I attended a conference early in the summer where a panel participant explained that Israelis and Palestinians have tried to be married, but no amount of counseling could make it work. Now civil divorce is the only solution. Granted the participant was discussing the West Bank and Israel proper rather than the internal dynamics of Palestinian and Jewish Israelis. But two months later I still find his particular reasoning troubling, and here’s why. 

Half way between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv is Neve Shalom/Whata-al-Salam, a small community of Jewish and Palestinian Israelis who live, learn, and pray together on a small hillside plot of land.  The village began as an experimental binational project, and within its borders, Jews and Palestinians attend school together, swim together, eat together, and live as neighbors and community members. Peace education and religious pluralism are large components of the village, as is instilling in Jewish and Palestinian Israeli youth the values of living side-by-side. Driving through the small village roads, one can see the intermingling of European and Arab architecture, deliberately created to celebrate and allow for contrast.

While the national peace process is perhaps more discouraging than ever, and when the word “coexistence” saturates so many political agendas that it’s almost lots its meaning, the residents of Neve Shalom/Wahat-al-Salam provide a genuine example of what an egalitarian society could be. Whether one believes in a one or two-state solution, or in transforming conflict from without or within, there are lessons in Neve Shalom/Wahat-al-Salam. 

Of course, the small community project, approved by the Ministry of the Interior in 1989, is not immune to the problems of the larger political context, nor does the village counter complex questions about citizenship in Israel. As community members note, the breakdown of the larger peace process has caused subtle tension among inhabitants, as has the departure of Jewish youth from the village to serve in the military, perhaps at the peril of other Palestinians. Similarly, the binational egalitarianism of the village does not erase institutional discrimination against Palestinian Israeli citizens within larger Israeli society.

But if we look at the village not as a counterweight to structural injustices, for no village could play this role, and instead as a blueprint for future equality and mutual understanding, Neve Shalom/Wahat-al-Salam is a desperately needed oasis of optimism. Perhaps within the context of the world’s most intractable conflict, we should give more credit to the importance of symbolism. If one hillside symbol is a catalyst for small scale hope, then we should keep going on tours and reading the paper, and grant writers in start-up NGOs across Israel and Palestine should keep writing. 

In the news there is daily fodder for pessimists. The majority of Israelis and Palestinians I’ve spoken with this summer say they have lost hope. I’ve fought this internal sense of doom the whole summer. It is in view of this always imminent wave of pessimism that experimental and entrepreneurial projects like Neve Shalom/Wahat-al-Salam, however unrepresentative they may be of broader society, are so crucial. In a time of increasing private enterprise, perhaps Neve Shalom/Wahat-al-Salam is a sort of charter school experiment for a society whose Jewish and Palestinian kids didn’t seem to be moving any closer towards equality and understanding. Like any charter entrerprise, if more outsiders see the value, it will replicate. So why not?

Last month I had the chance to interview Elise, the former coordinator of the AIC’s Jerusalem Project and a teacher of sociology at Bethlehem University. In Part II of the interview Elise discusses how teaching can bring about social change, and the role youth can play in this transformation. As several experts on youth and development have noted, all too often internationally funded programs for marginalized youth operate on the premise that idle youngsters are dangerous, and that the sooner they become employed, the sooner society will avert the threat of conflict. As one might expect, without taking the hopes, opinions, and recommendations of youth into account, including what kind of employment they, themselves want, and what kind of an education would be most conducive to their involvement in conflict resolution, such programming can be less than effective at best, and can deepen conflict at worst. Elise’s thoughts on educating under occupation provide an example of how to better involve youth in conflict resolution processes. On a personal note, her thoughts also provide me with ideas for how to teach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to youth living miles away in the U.S.  

 “I believe in inspirational education that is not based only on transmitting information but also upon empowering students to think about their lives and society differently and encouraging them to make changes, especially in terms of social justice and the different challenges facing their lives. I believe that education could be empowering for people surrounded by walls. It provides a horizon to freedom. 

