Contemplations on Israel and Palestine

Here we offer a series of reflections by our Track Two network member and dear friend, Yoav Peck, from his home in Jerusalem. Yoav is a long time peace activist and current director of capacity-building at Challenge, an NGO for conflict transformation where he deploys his considerable experience as an organizational psychologist in efforts to bring peace to his divided community. He is also executive director at Solidarity of Nations - Achvat Amim, a program for young adults to engage in meaningful partnerships with Palestinians and Israelis in the movement for self-determination for all.

We share these because they have afforded us new, loving and kind insight on the Hamas Israel war. We hope they will likewise be helpful to you.

The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Track Two: An Institute for Citizen Diplomacy.

Our Garbage // December 7, 2024

This morning, I come to Jerusalem Forest, as I do nearly every morning, to celebrate God’s creation and to move my old bones for half an hour, along the paths that wind over the hills, among thriving evergreens and shrubs. The attached photo is the scene that greets me as I set out on my run in the forest.

I come across the picnic tables, and I feel as though I’ve been attacked, violated by the remains of yesterday’s party. As I jog on to less littered groves, I am left with questions… What was in the minds and hearts of the people who left this garbage? To what extent can people ignore other people? How can one not see the life, the plants and birds all around, the animals hiding in the bushes, and not see fellow humans like me who want to enjoy the forest?

The people of Gaza want to enjoy life as well. Not to survive, to live. They deserve to live lives they love, no less than do we. The State of Israel, in our name, has trashed the Gaza Strip. Like the picnickers, our leaders, and those that follow them, and even Israelis who come to the weekly demonstrations for the hostages’ return….. they are blind to the truth and the implications of what Israel is doing in Gaza.

More than 13,000 children have died in Gaza. My friend Ahmed lost 60 members of his family. What happens inside us, when we confront these numbers? Can we find the courage to actually see what Israel is doing to our neighbors? Can we put ourselves in the shoes of the surgeon who amputated his niece’s leg without anesthetic, with a kitchen knife? What frightened mechanism awakens to defend us against the excruciating pain we would feel, if we let into our hearts the reality of 13,000 slaughtered children?

Analyst Melanie Klein said that, under stress, we protect ourselves by “splitting” the world into good and bad. We repress the bad so as not to have to own it. We Israelis must now own the abyss that divides Israelis from Palestinians. Before our hearts turn to stone, we must bridge the abyss for our own sake, not only for theirs.

The season’s first rains have awakened the weeds and bushes in the forest. You can find little pools where insects play. Anemones’ foliage is sprouting and soon the pink and white flowers will burst forth. New life, winter and spring, as beneath the forest, the water table beginning to fill. The water table that knows no borders, that flows beneath all our feet, in this, our shared home.

Creating Hope, At A Time Of Uncertainty // November 24, 2024

Friends, this is a long-ish transcription of my talk at Reform Synagogue Kol Haneshama last Shabbat. If you find somewhere that the shoe fits, wear it!

When my mother, Shulamit, died in 2011, I attended several sessions offered by the Bereavement Committee at Kol Haneshama. The meetings were important to me, enabled me to process my loss, and to be part of a community of mourners, together finding our way through the sorrow, celebrating our loved ones and reaffirming our commitment to life. I’m happy this morning to be able to partially repay my debt.

Today, we are all mourners, in a sense. Together, we mourn the loss of certainty. In the 50 years since my Aliya, I have never confronted, we have never confronted such an abyss of uncertainty. Underlying it all is a collective trauma that affects us all, since 7/10/23. Locked into a 13-month war, led by a government that is impervious to our pleas, facing enmity and violence from all sides, we don’t, we cannot know what tomorrow holds, let alone the weeks and months to come.

Surrounding today’s Torah portion, rabbis and scholars have much to say about Sarah the matriarch. For our purpose, this morning, I am struck by her struggle with uncertainty. At the age of 90, waiting 25 years to be pregnant, she had a terrible uncertainty to deal with. If there was a prize for confronting uncertainty, surely Sarah would win it. She is a model for us.

If we turn back to this moment, it is clear that the only way to get to tomorrow is to know where we are today, and today, here in Israel, we are deeply uncertain. So much in the coming week is hidden from view. If we read the newspapers and listen to the radio, and listen to our friends, we are surrounded by the uncertainty of things. Increasingly, we talk of helplessness, we share despair.

Uncertainty can arouse anxiety, tension, catastrophic thoughts. It can undermine our physical wellbeing. In order to confront uncertainty, we must make one crucial distinction. We must distinguish between the things over which we have no control, and the realms in which we can have, if not control, then at least influence, impact. We cannot control whether or not a missile from Lebanon will land on our house. But we can impact the way we respond (not react) to this uncertainty. It’s important to distinguish reaction from response. When you step on my toe, I have a reaction. After you step on my toe, I choose my response.

Our central challenge, as we face uncertainty is this: We must regain AGENCY, our power to make a difference, in ourselves and in the world. Will circumstance control us or will we take charge?

There is no such thing as “uncertain times,” or an “uncertain situation.” The times are the times, the situation is the situation. Uncertainty dwells in our consciousness. We invent the adjectives. Uncertainty is a way of BEING. We are thrown to uncertainty. But, like the cowboy in the Westerns who is beaten to his knees in the street, we can get back on our feet and confront our uncertainty once again. Taking back our consciousness requires courage. Do we have uncertainty, or does uncertainty have us?

Our way of being is influenced by our doing. So what can we be doing, to create an alternative way of Being?

I had the good fortune to learn from Martin Auerbach at the Center for the Treatment of Psychotrauma, “Meitiv,” during the 2nd Intifada. In addition to treating trauma, we worked with people on developing their resilience. Helping folks take back their lives, after circumstance took their lives from them.

In the realm of resilience-building, there is much available to us, the uncertain.

We are here at Kol Haneshama, so it is natural that we will first mention prayer. My Tel Aviv friend Adam called me one Shabbat and told me his newborn daughter was in hospital, struggling to breathe. “Go the the Kotel for me, Yoav.” “Adam,” I said, “You know I don’t pray.” “Yoav, just do it, please.” So, having planned to wash the floors that morning, instead I went to the Kotel, and inserted a note that began, “I don’t know if YOU are there, but if you are, here’s what I am asking.” And I prayed, on the off-chance that God was listening. What can I tell you? The next day, the baby began improving. And what was striking was the way I felt after praying. I could have been washing the floors, and instead I was floating home from the Kotel, feeling light on my feet, inspired, moved. So, pray! In whatever form you like.

There are many additional ways to confront uncertainty. Here are a few. (I’m grateful to Ann Overton for her contribution to this)

• Take care of yourself. Sleep, eat, exercise. Like your cellphone, you need regular charging.

• Communicate, Relate to others. When upset, we tend to shut down, to cut ourselves off. But we are not alone. Seek community, like this one at Kol Haneshama. Others may see hope, when we cannot.

• Don’t dramatize: Watch what comes out of your mouth. Speech creates reality. Think about what you are adding to the situation. If I say “Elephant,” an elephant is present in the room. If I say, “The whole world hates Israel,” this gives credence, substance, legitimacy to the statement. And if I say, “We are resilient,” this too enters the space.

• Writing, a great form of agency. Journal, letters, emails…writing is a powerful way of taking hold of what you’re feeling/thinking.

• Take the time to let music and poetry return us to ourselves. When is the last time you sat yourself in a chair and simply listened to a symphony or paid attention to the lyric of “Mr. Tambourine Man?” Listening while driving your car in the city is not the same. You deserve the quiet room.

• Centering, mindfulness. You don’t have to be a regular meditator to use this. Just sit comfortably in a quiet space for 20 minutes, breathe deeply with your eyes closed, and focus on your breathing or a mantra. It has a powerful impact on your wellbeing, even if done occasionally. .

• Get out to Nature. If you google “calming effects of nature,” you’ll find 22 million results. And when you go out to Jerusalem Forest or to the sea, let it in, don’t stay in your mind, watch a spider weaving his web. Leave your phone in the car.

• Completion of tasks. There is something empowering about completion….a project, cleaning your desk, ordering your books. Complete washing the dishes by cleaning the screen that catches the scraps. There’s nothing like a kitchen sink that is handled.

• Social media/Newspapers and radio. Many of us behave as though our cellphones control us. Many of us have not discovered that the phones come with an “off” switch. Be selective. Stay informed, but don’t be news/addicted.

• Keep your sense of humor. There is research about the connection between laughter and resilience.

• Finally, embrace the significance of what is happening here to touch you. I interviewed a candidate for our Achvat Amim winter program yesterday, and at the end of the hour, I knew that helping to get this college activist to our program was important. Allow the significance of who you are and what you do in life to move you.

LET’S TALK ABOUT HOPE

This brings us back to BEING. We feel helpless, hopeless, but we need not BE in hopelessness or helplessness. Feelings come and go. Being is a choice. We are far more than our feelings. Instead of “I am upset,” try saying, “I feel upset, and I am confronting that.”

We can choose the way we BE, we can take a stand, as we face circumstance.

Don’t confuse optimism for hope. Both optimists and pessimists approach the future by falsely diminishing their uncertainty. In fact, we have no idea how things are going to turn out. But we do have a choice about our attitude.

Get this: The precondition for finding hope is having none! But we humans can create something out of nothing. Like the artist facing the blank canvas, we always have the power to create something new. Tomorrow need not be like yesterday. As we said in the ‘60’s, Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Hopeful folks expect the incalculable, the possibilities beyond all likelihood. Pardon the metaphor, but it’s something like hunting. Like a hunter, lean forward and listen attentively for any scent, any sign of possibility. Be a hope hunter.

Each of us has in our heart a picture of a possible future. It is a mistake to relate to that future as “someday.” If the future picture, the vision of how things can be, if that is the sun, remember the sun is both far away and also right here. The rays of sunshine that warm our skin, they are our willingness to live the future vision, today. For example, I envision a future Israel as a land of dignity and collective generosity and compassion. When I choose to stop my car and allow a bus to enter the flow of traffic ahead of me, that is a ray of the sunshine of dignity, right now, right here. And when the driver sticks his arm out to window to acknowledge me, I know that I have changed his world, in some small way. When I come across someone walking down the sidewalk, rather than waiting to see what happens, I can be the one to initiate an exchange of smiles. (Listen to Bette Midler’s “Hello in There.”)

And finally, remember that we are not alone…..

I go to demonstrations on Saturday nights for two reasons. Perhaps my presence makes a difference to some policy-maker. But also, when I look around at the faces of the beautiful Israelis gathered together, my batteries get charged. I remember the Israel I fell in love with, a quick 50 years ago. And when I am frustrated to see that we are only a few thousand of us rather than a million, I remember what renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead taught us:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has."

So there it is, friends. Often, these days, we feel that we are helpless passengers on a ship lost at sea in the dark fog of uncertainty. We must remember that the promised shore is not far off, and that each of us and all of us, we can be the lighthouse in the fog.

What We Can Do With Our Privilege // November 11, 2024

As winter arrives, the wood is stacked high, outside in my garden. I have collected enough logs and heavy branches to enable the security that I will have enough for the woodstove this winter, even if we get harsh weather. A small part of my privileged status.

Things are very different in al-Shati Camp tonight, on the edge of Gaza City, beside the sea. There is no security in Shati. People face the coming cold season, scraping together bits of plastic sheeting, patching their lean-to’s and tents. Meanwhile, the army has returned to the area and Thursday notified the residents of al-Shati that they must evacuate to the south of Gaza. Again.

Along with the inability to see the suffering of the Palestinians, most Israelis are getting used to the daily deaths of our soldiers, convinced that we must ride the recent wave of military successes. Ride them to where? No one seems to know. Everyone has forgotten that the reason to maintain a strong army is not to wreak havoc but rather to see to it that we do NOT have to fight.

We Israelis seem to think that if we are “strong,” we will be safer. And yet, lurking beneath the surface is the collective awareness that military power can get us safer, but it cannot get us SAFE. And deep down, we also understand that no one in this area can be safe until ALL of us are.

So is there a way to get all of us safe?

This is the wrong question. There may not ever be “A WAY” that will lead us home to peace. However, there certainly are “WAYS” to peace, a multitude of ways to peace, many roads that lead to Rome. To home. Last night, I arrived back in Jerusalem after travelling one of those roads.

I got to be with twelve young folks, in their 20’s, travelling the south of Israel/Palestine for four days and three nights. Committed to grappling with the complexity of the conflict, this current Achvat Amim cohort met with a plethora of players and stakeholders. Stayed with the Bedouin in their village in the South Hebron hills, with a settlement towering over them fifty yards away. Not knowing whether this would be one of the nights when the army or a gang of settlers will swoop into the village to harass us all. We heard a fascinating Bedouin law student and activist, whose relatives are among the hostages in Gaza. An Israeli professor of Moroccan origin brought us into the story of Israel’s 50 year discrimination toward them, the struggle of the Israeli Black Panthers, the ongoing battle for a deeper cultural equality between mizrahim and ashkenazim. (Oriental origin/eastern European). The next morning we heard Avi Dabush, the head of Rabbis for Human Rights. Avi’s power is in his focus on what there is to be done in our Land, to bring us closer to the realization of our values. Inspiring us as he shared his way: Identifying a need, answering that need with action.

Civil-society activism, driving forward despite the adversity.

At “Achvat,” we place our participants in various peace/human rights orgs. One of our cohort goes out several times a week to pick olives alongside West Bank farmers, sometimes standing between the farmers and marauding settlers or aggressive soldiers. Action, taking action.

At the moment, when we all seem to be helpless in the face of the political/military reality, we confront the helplessness and revive our spirits when we look to what we CAN do to advance things. Achvat Amim enables in-depth learning, and solidarity activism in the field. A myriad of other civil-society projects are taking small, incremental steps forward. A beehive of decency and solidarity, steadily laying the human infrastructure to support the peace that inevitably will arrive.

At a time like this, what else can we do?

