It’s too early for jubilation. As we confront this new reality, our fate remains in the hands of two of the most despicable men to ever wield power. Last night, Donald Trump staggered his way through a mix of written text and awkward, superlative-filled ad-libbing. His plan, which could have been implemented many thousands of deaths ago, may lead us into a ceasefire, the return of hostages, and the demilitarization of Gaza. Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu has been forced into a process that could end his fifteen year control of the country, while his messianic partners are dragged, kicking and screaming, into a tomorrow that entails frustrating their fantasies of conquest. While we are asked to acknowledge “the greatest achievement in the history of civilization.“
BB will arrive home tonight, ready to dance between the raindrops, desperate to stay dry, as he clutches onto his fickle ministers to keep them from bolting. He will pray, on Yom Kippur, that the Hamas will serve him yet again and will undermine the fragile agreement. If his prayers are answered, he will drag us back to war, rescuing his regime along the way. He already has the green light from Trump to go back and “get the job done.” The job…back to a war that has claimed 83 civilians for every 17 Hamas fighters he’s killed. A war that leaves hundreds of thousands of people starving, diseased, homeless and mourning. A war that has taken more than 900 Israeli soldiers and has left thousands wounded.
As we listen to the brothers’ and sisters’ accounts of their beloved fallen soldier’s joyous nature, his love of guitar and soccer, we will remember that each one of the nearly 70,000 Palestinian and Israeli dead had a life, a story, loves and dreams. Bibi will continue to deflect any responsibility for the catastrophe of the past two years and eight months, beginning with his attack on the justice system and leading into the disaster of Oct. 7, and then hauling us all into a war that lost all legitimacy weeks after the Hamas attack.
Trump’s “brilliant” move is deeply flawed, as was his sponsoring of the Abraham Accords. In both acts, one of the two central players was left absent. The negotiations that have everything to do with the fate of the Palestinians did not include the Palestinians! And we wonder why they are not celebrating this morning, and why they may even reject the proposed plan. The most elementary rule of negotiations is that all concerned parties are at the table. If you want someone to adopt a solution, he must be part of creating it.
I hope the Hamas leadership insists of some changes in the plan. Only then can they claim to have been part of drafting it. BB will spin this as intransigence, and will do what he can to dwarf their contribution, as he strives to see the plan come apart.
Our work is far from done. We Israelis, and the brave Gazans willing to oppose Hamas, we must mount the barricades and take a stand for the completion and implementation of this imperfect proposal.
This moment must become the great breakthrough that will head us into a viable future. This must be the end of devastation, helplessness and despair. The overwhelming majority of Israelis and Palestinians support ending the war. We know not to expect that our “leaders” will respond to our will, but perhaps they will enable implementation if they can see it as serving their interests. Once we have quiet, we can turn to the enormous task before us…. rebuilding, healing, as, shoulder-to-shoulder, we make our way into tomorrow.
It’s 1987. We are gathered at 1 AM in someone’s hotel room, at the end of a long day of lobbying delegates to some Zionist confab. Can’t remember the hotel or the city, can’t even remember what the conference was, but Shimon Peres was there. We were in the last weeks leading up to the Jerusalem conference of the World Zionist Organization.
Draped across the overstuffed chairs was a gang of lefties, a team charged with the challenge of creating a membership organization composed of voters who would cast their vote for the World Labor Movement. Exhausted, enjoying an end of the day drink or smoke, we recklessly threw out ideas for how to jack up our results.
The late Jerry Benjamin, then one of the owners of AB Data, had led the direct-mail/phone-follow-up campaign. Jerry was a delightful guy, smart, funny, loving. As we joked and muttered our last thoughts before turning in, Jerry blurted out, “Hey, you know, lots of potential voters don’t get why this is important. What would happen if we put an ad in the 19 leading Jewish weeklies that reads: ‘Confused about the Zionist election? Call 1800ABAEBEN.’”
