Rabbi Natasha and I are just back from an extraordinary mission to Israel with Yachad – the charity seeking to empower British Jews to support a political resolution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
On a trip to the South, we saw the awful destruction wrecked
by Hamas at the Nova site and also in Sderot – only a kilometer from the border
with Gaza. We looked over the fields through which the terrorists entered
Israel and beyond to the wreckage of the
Northern Gaza Strip. We met with residents of Kibbutz Nirim forced to hide in
shelters designed for bombs, not invasion and planted an olive tree with
several Kibbutz members now looking to return to their home. I was particularly
moved to meet with Dani Miran, who has been campaigning with dignity and
insistence for the return of his son, Omir taken from Kibbutz Nahal Oz. The
family have, just days ago, received a video of Omri alive from a released
hostage. In Jerusalem, we attended a memorial and balloon launch for Shiri,
Kfir and Ariel Bibas at Kikar HaHatufim – hostage square. May all the hostages
be released immediately.
We also met with those, as one activist put it, “actively
creating a truth to counteract the claim that there is no partner for peace.”
That’s a sentence. We met with a Jewish and a Palestinian representative of
Standing Together. They talked of providing protective presence to trucks with
food aid on the road to Gaza, and being amazed by how many people were
committed to enable compassion to be felt for all humanity, even for those in a
society governed by the wicked. “Nobody here is their government,” MK Rabbi
Gilad Kariv explained to us in the Kennesset, in between popping in and out of
the Chamber to give a speech about the allocation of ministerial portfolios.
The MK urged an attempt to build a “covenant of moderation - ברית המתינות,”
both in land controlled by Israel and beyond. “We have wasted the opportunities
to create an alternative to Hamas in the Gaza strip. We could have brought a
coalition of moderate Arab countries and the Palestinian Authority into
Northern Gaza. This is one among many opportunities. Instead they [the
Netanyahu government] are weakening the PA in the West Bank encouraging Hamas
and Islamic Jihad in the Occupied Territories.”
We travelled to the West Bank and met Mayors of two Regional
Councils and a representative of the Governor of Nablus. They were weary from
experiences of road closures, checkpoints, land and resource grabs and settler
violence. But they too spoke of a desire to find a way to live alongside
Israeli Jews. “We don’t mind those two dunams,” spoke one mayor pointing at a
small illegal hilltop settlement erected since October 7th, but “why
do they take all this?” He waved his hand across a hundred-dunam stretch of
Palestinian farm land and the local quarry.
We travelled too to the South Hebron Hills and Hebron itself
where the strange dance between Prime Minister Netanyahu and his extreme
right-wing coalition partners was brutally illustrated. We stood among the
wreckage of the Palestinian town of Zanuta, abandoned and was immediately
bulldozered by settlers following a daily series of violent incursions in the
aftermath of October 7th. The Palestinians were threatened with
death unless they left – the leader of the settlement most responsible is under
sanction from the British Government. Our guide explained the pattern of
settler violence, left to go unchecked by police, municipal authorities, army
and quasi-army units following the leadership of Minister for National Security
Itamar Ben-Gvir. And then a settler drove up to us, bouncing over the rocky
path getting closer and closer to group reversing and swinging his car around
like a weapon. It was designed to threaten and intimidate. It was violent and
dangerous. As we hastily drove away, the settler swerved into the car of
another member of our group causing damage. Will he be prosecuted? Our group
leaders, who see this behaviour daily, suspect not.
The people of both Israel and Palestinian need a vision of
security which brings hope and dignity. Speaking out against the appalling
terror of October 7th, seeking to understand how we got to that
place, and advocating for those building towards a, “willingness to live
alongside one another,” as one peace activist put it, is the only way forward.
I’m immensely grateful to Yachad for making this trip possible.
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