I have been called "anti-semitic" more than once for the contents of this blog. Let the following set of articles answer that charge. The three options below cover communications, education, humour as ways to heal the breach between these two people, were enough to participate and engage in them, alas highly unlikely on all sides. More actions like these three present are what I would wish to see. I know there are more such wonderful people on this planet doing such things. Look for them and engage yourselves! With all my heart and soul, I would wish such peace on all of humanity.
The founders of FACE2FACE caught at a serious moment of deliberations.
The above image can be seen on both
Palestinian and Jewish sides of the Wall.
Men think in herds;
they go mad in herds;
they recover their senses slowly ~ one by one
Here is just a pleasant little example of what is possible. Naive? A little. Successful? Yes. In many cases I have known that the "fear of the other" as part of indoctrination as often as not, is all that divides different groups. Especially young Palestinians and Israelis growing up on opposite sides of the green lines. In a nurturing environment, empathy for the other is being created in a small way and seems to make changes one individual at a time.
A MODEST PEACE PLAN THAT IS WORKING
"Our campus is home to the same Israeli-Palestinian debates that happen elsewhere. But their tone has been remarkably civil."
Originally published June 10, 2010
By Imam Abdullah Antepli and Rabbi Michael Goldman
November 26, 3010
Note to readers: Imam Abdullah Antepli and Rabbi Michael Goldman are chaplains for Muslim life and Jewish life, respectively, at Duke University. This op-ed ran in the Washington Post.
More on Rabbi Goldman here.
DURHAM, N.C.
Jews: want to fight anti-Semitism? Muslims: want to challenge islamophobia? There's an easy way to do it: have coffee with one another.
Last week, the two of us, the rabbi and imam of Duke University, did just that. Not that meeting at a café is such a rare occurrence; we work together, we like each other and our children play together. But last week, amidst the tension between Muslims and Jews caused by the violence off the coast of Israel and Gaza, our coffee date felt like a political act. The fiasco aboard the Mavi Marmara hit close to home for our imam who, like several of those killed in that raid, is Turkish.
We typically steer away from politics not because we feel uneasy on that turf; we know that we disagree on many core issues surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian controversy and are quite comfortable with that.
We steer clear of this controversy
because we are working to belie the fallacy
that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
is all that a Muslim and a Jew would have to talk about.
Muslim-Jewish conversations on university campuses, and elsewhere, often get corralled into this narrow zone. A two-state solution, or one? War crimes, or ordinary combat? Recognize Hamas, or not? Such debates are necessary. But it is too easy for our students to get into the habit of seeing every member of the other group as a political sparring partner.
When political discourse becomes the dominant mode
~- or the only mode ~
something essential may be lost: empathy.
Due to the bond of motherhood, for example, women often bond together on an empathetic level despite politics raging around them. Or, as above, students at Hand in Hand. More here.
Reasonable people see that behind the stridency of hard-liners from both the Israeli and Palestinian camps lies historical pain. The Nazis slaughtered the Jews while Europe and America largely stood by. The Jews displaced and killed Palestinians in their quest for a home away from Europe. If militants on both sides could know the depth of the other's loss, a door might open.
But what are the chances of getting a Jewish settler and a Hamas activist in the same room together? Even regular kids who grow up in Israel and Palestine today do not know anyone living across the green line. One of our students, a young woman from the West Bank, confessed that before coming to Duke she had never spoken with a Jew, except when being interrogated at a checkpoint. Our Jewish students also arrive here knowing not a single Arab or Muslim, let alone a Palestinian.
That's where coffee comes in. Not only do the imam and rabbi meet, but we also create opportunities for our students to do so. During recent years, the Muslim holiday of Ramadan has coincided with the Jewish High Holy Days, giving us a chance to share a meal that has come to be known as Muslim-Jewish Iftar ('iftar' is the breaking of the Ramadan fast at sunset). For us as chaplains, the content of such programs is far less important than the very fact that our Muslim and Jewish students are doing that mundane but magically humanizing activity of sitting down together and sharing a hummus platter.
We see it working. At one such event, our rabbi happened to overhear a spontaneous conversation involving one Jewish student whose grandparents had narrowly escaped the Nazis, another Jewish student whose grandfather had fled Tunisia after the anti-Jewish riots of 1953, and a student of Palestinian descent who shared how in 1948 Israeli soldiers had sacked his grandparents' village and forced them to leave for Jordan. There was no tone of rancor or one-upmanship in these three young people's conversation; they merely wanted to share family histories.
Our campus is home to the same Israeli-Palestinian debates that happen elsewhere. But their tone has been remarkably civil. We believe this is because the disputants have eaten together, studied religious text together, and even done social action projects together.
Both of us, imam and rabbi, have received angry letters from coreligionists, accusing us of naiveté, and sometimes worse, of betraying our respective communities. It's a strange world we live in where the sight of a Jew and a Muslim at a café could provoke such suspicion. But the fact that this happens means our friendship is a powerful thing. Our modest peace plan is working.
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THEN I found THIS brilliant concept. I must say, I love these two gentlemen's expressions. And wonder why we have not heard more of them....
An extraordinary project, bringing together ordinary Israeli and Palestinian citizens in a journey rediscovery of their common humanity. Check it out. [via Patrick]
When we met in 2005, we decided to go together in the Middle-East to figure out why Palestinians and Israelis couldn’t find a way to get along together.
We then traveled across the Israeli and Palestinian cities without speaking much. Just looking to this world with amazement.
This holy place for Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
This tiny area where you can see mountains, sea, deserts and lakes, love and hate, hope and despair embedded together.
After a week, we had a conclusion with the same words: these people look the same; they speak almost the same language, like twin brothers raised in different families.
A religious covered woman has her twin sister on the other side. A farmer, a taxi driver, a teacher, has his twin brother in front of him. And he his endlessly fighting with him.
It’s obvious, but they don’t see that.
We must put them face to face. They will realize.
We want that, at last, everyone laughs and thinks when he sees the portrait of the other and his own portrait.
The Face2Face project is to make portraits of Palestinians and Israelis doing the same job and to post them face to face, in huge formats, in unavoidable places, on the Israeli and the Palestinian sides.
In a very sensitive context, we need to be clear.
We are in favor of a solution for which two countries, Israel and Palestine would live peacefully within safe and internationally recognized borders.
All the bilateral peace projects (Clinton/Taba, Ayalon/Nussibeh, Geneva Accords) are converging in the same direction. We can be optimistic.
We hope that this project will contribute to a better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians.
Today, “Face to face” is necessary.
Within a few years, we will come back for “Hand in hand”.
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