the big day

So tomorrow is almost here. The big day when the Palestinians will make their bid for statehood to be recognised by the UN General Assembly and Security Council. The Israeli newspapers are full of the machinations that are going on, seemingly endlessly, behind the scenes. With Bibi, Peres and Ron Prosor each doing their bit to persuade, convince and soothe a whole range of foreign dignitaries not to support the Palestinian bid. In his article in Ha'Aretz today, Adnan Primor weighs up the moral decision Israel is asking the European nations to make against the moral decision the Palestinians are pinning their hopes upon. Over at Ynet, Bibi is doing his best to stir up fear and distrust, although as he is talking to Likud it seems like he is preaching to the converted on this one.

Tomorrow is also the UN International Day of Peace. This event "Provides an opportunity for individuals, organisations and nations to create practical acts of peace on a shared date" - and as such I think would provide the perfect, ideal opportunity for Israel to make the ultimate move towards peace in the region: by recognising the Palestinian right to self-determination and voting in favour of the statehood bid.

*sigh* I should wake up from my dream now...

So in honour of the Day of Peace that tomorrow hopefully will be, I would like to share two things with you.

Firstly, a lovely lady I have befriended on Facebook, Zsuzsi Klara Schindler. She has published a note on her page which sincerely and eloquently asks for a peaceful response to whatever happens at the UN. I really couldn't have put it better myself so I am pleased that she has agreed to let me reproduce her thoughts here on my blog:

 Oh my dear friends; tomorrow begins the week when things will change the situation here and no one knows really knows what is going to change from zero to much; I have one wish to all my Jewish Israeli, Christian and Muslim Israeli and Palestinian friends; please write and tell all the people you know to do all we all can to avoid violence even when a crazy terrorist on either side might want to be the match to put the whole area on fire. Please let us ignore them and let us not give them the power to decide whats going on here, its so easy to ruin all and being at war, again, as usual. Please let us show the world that we can handle these changes like grown ups, with confidence,trust and patience. Thank you all my beloved friends.Salam, Shalom, peace.

Zsuzsi is a peace worker who has plenty of experience in trying (and succeeding!) in bringing Jewish and Arab Israelis together. She knows that it is possible to see the human in people beyond the labels we assign to each other and the fear, distrust and even hatred this can engender. The message of taking back the peace process from those who would use violence has more value than I can put into words. She did this for me and I can only say thank you.

Secondly is perhaps the most surprising thing I have come across in all the many hours I have been reading articles and watching videos about 'ha matsav' - the situation - in Israel. 

Unfortunately I cannot embed the video but I couldn't recommend anything more than for you to take 20 minutes out of your day to watch this astounding documentary - Settlers for Peace -  about settlers and Palestinians working together to further mutual understanding, trust and coexistence. It's amazing. It took my breath away - not only at how these people are truly dealing with the issues that face them in order to be able to leave a better future for their children but just at how brave these people are. On the most basic level of visiting each other in their homes (although the settlers are unable to invite their Palestinian friends to their homes because of the "fear" of their neighbours) I have nothing but admiration for them. And I NEVER thought I would write that about settlers!

co-existence IS possible

 I for one hope that the UN General Assembly passes the resolution that the PA submits tomorrow (taking it as read that the USA will use its veto). It seems as though the majority of international representatives would support the Palestinian bid, even if it fails at the Security Council.  Israel's assertion that taking a unilateral step like this shows that the PA isn't a true partner for peace - nonetheless she continues to unilaterally develop the settlements. Israel has to wake up and realise that she cannot stall on the peace process for ever - and if she wants a true partner for peace then it should be as an equal.

Until tomorrow....

 

a ray of hope...

Well, I have been challenged this week to find some good news. Firstly by @Bassem_Sabry on Twitter and secondly by cousin Shirley in Israel. Well I like a challenge so I trawled the net and came up with a couple of good ones.

Firstly, I came across a great website, www.israel21c.org which looks at scientific and technological developments taking place in Israel now. Pythagoras Window, an Israeli company, has developed a new solar window that can generate power, reduce energy consumption and let in daylight, "promising a green revolution to the construction industry" according to Daniel Ben Tal's article.

my ray of hope 

Of course, the construction industry has been in the forefront of many Israeli minds of late, with hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating, primarily against the high cost of property in Israel, but also against the high cost of living in general. I was aware of the disparity between most people's wages and prices but the scale of the protests that began in Tel Aviv - on Rothschild Boulevard of all places - and slowly spread to Kiryat Shmona in the north and Beersheva in the south, have been staggering. It has been illuminating reading the news reports and tweets coming from Israel, and reassuring that Israelis are not as politically apathetic as was beginning to fear they had become. It was also good to see news that wasn't centred on the conflict, even though that issue has also crept in, and to see Jews and Arabs protesting together about the socio-economic issues that unite them as Israelis.

"Equality for all" (photo courtesy of Elizabeth Tsurkov)

Spurred on by this good news, I continued to socially network. I haven't spent this long in front of the computer since Championship Manager ate away at my fourth year at uni when I should've been researching the impact of Rabin's assassination.....


So I wanted to share with you some of the amazing organisations who are working in Israel/Palestine/Occupied Territories and beyond to encourage equality, opportunity, understanding and trust between people in that region.

