Woke up early and went for a walk to Rambam’s grave. I found a Mishnah Torah there and learnt some chapters from the Laws of Tshuvah (Atonement). One of the main ideas is that humans have the capacity to make the choice to do good. “Anyone can be like Moses, Our Teacher”. Just like a wheel turns, it is the nature of humans to be able to transform. I sat with my knees pressing against the Tomb. I hadn’t done havdalah (the blessings after the ending of the Shabbat) yet so I used the fire of the memorial candles, burning in large fireplaces, as my flame for the blessing. Another unexpected gift of this trip is a renewed and awakened passion towards being immersed in learning of Jewish sources. This immersion in the richness, the beauty and the wisdom of the tradition is an escort leading me through the journey of being allies to both Israeli Jews and Palestinians. I have also been re-awakened to my own valuing of a deep and hearty Jewish education for my children. I’m not exactly sure what it will look like. Too often we think we need to choose between commitments (in this case it would be deep immersion in Jewish life and sources vs. committed peacebuilding between Jews and Palestinians) when bringing them together allows us more of ourselves and also allows us to bring more to every situation.
I’ve also been learning more deeply about the personal aspects of peacebuilding that I see as an integral part of this work. These are challenges and opportunities that all people can take with them in every situation. One of the aspects is truth- the willingness to stand in the fire of our own truth, be willing to take the risk to communicate and to be able to hear and witness other people in their truth. This commitment has many offshoots. One of them is got to do with speech and our discipline about how we use words and to whom. One of the things that I didn’t address enough but that I would on a future trip would be the importance of bringing complaints and grievances to a processing group, small or large, or to an organiser, rather than talking about it among one each other. Everything that is discussed creates an energy, energy that could be dissipated and transformed were it to be brought to the light of day and addressed. Similar to protecting our speech about other people, this invitation to speak up in the light of day, causes us to take more responsibility for our feelings and also in the subsequent steps, to have the opportunity to explore our own role in the situation. We get to ask ourselves what is challenging for us in any given situation? What does this situation remind us of? How does it present us with an opportunity to learn something new, to unfold and transform something inside ourselves? If we just blame someone else for something we don’t like then we’ve lost an opportunity. I see it like hashavat aveidah (returning a lost object to it’s owner). When we project our feelings onto someone else and blame them it is like we have lost something that is ours. And when we retrieve the projection it is like we are bringing back to its owner something that was lost.
Another personal aspect of peacebuilding which I discussed in previous blogs, is the necessity to engage both those times and parts of ourselves when we identify as victim, but perhaps more importantly (sometimes it is harder) to engage those times and parts of ourselves as oppressor. This means that any situation in which we feel like a victim, in our mind we flip roles and assume the oppressor role. We go back to an early childhood situation and find a voice and some physical resistance in a situation where we once had none.
We can’t engage that oppressor part of ourselves without coming to ourselves with deep love and compassion. If we’re too critical of ourselves we won’t even let ourselves notice any oppressor anything. In a paradoxical way, the more we bring compassion to ourselves, the more we get to see some of the darkness that we carry. In a similar way, the experience of safe space, sometimes allows other feelings that we carry to surface and be released and healed.
At the beginning of the day we met as a group to discuss thoughts and feelings about how people may want to translate their experience in to action. People talked about integrating the insights of peacebuilding into every human encounter, they talked about supporting the Bereaved Families Forum-Parent’s Circle, countering the usual polarisation associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There was talk of a new trip, exploring reconciliation in Australia, visiting country and community. I took the opportunity to share something of the burden and challenge of being awake to the full brunt of the occupation and simultaneously avoiding demonisation of Israelis, being in a position to always ask how we can be allies to both Israelis and Palestinians and work towards justice, right action and security for all people.
Mark Baker framed some questions about the conflict bringing together different approaches such as; one state, two state solution and its implications; gradualist perspective (not showing full intentions from the beginning) as opposed to full disclosure; unilateral actions as opposed to negotiated solutions; the relationship between bottom up person to person peacebuilding and political solutions; and, the question of bilateral negotiations and the role of the international community. He also mentioned the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions strategy (BDS) as a questionable mode of intervention and pressure from the world community. I think Israel needs support from the world community to correct it’s policies and I am concerned about pressure from the international community that isolates and demonises Israel because I think it will add to the already prevalent fear and siege mentality.
We went to hear Professor Fania Oz-Salzberger at Haifa University. She was optimistic about the possibilities and prospects for the two state solution. She was also celebrating the participation of (Israeli) Palestinians in Haifa through their proportionate representation as university students and in municipal governance. Although some of the prickly issues with Palestinian citizens have come to the fore with proposals for loyalty oaths and rising tensions about civil inequalities, Fania speaks hopefully about Israel’s capacity to be both democratic and a state for a Jewish majority. She said that there is no such thing as a Jewish state per se, in the same way that there can’t be a Jewish table.
After some time off in Ben Gurion St, with the imposing Bahai temple and gardens standing above us, we sat in a Moroccan inspired sunken room at Fattoush restaurant with silk cushions and glass lanterns creating shadows on the roof. Hear we heard from Ali from Sikkuy http://www.sikkuy.org.il/english/home.html who gave us a graver impression of the situation than Fania. He talked about the direct and indirect discrimination that Palestinian Israelis receive from the ‘Jewish state’. He spoke in an angry tone and I found it hard to hear. He thinks it is all going to explode in the coming years. Ali is an advocate of the one-state solution, one government and one constitution for the West Bank, Gaza and Israel. I can’t imagine anything other than a bloodbath resulting from such a solution at this time, when the populations are so split from each other and when there is so much fear and antagonism on both sides. He talked about the difficulty of the plight of Palestinian Israelis who often feel as if they are both on the outside in Israel but also forgotten by much of the Arab world.
We got back to Jerusalem really late. I took the opportunity of the last night to go out with the students. Every night they’ve been going out, drinking and smoking nargila. We went to a pub near American Colony hotel. Sometimes I am a little puritan about intoxicants so I was glad to out that aside to just be with the people. It was great to be out and have some intimate connections with some of the students, sharing from the heart about our lives and relationships. It has become more and more clear how each of us has countless opportunities in our lives to bring forth these teachings of peacebuilding, of reaching out to others from the true position of our own strength and resilience, and sense of personal power and generosity.