Vacation // October 30, 2024

My beloved wife Frumit and I took a week’s vacation. Airplane, rental car, hotels… a vacation. We travelled beautiful northwest Greece, awed by the grandeur of the mountains, the quiet modesty of the towns.

Several times a day tensely checking to see what’s happening at home in Jerusalem, and where my kids and grandkids are. My son and his daughter are displaced from their northern border kibbutz. The rest of our clan, scattered around the country, feel increasingly vulnerable. If Hezbollah could find Netanyahu’s house, they can find me!

In Greece, we traveled with dear friends from Tel Aviv. A week-long double-date. We all like each other and Avi and I worked together for years. We had a week to hike through autumn… yellow, red, orange foliage. Laughing over dinner, taking time to reflect on how we have been collectively sucked into a whirlpool of fear and rage over the past year of war and before that half a year of opposing the destruction of our democracy. Here we were, amidst the glory of god’s earth. Kalimera! Each morning, the warmth of the Greeks, the feta cheese.

I am among the privileged. The plight of everyone in the middle east these days is collective, the trauma collective. Yet the discrepancy between the degrees of suffering of various populations, is horrifying. The sheer magnitude of the Gazans’ losses. What’s equally horrifying is the indifference of the Israeli public to our Palestinian neighbors’ suffering. “People don’t have space for anything beyond their lives,” a friend said. This is the soil where hard-heartedness flourishes.

The question isn’t whether some of us are privileged and others are not. The question is, what do we privileged DO with our privilege. How do we make USE of it?

As my old friend Bill used to say in our Berkeley days, “If you don’t like the news…change it.” And as Frumit said before the trip, “I like going abroad, but I like best coming home.”

Monday we got back from the airport in the afternoon, and in the evening we gathered, thousands from across the nation, to protest the disastrous continuation of this war. How good to be back, marching beside somber, passionate Israelis, speaking our piece, carrying our signs, strengthening each other by just being there together, appalled by our situation, fighting for our future.

The abuse of power must end. The killing must end. There can be no winners here, as long as there are losers.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Tells It Like It Is // October 15, 2024

Following Netanyahu’s dismal speech in September at the UN General Assembly, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi grabbed the microphone and declared: "We're here – members of a Muslim-Arab committee, mandated by 57 Arab and Muslim countries – and I can tell you here, very unequivocally, all of us are willing to, right now, guarantee the security of Israel in the context of Israel ending the occupation and allowing for the emergence of a Palestinian state." He continued, "Ask any Israeli official what is their plan for peace – you'll get nothing, because they're only thinking of the first step: 'We're gonna go destroy Gaza, inflame the West Bank, destroy Lebanon,' and after that, they have no plan. We have a plan. We have no partner for peace in Israel."

How apt that Safadi used Ehud Barak’s self-justifying accusation after the failure of the Camp David talks in 2000. No partner for peace.

As the Palestinians confront the refusal of Israel to advance a comprehensive peace in the area, we Israelis have no partner in our own government.

Here is Safadi’s call, like ripe fruit hanging on the branch he extends to us. Why has no one responded to him? Why can we not stop this needless killing?

A woman responded to my recent blog, complaining that Israeli deaths are not getting enough coverage in the media. Here’s what I told her: Jewish deaths, the limited attention they receive bothers me too. Can we compare deaths? Since the end of our initial response to Oct 7 we Israelis have taken the offensive beyond belief, our government exploiting the "defense stance," to drag us into an adventurous, irresponsible whirlwind of violence, which is avoidable. Now, Israeli deaths are the deaths of the side that has chosen to plow ahead, and most of the victims are the Palestinians.

Within 24 hours this week, 67 people were wounded in an army dining room, four of them died, and in Gaza, people in tents were burned to death, following bombings by Israeli planes. And still, we must not compare deaths. The loss of a child is the same, whoever you are.

We must end this war.

Lassie Come Home // October 13, 2024

Since the war began, 735 Israeli soldiers have been killed, including 352 since ground operations began in Gaza. Of these, 56 were killed in operational accidents in Gaza, with 33 due to friendly fire. Additionally, 4,700 soldiers have been wounded, including 707 with serious wounds. Drivers curse the frequent traffic jams, every time there’s a funeral on Mt. Herzl.

33 due to friendly fire. 33 of our casualties were caused by us. With friends like these, I don’t need enemies. Heartbreaking to think of their parents.

At the demonstrations, we cry out for help, we know not to whom we are calling, unlike the drowning guy in the picture. Surely politicians don’t hear our calls. We call out from this stormy sea because we must. We too hope that somewhere, Lassie is waiting to do something heroic and save the day!

Lassie has other plans. If there is a major problem, says Lassie, I’d better go deal with myself first. Trouble is, second never seems to follow first. We end up turning inward, rather than reaching outward. Reaching outward, while coming from an inwardly-aware space. That’s the trick, said Gandhi.

 I grew up adoring Lassie on TV. Now I’m furious at him. I do not understand why a million people are not in the streets to demand the hostages be brought home and the war be ended.

All the while, we collectively long for how it has been, could be, here in Israel/Palestine. That’s what makes it painful. As the violins swell in the background, we want desperately to be petting brave Lassie in the kitchen, family around the table, Mom’s apple pie cooling on the window sill, with the happiest of endings.

Traditional Yom Kippur Cheshbon Nefesh // October 12, 2024

Sloth. I think I’ve got it. Sloth is the answer to the question asked Yom Kippur eve at a community gathering of secular folks in my Jerusalem neighborhood. The rabbi requested that each of us fill in the blanks in the statement: “This year, I messed up the following way…..toward……” I sat there, puzzled, as I couldn’t think of anything deliberately harmful that I’ve done to anyone in the past year.

What’s bothering me is what I HAVEN’T done. What dogs me is whether I do enough. Enough to bring an end to this war? Enough for the Israelis, blindly sending their sons to someone else’s war? Enough for the Gazans, for whom mourning has become a way of life? Do I bring enough rigor to my work? Do I give my kids and grandkids as much as I can? Am I stretching beyond my self-imposed barriers and delivering what I could be delivering?

I took these troubling thoughts for a sunset walk as Yom Kippur drew to a quiet end. On a little side-street, beside a grape vine, I declared, “I am ashamed of that,” out loud. I could feel the shame burning on my forehead.

The only way to achieve breakthrough is to acknowledge breakdown. Declaring a breakdown in my life might give access to possibility, within this new situation.

As I explore thoughts of how to get to next Yom Kippur with fewer mental mosquitos of self-doubt, one possibility lies in lightening up on myself…. As the conversation continued between me and me, I said, “Cut yourself some slack, man. You’re 77 and working at something you love and deeply care about. You’re lucky., and you give what you can.”

Still, self-laceration aside, the challenge remains: to create the possible future of my relationship with work and family… to find greater effectiveness in the use of my time… to handle trivia with alacrity, working smarter, not harder…. to listen better and to self-express deliberately, to enable the purpose of the possible future to be realized.

The cheshbon nefesh includes acknowledging my part in the responsibility we all share for allowing Israel/Palestine to have come to the current crisis in the first place. We helped create this mess, and we don’t get to leave until we clean it up.

As Herzl told us…if we will it, it is not a dream. Our speaking, our listening, a hundred little daily choices….they make the difference. Being authentic with ourselves, we know that living NOW the future reality we aspire to is the only way to get there. With a pinch more rigor.

Lost in the Wilderness // October 7, 2024

Picture being lost, deep in the wilderness on a moonless night. The wind blows cold, hungry wolves howl in the nearby canyon. We are frightened, but we are not alone….we have a map, a flashlight, a compass, a plan. We have each other. And we have a guide, a leader who knows what she is doing and is alert and prepared for anything that might endanger the group. All through the night, she walks among the campfires, stopping at each to hug and reassure folks that it will be ok. She openly acknowledges that she failed in guiding us, but she is steadfast in her commitment, as she painstakingly plans our return home. We know that with the dawn, she will lead us back to safety.

Now, again picture being lost, deep in the wilderness on a moonless night. But this time, we are without a map or a plan or a compass. The man we chose as guide is busy only with how he is going to look, if we ever get back to civilization. He nervously anticipates what awaits him….will he be blamed for taking us into this dark, frightening place? He is already compiling the list of all those to whom he will shift the blame. And in the vacuum he leaves, the group members are arguing bitterly and splitting into vindictive camps, stealing firewood from each other, as the endless ordeal drags on.

A dark, dismal, long day’s journey into night, this. Israel has mourned for a year, and the mountain of mourning crushes us today. We go to work, stop at the corner grocer, meet a friend at the coffee shop, while all day a leaden weariness grinds us down. In the car, we can’t keep our hands off the radio, and, as we have for 365 days, we drown in the recounting of those terrible hours, on Oct. 7, 2023.

In most traumatic events, you experience the trauma and then it is over. You can then turn to the work of processing what happened, healing. But the trauma of October 7 is never-ending. As we process and re-process, live and relive our losses, we have developed a hyper-sensitivity to our own pain, and simultaneously we’ve hardened our hearts to the pain of anyone who is not us. 41,000 dead Gazans, mostly civilians, women, children? Don’t bother me! Innocent citizens of Beirut? Don’t want to hear it! Even the courageous, insistent families of the hostages are vilified by an entire swath of Israeli society.

Over the past few weeks, we pretend to have rediscovered our fighting spirit. Give us a few tactical victories, and we are instantly blinded to the overall picture. We really got them with those pagers! Nasrallah, may he rot in hell, should never have messed with us! Give us a week or two and the 60,000 evacuees from the northern border will be back at home! We pump adrenaline into the illusion that our lean, mean fighting machine can do anything,

And the hostages? 101 people, lost in Hamas’ dungeons, many of them long ago zipped into plastic bags, the living unable to fathom how it is that they are still there. The promise that brought us all here in the first place, the promise that, after 2,000 years of defenselessness in exile, we are finally safe, protected, secure. The promise is shattered, forever. Opportunity after opportunity to return our people home has been squandered by the government we elected. As these spineless lackeys plan our response to Iran’s response to our response to Hezbollah’s response to our response….. While we await the next rain of missiles that will pour down onto us from the east, the north, the south….While our leader touches up his makeup and takes the stage tonight in his pre-recorded sham of a ceremony, we will continue to writhe in the horror of this terrible moment.

As We Fall Into the Abyss, Imagine Peace // October 1, 2024

An hour ago, Frumit and I came up from the neighborhood bomb shelter, after spending three quarters of an hour with folks from the area, their kids running around and laughing. Children in this shelter, these are the ones who will not be killed by bombs falling out of the sky. The privileged children of privileged parents, enjoying safety, an island in a sea of collective suffering. Tel Aviv, Gaza, Beirut, people on all sides fleeing their homes. Well, not on all sides. Here in our quiet neighborhood in Jerusalem, the children are two meters underground, playing in a shelter. Quite unlike life tonight in the tent camps in Rafah, the ruins in Shuja’eeah.

Marauding our way into Lebanon, for the third Lebanon War. Into the abyss. Over the past year, life has become unlivable in the north of Israel. Something had to be done. But what had to be done was in the diplomatic/political realm, not through extending the war in Gaza and embarking on an adventure in Lebanon, whose start we know but whose end is in the fog. When I went to war in Lebanon in 1982, they told us we were going in for three days. Eighteen years later we left. In this current round, there have been signs all over the place, alternative directions. Agreement with Hamas was possible, while Netanyahu undermined any progress in the talks, causing the current moment to seem “inevitable.”

We have waded into the quicksand. We chose the abyss. The dying, the wounding, the orphaning that awaits us…. Are we not willing to pursue a different path? Beyond blame, while embracing responsibility for how this is all going to turn out. A tragic disaster, a regional conflagration, is avoidable. To stop Netanyahu, some courage must be revealed. Maybe one or two of his servile familia will discover their backbone. At the grassroots level, we must finally stand up for a possible future, and enlarge the communities of radical peace-makers, who can lead us forward into a major shift in the current direction of things.

Last night I joined the anti-occupation bloc in downtown Jerusalem to demonstrate against the escalating war. I carried a sign on a bamboo pole that read, on one side, STOP BB’S WAR! And on the other, IT WON’T END UNTIL WE TALK. The border police who were there were relaxed, and we chanted and the photographers got their shots. But then after only 20 minutes, the police must have gotten an instruction to break up the demo. They got very physical and some of us were pushed around. Suddenly a senior officer lunged at my sign, and tried to tear it out of my hands. Instinctively, I pulled back the other way, and we found ourselves in this dance together, while I’m screaming, I HAVE THE RIGHT TO CARRY THIS SIGN! He won the tug of war, and I was left with a naked bamboo pole.

Just imagine if there were peace here. Time and space for healing and nurturing each other. I imagine the young guys who engineered the beeper/walkie-talkie attack in Beirut…. having an awakening and devoting themselves to educational technology or health care service delivery, or solving housing problems. And their colleagues from Ramallah in Palestine would meet with them regularly to share ideas. What great countries we could be. There is, in Israel, what sociologists call an “assumption of relatedness.” Home feels like home, here, especially when times are bad.

May we know better times, in this new year.

Making Honey // September 29, 2024

Ten minutes after my wife and I arrived at our daughter’s apartment in Tel Aviv yesterday, the sirens blared throughout the city. We rushed down to the musty shelter beneath her building, and with 50 other folks, waited the required 15 minutes to enable a successful missile-interception’s debris to fall. This particular missile was sent and guided by people in Yemen, 2,200 kilometers from here. Long-distance hatred.

I am grateful that our armed forces are good at what they do. Yet I am deeply furious at the political “leaders” who have deliberately escalated our precarious situation. This escalation was preventable. Two weeks ago, two months ago, had we sat with Hamas and made a deal, the hostages would be home and Hezbollah would have stopped firing on the Galilee, something Nasrallah promised repeatedly.

Instead, we have a war, a new war on top of the current one, an invasion of Lebanon, with the likelihood that Israel will enter on the ground. Despite the public’s wholehearted campaign for the hostages’ release, the same protesters are enthusiastically backing the government’s “finally bringing the war to Lebanon.” How short is our memory when we smell blood! We forget how, in 2000, we celebrated the end of 18 years in Lebanon.

