John,
City council elections in Haifa and Tel Aviv last week were quite rightly overshadowed by the horror unfolding in Rafah, where over a million displaced Palestinians are facing starvation, bombing, and impending ground invasion. But those elections gave me a small ray of hope in bleak darkness — the kind I haven’t felt since the brief pause in the fighting over Thanksgiving.
When I joined calls for a ceasefire back then, I prayed that it would last. After weeks of horrific fighting, here were a few days of hope. One hundred hostages were returned to their families. The joy of those reunions was so palpable — I had gotten to meet some of their family members — that I hoped the work to secure release of all of them would become Israel’s focus. As people witnessed the delight of Palestinian children looking at a sky free of bombs, feeling relief from the constant fear of death, I thought maybe it could inspire a step back from the brutality of war.
Of course, those prayers were heartbreakingly far from the reality that has followed. Five months into the war, over 30,000 Palestinians killed — including 10,000 children — have been killed, with many more buried under rubble of their destroyed homes, and many more dying from starvation. Last week’s scenes of death around a food convoy — whatever horrible combination of being shot by the IDF or trampled by neighbors desperate for food — were so agonizing, even after all the suffering we’ve witnessed.
At the Israelis for Peace vigil. Photo Credit: Gili Getz
So I’ve become a regular at a vigil organized by Israeli peace activists each Sunday at 4:00 PM in Union Square, calling for a ceasefire and a return of all the hostages. They plan to continue this weekly until the war is over.
Yesterday, Rabbi Rachel Timoner of Congregation Beth Elohim powerfully addressed the group. I hope you’ll consider joining us sometime. Amidst so much division, such fierce misunderstandings (and I know that plenty of people disagree with me sharply, from multiple directions), it’s one place I’ve found small rays of hope.
Rabbi Rachel Timoner of Congregation Beth Elohim gave remarks at the vigil yesterday. Photo credit: Gili Getz
And even amidst its horrors, last week brought a few more rays of hope. Local elections were held in Israel last Tuesday, and two remarkable young women that I’ve had the chance to meet were elected to their city councils.
Sally Abed, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and one of the leaders of Standing Together, was elected to the city council in Haifa. Sally is a fierce critic of the Occupation and isn’t shy about calling out apartheid, but also someone who sees people across the conflict as fully human and wants them all to thrive. Her fierce voice, broad smile, and courageous commitment to a more equal future of coexistence make her leadership a treasure.
Sally Abed, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, and Alon-Lee Green, a Jewish Israeli, are leaders of Standing Together.
Maya Peretz-Ruiz, a Mizrachi Jewish Israeli of Moroccan and Nicaraguan descent who grew up in Sderot, was elected to the city council in Tel Aviv (where she will share a seat with Itamar Avneri, another leader of Standing Together). When I met Maya, she was a labor organizer with Koach La’Ovdim (Power to the Workers) organizing Palestinian bus drivers who drive the buses that serve Israeli settlements in the West Bank. She’s also a mom to a young son, with the clarity that hope brings.
Now, even as much as I love local government and am inspired by young leaders, I’m not overestimating what they can do. They won’t set national policy, or be in a position to make peace. Sadly, many more right-wingers were elected in last week’s elections, including a majority of the Jerusalem City Council, where so much is at stake. The Israeli Knesset remains controlled by politicians who repeatedly call for ethnic cleansing and worse.
And, of course, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza need to be able to elect their leaders, to have people who will govern their municipalities effectively, with the authority to rule. If there’s ever going to be peace, and a democratic Palestinian state, Palestinians need leaders who reject Hamas, who reject terrorism, and who reject war.
That feels so impossibly far off. At the moment, even a ceasefire, return of the hostages, the flow of crucial aid to prevent famine and mass death, feels elusive — even as more and more people around the world, including more mainstream American politicians, are joining that call.
War dehumanizes. It makes combatants see those on the other side as less-than-human, as lives not equal to one’s own. The discourse we’ve had in the U.S. shows that this dehumanization can spread far beyond the killing fields. Pulling back from war and death can feel impossible. After so much death, and so many cycles of revenge, how can people pull back?
But people do. And must.
Nonviolent, democratic politics — not just elections like those in Haifa and Tel Aviv, and God willing, someday in Rafah and Hebron, but also nonviolent direct action, in the tradition of Gandhi and King — make it possible to expand the idea of humanity, to see people as more fully human. To remember that those who appear as enemies also love their children.
Democratic action is grounded in the idea that everyone else’s vote and voice and life matters equally — not more, not less. That idea isn’t made real through violence, but through political action together even when it feels impossible.
What we need, urgently, is a politics of nonviolent, inclusive democratic action, where people with differences that feel existential can nonetheless share the political structures that advance mutual thriving.
At the vigil yesterday. Photo credit: Gili Getz
We must turn away from war, from violence, from dehumanizing others, from seeing refugees as criminals and closing our hearts to them, from moving toward fascism and away from democracy. Instead, we must turn toward the work of making peace with neighbors, keeping people safe, providing clean water, building enough housing, and educating our kids together.
Sally Abed and Maya Peretz-Ruiz represent that kind of politics. For all the horrors last week brought, for all that war brutalizes and obscures, they remind me that the way forward, while excruciatingly hard, is actually pretty clear.
In solidarity,
Brad
