Violence has swept through Israel these past few weeks, shattering lives and heightening distrust between Jewish and Arab communities. On smartphones, Jewish teens replay videos of stabbings and car attacks. Palestinian parents keep their children indoors, frightened they might be arrested or killed; some Palestinians returning from work in western Jerusalem wear yarmulkes, hoping to pass as Jews.
Despite the grim news, hundreds of Arab and Jewish Israelis came together last week in Wadi Ara, a heavily Arab region of the Lower Galilee, to express their hopes for peaceful coexistence.
All week long the people arrived from nearby Arab villages and Jewish communities to sit in the Tent of Peace, an initiative organized by Yaniv Sagee, the director of Givat Haviva, a nonprofit that promotes Jewish-Arab dialogue and reconciliation.
On Oct. 16, the day after an Eritrean asylum seeker was mistaken for a terrorist and shot by a security guard and then attacked by a Jewish mob at the Beersheva bus station — he later died — some 120 people gathered at the Tent of Peace. They divided into sharing circles to talk about why they felt the need to come together.
One Jewish woman stood up and said, “My children are afraid to get on the bus to take them to school. The majority of the populations from both sides want peace, but we have little voice in the face of our intransient leaders.”
An Israeli Arab woman dressed in traditional Palestinian full-length dress and headscarf shared that she was afraid to go to Afula for her doctor’s appointment for fear that someone might shoot her. When she finally did go, she brought a tiny purse with just her cellphone and wallet, so that the security guards wouldn’t think she might be carrying a bomb; regardless, they still stopped her and asked to check her bag, she said.
Buada Awsaf, an outspoken woman from the Arab village of Mushayrifa, carried a large banana leaf on which she had written: “To educate the next generation in respect, patience and love. Only love will be victorious.” Abed Salifeh, an Israeli Arab in charge of regional security, engaged in intense conversation with three Jewish women from neighboring communities who took part last spring in Women Cooking for Peace, a group of Arab and Jewish women who met in each other’s homes to share food and conversation.
Gila Dayan from Kibbutz Ein HaShofet explained why these face-to-face encounters are so important in Israel. “Except for a couple women who worked in our senior home on the kibbutz, I had little contact with Arabs,” she said. “In our women’s group, it was difficult to listen to the other side of the conflict, to hear a rather different story than what we had been taught.” Since joining the group, Dayan has been teaching English to the 12-year-old son of an Arab woman she met there.
Wearing a white shirt with a yarmulke, a Jewish man from Kfar Tavor said he volunteers in a hospital emergency room where 90 percent of the patients are Arabs. “We generally have so little contact with Arabs, and when we do it is often shrouded with fear and suspicion,” he said, “But when I’m helping in the emergency waiting room, people are frightened, exposed and open, and it is a wonderful opportunity to get to know Arabs better.”
In addition to sharing their personal stories, participants in last week’s Tent of Peace expressed the belief that economic and educational equality, cooperation and understanding are essential to creating a more viable, peaceful society, and that the Israeli government and Palestinian authorities must sign a lasting accord. Otherwise, they said, periodic surges of violence will continue to erupt.
An example of such cooperation was shared by Galiah Sagee, who works at Yad v’Yad (Hand in Hand), a bilingual Arabic-Hebrew school with 260 pupils. Each class has two teachers, and from the first grade children learn to speak both languages. A half-dozen bilingual schools exist in Israel, but the Yad v’Yad school in Kfar Qara is the only one located in an Arab village.
“Many Jewish parents would be mortified to every day put their young children on a bus headed into an Arab village,” Sagee said. “Despite trepidation, however, these parents and students see their bilingual education as an important personal statement.”
At the culmination of the Oct. 16 gathering, Jewish and Arab participants stood along the busy highway holding signs reading, “Jews and Arabs refuse to concede shared lives” and “Arabs and Jews demand: cooperation, equality and security.” Some drivers honked in support, while others yelled their opposition or made rude gestures. Still others slowed down and took photos on their phones.
“If we don’t have the courage to stand here and to speak out,” said a woman from Kibbutz Gazit, “then nothing will ever change, and this violence will continue on and on.”