Firstly, I came across YaLa-Young Leaders يالا-يا قادة الشباب יאללה-מנהיגים צעירים
(hey I can copy & paste Arabic & Hebrew into the blog! - another technological breakthrough!) a   young leader's movement which has been created to give the young generation (aged 15-30) in the Middle East a leading voice in shaping their future and destiny. See their facebook page and website for information and ways you can support them. I then came across Khalas, a Facebook page with the aim of helping to build a strong foundation of peace among people at the most fundamental level - that of friendship through a handshake. Like me, Khalas believes that "only individuals, like you and I, can create a change in the government and not the opposite ... that if you shake someone’s hand you are most likely to view him as your friend and not your enemy. There are so many organizations that try to do amazing things, however a real peace needs a strong foundation! To achieve a real peace we need to start from the basics"

Khalas has enabled me to find out about many other projects and organisations that exist online and in real time and space (!) that have, over the past week, rebuilt my hope in what I was beginning to think was a hopeless situation in Israel.  I now know there is an increasingly strong community of people from many backgrounds, who want to build a viable future for themselves, their children and grandchildren, and for whom this is more important than political or religious ideology. 


The two organisations that have stood out to me most from this have been Kulanana and JustVision. Each of these groups are fulfilling an increasingly important role in a media that is obsessed with the negative news of the conflict (of which there is plenty, of that there is no doubt).


Kulanana is focused on social cohesion within Israel, between the disparate ethnic and linguistic groups that make up Israeli society. Their aims for 2011 are outlined in the video below:

JustVision is an organisation that aims to raise the profile of the positive examples of co-existence, peaceful trust-building and co-operation between Israelis and Palestinians that are too often overlooked by the media. I am looking forward to learning more about the work of these organisations and hope to be able to contribute more directly to their efforts by the time I am living in Israel. For now though, I will do what I can, and that is blog, and tell you and hope that you too spread the word and support these wonderful organisations and individuals in their pursuit of a peaceful future. In the words of Robi Damelin (http://www.justvision.org/encounterpoint): 

“There’s no pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian. There’s pro-solution.”   

If I were a rich (wo)man....

... well for starters, I wouldn't be doing two teaching jobs! As much as I love both my jobs it's pretty exhausting at times.


Anyway, I was inspired to write this for two reasons. Firstly I am very jealous that my sister saw Topol walking down Mapu in Tel Aviv yesterday. He is not only the archetypal Tevye but he makes the hairs on my arm stand on end whenever I hear him sing. So, naturally, when I decided that for tomorrow's EAL lesson I was going to review the conditional tenses, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to share this man's wonderful singing with my students. That's right, I figured out a way to play 'If I were a rich man' in my English lessons - focusing on the Second Conditional tense of course!

I'm not sure what they'll make of it, I doubt many of them have seen the film (especially the Libyan and Syrian students) but I think it would be a perfect chance for me to share some of my musical-cultural influences with them. We've been discussing music a lot lately and I'm also looking forward to Joliyan bringing his oud into class and hearing him play. What a rich cultural group we are!

Anyhow, for your delight and delectation.... here's the man himself....

To be or not to be...

I write this post with a number of things buzzing around my head...

I've been meaning to write something else following up on my earlier posts on The Promise now that I've watched all four episodes. But since then, a horrific attack on a family in the settlement of Itamar near Nablus has brought pain and passion to the surface in the news items, blogs and tweets I have been reading. It makes the fiction and drama of The Promise (for that is what, at the end of the day, it was) seem pretty irrelevant.
 

Admittedly, the pain and passion is rarely far from the surface when it comes to THE CONFLICT  - but in the debates that surrounded The Promise (was it antisemitic? what about the historical inaccuracies and biases? not all Israeli families have a pool and private beach y'know!) seemed a little over-sensitive to me. After all this was a drama that used an historical  and contemporary context as a setting for that drama. There was bound to be inaccuracies and generalisations for the sake of characterisation and movement of plot. The neatness with which the story came full circle and the persistent parallels that were being drawn between then and now, albeit with different players in the roles, seemed to me to be merely dramatic tools. It is a pity that this is the nearest to a study of THE CONFLICT that many people will ever get, but then I have formed much of my own understanding of early twentieth century China from watching The Last Emperor. A good film, beautifully made, but I don't doubt there are a few historical inaccuracies and dramatic expediencies. As a history teacher I appreciate the value of drama and film to present an historical event, particularly in recreating the human, emotional element. But any use of film in a history lesson, be it Pathe newsreel or Hollywood blockbuster, is accompanied by analysis - where are the inaccuracies? why are they there? And this is with 13 and 14 year olds.

Then the news broke about Itamar. My heart broke as I read about a 3 month old baby being murdered in her cot. This is no less than a tragedy.

to remember the Fogel family

However, also tragic is the reaction from some quarters. I include the response of  Hamas, calling the attack a 'heroic operation' and the radical settler response of 'price tag' revenge which has involved some violent attacks on Palestinian properties.

But Bibi has also politicised the tragedy - in his official response to the murders he demands an international condemnation of the attacks, pointing out how quickly the international community responds to Israel's erecting "a building here or a building there" (as if the settlements house tens of people rather than half a million) and implying they have been rather too slow to condemn this particular injustice against the Jewish people. Of course he wastes little time in calling the Palestinians 'animals' - ignoring (?) the incendiary and frankly racist nature of such language (nothing learned from 1995 then...) and of course the international community has been somewhat concerned with the disaster unfolding in Japan and the Pacific, which may account for a delayed reaction to Itamar.  But they have responded, all condemning what could only be condemned.

Bibi is an astute politician - he managed to get into the PMO again, after all.... he is using this tragedy to push his own political ideas that while the PA cannot be a true partner for peace while it "engages in double talk", Israel can be a true partner for peace while it continues to build in the Territories. 

To be or not to be...? that is the question. 

It is certainly a tragedy.