Abba Eben had promised to do what he could to help us out. Within days, we booked a half hour meeting with him in his Manhattan boutique hotel room. We brought a professional sound man and asked Eben his thoughts about the Zionist election and the importance of voting Labor. Microphone on, he launched into what can only be described as a freewheeling improvisational and brilliant analysis of the Zionist world and Labor’s place in it. It was like listening to a good jazz solo. Three days later, the sound man had edited Eben’s harangue into a one-minute, seamless and hard-hitting message.
By Thursday, the ad had gone out to 19 newspapers – a little box that said, “Confused about the Zionist elections? Call 1800ABAEBEN.” Friday, the papers went out. By the following Tuesday, thousands of people had made the toll-free call. Within three months, we created a 25,000 member organization called Friends of Labor Israel, bringing Labor several seats at the WZO table.
That’s how you make a difference. Have an outrageous idea, form a committed team, and just do it.
I applaud the recognition of the State of Palestine by some 150 countries, with Britain, Canada and Australia joining on today. The move is symbolic: nothing will change on the ground in the coming days. But it conveys a crucial positive message: Palestine is here to stay! For years, the world has endorsed the two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. However, as Gershon Baskin says, “You can’t support the two states solution and only recognize one of them.”
Recognition is declarative. It is now incumbent on the countries to back their declaration with tangible, visible steps that express the seriousness of their recognition. They must take an active role in advancing negotiations for the two-state solution. They must establish and develop economic ties with Palestine. They must give substance to their declaration.
On the ground, Palestine remains under the subjugation of Israel. We control every aspect of their lives. Over the past two years, the severity of Israel’s occupation has increased exponentially. So how can this declaration make a difference?
When walking in the fields, if you encounter an insurmountable wall, you can get stopped. If you are serious about moving past the barrier, remove your hat, the hat you love and have worn for years, and throw it over the wall. Now you must get over that wall! If you want something to occur, you can throw your hat over the wall by declaring that it is possible. No one can prove or demonstrate that Palestine will one day be a normal, self-governing country. Yet the declaration is a way of committing to this end.
Now we must move forward, assisting our fellow Israelis to begin reconciling themselves to the reality that this is the way the world is going. Many Israelis today are distressed about our increasing isolation. Here before us is an invitation to rejoin the world community. To swallow our pride, to take a deep breath and move ahead.
If what is happening today in New York heartens my Palestinian neighbors and friends, I am happy. Turning the declarations into a viable reality will not come easily. The voyage will be long and tough, but today we all gotten a gust of wind in our sails.
The hapless fools in the government are howling their protest. Many of our fellow citizens, our adversaries here in Israel, are furious, frustrated. But when you talk with them, they too speak of their longing for peace. We just disagree on how to get there. Many difficult conversations lie before us. Let’s get going!
Ashamed of my country, as we plunge into Gaza City, carry out this Nakba, the two-year slow death of Gaza. Driving the final nail into the coffin of any semblance of decency. Appalled, bereft, we have become the victims of our own victimization of the other. We can only continue the oppression of the Palestinians by killing something decent in our own souls. Hardening our hearts as we seek in vain to seal the fate of Gaza by force.
On top of the suffering of the Gazans, our soldiers are collectively traumatized and compromised morally. “Restoring honor to the enemy is an essential step in recovery from combat PTSD.” Says psychiatrist Jonathan Shay. We have crushed the Gazans’ lives, their honor, for two years, on top of 58 years of occupation.
Twenty-seven years ago the Northern Irish people ended an 800 year war. Now they’re busy healing, creating integrated neighborhoods, playing football together, Protestants and Catholics, whose parents had been locked in a brutal war, the “Troubles.” One activist explained…“We just got tired of killing each other.”
The dawn of the time of healing here in Israel/Palestine, that dawn seems a long way off. We are tens of thousands in the streets, but we should be millions. What will it take for Israelis to say, “Enough!” Let the four soldiers we lost today be the last. End the bombing of Gaza, withdraw the troops. Enter into negotiations of the brave.
It’s time we beat our swords into ploughshares and get to the task of how it will be after we stop killing each other. How do we get past this present violent stage and move to peacemaking? Together, orchestrating the healing of millions of Palestinians and Israelis. A symphony of human decency.
”Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that”
When he spoke these words, Martin Luther King must have envisioned Friday’s gathering of the Sulha Peace Movement at Ein Fashcha by the Dead Sea. Each of us brought within us the heaviness of these days in our land. The endless Gaza war, the settlers’ rampages throughout the West Bank, the government’s undermining of any breakthrough in talks, the repeated call-ups of reservists. Everything points to darkness and hate, and then here is this unique crowd, bringing light and love.
70 Palestinians and Israelis from across the land gathered in desert heat around the pools of fresh spring water and lush vegetation. Israelis young and old, from the north and south of the country. Palestinians from the West Bank…Hebron, El Fawar refugee camp, Nablus, Ramallah. Many of the Israelis have served in the army. Many of the Palestinians have done time in Israeli prisons, some carry wounds from violent altercations. All of us came united in our quest for a few hours of quiet solidarity, intimate conversation, the joy of bathing together in the refreshing spring. While we all are engaged in the political and social violence of our time, Sulha events aim for the human reality, cultivating the simple bond of listening and decency that will ultimately become the human foundation upon which any political settlement will rest.
We opened with a ceremony. Standing in the ankle-deep stream, we cupped our hands to pour water over each other’s hands, and each of us spoke of the burdens of the hatred and horror of the occupation, of the fear and frustration of the struggle to make our way, each in his/her personal life. And then we blessed each other with more cool water, with the heartfelt desire for cleansing of the other’s burden.
We split into listening circles, some of us translating, so that we could share our hearts. In the circle I facilitated sat some Israelis and three young Palestinians. One attractive, college-educated Palestinian responded to my question, “What do you see in your future?” “Any hopeful future,” he said, “is abroad….Europe, Canada, anywhere, just not here.” The other two concurred. “How do your families feel about your plans to leave?” I asked. “They are sad about it, but they support us. They know there is no future here for us.”
We Israelis shared our sense that we have nowhere else to go, nowhere that feels like home, but also our determination that these young guys will be part of a future of hope, that they will join us in bringing the shift in the fate of our common land. What was wonderful was the attentive listening of the group. No political arguments, no shouted, strongly-held beliefs. Just empathy, the connecting of eyes and hearts, the mutuality of these blessed moments. “I’ve never before been with Israelis I was not afraid of,” confessed one of the young Palestinians.
The circles ended and we all brought out the food we had each prepared for the event, as we milled about, laughing and quietly talking in groups of three or four. One Palestinian proudly shared the tomatoes he had gathered that morning in his little plot of land, an Israeli opened a sack of ‘beygeleh,” the sesame-seeded rings of soft bread, with sour labaneh cheese sprinkled with za’atar spice.
Before heading for the buses, we gathered in a wide circle, sweating in the mid-day heat, yet glowing with our fragile desire for a future we can share as equals. Here, at one of the darkest moments in our common history, 70 lovers of this land, sharing our souls, exchanging what’s-app numbers, promising to be in touch. A little oasis of grace, hope, a shared longing for a future where gatherings like this will be commonplace. We urged each other to pass on the experience to their friends and families, to carry the ripples of our little pond forward, to spread the truth that there are human beings on the other side who share our dreams and welcome our love.
To hear Bill Evans, the great 60’s jazz pianist, playing “Tenderly….” To hear him soar beyond the frame of the music, while ever related to it, to hear him burst through to impossible melodic and rhythmic improvisation, and to finally return to the melody, to kiss it farewell.
This is living. A reality unimaginable in the camps of Gaza, just an hour and a half drive from here. The utter privilege… a safe, simple home on a quiet street in Jerusalem. In the garden, firewood is piled high in anticipation of warm winter nights at home. A shot of single malt in hand, I put the record on the turntable, sit back and enjoy my evening.
Although the sirens wailed at 5:30 this morning, the Houthis sending another ballistic missile, and we made our sleepy way down to the shelter, within ten minutes we were back in the kitchen, brewing coffee. Why would I deserve this relatively secure situation, at a time of chaos, war, and a most cynical political drama? I don’t deserve it. Life just turned out this way. I could just as easily have been the grief-crazed Gazan father in the ruins of Jabalya, crouched over his daughter’s lifeless body after yet another IDF bombing run. It’s just a fluke of chance that it’s turned out the way it has.