How was it that Einstein defined madness? Something like….you’re crazy if you keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. We Israelis get crazed over military adventures, when we’re winning. All that pent-up fear and rage comes pouring out. “So what if 300 died along with Nasrallah,” was said to me. We must stop the war, to break this vicious cycle, and to begin healing our damaged souls.

In the Jordan Valley, there is a group of women, in a Palestinian village, there long before the Israeli settlement just 300 meters across the fields to the eight-foot-high barbed-wire fence surrounding the settlement. Tension between the two towns is high, the settlement was built on land that was expropriated from Palestinian families. These women got together and decided to start a beekeeping business. Trouble is, Palestinian villages tend to have sparse vegetation. But the Jewish settlers love to garden, raising a wide variety of flowers, fruits, and vegetables. As strained as relations between the two villages may be, the settlers’ flowers make the Palestinians’ bees very happy.

Nature’s symbiosis, God’s magic, a win/win game. Beyond war, beyond hatred, making honey.

Flying Off The Cliff // September 21, 2024

Like the two-day beeper attack, yesterday’s assassination of a Hamas commander, in the heart of Beirut, was brilliant, militarily, tactically. Strategically, a disaster. The past week drives us right to the brink of all-out war, which is likely to spread farther in the region, to Iran, to others. The deliberate escalation of the past week is in service of political goals, It’s not about security.

We must remember that, just as Netanyahu fears a ceasefire like the plague, he enthusiastically looks forward to escalation leading to a long military campaign. Anything that will distance the day he has to face the gravity of what he has done.

For many of the recent weeks there has been renewed hope that we are about to sign an agreement. Netanyahu is widely documented as proactively undermining any chance of a breakthrough in the talks. It is now clear to a vast majority of us Israelis, that this political predator is relentlessly closing in for the kill, and we, it turns out, are his prey.

The present brinkmanship is not inevitable. Those in power are choosing a direction, and they hold our lives in their hands. In this region, we all understand the implications of open war now … in the neighborhoods of Beirut, in the northern cities of Israel, throughout South Lebanon, possibly in the center of Tel Aviv, people know that we are all in the gunsights of many players in this lethal game, and we are scared shitless.

Tonight’s demonstration, in downtown Jerusalem, to bring the hostages home, may be the last before we all finally step off this eleven-month plateau and together, plunge over the cliff.

Killing, Maiming, and Looking for Trouble // September 17, 2024

This afternoon, nearly 3,000 people were injured and at least nine killed in Lebanon. The attack, widely attributed to Israel, was carried out from afar, by turning the people’s pagers into bombs. The pagers were reportedly carried by Hezbollah operatives. Horrifyingly, Israeli ingenuity will plunge us all into a far deeper escalation than we have seen to date.

Over the past months, life in the north of Israel has become intolerable. Much of public opinion here supports a more aggressive Israeli stance. However, it is important to remember, especially at this moment, that Hezbollah has repeatedly declared that they would stop bombing Israel’s north if a ceasefire was achieved with Hamas. A general ceasefire, bringing an opening to a new chapter. But no, we can’t have that, since a new chapter will include the inevitable settling of accounts with those responsible for this eleven month disaster, and Netanyahu tops the list.

Netanyahu and his government have repeatedly evaded reaching agreement with Hamas, using every excuse to undermine a deal that would have brought the hostages home and enabled at least a temporary ceasefire in the south.

There is general consensus in Israel that Netanyahu fears a ceasefire like cholera. His exhortations about “total victory” have come to be understood as a hollow and transparent deception, designed to keep us at war. And now, just as the dust settled over the last Israel-instigated precipice, the double assassinations six weeks ago, Netanyahu has apparently chosen to initiate an action that will almost certainly lead to a serious escalation.

We may have an enemy in Hezbollah, but the most dangerous enemy is in charge of our country. We must act to remove him from office.

Time to Listen // September 9, 2024

I’m happy that I am no longer an American, haven’t been for fifty years. A culture that can produce a “leader” like Donald Trump is deeply sick. If this disgusting human being lived next door, I’d move. But…President? Who are the folks for whom he speaks? How lost are they, that Trump does it for them? Since my immigration in 1973, I haven’t voted in an American election, until Trump. Then, as a citizen of the world, I used my vote to defeat him.

Forget politics. Trump’s approach to women has earned him his place in Hell.

But me? I jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Israel, my chosen home, land of the eternal warriors, has produced a pervasive hard-heartedness that did not have to happen, had we chosen other paths.

Peacemaking is intimate work. War-making is something else. To make peace, people have to talk with each other. This makes them more vulnerable than if they had chosen to fight. Vulnerability, the painful awareness of how much we all will lose if the situation escalates. To be driven into a volcano when we should have been in some meadow, having a picnic with our newly discovered Palestinian neighbors. The kids would be flying a kite, as we barbeque zucchini alongside the kebab.

I envy the Northern Irish, 26 years after the killing ended, now deep into creating a new reality to pass on to the next generation. Growing trust, shrinking hatred.

You make peace with enemies. We Israelis and Palestinians have to talk. And to listen, deeply. To express the anger and suspicion, then to go forward to the place where new track is laid. Just some people, drinking coffee and talking. Around the negotiation table is where this will end, so the future can begin.

It's Not A House, It's A Home // September 7, 2024

When a gambler is losing and his pockets and checking account are empty, he may offer to put up his house as collateral. After months of denial, most Israelis understand that Binyamin Netanyahu does not intend to reach an agreement that will bring our people home and stop the war. Netanyahu knows with certainty that when this war ends, he will be forced to face the music. His government may fall, or the date for early elections will be set. His three corruption trials will be renewed.

And yet, at the present moment Bibi is still in the game. He may be responsible for the 1,200 victims of Oct 7, for the kidnapping of 250 Israelis, and the deaths of 700 Israeli soldiers, not to speak of 40,000 Gazans, mostly civilians. But he is still in the game. After last week’s murder in captivity of six young hostages, the public is finally awakening to the truth that he is putting up his house as collateral. But it’s not his house. He is only a prime minister, desperately scrambling to keep his government from collapsing. It’s not his house that he’s gambling with, it’s our home.

A broad swath of Israelis understand that this home is in peril, and the prevailing mood is dismal. Since Oct 7, thousands of Israelis who can afford to leave have done so. Now that their kids have flown the nest, a couple we know is purchasing property in Italy. Hundreds of gifted doctors on fellowships abroad have accepted lucrative offers to remain. Investors are backing away from Israel, major credit agencies are downgrading us. When we meet friends at the weekly demonstrations, after the hugs we no longer ask, “How’re you doing?” as we know how grim the answer will be.

In order to keep going, gamblers need enablers. The United States government is blindly playing this role. Like impotent, disappointed parents, the Americans moan and complain about the gambler’s irresponsibility, but they continue to insist on backing him, swallowing his spin. Joe Biden refuses to set a limit, a limit with teeth, although he seems to be gradually awakening to whom he is dealing with. In 2001, during a visit to cozy up to settlers in the West Bank, Netanyahu was unaware that he was being recorded, as he boldly declared, “"I know what America is, America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in the way."

If our desperate gambler is to be stopped, our demonstrations will not provide the turning point. To continue a war, one must have armaments. What is stopping Joe Biden from curtailing the delivery of at least some of the arms he keeps sending? He doesn’t need to go overboard, just to cancel shipment, say, of the one-ton bombs that destroy whole neighborhoods and have nothing to do with defense? A limited move, to communicate clearly, “Here’s the limit, Bibi. Get yourself to the negotiation table and close a deal, or we will up the ante.” Until then, we will be in the streets outside the casino, screaming our rage.

It’s time to leave Las Vegas, Bibi. The game is over, no chips to cash in. We will no longer allow you to gamble with our home.

Linking October 7 and The Occupation // September 3, 2024

This is a tumultuous week here in Israel. Public rage has burst forth, over Saturday’s discovery of Hamas’ execution of six young hostages. At Sunday’s demo, people walked about openly weeping and screaming our protest at the government’s intransigence and repeated undermining of any progress in the negotiations.

Last night, prior to the main demonstration at the prime minister’s residence, the bloc of anti-war, anti-occupation activists held a separate demonstration in downtown Jerusalem. We continue to stick together at the big demonstrations where citizens of every ideological stream join in demanding that Netanyahu enable an agreement. It is important to us leftists that our distinct message be heard….that the general disaster is tied inextricably to 57 years of occupation. That lasting peace will have to be based on ending the occupation and creating a path to a just resolution of the conflict.

Fifteen minutes into our gathering, the police suddenly launched an attack on the demonstrators. Though gatherings of under 50 people do not require a permit, the police were extremely aggressive, tearing signs out of our hands, pushing and kicking demonstrators, driving us out of the square where we had in no way hampered pedestrians or traffic. There were some arrests, and we were forced to disperse, messaging each other that we would meet up again at the main demo. 

It is complex, positioning ourselves in alignment with the general unrest, while giving voice to our understanding that the horror of October 7 was the result of years of Israel’s “managing the conflict,” a strategy doomed to fail. Somehow, down the road, we will have to find a way to address the popular resistance to Netanyahu’s domination such that increasing numbers of Israelis will see that making our way to mutually-respectful cooperation between Israel and Palestine is the only path to putting an end to this endless conflict. Already, there are signs that some Israelis are making the connection.

We’ll go out again tonight, to express our rage, to move past our helplessness, and to deliver the message…END THIS WAR! REACH AN AGREEMENT TO BRING THE HOSTAGES HOME! END THE OCCUPATION!!!

The Second Nakba // August 21, 2024

I used to envy the “vattikim,” the old-timers, on my kibbutz, Kfar Hanassi in the Galilee. British working-class Jews, they built their home in 1948, schlepping boulders out of the arable fields they created. They came to join this country, to be part of building a new future for the Jewish people. I was a member of the kibbutz for 15 years, and I admired the earthy, decent men and women of the community, determined to rebirth our people, after the devastation of the Holocaust.

And yet, the Jewish miracle came at the expense of the people who already lived here when we arrived. As Paul Simon reminds us, one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor. The very creation of new Jewish communities, vigorously self-sufficient and inspiring, is inseparable from the force of arms, and the conquest of Palestine. 700,000 Palestinians fled our wrath in ’48, and now, 76 years later, we are again responsible for a Palestinian catastrophe.

The catastrophe of the past 10 months has become the second Nakba. Some 6,500 Palestinians and Arab soldiers lost their lives in the ’48 Independence War. During the past ten months, Israel has killed more than six times that number. Nearly two million Gazans are homeless. Disease rages across Gaza, hospitals demolished, 7 universities trashed.

And where are we, the privileged, in the face of this horror show? In my kitchen there’s a spout out of which flows cool, filtered water. I take this for granted. I take for granted that I don’t have a four year old who I send to hold a battered bottle to a filthy spigot on the street, where the very water she waits for, in a wild pushing-match with other desperate children, that water is going to make her sick.

I am not more deserving of clean water than is she.

It’s sheer luck, the cards the dealer throws us. In this particular game, there cannot be winners if there are losers. In this game, no one wins until everyone wins. And abuse breeds abuse. The horror of life in Gaza is the greatest recruiting engine for tomorrow’s Hamas fighters. Why is that difficult to understand? This vicious circle is truly vicious.

The killing must end, the future must begin.

Our prime minister must be stopped. We citizens, whose fate is in his hands, have been unable to stop him. The Americans hold the key. They must finally be willing to say, “No more bombs until you achieve ceasefire. We’ve got your back, but we will not support further aggression against the people of Gaza.” It’s that simple. Biden and Kamala will be applauded in the States, when they deliver that message. Tough love. “If Iran attacks you, we’re here. Now get moving toward building your way out of this. We will not support belligerence.”

Or perhaps the frustrated Israeli envoys to the negotiations, the chiefs of the Secret Service and Mosad, will put their resignations on Netanyahu’s desk and say, “You have undermined us and we will not represent you any longer.” Whatever bold act of leadership it takes.

We cannot undo the second Nakba, any more than we can undo the first. On Oct. 7, Israelis were cracked open, we were forced to acknowledge our vulnerability. The way we did that was with vengeful rage. But now, the terrible damage is done. Let’s end this war. Enough.

Everyone, all 7 million Jews and all 7 million Arabs living between the river and the sea, everyone deserves a future. We were put here on the earth to love, to sing, to dance, to toil, to rest in a grove of trees, enjoying a cool evening breeze.

Devastation or Hope? Time to Choose // August 13, 2024

This evening, the stage is set for a major conflagration that will encompass the entire Middle-East. The IDF is poised not only to defend Israel against a massive attack on several fronts, but also to counter-attack with unprecedented force. The U.S. has deployed to the area two aircraft carriers and a nuclear submarine armed with guided missiles.

For two weeks, Israelis have been living like the residents of an Alpine village, going about our daily business while an imminent avalanche hovers above, awaiting the catalyst that will send devastating mountains of snow down upon us. Those of us who are not the families of hostages or fallen soldiers, and who are not among the tens of thousands banished from their homes in the Gaza area or on the northern border…..we go to work, send our kids out to play, fly off to vacations, while clinging to news bulletins or radios on the hour, dreading news that the attack is on the way, or worse, awakening in the middle of the night to the scream of air raid sirens, clutching flashlights and water bottles as we scurry to our shelters.

Meanwhile, on the world stage, our hopeless government blithely greases Israel’s slide into pariah status. In July, the International Court of Justice found Israel responsible for apartheid. On Monday, the Fitch agency announced that it has lowered Israel’s credit rating, the third rating company to downgrade the Israeli government since the start of the war. The American Association of University Professors reversed its policy opposing academic boycotts, joining several other academic associations that have already taken that stance.

If Donald Trump is to be defeated in November, a major Middle-East escalation is the last thing the Biden government and Kamala Harris need. Desperately seeking to avoid a disastrous outbreak of regional war, the United States is insisting on a take-it-or-leave-it meeting with all players, to be held on Thursday. And here, hopefully, is the good news. If Thursday’s confab brings about a reversal of the present deadly momentum, an immediate cease-fire and accelerated negotiations for release of all hostages and a large number of Palestinian prisoners, we will all begin to breathe again. A possible path to a viable future could materialize before the weary eyes of everyone in this area.

