestinians or is instead inciting terrorism, this might finally answer some questions that today seem subject to accusations and denials. That would be money well spent.