Once I’ve reaffirmed my commonality with that father, allowed myself to be with his pain, where can I turn other than toward the truth that 62,000 Gazans, 83% of them civilians, have been killed by my country’s army? How can I avoid the fact that 900 Israeli soldiers have died fighting a war that serves only to prolong the life of the worst government in our history?
If we can find a shred of empathy, and know the depth of the other’s pain, then the only question is: “What’s next?” Our common canoe is drifting relentlessly toward the waterfall, and we’ve lost our paddle. Yet, each of us is positioned somewhere, and each of us can influence something, someone, somehow. We now choose what to do… or not… as we confront our role in the drama that is being played out. To fiercely fight for a ceasefire, a comprehensive hostage/prisoner deal, a withdrawal of Israeli forces, or to submit to the preventable horror of ongoing senseless killing and dying?
We have come to a critical juncture. The coming weeks will be decisive in determining whether, swept along in this calamitous flood, we will steer our way toward the river’s banks, grabbing hold of that last overhanging branch with all our strength, or we will helplessly plunge together over the brink.
We are preoccupied with the government’s plan to escalate in Gaza, the settlers’ murder of peace-maker Awdeh Hathalin, the week of 100 degree heat, the government attack on the attorney general, the endless suffering of the Gazans. Meanwhile, those with their eyes open remember the ongoing routine of everyday life in the occupied West Bank. Relentless, steady pressure of the army, arbitrarily blocking entrance to villages whenever they like. In one southern Hebron hills refugee camp the water was recently cut off for 40 days. The Jewish settlements on the surrounding hills enjoy unlimited water, their Palestinian neighbors hear the squeals of joy in their swimming pools among lush gardens.
Tuesday, we drove deep into the south Hebron hills, past the soldiers’ ready rifles at Etzion junction where countless shootings have taken place, to one of the camps, where we are welcomed into the home of Sami, a longtime resident of this 70 year old camp, and a widely respected activist. Sami and his children serve us coffee, cake and succulent sabra fruit, overjoyed that we, a 10-person delegation from the Sulha Peace Movement, have come to visit. Some 15 men and women from the camp have gathered to greet us, and to participate in a morning of listening, listening to each other, Israelis and Palestinians.
The West Bank Palestinians cannot get permits to enter Israel, where hundreds of thousands worked prior to the Gaza war. The overwhelming majority of Palestinian laborers have not had work since Rosh Hashana, before Oct. 7, ’23. We listen to muscular, earnest guys in their mid-twenties talking about their lives, their choices. “I wake up in the morning and I have no plans,” says Omar, a welder. “Many of us just want to die,” he says. The word that keeps recurring is “mustakbal,” the future. These guys see none, as they watch the Gaza war and the occupation drag on endlessly.
Men and women separate into groups, and we are all asked to express what is important to us for the others to hear, in this moment. Sulha listening circles make no space for arguments, in the gatherings. People are asked to speak from the heart, rather from their opinions. To share themselves. The only rule is that we are listening, not reacting or ping-ponging. Each person in turn will have their time. Together, we are creating the interactive human foundation on which will rest whatever political resolution may eventually be possible.
We make our way around the circle, and the young guys share their stories. Abu Ashraf speaks of the army’s invasion of his home, and shows us the telephone footage of his encounter with the IDF. You see the soldiers hulking over the terrified family, the contents of bedroom closets strewn around the room. The masked soldiers’ guns at the ready, their bulky equipment hanging from them, they look like marauders from outer space.
We hear the anguish of Ahmad, recently married. His wife is downstairs in the women’s group. Ahmad was arrested last year, entering Israel illegally in order to work on a construction site in Ashkelon. He spent some time in jail and was released with a suspended sentence. If he enters now and is caught, he will spend several years in jail. He turns to the group and says, “I have no choice. I must go back to work in Israel, I must support my family. I live in shame. I have a new wife and I can’t provide for her. I cannot ask my father for money. He too is out of work.”