If Thursday brings an agreement, Hezbollah and Iran can take credit for having forced our hand and could table their attack plans. The 93 dead from Israel’s Saturday bombing of a school could become the last victims of this brutal war. A million helpless, homeless Gazan civilians could sleep through the night in their tents. The terrified fleeing residents of Beirut could return to their homes, as could the residents of Israel’s border communities. The enormous task of rebuilding could begin in the Israeli towns and kibbutzim surrounding Gaza, and the world community could begin to plan the decade-long cooperative rebuilding of Gaza. West Bank Palestinians, out of work since September, could begin returning to their jobs.

As a fragile hiatus becomes the new reality, as we are collectively freed from the terror of physical harm, battalions of trauma specialists will fan out across the region, conducting the training of thousands of non-professionals in the art of healing the psychological wounds so many of us are enduring. As Pete Seeger sang, we will all join hands and bow our heads, as grateful prayers are said.

Devastation or healing, war or peace, endless misery or renewed hope… the choice is before us.

Achvat Amim/Solidarity of Nations: Appeal to Friends // August 13, 2024

Dear friends and family,

I am writing to request that you support the work of Achvat Amim/Solidarity of Nations, where since February I am serving as Executive Director. Active in the struggle against the occupation since 1978, I’ve worked professionally for the peace movement for the past twelve years. At the Bereaved Families Forum and earlier, when I led the Sulha Peace Project, many of you responded generously to my appeals for support. Achvat Amim is my professional activist swan song. Now 77, I plan to work here until I pass the baton forward. I turn to you at a critical moment in Israel/Palestine, to ask that you offer your support for this wonderful organization.

For ten years Achvat Amim has brought hundreds of young people from the States and from Europe to engage in a rich, challenging program in which their week is divided between three days’ interning at Israeli/Palestinian human rights organizations, and two days learning a deep curriculum focused on the struggle for self-determination for all. During their four-month intensive program, participants live communally as an expression of the solidarity that is at the heart of Achvat Amim.

At this moment, Israel is in the control of the worst government in our history. As we await the avoidable escalation with Hezbollah and Iran, we are sowing death and destruction in Gaza, tens of thousands of Israelis are unable to return to their homes, soldiers die daily in a war that has no aim. In the midst of this crisis, many young people abroad are seeking deeper understanding and a way to voice their opposition to the forces of racism, occupation and oppression in Israel. Achvat Amim offers these folks a platform, a way to dig deep into the Israeli/Palestinian reality, and to have a visible impact on the course of events.

The recently completed Achvat Summer Cohort travelled weekly to the South Hebron hills in 100 degree heat, braving confrontations with settlers and soldiers to work alongside villagers in rebuilding the gardens and fields that have been repeatedly vandalized by marauding settlers. On learning days, Achvat participants hear from leading anti-occupation experts, witnessing the courtroom where arrested Palestinian youths face military judges who send 90% of them to prison. They study human-rights-related Judaism with scholars, learn elementary Arabic and Hebrew, and many participate in demonstrations demanding the return of the hostages and an end to occupation. Following the program, alumni return to their homes where most of them join with student and civil society organizations, actively pursuing the ongoing expression of the values they deepened here at Achvat.

While many peace organizations are limping through the uncertainties of these times, Achvat Amim is pressing forward, conducting two cohorts since Oct. 7 and now gearing up to receive our Fall Cohort. We seek to attract greater numbers of young people and to make scholarships available to those for whom the tuition is high.

We are supported by several foundations and by our alumni and committed friends abroad. We ask that you join the community of folks who see Achvat Amim as a beacon of hope, in the midst of the present morass. Please assist us, with a donation of whatever size is right for you. You can visit our website. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Tax-deductible donations can be made through the New Israel Fund at this link.

I appreciate your considering helping us out. It means much to me and to my colleagues at Achvat and the future participants who will gain profoundly from your generosity.

Will We See the New Moon? // August 2, 2024

Living in limbo. The tension here in Israel is palpable. We can almost hear the Hezbollah fork-lifts in Beirut moving their HQ and missiles closer to residential areas, as the next dreadful round of hostilities approaches. For us, awaiting the April 13 barrage of 300 missiles was easier. At least we knew what we were waiting for. This time, the sun is shining, I’m watering the garden, tonight we’ll take our daughter out for her birthday in Tel Aviv, and we have no idea if all hell is going to break loose in the middle of desert.

Our government, which months ago lost the trust of most Israelis, is eagerly awaiting this next opportunity not to close the deal for a ceasefire in Gaza and release of the hostages. Escalation now will push negotiations off the table, thus rescuing Netanyahu from an agreement that would have meant the day of reckoning with his government would be imminent. The Teheran assassination is playing with fire. Regardless of whether killing Ismail Haniyeh was justified, humiliating Iran in the heart of their capital will surely bring their wrath. But this time, the world is generally much angrier at Israel, and we cannot necessarily count on the allies who helped us fend off the attack in April.

So it’s a grim evening, during a time that was already grim, and all we can do is to show up at tomorrow’s demonstration to cry out against this vile, unnecessarily extended war. To hug each other, and to hope that when the new moon appears next week, we will be able to be thankful that only moonlight fell upon us.

Shattered Lives // July 27, 2024

At the age of one year and eight months, Aviva, the daughter of my dear niece, has died in Mexico City. Utterly sudden, her little body simply failed her. Just two weeks ago we received a clip of Aviva, a bundle of joy, laughing with her little sister as they played together. We are heartbroken, devastated.

I share this sad news the morning after eleven Druze children, playing soccer in their village, were killed by a Hezbollah missile. Also yesterday, in this endless, multi-front war, Israeli planes attacked Gaza yet again. In the school we hit, fifteen children and eight women were among the 53 people who died. When “casualties” are numbers, it is difficult for us to grasp the agony of the victims’ families. But on a day when my own family is reeling from the loss of precious little Aviva, I confront the deaths of hundreds of Israeli civilians and soldiers, and more than 40,000 deaths in Gaza, with renewed horror. There is no essential difference between our loss and pain and that of the families in the Golan, in Lebanon, in Gaza. Shattered lives are shattered lives.

I am appalled that in Israel, even among the good-hearted folks at last night’s demonstration for the hostages, we pay no attention to the loss of life in Gaza. The rationalizations are lame….”What do you expect? We are still traumatized over our own losses, all the Gazans support Hamas, we are fighting for the survival of our country….” No, no explanation justifies our stubborn unwillingness to feel for ALL victims of this conflict. The Gazan sister and brother pictured here....they are OUR children.

What makes it unbearable is that continuing this war is now transparently pointless. We are disgusted at the prime minister’s performance in Washington last week, as he cynically used hostages and soldiers in his narcissistic little show, revealing his commitment only to prolonging this war, ruthlessly pursuing his personal agenda, grinning through his makeup. Even the Israeli negotiators are reportedly furious about Netanyahu’s consistent undermining of their efforts.

Hezbollah has repeatedly declared that a ceasefire in Gaza will bring an immediate cessation of hostilities in the north. I tremble to imagine how Netanyahu will leverage the attack on the Druze children to escalate on the Lebanese border. Escalation will serve him well, pushing aside the calls for his ouster, for immediate elections. I think of the children and their families, the devastation in Gaza and in our graveyards, the fallen Israeli soldiers’ parents throwing themselves onto their sons’ coffins. I cannot see how we can allow the government to avoid pushing through to the agreement that will begin to lead us out of this nightmare.

26 years after they laid down their arms, the Northern Irish are deep into the work of healing and reconciliation. Catholic and Protestant children are playing football together, neighborhoods in Belfast are integrating. We too must begin to rebuild, to reach across the abyss to our enemies, to launch the healing that can begin only when we are, ALL of us, safe and secure. We must end this war.

The Galilee is Burning! // July 4, 2024

200 rockets and 20 explosive drones soared into the Upper Galilee today. Much damage, Israel’s most beautiful region is burning in a dozen forest fires. A soldier died in the barrage. We fired back. Yesterday we killed a senior Hezbollah man. They are reacting. We are reacting to their reaction, etc.

A grim resignation has settled over many Israelis, convinced that full scale war with Hezbollah is a question of when, not if. Like cattle driven through the chutes to the slaughterhouse. In Israel, being right is almost as good as being happy, sometimes even better. Those resigned to this next war will get to be right. The refrain will be: “You see??? Hezbollah is just another in a long history of evil people who want us Jews dead. Only force, only the IDF will save us.” Unwilling, unable to see any other possibility. Worn down after 9 months of confronting the ongoing trauma of Oct. 7, we are in the grip of what seems like an inevitable further disaster.

Does it really have to get worse before it can get better? 675 soldiers are dead since Oct., 321 of them in combat since we entered Gaza. Some 38,000 Gazan people are dead. Several thousand bodies remain beneath the ruins. The ruins. Must there be more ruins? Have we all not had enough? To the government’s chagrin, even the army leadership is pressing for an agreement that will include a ceasefire. The government is furious at the army, where people who understand warfare know that further warfare is not the answer. Our munition supply is depleted. Hezbollah can send a missile through my bathroom window. They have 150,000 of those.

We meet friends, at demonstrations and we ask, “How’re you doing?” Utter helplessness is the common denominator. We are sailors on the deck of the Caine, talking mutiny. In the wheelhouse, the captain has already gone round the bend. We’ve delivered ourselves into the hands of someone who has lost touch with anything beyond himself. We are helpless to do anything. We demonstrate because we must. But the ship plunges on, into yet another storm, and this might be the one to sink us. 

It is widely agreed that a ceasefire with Hamas will quickly bring a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The call of the hour is…. Immediate ceasefire, quick negotiations for release of hostages and Palestinian prisoners, and active pursuit of a lasting end to hostilities, with international support. That will be the endgame. The only question is how many more people need to die before we choose the only possible road to lasting peace.

Tough Moment // June 30, 2024

Here I am at last night’s demonstration. It’s that simple….STOP THE KILLING! Not easy, but simple. First, ceasefire. No one can talk while firing and being fired upon.

Next, TALK!!!! Do the dirty work of finding an agreement that both sides can live with, for the short term. With the ceasefire, Hezbollah will relent, devastating war in the north will be prevented, the hostages will all come home and hundreds of Palestinians prisoners will be released. This is the price we must pay for our failure.

The alternative, the cost of continued intransigence will be very, very high. Time for a breakthrough.

The Moment of Truth Has Arrived // June 22, 2024

Yesterday evening, a quiet dinner with friends, and today, a relaxing Shabbat at home, planting some flowers, watering the garden. But then at odd moments, I am slammed back to the foreboding, dark sense that we are the woman in the barrel floating toward Niagra Falls. It could be a matter of days, a week perhaps, and then will come the order to open an all-out war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. We will look back on this Shabbat with longing, as Israel plunges over the edge, into the most devastating conflict in our history.

War with Hezbollah will make the war in Gaza look like a walk in the park. In Gaza, we are 95% in control. We decide when to send the planes and drones, which units to dispatch, what humanitarian aid can enter, when we pause to rest. Facing Hezbollah, all hell will break loose here. Hezbollah has been toying with us on the northern border until now. Their 200,000 sophisticated missiles are in another league from the makeshift little rockets Hamas sends us with decreasing frequency. They will choose their targets, will hit the electric power stations, the oil refinery, the Dimona reactor, the hospitals, Dizengoff Street in the heart of Tel Aviv. There will be enormous loss of life, it will not be the routine of 10 minutes in the shelter and then on with our lives. It will be bedlam.

The exhausted reservists will all be called up again, after eight months of repeated call-ups, after burying hundreds of their friends. Relations with our greatest friend, the United States, are at a nadir, as last week our crime minister allowed himself to attack President Biden, who has sent us seven billion dollars worth of armaments for the pointless war in Gaza. Our “government” offers no horizon, no goal, no respite. The unimaginable sorrow of parents of the fallen soldiers, who bravely, blindly soldier on, with no direction forward, and no direction home.

When the catastrophe of war with Hezbollah erupts, and we plunge over the falls into the horror of war with this enemy, many Israelis who can easily find jobs abroad will shutter their homes and flee. Hundreds of thousands of people will grab their children and their savings and will disappear, leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves. Having alienated most of the world, Israel as we have known it will be no more.

Unless….unless, at this, the eleventh hour, there is a shift. It will not come from us. While again tonight we will demonstrate downtown, because we cannot stay home, salvation will only come from our friends abroad. If Joe Biden can finally find the backbone required to say, “You have reached our red line. America will no longer fund your folly. We are here for you, but only if you wake up, get yourselves to negotiations, take my proposal and sit down with your enemy and quickly set forth on the path that will take you towards even a temporary peace. Declare an immediate ceasefire, bring home the hostages, release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, engage with the Arab world to move toward installing a peace-keeping force in Gaza, and join an international force to address the devastation you have wrought there.” Aside from rescuing Israel from itself, this might just be the move that will assure Biden’s re-election.

By now, it is clear that Netanyahu will not change course until he is forced to. We must declare a date for elections. 75% of Israelis do not want him any more. There are no gifted politicians, no miracle-workers waiting in the wings. But ANY responsible leadership is preferable to the current collection of clowns who spend their days jockeying for power and publicity, all trembling in fear of Netanyahu’s wrath if they misstep.

After October 7 and the ensuing disaster of the past eight months, we thought things could get no worse. Today it is clear that we have lived in a fool’s paradise. The moment of truth has arrived.

Firing the Last Shot // June 3, 2024

Following my recent stay in Belfast, I returned to Jerusalem with renewed hope in my heart. The Northern Irelanders are a gracious, un-intrusive people with a great zest for life. One thing you can say about Northern Ireland that you cannot say about Israel is that they are deep into a committed peace process. They have all but stopped killing each other, and they are addressing the impact of years of wounds that folks suffered. The young don’t know “The Troubles,” the 30 year period of tumult and violence, when 3,500 people were killed. A generation has already come of age, with only the echoes of the Troubles in their parents’ tales.