Amjad says, “The army enters the camp whenever they want. We go to the store for cigarettes and we don’t know if we will return. If a soldier stops you and checks your phone, it’s trouble. Even if I have not ‘liked’ the stuff that comes into my phone, the messages will make the soldier suspicious and he can arrest me. We just want a little safety. And I want to see the Mediterranean. I’m 23, and it’s an hour’s drive from here. I’ve never seen a sea.”
The listening circle ends with heartfelt appreciation flowing among the men. We acknowledge and thank each other for our listening. The same is happening downstairs among the women. One of the Palestinians says that this meeting will help strengthen those in the camp who still hope for a breakthrough of solidarity with peace-seeking Israelis. And then arrives a delicious lunch that Sami’s wife has prepared. Her stuffed grape leaves are heavenly.
Now men and women together, we summarize the gathering. Collectively, we gratefully acknowledge how important this morning has been for us. A woman speaks again about the future, “mustakbal,” but this time she envisions how today’s heartening meeting will one day become a regular part of our common future. One of the Israelis asks Sami how he keeps hope alive. Sami grins and says, “I don’t keep hope, I create it.”
Tonight again we’ll demonstrate, but tonight is different from the past two and a half years of Saturday nights at the weekly demo. We will look like the same thousand people at Paris Square, for two and a half years gathering around the stage to shout our slogans and listen to speakers. But the reality is that we will be a thousand people walking on the edge of a volcano, quivering above the abyss. This is the last moment, the precipice is now.
If, for a change, Netanyahu is true to his word, the coming days will see the mounting of yet another offensive, and this time, our planes and soldiers are likely to kill hostages, along with hundreds more Gazan innocents. Many more soldiers will die for the sake of BB’s political survival. It is utterly transparent, and today most Israelis see it for what it is.
If one of my kids was home on leave this weekend, I would sneak into his room as he slept and handcuff him to his bed rather than see him off to his unit tomorrow morning. He would be furious, but I would sit beside him and talk with him until he understood that there is simply no justification for him to risk his life for this sick government’s newest escapade. And when the Military Police showed up to arrest him for desertion, I would offer them a cup of coffee.
Where is our rage? Where are the millions of Israelis who will be asked to send their sons and daughters back into the hopeless maelstrom of Gaza? We Israelis who will be asked to pay 35 Billion Shekels to conduct the conquest of Gaza. We Israelis who are finally awakening to our international pariah status, to the end of 75 years of the world giving Israel the benefit of the doubt. Desperately clinging to some kind of normality, Israelis heading to Greece for vacation are nervously asking where they can go in Greece where they won’t be vulnerable to the fury of the Greeks over Gaza.
If the new incursion brings about the death of the remaining living hostages, absolute bedlam will break loose in Israel. The hostages’ families will go crazy, and the public will be with them.
This can and must be stopped. It seems that Trump is the one who can step on the brakes, demand an immediate negotiated agreement and move us back from the edge of the cliff. How awful to be dependent on the likes of him, but no one else seems to be able to control Netanyahu.
In life, either you either tell the story or you write the story. This is the time for action. Help us! Anywhere, everywhere. My friend Marella is in the streets of Omagh, Northern Ireland, today demonstrating for an end to the war in Gaza. Please…. anything you can do, anyone you can influence. Every little act makes a difference. The time is now.
At the United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948, the following definition was ratified: Genocide is comprised of “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” After months of clinging to “war crimes” as a sufficient description, I can no longer deny that genocide is what we are committing. In Gaza, the West Bank, and in East Jerusalem, Israel is methodically and intentionally attacking the Palestinian people. We can no longer pretend to distinguish our targets on the basis of what they do. Today, we bomb, burn, arrest and torture Palestinians because of who they are. The extremists shout that “there are no innocents in Gaza.” That lie has become the basis for our undiscriminating actions.
In addition to the 60,000 people we have killed in Gaza, 20,000 of them children, we have wounded at least 100,000. By rendering all but a few of Gaza’s hospitals inoperable and killing 1,800 health workers, we ensure that the recovery of the injured will fail or stretch out for months, years longer than similar injuries would take in a well-functioning health system. The Israelis in charge are planning the ongoing destruction of the Palestinians. And we, the Israeli people, are allowing this to happen.
Yuli Novak, Executive Director of the NGO “B’Tselem” frames this process accurately: “Genocide does not happen without mass participation; a population that supports it, enables it or looks away. That is part of its tragedy. Almost no nation that has committed genocide understood, in real time, what it was doing. The story is always the same: self-defense, inevitability, the targets brought it on themselves.”
I am weary of communicating the bad news about Israel. I fear you’ll cringe when my posts show up, avoiding them like the plague. Trouble is, this plague doesn’t care….it’s infecting us all whether we like it or not, and together we are enabling it, whether we acknowledge that or not. Trying to keep some wind in our sails, I do regularly mention that there is some light in this darkness. Decent Israelis whose eyes are open are still here, still active, and we are doing what we can to make a difference in the way things go.
But this week saw the ignition of a new and very positive momentum among the world’s nations. Each day, we are seeing additions to the list of countries declaring their intention to recognize the State of Palestine at September’s meeting of the General Assembly. Just two years ago, Israel was plodding along under the illusion that we could “manage the conflict” with the Palestinians, that we had successfully cowed them into submission to our occupation. With the attack of Oct. 7, the bubble burst, and Palestine leaped into the headlines and into the consciousness of the world community. 22 months later, when the genocide is undeniable and too many false starts have forced the world to understand that Israel is unrelenting, the nations of the world are going over our head to finally recognize the legitimacy of the Palestinian people, and of their nation.
What will this mean in practical terms? No one knows. What is clear is that this jams a significant stick into the wheels of Israel’s vain attempts to conquer, slaughter and banish the Palestinians from their land.
We will never begin to head toward peace until the people of Gaza and the West Bank, which together comprise the State of Palestine, are enabled to build their home….free, independent, acknowledged throughout the world. With this initiative, we are being force-fed cooperation. Once we come to accept that this is the only viable path, we will heal, rebuild, and step into the future as equals. Furious as our politicians may be, they are being dragged, kicking and screaming, onto the train heading toward peace, and the locomotive is finally heaving forward. Together with our Palestinians neighbors, we will ultimately reach our destination.
The cards have been reshuffled, big time. We’ve got a tiger by the tail, things are getting hotter from day to day. Hard to remember that every disaster is an opportunity. The pace of events… the obstacles fly at us like a roaring locomotive with no brakes. No one is planning the refreshments for any let-fly-the-white-dove ceremonies, yet we are keeping hope and possibility alive, as best we can. I wrote a report for funders of a terrific East Jerusalem community empowerment outfit, reaching thousands of Palestinian women, affirming the legitimacy of their response to the horror of what they are enduring. There are people all over the place, doing life-affirming, healing work.
I don’t understand why a million Israelis are not in the streets, fighting for the future together with those of us who are.
The oppressiveness of the general atmosphere, what we wake up to every morning is unbearable. Nearly daily soldier deaths, the Mt. Herzl funerals are just down the street, I hear the three-shot salvos from my garden. This week three reservists refused to return to Gaza after having served many months there. One of them was wounded and after rehabilitation went back to Gaza. They said, “We’ve reached our limit.” They were sentenced to jail. There was a swell of outrage, the public would never have accepted this, the army knew it and are in the process of backing down. Could be a good precedent.
A dear Palestinian friend’s son, age 20 from East Jerusalem, was arrested for what was on his phone when the soldier stopped him on the street. That was five months ago, and my friend is overwrought with worry. The son has lost a lot of weight. Administrative detention. The right of the state to arrest and hold someone, without trial, for as long as it suits their agenda. She’s a brave woman, but this has got her by the throat. The hearings every few weeks, when she gets to glimpse her boy behind a screen. Multiply her story by thousands.
We, I don’t stop to focus often enough on the actual human price being paid here in suffering. I’ve known her son for years, he is the sweetest guy, wouldn’t harm a fly. In jail for the whatever was in the private world of his cellphone.
We are all party to what is happening here. We allowed this to happen. We are now reaping the spoiled, rotten harvest of 58 years of occupation. This is how it looks.
jerusalemheart 