Generating hope in Jerusalem is a tall order at this time. I open the daily newspaper, each day awaiting a surprise, a sign that there is light at the end of this tunnel, and each day my hopes are shattered on the rocks of reality. Last week, the government’s National Security Advisor predicted that this eight month war would continue for at least another seven months, while no one in the government offers a glimmer of a plan for what will be after the last shot is fired. We begin each day with two or three young men’s pictures adorning the front page, the newest army casualties. Each day, the desperate families of the 125 hostages held in Gaza are demonstrating at army headquarters or outside the Knesset. One cannot turn on the radio without hearing the tearful voice of a brother or mother of a hostage or fallen soldier, speaking of their son or husband with craven love and longing. While supporting last week’s Pride Parade in Jerusalem, I connected with friends, with the question “How are you doing?” simply superfluous. How are we doing? We are all doing the same…..we are helpless, hopeless, and deeply skeptical of the likelihood of a breakthrough.

And now President Biden is saying to both us and to Hamas, “Put up or shut up.” This is the critical moment, Biden has brought things to a head. Hamas will likely give a green light. And Netanyahu will either choose to advance the Biden plan, or he will choose to maintain the horrid government he heads, plunging all of Israel over the falls into what can only be catastrophe. Unbelievably, our fate is in his hands.  

Given the pace of life here in Jerusalem, it seems like forever, but only a week ago, I was still savoring my brief respite in Belfast, sharing a quiet breakfast with Peter, my host, and his lovely wife in a quiet residential neighborhood. I had told Peter that I was eager to meet activists who had endured “The Troubles” and had come out the other end. Peter graciously arranged a series of meetings with some of the sharpest, sweetest, most engaged people I have met in a long time. The team at the Community Sports Network are young, devoted professionals who use sport to connect people and to foster their development, bridging the Catholic/Protestant divide to create unity and cooperation. They’re active around the country and also work with released prisoners. Last year they developed 150 programs and reached 5,000 people.

It has been 26 years since the historic Good Friday Agreement was signed. Protestant terrorists sat with Catholic terrorists and struggled for months, enduring ultimatums, walk-outs, even the slaying of proponents by splinter groups, and they came up with an agreement they could live with. They have no illusions. The process of breaking down stereotypes and healing old wounds is ongoing. None of my Northern Irish colleagues spoke of the end of hostilities, rather shared that this process will take years. That there even can be such a process is only possible because today Catholics and Protestants can walk through each other’s  neighborhoods without fear. When I asked people how they had achieved what they have, one guy said, “We just got fed up with killing and being killed.”

What’s wrong with us Israelis? Are we not fed up yet? Are we not as smart as the Northern Irish? Are we any less capable of overcoming the urge for revenge, as they did? Why are there not hundreds of thousands of Israelis in the streets? When, when will we Israelis and Palestinians set out together on the blessed path of peace? There’s so much work ahead of us, after we fire the last shot.

Dromantine Retreat and Conference Center, Northern Ireland

All God's Children // April 13, 2024

Israel’s prime minister is determined to remain in office at any price. Our recent assassination of Iranian General Hassan Mahadawi in the heart of Damascus and the targeted killing of three of Ismail Haniyeh’s sons in Gaza, timed at the height of sensitive negotiations for the release of our hostages, are clear indicators of the Netanyahu government’s intention to avert any agreement or ceasefire in the near future. Aware that an agreement and ceasefire will drive him closer to losing his seat, Bibi is playing “chicken,” playing for time. Beyond 133 hostages languishing in Hamas tunnels, our entire nation is held hostage by a man whose only concern is for himself.

If it were not enough that the war has claimed 33,000 Palestinian lives, that more than 600 Israeli soldiers have died, that Hezbollah freely fires missiles into our northern towns, that hundreds of thousands of Israelis have lived for six months far from their homes, and that Israel has become a detested pariah state throughout the world….if this disastrous situation were not enough, this weekend we Israelis are cowering at home, awaiting Iran’s revenge for the Damascus killing. Israeli citizens are collectively helpless to influence our leader. Our endless demonstrations are water off this duck’s back. He hears but does not listen.

Settlers and the army continue to unleash violence with abandon against West Bank Palestinians. The streets of Jerusalem are unsafe for East Jerusalem residents heading to work. A Bedouin friend is taunted and threatened as she walks through the Beersheva bus station. A horrifying lack of empathy for the plight of Palestinians prevails among most Israelis. Few people will tolerate mention of the human catastrophe in Gaza without firing back a retort: “You’ve forgotten what they did to us on Oct. 7!” October 7, when the truly terrible Israeli toll of 1,200 amounts to 3.5% of the number of Palestinians we have since killed.

Inequity blares at us from every headline and radio news report. But somehow, we push off awareness of the multi-faceted lack of justice, much as Netanyahu pushes off our protests. Israelis go to work, to school, to the university, living familiar routines. Those of us who don’t have a child in the army or a hostage in Gaza, we continue as though we can just carry on like this. On Shabbat, we hike through verdant hills of late spring, we picnic, eat more than we need, and in the evening watch a TV series and laugh together, munching pistachios.

A grim time, a moment when one asks whether the little we do to seek impact on events is in any way meaningful. A time when hope escapes us, when we no longer even give chase. How can we celebrate freedom at the Passover table next week? How will we fulfill the commandment to remember Jewish victimhood at Pharoh’s hands, when we ourselves have become Pharoh? How will we joyously applaud the Israelites’ escape from slavery, when we ourselves have become heartless jailers and persecutors?

In one small corner of the Passover story, God offers us a hint about this present moment. The Midrash recounts that, as the Red Sea closed on Pharoh’s army, drowning them to a man, the angels sing in triumph, until God intervened, chastising them for celebrating the suffering of the Egyptian soldiers. “My creations are drowning and you are singing before me?”

May we use this Passover to dwell in that moment, may we face the present in a way that births a livable future, for all.

Antonio Tempesta, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Woolworth's in Jerusalem // March 22, 2024

When something happens three times, it’s a sign. In my case, it was an actual sign that catalyzed all three times. Three consecutive weeks, here in Jerusalem, a placard, a sign, was torn from my hands, once by uniformed police, once by a plainclothesman, and today by a hulking religious bully with his son and a gaggle of ten year old boys around him, urging him on.

My placard today read “Humanitarian Aid Now.” Torn from my hands.

Our efforts are meager, people are starving two hours drive from here, and our cry in Paris Square is heard by few. We can’t not demonstrate. We need to gather round the drumming circle and chant together our truth. And once we choose to come out to a public square and express our stand, in this democracy we live in, we have the right to hold whatever sign we choose, provided it is not inciting to violence.

My awareness of life was born when I was around 16, just as the civil rights movement gathered steam. In 1960, black people sat on the stools at the formica counter at North Carolina Woolworth’s, demanding their right to be served a cup of coffee.

In wartime Jerusalem, the city where peace will ultimately be attained, we have the right to hold a sign.

END THIS WAR! // March 1, 2024

At today’s demonstration in downtown Jerusalem, I wore a shirt that says “Impeachment Now,” and carried the sign you see here, on the other side of which was printed in Hebrew, “Negotiated Agreement Now!” Aside from some raised middle fingers from the passers-by, and a taxi driver’s pithy insult for my late mother, the demo was solid, some 200 of us, with a small contingent of police off to the side, watching over things. However, five minutes before the permit was to expire, an officer announced that our gathering was illegal and if we did not clear out in 2 minutes, we would be removed by force. He was true to his word. The policemen got nasty, and began pushing people around. Some of the pushing was so forceful that people fell to the pavement, where the police continued to go at them violently.

I suddenly found myself confronted by four burly cops who demanded I relinquish my sign. I refused, and an ugly tug of war began, which they won. As they smashed the bamboo stick and shred the placards, I watched them demolish free speech, shouting my protest all the time. Violence-lite, for us privileged Jerusalemites. And I have more bamboo and placards here at the house, which I’ll prepare for tomorrow night’s demo. But their extreme aggression, when we were already packing up, was disturbing, so unnecessary. It was apparent that they had instructions to provoke us, as we saw during last week’s unprecedented use of water cannons, horsewhips and batons, at the Tel Aviv demo. Their boss, Ben Gvir, believes that we will eventually relent.

The good news is that increasing numbers of Israelis are coming out of the closet labelled “don’t protest the government during an ongoing war.” Also, things feel different since yesterday’s trampling death of 100 and injuring of 700 Gazans as they desperately sought to pull bags of flour off the supply trucks. The horror drove home to us that these responses to the unbearable conditions in Gaza are likely to increase, especially if the assault on Hamas in Rafah begins in earnest. Rafah, where one and a half million refugees are sheltering. The nightly assurances of the IDF spokesman that we are on the verge of breaking the Hamas’ ability to resist grow hollower each time we hear them. The families of the hostages and the 200,000 relocated residents of the northern and southern border communities are finally awakening to the government’s intentions, which do not include ending this war.

I am concerned that many of the Israelis calling for an agreement to return the hostages do not acknowledge that the negotiations will inevitably lead to the release of thousands of Palestinian fighters. When forced to see this, will they remain stalwart? We have been so conditioned to view such a mass prisoner-release as a security disaster that people may waver. Despite the 1,400 victims of the October massacre and the nearly 500 soldiers who have died, many Israelis do not see that we have yet to pay the full price for our devastating security errors.

The daily deaths of soldiers seem somehow to be accepted as the unavoidable loss of life that any war brings. The military funerals are terrible, but as they eulogize their fallen 22 year old sons and daughters, the parents are not raising their voices against the government that sends their children to die while offering no feasible plan for both ending the war and following through with a way to lead us out of the morass, for the long term. It’s a kind of Israeli fatalism, a grim resignation to carrying on as we are, rooted in many Israelis’ bone-deep belief that the Arabs, and the world, will always detest and pursue us.

Is there a way through? Even we optimists are struggling to see light at the end of the tunnel, and we fear that the little light we do see is actually an oncoming train. On my way home from today’s demo, I stopped off at Mt. Herzl, where the graves of 67 Jerusalem-born soldiers, killed in action since Oct. 7, are covered in pictures, memorabilia, and even balloons adorning the tomb of a soldier who did not reach his 21st birthday. The graveyard is beautiful, the pines whisper overhead, the heart breaks.

This is not inevitable, a people abandoned and neglected by its government must not allow this to go on. The only path that offers hope is an immediate end to the fighting, opening of negotiations, returning the hostages and releasing Palestinian prisoners. Unless we make this choice, we will continue to spill the blood of both peoples, in vain.

A Slippery Slope // February 28, 2024

Author's Note: I posted this in 2019. I think it’s more relevant than ever.

It's a slippery slope when people become so hardened that they lose their empathic capacity. They have also lost their inner empathy….they lose track of what is happening to them, in addition to distancing from the feelings of others. Toward the end of her life, the novelist Anais Nin explained why she had stopped reading the newspaper. "Either I am shattered, or I become hardened. I can't allow myself to do either."

We Israelis have allowed ourselves to become hard. Next time you get so furious with someone that you imagine hurting them, check to see how you feel about yourself in those moments. A 19 year old soldier who evades rocks thrown in the casbah of Nablus, day after day, who arrests 11 year old boys in the middle of the night, terrifying the family and dragging the weeping child into a jeep…. What becomes of this soldier's soul? Now picture him doing what he does for 52 years, and multiply him by tens of thousands. The guys who obeyed Rabin's order and broke the arms and legs of captured Palestinians during the first Intifada (uprising) in '87, those guys are now in their 50's. The young officers from the '80's are likely now in management. The occupation is deep in our bones, in our blood. Like the strongest West Bank settlement, the identity of Israeli-as-oppressor is here to stay.

Unless we take the country back, so that we can begin the healing. The talking, the listening, the face-to-face meetings, the willingness to confront the price we all pay for our dominance. If we can head back toward justice, and make our way through the shame and regret, reaching for the lost innocence and inclusiveness that once were central to Israel's way.

If we can regain the best about being Jewish, if we can advance beyond our history and lay fresh track, nothing will stop our breaking free, together. The imperative is to leverage the coming election for a breakthrough. However, the day after whatever are the results, that is when our struggle for Israel's soul will shift into high gear. Myriad initiatives will burst forth, and a new wave of hope will sweep the cities of Israel and Palestine.

Last week, the Sulha Peace Project brought 60 Palestinians and Israelis together, to engage each other around issues of parenting. In small circles, people spoke of their parents, and of their children. The listening was impeccable. We danced toward the end, to celebrate this fleeting moment. As the evening ended, we announced the opening of registration for a bi-national group of Jerusalem parents who want to study parenting in a safe setting. The macro, the micro. One step at a time, breaking free, together.

The Eleventh Hour // February 14, 2024

In the Yiddish tradition, a schlemiel is someone who repeatedly spills wine onto the shirt of the shlemazel, who wipes off his shirt and forgives the schlemiel. The shlemazel is an enabler. Netanyahu betrayed us before, on, and after October 7. If we allow him to lose the hostages, we are the shlemazal.

Our Israeli morning routine, these days, includes absorbing the news and pictures of young fallen soldiers. We are in danger of getting used to it. The despair of the families of hostages rings across the land, but we are helpless confronting our government, hiding out in their fortress with no strategy other than to delay.

The Palestinian lives we control now, in Gaza, are unbearable. If, for one moment, one can consider the deeds of the IDF separate from the horror of October 7, it is overwhelming to think of the suffering we have caused for so many innocent Palestinians there, who, like us, just want to return to the lives they knew. Meanwhile we Israelis have given our sons and daughters to the risks and price of violence, violence that is not inevitable. Funeral after funeral, as we pay in blood for allowing our “leaders” to make us all their victims.

We are at the 11th hour. If the hostages are not returned, due to the intransigence of our government, the wound will be deep and long-lasting in Israeli society. We, and the world powers, must prevent this further disaster. We must turn to rebuilding, we must end this war and, together, set forth to create a possible future.

Preventable Deaths // January 23, 2024

An Israeli evening. The eight o’clock news broadcast soars into our living room like a bomb. Funeral after funeral, broken-hearted families, three-gun salutes. Beloved, glowing Israeli young men. So diverse, from all across the country. Up the road at Mt. Herzl, five funerals today. Across Israel, sorrow is heavy in the air.

24 men in 24 hours. Died for us. The Israeli lust for life shines from their photos. Our sweet, masculine proud young Israelis. Dead.

We sent them there, to Gaza.

Over the years, we have collectively enabled the whirlpool of conquest, of malevolence in our land. We’ve enabled the fracture of Israeli goodness by creating the occupation.

We will never achieve peace as long as the injustice of occupation remains. Occupation soils our souls. It has us send our sons and daughters to mortal danger, for the advancement of others’ agendas. And then we demonstrate for our kids how to allow oneself to tolerate living in a country that violates the most basic rights of human beings, who live next door. We gotten used to dominating others.

The current war must end, the enormous tasks of healing and rebuilding must begin. A paradigm shift from surviving to living. Quality leadership on both sides must be located or created. The utter lack of decent leadership on the scene today is God’s subtle hint that it’s time for US, ordinary folks and civil society initiatives, to shoulder the leadership.

Over the past year, a profoundly significant popular movement of hundreds of thousands of Israelis rose up against the judicial reform. And then came the war and the voluntarism only increased. There are forces awake now, that cannot be harnassed….in Israel, harnassing is herding cats. The exuberant, vibrant people of Israel came alive over the past year. Most people at the democracy demonstrations had never before taken to the streets. It was a broad social uprising.

When we finally bring an end to this war, the awakened masses can turn to the task of re-inventing Israel. An Israel where public servants serve the public. Where co-existence and dignity and good will are taught in our schools. Where diversity is celebrated. Where our children get to live out their lives, and we can feel safe again.

Willful Ignorance // January 21, 2024

“Willful ignorance,” as described by a researcher in today’s “Ha’aretz,” is our tendency to choose “to avoid consideration of information even when it is readily available.” The Health Ministry in Gaza reports that 25,105 Palestinians have died in Gaza since October 7. 62,681 are wounded. More than 10,000 Gazan children have died. Most Israelis are unwilling to confront these figures. In conversations, the first response I hear is to question the validity of the Ministry’s numbers. If the correct number is 22,000, does that make a difference?

We are “unwilling,” to acknowledge the extent of loss and suffering in Gaza, and this is a act of will, a choice. The “Ha’aretz” piece goes on to explain: “Many of those who examine and judge the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ignore significant elements of it, partly in order to feel more in tune with their "moral self" vis-à-vis the events. They do so in order to preserve a simple, untainted moral identity in a world whose morality is actually highly complex.”

Complexity is not a wall to hide behind. Complexity must be embraced, not avoided. It is indeed complex for Israelis to confront our ongoing trauma. The fresh accounts that daily document the abuse and violence our 136 hostages are enduring, the ceaseless interviews with survivors of the Oct. 7 massacre. We are swamped. We seem to have no psychological space to include what we have done to the people of Gaza. We cannot handle knowing that, terrible as our losses may be, on Oct. 7 we lost 5.5% of the number of Palestinians who have since died due to our response.

Not to speak of the daily deaths of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, the spike of settler violence against their Palestinian neighbors, the persecution of Palestinian citizens throughout Israel, the doctors and teachers who have lost jobs after posting their pain online. It’s all too much, we feel helpless to embrace what is real, so we carve down reality to bite-size pieces we can tolerate.

Be beg the world to understand us. But all the empathy in the world will not be enough to justify what we are doing to our own people’s moral fiber. Our souls will not survive the current morality-maiming surge. Blinding ourselves to cruelty does not free us from complicity. The phenomenon is not new: 56 years of occupation had already hardened our hearts. But this war has pushed us farther into the heart of darkness than we ever ventured before.

If we knew where it was leading, if there was hope for resolution that might carry us forward, perhaps we could tell ourselves that this was a temporary bad patch on the way to better times. But no… the grimness that has settled over the people of Israel belies that hope. Reluctantly, the public is recognizing that the stated goals of the war – elimination of Hamas and release of the hostages – are mutually exclusive. Israelis’ helpless rage over the ongoing failure of our government is spinning its wheels. 80% of the Jewish population wants to see our prime minister leave, but no significant initiative to remove him has come together. Even our courageous attorney general, who has the power to initiate impeachment, is mute regarding the prime minister.

When renowned sociologist Emile Durkheim coined the term “anomie,” he could not have chosen a better illustration than today’s Israel: “A rapid change of the standards or values of society, an associated feeling of alienation and purposelessness… A weakening of the social fabric….”

We can only hope that the people of Israel will soon be ready to swallow the bitter pill of resignation to the only steps that will bring an opening to a new reality: Immediate ceasefire, negotiations leading to the release of all Israeli hostages and thousands of Palestinian prisoners, including those with blood on their hands, and massive international intervention in creating the conditions for a long-term resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict. There will be no victory photos, but perhaps there will emerge the possibility of a future we can live into.

Until that day, 200,000 Israelis will remain in hotels far from their homes, we will daily bury our young soldiers, the people of Gaza will continue to lose their lives, and Israeli hearts will continue to harden.

SOUP // January 3, 2024

The tranquil, lush Israeli fields of the quiet farms surrounding Gaza, hidden by the clouds of smoke that rise from the latest bombings. Farmers tend their flourishing fields, heading home at the end of the day to have dinner, schnitzel, salad and a hearty soup. We switch on the TV to see the news, the kids beg to stay awake a bit longer, little Yossi has a sniffle and a cough, we pour a spoonful of medicine down his tender throat before we tuck him into bed for a quiet night’s sleep, wishing him sweet dreams.

Seven year old Ahmed spends three hours in Khan Yunis, fighting for his place in the chaotic line for a couple of ladles of thin soup. He clutches his battered tin pot until the moment when the warm liquid half-fills it, then makes his way back to the tent where he and his family have been sleeping now for two months, having fled their demolished home in Gaza City. His parents carefully divide the soup among the four children, not partaking so there will be more for the kids. Planes and drones cruise overhead, no one knows when they will release their payload and whether this time the pilots will succeed in bypassing the tent-city as they target nearby tenements which Hamas fighters have long abandoned, withdrawing into the well-supplied tunnels below ground.

The hostages are nowhere near freedom, as the IDF spokesman pays them lip service during his triumphant reports on the fighting. Army commanders tell us to prepare for war that will continue all of 2024.  21,000 Gazans are dead, 55,000 wounded, amputations are performed without anesthetic. Have we weakened Hamas? Devastating as our bombing is, on Friday night Hamas launched 20 missiles toward Tel Aviv. When will we see that there is no military resolution to the conflict?

And when will Israelis confront the fate of our neighbors, when will we agree to see the terrible price Gazans are paying for the Hamas Oct. 7 assault? Precious as each Israeli soldier’s life is, heartbreaking as it is to hear the wives’ eulogies for their young husbands, a horrifying truth is still avoided…. 172 IDF soldiers have been killed since the start of the ground offensive, 29 of them by “friendly fire.” Is it possible that their deaths may turn out to have been in vain?

We can’t answer that terrible question as long as we don’t know where this war is headed, and we will not know where we are headed until the government tells us. They’ve given no indication that they have anything approaching a plan for the day after. 

Meanwhile, the helpless Israeli citizenry does have a say in how we view this disaster. We can pull our heads out of the sand and insist on confronting the truth of the war’s impact on all of us human beings, the impact on us and also on our neighbors, just there across the fields.

Peace In Our Time // December 17, 2023

If we want to break free of the cycles of violence, we must do the following:

• Immediate ceasefire. No one moves toward peace while under attack or while attacking.

• Negotiated release of all hostages and an agreed-upon (large) number of Palestinian prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti, who is widely acknowledged as a potential unifying leader for the Palestinians.

• Immediately following the repatriation of the last hostage, commencement of negotiations, including Hamas, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, the U.S., Qatar, Egypt, U.N. reps, and perhaps a leader from the European Union.

• The goal of the negotiations: an interim situation in which all military aggression will cease, the humanitarian needs of Palestinian civilians will be restored, the rebuilding of Gaza will commence, Israelis will return to their homes and the destroyed Israeli communities will be rebuilt. An international coalition will engage with Hezbollah to ensure an end to armed hostilities on Israel’s northern border.

• As the above actions are taken, commencement of negotiations for a permanent resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict, leading to a negotiated configuration of a two-state reality.

All sides will scream: “But we cannot trust them!!” A misconception about trust is that one must wait to advance bold plans until there is enough trust to ensure success. On the contrary, trust is built when there is no obvious reason to be trusting. One behaves as though trust exists, and when things begin to improve, trust begins to be built.

Simple. Not easy. But simple. I cannot see a viable alternative.

Beyond Power // December 7, 2023

If we are to find or way out of this morass, we will need to listen to Alex Sherman, father of Ron, a hostage soldier. Dr. Sherman beseeched…“There has to be something beyond power, something creative.”

He challenged the government to be prepared to break paradigms of attack and defense, to venture into the uncertain swamp of possible futures. For the sake of his son, and all the hostages, longing to be home.

If the utter devotion of Israel to Israelis is not a myth, we won’t allow the quest for hollow “victory” turn us away from rescuing our citizens, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. At nearly any cost.

It’ll cost us giving up “conceptions” that have brought repeated failure. The shift will include choosing, from within our vulnerability, to finally seek partnership among our enemies. Bitter as that may be. To MAKE peace.

To be the frightened cowboy, slowly walking his horse into the Indians’ village, hostile Indian warriors all around. But no one interferes, as the cowboy quietly comes down off his horse to be greeted into the old Chief’s tent.

Sisyphus Quits // November 30, 2023

If you listen to the radio in Israel, you can hear this twenty times a day: “We will annihilate the Hamas, we will kill their leaders and many of their fighters, and we will destroy the Hamas infrastructure. We will stop at nothing short of total victory.”

No, sorry, think again. When will the smart people who lead us awaken to the fact that the infrastructure of Hamas is not their weaponry or sophistication or their underground city? The infrastructure is the human beings who will arise to revive Hamas forever. The brothers and cousins of the thousands of Gazans we have killed are ready to join the fray. Victory? At best, we may get a breather. Until the next round.

Since October 7, thinking is out to lunch. Passion is king. The horror of the attack on our border towns, the brutality. Then the funerals, endless funerals, and now the kidnapped and their families, the nightly drama of the return of several people from captivity. Daily drama, crazy jags of emotion, as Israel faces this crisis. People’s associations to the Holocaust. Until now, barely a handful of Israeli Jews are willing to look at the immense damage Israel has done to Gaza. 

And for the Gazans, a second Nakba, awakening for them the catastrophe of Israel’s founding struggle, 75 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, schlepping their children to nowhere, unable to provide for their families, with raging bombings night and day for two months, and for many years. Demolished neighborhoods, beloved daughters and sons and mothers buried under concrete mountains. Collapsing hospitals, thirst and hunger, childbirths among the ruins. Dante’s inferno.

Five times we have battled in Gaza, five times we returned to an unacceptable status quo. Pouring our resources into mutual destruction… Sisyphus screams in anguish: “How do we get off this hill?”

But now, surprisingly, a four-day ceasefire succeeds and keeps getting expanded. We offer, they offer, we can’t accept but we make a counter-offer. Israel and Hamas are proving we we can work together. Yes, with these brutal killers, we are working out how to improve the situation. DON’T STOP!!!!!!!

If we can demonstrate strength, for once, by not fighting. To walk forward, out onto this thin ice, because the way backwards is even more frightening.

And once the Israeli captives and the Palestinian prisoners are home, and we all begin to tend to our wounds and losses, then we can build on the successful rescue of the thousands who would have died had we not had the courage to stop the killing. And we can move on to finding our way to live and let live, building the future on the understanding that our own wellbeing will always depend on theirs.

Do The Math, America // November 12, 2023

DO THE MATH

The number of Israelis killed on Oct. 7, using the proportionate size of Israel, would be 49,000 Americans killed in a single day.

If it happened in America, the number is 105,000 wounded.

The equivalent of 8,400 were taken hostage.

On the other hand, if Palestine were America, and Americans were to lose the proportionate number of people killed in the past month, America would have lost 1.8 million people. Of these, 664,000 children.

I ask that you put yourselves in Israeli/Palestinian shoes,

to try to get a sense of what we are dealing with.

The Flood // November 10, 2023

We gathered outside the Knesset with hundreds of Jerusalemites this afternoon, listening to the strong cry of parents and siblings of hostages and victims, and together demanding the prime minister’s impeachment. Beloved Israeli songs are played, prayers are prayed. We join in the Song of Peace, the anthem we sang 28 years ago this week, in the square with Yitzhak Rabin, minutes before his assassination. Together we long for leadership, for direction, for the hope that Rabin brought us then, at this desolate present moment.

The sadness keeps pouring in, a tidal wave, a flood of sorrow. The images from October 7, the dreadful stories just wash over us, there is no escape. We meet friends, we hear more stories, stories we have already heard tens of times. We turn on the radio, more stories, descriptions of the horrors, and we lunge to switch it off. We walk the streets among the ubiquitous posters, each bearing a face, a life, held hostage. The faces of Israelis, old and young, beautiful and plain, somber and laughing faces, and we can’t stop ourselves from imagining where they are this evening, what they are doing, feeling, thinking. Swimming in a sea of sadness and horror.

I imagine dear Vivian Silver, lifelong peace-worker, seeking to connect with her captors, to find the spark of decency in the men, doing her best to take things in hand, deep in a tunnel beneath Gaza. Then I catch myself, knowing I’m only scratching at a horror, anything to make it easier to think of Vivian.

Everyone knows someone, or someone who knows someone. This is collective trauma, everyone sharing it all, in our alone moments and when we are together. Flashbacks, startled jumps at loud noises, difficulty putting thoughts together. Several times a day, the Oct 7 images press in upon me and I get choked up, driving to work, eyes fill with tears, helplessness washes over me. Each of us with his/her own rhythm, we are out of sync…in a moment when I am strong enough to hear the radio, Frumit is not, and I shut it off or take it to another room.

As the Jerusalem gathering disperses, we hear Arik Einstein singing the songs that draw us together in our Israeliness, the glowing communal aspect of our lives here. We head home to receive the sabbath, seeking peace and family and even joy in the light of the candles. Five long weeks, no end in sight, endless suffering here, and also there, beyond the newly-patched-up fence, where 2 million people are paying a devastating price for the perpetrators’ acts on Oct 7. Yet tonight, on this Shabbat, we are mostly with each other, Israelis with Israelis, still swimming against a terrible tide of our own sadness, anger, and fear of what tomorrow may bring.

Let The Healing Begin // November 7, 2023

As the sun set over Jerusalem this evening, I joined some 100 Jewish Israelis, Palestinian Christians and Moslems outside Jaffa Gate in the Old City. Dressed in black, we were there to share mourning for all victims of the present war. There were prayers but no speeches. We spoke informally in small groups, and then, together, we stood in silence for 15 minutes.

There have been similar gatherings in Haifa, a city known for its liberal leaning, where there are even buses that run on the sabbath. But in Jerusalem, where the tension is palpable, where just yesterday a policewoman was stabbed to death by a young Palestinian, this was the first Jewish-Arab event to take place since the war began. Many Jerusalemites don’t take kindly to this sort of thing.

The collective sorrow swept over us, some people wept openly in each other’s arms. We had a permit, and heavily-armed policemen watched over us. The media was there in force, interviewing people in Arabic, Hebrew and English. Hopefully, the coverage will be broad.

I was asked to don a fluorescent vest and patrol the perimeter, watching for possible disrupters. But it was quiet, and only some curious settlers, who live in defiant little enclaves in the heart of the Moslem quarter, came by to ask what the gathering was about. As I explained, one woman, modestly covered from head to toe, demanded to know if “the Arabs here object to the Hamas massacre.” I answered that yes, we were all of us there to protest the killing of all innocent victims. “Palestinian blood and Israeli blood are the same color,” I reminded her. “You are so blind,” she hissed in disgust, as she turned away.

In response to the overflowing pain of the past month, so much hatred and righteous fury has been unleashed. NY Times’ David Brooks writes, “It is dangerous to be hardened and calloused over by hard times. It is also dangerous, as C.S. Lewis put it, to guard your heart so thoroughly that you make it ‘unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.’”

We must collectively demand a ceasefire. The hostages must be returned home, the bombing of Gaza’s civilians must end, the missiles must stop falling on Israel’s towns and cities. So much healing lies before us. Healing that cannot begin until some light appears at the end of the tunnel.

We Lived in Pompeii // November 5, 2023

Since 2005, as the second Intifada, the Palestinian uprising drew to a close, leaving 1,000 Israelis dead and 3,000 Palestinians, we have lived in Pompei. After five years of bus bombings and severe repression, life more or less normalized. There were spurts of violence, the West Bank settlements expanded at breakneck speed, but for the average Israeli, it was possible to continue with our lives. We went about our business, blithely ignoring the reality taking shape under our nose, enjoying our growing prosperity. Sure, there were rockets falling on the villages on the Gaza border, but most Israelis were able to set them aside, as the Vesuvius of occupation simmered and smoked. Netanyahu actively advanced the illusion of “managing the occupation.” We on the left warned that it was just a matter of time until the volcano would blow its top. On October 7, Vesuvius exploded.

In the argumentative culture of Israeli discourse, if you disagree with me, you just haven’t been listening. Expressing understanding of another’s motivation is the same as justifying it. As though the very effort to understand another’s perspective is already a form of surrender.

Over the past two weeks, any Israeli’s attempt to grapple with what could have driven Hamas’ men to commit the Black Sabbath atrocities is considered an act of treason. If an Israeli expresses empathy for the Palestinians, he is subject to furious derision. But if a Palestinian Israeli dares to draw attention to Palestinian suffering or to the process of de-humanization wrought by 56 years of occupation, he/she is openly victimized.

While Arabs comprise only 20% of our citizenry, 47% of new doctors, 48% of all pharmacists and 24% of all nurses are Arabs. Israelis of all stripes gladly enjoy the care they render. Yet recently Arab doctors and nurses have been summarily fired from their jobs. In my local drugstore, where most of the pharmacists are Arabs, they have been replaced by Jews. The streets are not safe for Palestinians. Many Palestinian students and workers are afraid to attend studies or work. Increasing numbers of Arab journalists have reported that since the war began they have been threatened and even attacked – not by civilians but by the police and members of other security bodies. Said one, “I asked the officers why they had hit me. ‘Because of the Arabic,’ they said.”

Additional streams of Vesuvius’ lava are flowing through the IDF. The messianic religious sector of the Israeli populace has, in recent years, occupied an increasingly influential presence in the IDF. Just yesterday, the captain who serves as rabbi for one of our fighting brigades, appeared beside a rock band at a morale-raising event for soldiers, and declared, “When I set aside the dead, the wounded, and the hostages, this is the happiest month in my life…This our country, it is all of it ours, including Gaza, including Lebanon… We’ll show the world what is good, what is morality and justice, and values.” A lame rebuke was issued. The soldiers’ whoops of approval were frightening.

The “errant weeds” of Netanyahu’s coalition are also spilling their share of the lava, spewing ash over Pompeii: Israel's Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu announced on Sunday that dropping a nuclear weapon on the Gaza Strip is "an option." Netanyahu furrowed his brows and reprimanded him, barring him from meetings of the cabinet, though he has no authority to do so, rendering his rebuke “kalam fahdi,” (Arabic: empty talk). Saudi Arabia and other Arab governments are already aflame with their new “proof” of Israel’s intentions.

So much for the bad news. Can’t leave you without a bit of hope. Last night, thousands of Israelis demonstrated across the country, demanding that the government stop manufacturing excuses and get serious about returning the hostages. This was the climax of weeks of smaller demonstrations, which until now were led by the hostages’ families. We have all been admonished, during the war’s first month, to feign solidarity and let the government’s agents do their work. The public is having no more of it.

We were also subjected to the rhetoric that “you don’t mess with the leaders in a time of war. We’ll deal with Netanyahu after it’s over.” People are realizing that the end of this disaster is nowhere in sight. Just as we neared completion of 1,400 funerals for the Oct. 7 victims, now 25 soldiers have died in battle since we began the incursion into Gaza. So last night, on our way to the hostages’ demo, a thousand of us came to Netanyahu’s house in Jerusalem to demand his impeachment. Such a demonstration was not possible just a week ago. No one is buying the warning that replacing him will make it harder to wage the war. We simply do not trust the man. November 4th marks the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. While he was not perfect, Rabin was a leader who gathered a majority of Israelis behind him, because we knew that when he went to work in the morning, he was busy serving his country. During the dark months leading up to his killing, a young Netanyahu was inciting murderous mobs as he lay the foundation for his move to become prime minister.

It was encouraging, at the demonstration, to speak with embittered Likud supporters who feel betrayed by their hero. Bibi tweeted last week, in the middle of the night, to castigate the commanders of the army and security services for their responsibility for Oct. 7, cleansing himself once more of all responsibility. This he allowed himself in the moments when the commanders were readying the incursion into Gaza. His removal of the tweet, nine hours later, did not fool anyone.

The political awakening of hundreds of thousands of Israelis that began 10 months ago in response to Bibi’s self-serving judicial coup, and the public’s inspiring and massive leap to support our evacuees and our soldiers, may lead toward the day, may it come soon, when a majority of Israelis will finally take our country back into responsible hands.

I promised you good news, and that’s the best I can do, for now.

The Elephants Fight... // November 4, 2023

“When the elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” - Mozambiquan proverb

Here in wartime Jerusalem, Friday morning is still a time for reading the weekend newspaper, handling chores, and meeting friends in a coffee shop. Yesterday, I had a working coffee with a colleague and ran into a couple of other friends. Their responses to asking how they are doing had a common theme, and echoed my own feeling. Something in the neighborhood of…”I have ups and downs. Some days I wake up with despair, fatigue. Other days, I get up and carry on.” Everyone shares deep worry about where we are and where we’re headed. And we all feel that, whatever comes out of the present crisis, there will no return to business as usual.

As Israeli novelist Dorit Rabinyan writes, “Maybe we too, those who cannot sleep, who watch the news until late at night, you and me, who scroll through the networks and websites in the darkness of our beds, maybe we too are characters in this war tragedy who will end up covered in dust under the rubble of our houses. All the cards have been shuffled, and with every rocket and every siren, they are shuffled again. Every boom that shakes the walls could be our boom.”

When friends from abroad end their emails with “Stay safe..” I cannot oblige them. If you are not hiding near your safe room all the time, there is no “safe” these days. Though my son’s kibbutz on the northern border has been evacuated, he and some of the others take turns coming home to watch over the village and complete getting the apples in. Yesterday, Hezbollah mortars shelled a neighboring village, half a mile away.

I had thought my daughter’s place in the Arava desert, north of Eilat, was a safe space. Many evacuees from the Gaza border villages are sheltering there. However, on Monday, a ballistic missile launched in Yemen, 1,000 miles from Eilat, was intercepted as it flew up the Red Sea.

Wednesday, I left the psychiatric hospital where I consult, south of Tel Aviv, and got to the parking lot just as the sirens wailed. I could not have gotten back in the 60 seconds I had, to the safety of the ward where patients and staff huddled together, so I flattened myself against the nearest wall, waiting for the boom. It was loud, not far off, and I waited a couple more minutes and got in the car to drive home.

There is no “safe.” Two hundred thousand Israelis have fled their homes to relatively safer hotels and family. Three hundred thousand soldiers are deployed, south and north, and the fighting escalates from day to day. Half a million Israelis are not at home.

People’s trust in the army is high. If we were able to assure ourselves that the government directing the army was doing its job, we would be calmer. But no one, other than a handful of blind Bibi loyalists, finds any quiet when we think of the dubious complex of motivations driving the decision-makers. The desperate families of 240 hostages do not trust that every caution is being taken to keep their dear ones alive. The many out-of-work small business people and salaried workers do not trust that they will be compensated decently for their losses. The crisis of trust is deep and wide.

No one seems able to get their heads above the water enough to think past the next few days. But it is the very vision of the future that can keep us sane, humane, true to ourselves. If we momentarily set aside the nascent concrete plans, and as NYT’s David Brooks articulates, if we can “see people with generous eyes, offering trust to others before they trust us,” we may be disappointed and feel the fool, but we will be doing what we can to be part of the solution, rather than digging the hole of the problem deeper. We will find the courage to confront Max Weber’s challenge…. “How can warm passion and a cool sense of proportion be forged together in one and the same soul?” The answers we offer will determine our ability to climb out of this pit of fear, hatred, and confusion, and emerge to rebuild our homes and lives.

In Israel, More Questions Than Answers // November 2, 2023

The 16 year old son of a close Palestinian friend from East Jerusalem was brutally arrested the other day, and was brought in, with his father, for a police interrogation. The two were separated, and the police worked on the boy for two hours, seeking to lure him into becoming an informer. The father was then questioned, and the police revealed a wealth of information they had gathered about the two of them. A long time community worker focused on youth at risk, my friend stood his ground as they tried to coerce him into supporting their objective.

Upset by my friend’s account, I am nonetheless thrown into a dilemma. I know that the police and secret service protect us citizens partly by obtaining intelligence gathered from informers in order to uncover budding terror cells and other threats. I cannot in good conscience deny that I rely on the security forces doing their job effectively. Though I work for co-existence, the situation here is still dangerous, and there is no lack of Palestinians who plan and carry out violent attacks on Israelis. Yet, when this sort of thing hits close to home, it is particularly disturbing.

The suffering of my friend and his son, who has barely slept since his interrogation, has me twisting in pained empathy. But it would be hypocritical to say I oppose the police tactics. As long as we do not have peace, they save lives.

All I am left with is an ever-deepening conviction that the circumstances that necessitate this sort of thing must change. The war raging in Gaza and the missiles flying into Israel must lead us to seek a new reality. The catastrophic failure of Israel’s intelligence and military that enabled Oct. 7 is bringing demands for commissions of inquiry. But then what? Some heads will roll (hopefully our prime minister’s first) and we’ll be served a bevy of recommendations for fixing a vehicle without our grasping that before it broke down, it was already heading in the wrong direction. All of this fixing will leave the present paradigm in place.

The entire deck of cards has been re-shuffled. If we are wise, we will not busy ourselves gathering the cards in a game that cannot be won, by either side. Instead of arranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic, we need a different ship, a new course-setting, a paradigm shift.

The burst of citizen activism on behalf of the soldiers and the thousands of evacuees, the effectiveness of Brothers in Arms, who turned their protest brigade into a huge civilian support mechanism….these phenomena would seem to bode well for Israel-after-the-war. Frumit sent out a call for volunteer laundry squad to serve the evacuees from the north in one hotel, and within two hours, 40 people had signed on. Three mornings a week they show up to schlep sacks home and then deliver the laundry, folded and fresh, to the lobby the next morning. We Israelis are terrific under pressure.

However, all these good-hearted Israelis are collectively traumatized, as we bury our dead and worry ourselves sick about the 240 hostages. Tens of people are still unaccounted for, many of them were incinerated in the kibbutzim on the Gaza border and cannot be identified. Others may or may not be among the hostages.

All of this leads most Israelis to hatred and calls for revenge, and has hardened people’s hearts. Many liberal Israelis are now giving voice to a strident militarism that they themselves never would have thought possible, just a month ago. In most places, it is still unacceptable to express anything humane about the plight of the Gazan Palestinians.

The Israeli aerial bombings, the Hamas missile barrages and bitter hand-to-hand battles, and the never-ending funerals continue to be, on both sides, our daily fare. From where will the shift emanate? How will we unite to support a future resolution that works for everyone? How will Israelis accept that rebuilding a devastated Gaza must come to pass, sooner or later, and that negotiations will have to be conducted if we are to head toward win/win? So many questions, so few answers.

Treat The Wounds, But Root Out The Infection // November 1, 2023

They rolled back the artificial lawn on Mt. Herzl today and dug fresh graves for the two young Jerusalemites who were among the first fifteen soldiers to die in our expanding ground incursion into Gaza. “Destroying Hamas” is now the official goal of this escalating conflict. This is an illusion. On October 7, Hamas inflicted a terrible blow on Israel, killing 1400 people, in a nation of 9 million. In the 25 days of war, Israel has killed 8,000 Palestinians, in a territory containing two million people. More than 3,000 were children.

The Israeli civilians murdered on Oct. 7 were certainly victimized. But the nation of Israel is no victim. I am disgusted at the performance of Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilead Erdan, who last week wore a yellow Jewish star to the Security Council. Stealing the symbol of pre-Holocaust Jewish persecution, Erdan sullied the memory of six million victims, at a time when Jews were defenseless and stateless. Even the right-wing director of the Jerusalem Holocaust Museum rejected the parallel. There will be no second Holocaust here. We maintain the strongest army in the middle-east, we have a vibrant society and a thriving economy. But we have abused our power.

In the wake of the ’67 victory and the conquest of the territories, we allowed success to go to our head, rather than immediately employing our conquests as a bargaining card in the struggle for a peaceful future. Successive governments encouraged messianic settlers to spread throughout the territories, and they are now half a million strong. Meanwhile, the Palestinians have never stopped striving for an independent nation. I heard a commentator comparing our planned destruction of Hamas to the “successful” 1982 expulsion of the PLO from Beirut. What he failed to mention was that the PLO relocated to Tunis, and with the Oslo Accords, returned to Palestine in 1993. The Palestinian struggle never waned, and the destruction of Hamas will similarly never eradicate the aspiration for an independent Palestine. As Medgar Evers said, “You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.”

The wounds of history and of the present moment will never heal until we root out the infection that keeps them festering. That infection is the occupation….the illusion that military power can force anyone to yield. As stated in a recent New Yorker piece, “The oxymoronic strategy of bombing enemies to the negotiating table does not often work as designed.” The generals who will flock to the cemeteries to eulogize the soldiers, who will hug the widows while mouthing the empty slogans about the “inevitable price of fighting for our people,” these generals have made a career of war, and they seek to persuade the public that the fallen soldiers did not die in vain. Tell it to the mothers, tell it to the orphans.

The decent people in Israel must look to a different horizon, where, to paraphrase Dr. King, on the rocky slopes of the Jerusalem hills, the sons of former Palestinian terrorists and the sons of former Israeli commandos will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

As The War Ramps Up, The Israeli Interior Gets Ugly // October 31, 2023

Making a stab at normalcy, I went today to the shuk, the open market in the middle of town. At my favorite vegetable stall, I asked the Palestinian proprietor how he was doing. He told me that yesterday a crowd of “La Familia” came through the shuk, hunting for Palestinian workers. This rabble are followers of Meir Kahane, the racist rabbi who was banned from the Knesset years ago. The thugs are known for their rampages against Arabs, and the present conflagration seems to have given them a shot of inspiration. Before they could corner anyone, the police moved quickly and arrested several. On Saturday, Arab students at Netanya Academic College were attacked by hundreds of residents and forced to barricade themselves on the roof until the police arrived and evacuated them. The demonstrations were accompanied by cries of “death to Arabs.” The general atmosphere is explosive.

Mohammed Darawshe, a lifelong Arab/Jewish activist and educator, writes in today’s Ha’aretz: “Many Arab employees are being fired from their workplaces, and students expelled from their universities for speaking out against the Israeli army assault on Gaza. We see the silencing and censorship in the arrest of the singer Dalal Aby Amneh for sharing a prayer on Facebook Israeli police took as hostile. The lecturer Warda Saada was expelled from Kaye college in the Negev for sharing a post, without being given an opportunity to explain herself.” I know Warda through my work at “Sulha.” An active and outspoken peace-worker, she has taught for 28 years. Her expulsion was arbitrary, sudden and final.

While the army has gone on the offensive in Gaza, deploying ground troops in growing numbers, in the West Bank the soldiers are also very active. Under the marquee of “rooting out Hamas cells,” soldiers are besieging and killing with an abandon we have not seen in a long time. Extremist settlers are hitch-hiking onto the general fervor, attacking civilians randomly, eagerly advancing their plan to cleanse the territories of Palestinians. Shootings are occurring under the nose of the army, which is doing little to restrain them. Some soldiers even participate, in uniform, in the festivities. No one is being held to account for the abundance of incidents.

Also taking advantage of the situation is our minister of public security, Itamar Ben Gvir, who is distributing rifles to settlers like candy. The other government ministers are mute, reportedly grumbling to each other about Netanyahu’s fumbling loss of control over events, but they remain too cowardly to speak out openly.

Shared society organizations are coming together to resist the gathering tidal wave sweeping through Israel, but so far we are a feather in the wind. And no one in authority seems to have an idea of where all of this is leading. There is little discussion and no consensus about the goals in Gaza. The humiliation of our Oct. 7 debacle is spawning rage and revenge, the horse is stampeding and the reins have been jerked from our hands. A dark moment in Israel.

Hangin' Out With Chicken Little // October 30, 2023

Frumit and I took an afternoon rest today. The neighborhood was quiet, a blessed hour to collect ourselves for the remainder of the day’s activities. Suddenly, the shriek of the missile sirens tore into our calm. 90 seconds to collect ourselves and get downstairs to her studio. Just 20 seconds after we closed the studio door, 5 thuds of the missiles’ interception, a miIe or two west. Waited the obligatory 5 minutes and returned to the house, the coiled spring in my stomach slowly releasing.

I went to work Wednesday, at a psychiatric hospital in Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv. Three hours after I drove home, a missile landed nearby, devastating an apartment building half a mile from my route.

On Shabbat, In Tel Aviv in the middle of enjoying the raspberry topping on my friend’s cheesecake, we rushed into the stairwell, as the sirens sounded. David calmly checked his watch and said, “Wait for it…” And within 90 seconds, a succession of eight booms of the Iron Dome’s interceptions.

And this is only the latest round in what seems an endless succession of “There but for the grace of God” moments. During the second Intifada, Frumit was on her way home from the accountant and walked down the pedestrian promenade where, 10 minutes later, a terrorist killed three teenage girls with a bomb.

What a strange reality we’ve come to accept. As the present war drags into its fourth week, we’ve gotten used to it. But the moment I recognize our momentary equanimity, I am horrified to remember those who have no respite….1,300 bereaved families, 229 families of the hostages, and 8,000 Palestinian deaths, and I am appalled that I could have achieved this false calm.

Driving into Tel Aviv on shabbat, I looked up at the sky and realized I could no longer count on it just being the sky. For twenty years, for Israelis in the south, and to 2 million Gazans it has been the source of terror, the place from which death rains down. I sort of scrunched my shoulders around the steering wheel, and thought of Chicken Little’s cry…”The sky is falling!!!”

As Achinoam Nini and Mira Awad sing, in Hebrew, Arabic, and English…….there must be another way.

Be 'Right' Or Be Effective... A Call To Jewish American Leftists // October 29, 2023

In 1971-2, my last years in Berkeley, many of my friends from the movement against the war in Vietnam were attending demonstrations in favor of the Palestinians. I just did not know enough about the Israel/Palestine conflict to be able to take a stand, so when I had the opportunity to visit Israel at the end of summer, ’72, I gave myself two weeks to figure out the middle east so that I would know where I stand. Fifty years later, I’m still working on it.

I fell in love with Israel during those first years here, and chose to become a citizen. I encounter my old lefty friends when I go back to the States, and in every visit since, I have been astounded at the level of ignorance I discover there, regarding the Middle-East. The ferment on US campuses and the general response of much of the American left has me upset, so I’m writing to you, from the heart of the pressure-cooker in Jerusalem.

My activist credentials: In March, 1965, I boarded a bus in Madison, on the way to joining Martin Luther King for the Selma march. Midway there, the organizers asked us to divert to Washington, so there would be a presence there, as MLK led the Selma march. We sat outside the White House in the slush for three days, chanting civil rights songs, and slept on the floor of the Bright Hope Baptist Church. From ’65-’72, I worked against the war in Vietnam, sometimes helping to organize demos, or spray-painting buildings at 2 AM, or leafletting workers at factories, and got beaten and arrested during one particularly tough demo in Berkeley. I threw stones at the police, who were brutal, until I woke up to non-violence. The Vietnam days were painted in black and white, we were the good guys, the rednecks were the bad guys. In our righteous fervor, we would burn American flags, alienating the very people whose attitudes we claimed to be devoted to changing. Together with my brother and some friends, I put together an anti-war, feminist rock group called “Contraband,” and we played political festivals and demonstrations.

Five years after my immigration to Israel, I became aware of the attempts of the nationalist rightwing in Israel to colonize the territories we conquered in ’67, and I got active in anti-occupation. I have been resisting the occupation for 45 years, mostly as a volunteer, but for the past 10 years have worked in managerial positions in two Israeli/Palestinian organizations, learning basic conversational Arabic along the way. Over the past nine months’ struggle against the government’s anti-democratic coup, I’ve attended weekly demos, bearing a sign that insists “There is no democracy with occupation.”

Life here is laced with contradictions. Called up to the first Lebanon war in ’82, I served with my fellow reservists. When we realized the true goal of that war, uncovering Ariel Sharon’s deception, I went to Tel Aviv on my first 48 hour leave, to demonstrate against the war I was fighting! We here all have blood on our hands. Some Israelis are racists, some are humanists. Some are calling to wipe Gaza off the map, others of us are campaigning to avert the bloody ground invasion that will solve nothing.

Dear Jewish leftists, choosing sides, painting Israel/Palestine in black and white is an exercise in self-delusion. The Gaza crisis is a complex reality, and if your values of equality, democracy, empathy, and justice are harnessed into a one-sided rage, you have missed the boat. Mobbing together with fellow over-simplifiers does not serve anyone. Why not get together with the forces that call to end the violence on all sides? Why not summon the courage to convene public dialogues and to explore the moral intricacies of this crisis, joining us in seeking a win/win resolution?

I want you to know that most of my Palestinian colleagues, friends and committed peace workers abhor the Hamas attack, and reject any connection between their Islamic belief and the deeds of the Oct. 7 murderers. They are also appalled at the disproportionate Israeli response, and many have family in Gaza.

I turn to you as a fellow activist and ask that you join us in braking this runaway train. I invite you to summon your bigness and to avoid sloganeering and generalizing. Take an interest, seek deeper understanding, when choosing how to act in a way that will support all the people in this troubled land.

Stop The Invasion // October 23, 2023

I am not a military analyst, nor am I a particularly sophisticated political observer. But I read people who are.

In a series of well-considered articles, NY Times’ Thomas Friedman opines the following: “If Israel rushes headlong into Gaza now to destroy Hamas — and does so without expressing a clear commitment to seek a two-state solution with the Palestinian Authority and end Jewish settlements deep in the West Bank — it will be making a grave mistake that will be devastating for Israeli interests and American interests.”

Sadly, our present government, manipulated by fanatic racists and hotheads, is as far from committing to seek a two-state solution as Beijing is from Tel Aviv. Shifting to focus on the present constellation in Israel, after interviewing scores of experts, Friedman contends: “Israeli military leaders are actually more hawkish than the prime minister now. They are red with rage and determined to deliver a blow to Hamas that the whole neighborhood will never forget. I understand why. But friends don’t let friends drive while enraged.”

The rage we Israelis all share must not be the driver that carries us forward. We must choose our steps ever so carefully, at this explosive moment.

Friedman goes on to warn that: “What began as a Hamas onslaught against Israel has the potential to trigger a Middle East war with every great power and regional power having a hand in it — which would make it very difficult to stop once it started.”

The world is a complex system, a web of inter-related interests. Israel’s choices, in these tense days, will have world-wide implications. Satisfying the military’s and the hotheads’ fervor must be relegated to the back row. What is needed now is statesmanship. When you peel away the outer show of Netanyahu’s bluster, you are left with a petty politician whose only true motivation is his own personal interest. What must happen, and soon, is for the majority of Israelis to rise up and demand the kind of leadership we have been missing since Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. If you look at his face in the footage of the 1993 ceremony on the White House lawn, Rabin clearly did not feel like shaking Yasser Arafat’s hand. But he rose above his gut and did what held promise for the long-term welfare of his people.

Friedman concludes with the following penetrating question: “If Israel announced today that it was forgoing, for now, a full-blown invasion of Gaza, who would be happy, and who would be relieved, and who would be upset? Iran would be totally frustrated, Hezbollah would be disappointed, Hamas would feel devastated — its whole war plan came to naught — and Vladimir Putin would be crushed, because Israel would not be burning up ammunition and weapons the U.S. needs to be sending to Ukraine. The settlers in the West Bank would be enraged. Meanwhile, the parents of every Israeli soldier and every Israeli held hostage would be relieved, every Palestinian in Gaza caught in the crossfire would be relieved, and every friend and ally Israel has in the world — starting with one Joseph R. Biden — would be relieved.”

True power is demonstrating the ability to strike one’s foe with devastation, and not striking. Instead, offering a viable alternative to the bloodbath such devastation would have wrought. Must we pursue Hamas’ leaders and soldiers? Yes, but sending hundreds of thousands of troops into the minefield of Gaza is not the only way this can be accomplished.

Friedman quotes a senior American military strategist:

“Israel has built so much, enjoys so much and contributes so much to the world and has so much more to contribute. To risk all that in an act of revenge or rage that will not fundamentally alter its strategic dilemmas is exceptionally unwise.”

At this critical juncture, let us be wise rather than hard-assed, reserved rather than knee-jerkers, and may we act now to advance a hopeful future for our region and for our world, before it is too late.