I try to develop simulation exercises and debates that encourage students to connect between sociology and their daily lives. Palestinian youth are greatly affected by the occupation. Simple students have been challenging a lot: walls, checkpoints, trauma, depression as a result of immobility and feeling caged by the wall…

There was a woman coming to the class [I taught] every day very pregnant, trying to do her assignments as if everything was normal, but to imagine the things she went through every day getting from Hebron to Bethlehem for class. First, she would leave her children at home, convince her father and mother in law to let her come to the university, get through the checkpoints, just to study and leave. I had other students traumatized by certain events, for example the loss of a brother or a sister during Israeli shelling on the Bethlehem district. There was someone else who had had a disability as a result of the intifada. Many students had been imprisoned or detained by Israel during the Intifada.  I remember in the middle of a semester, a student who had just been released from a four year detention by Israel came to class. He had to resume his studies like the rest of the students. It was so difficult for him to do that because he was always thinking about what had happened in prison. I would ask him to write his assignment connecting sociological theory to his experience, otherwise [he would be] unable to concentrate. 

During Gaza, we would be discussing the course material, and then students would often tell me they were unable to concentrate. This was a dilemma for me sometimes. In those moments I often did not know what to do. On the one hand I had to finish the lesson and course outline but on the other hand, I would sometimes feel students were not present in the class. They were too distracted by what was happening not so far away. I would often let them share their sociological observations in the class. At other times, I had to commit to the outline. I remember there was a final exam during the prime of the Gaza events and many students came to class telling me they could not study at all, and nevertheless they had to make the exam.  

One issue I noticed was that many students felt inner despair and powerlessness with regards to the future and their immobility and being surrounded by walls. One time a students asked me on the theme of Sociology of Development, ‘why would we study this? We’re not like the rest of students in developing countries; we don’t have a future, we’re surrounded by walls, and there is no future.’ I would try to tell them we can identify a problem and try and work on strategies and alternatives which could also be success stories for other countries dealing with conflict like Afghanistan or Iraq or Sudan. Instead of complaining all the time it’s important to think of your responsibility and alternatives.

I also noticed that the textbooks would often make the students feel powerless. I started thinking of ways that would help the students think of alternatives and about their personal responsibility with regards to certain issues. For example, I would ask them to think about personal stereotypes about other cultures and Occidentalism whenever the issue of Orientalism was discussed. I believe in the importance and value of inter-cultural and inter-religious genuine dialogue. Another thing I noticed is that the history of the Holocaust is not included in Palestinian textbooks. I would speak about the history of Nazism, dictatorship, colonialism and different forms of racial and political oppression and we would have debates about the role of intellectuals, students and the society with regards to such challenges.”

On the occasion of U.S. Congressman Mike Huckabee’s visit to East Jerusalem, tens of activists from across the leftie spectrum gathered in Sheikh Jarrah this week to protest recent settlement expansion. Traditionally Huckabee has aligned himself with the aspirations of settlers to build in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and has supported the expansion of settlements despite diplomatic efforts to halt their growth. The protest took place outside the Shepherd Hotel, just meters away from the site of recent house evictions in East Jerusalem. Over the last several weeks Sheikh Jarrah has become the center of Netanyahu’s plans to evict Palestinian families from their houses and replace them with Jewish settlers.

Getting lost on my way to the protest, I passed by Mr. Hanoun standing across the street from his former home. A member of the most recent family to lose their house to Netanyahu’s forced evictions, Mr. Hanoun gathered with several friends to discuss the fate of the neighborhood. In recent weeks, protesters, UN representatives and members of the press alike have gathered in the same spot to advocate in various tones for an end to house evictions. On this day, there were no international activists standing with Mr. Hanoun, nor were there members of the UN, the EU, or the Quartet. Even to the most dedicated activists, the evictions have  already happened. 

The protest took place just meters away from the Hanoun residence and attracted a mix of moderate to radical leftists from Israel, Europe, and the United States. Not far away right-wing settlers organized a counter-protest to show their support for a Jewish Jerusalem and a Jewish homeland inclusive of all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. 

The demonstration was organized by Peace Now, a moderate Israeli organization that advocates for a two-state solution and Palestinian self-determination within the 1967 borders. Most unexpectedly heartening about the protest was the political range of participants. While standing in the midst of rallying cowbells I overheard conversations between self-identified radicals from Sweden, a young Israeli who refused army service, and a politically moderate elderly man who lost his child in a suicide bombing years ago. My own political convictions aside, it was refreshing to see the full gamut of self-identified leftists chanting the same slogan in solidarity with the movement to end house evictions. 

My guess is that in any other setting, like that of the cyberworld or a conference on Zionism or militarism, many of the participants would likely fall into unpleasant rivalries with one another while debating the wall, or checkpoints, or the facts of 1948. But in the presence of a common antagonist, activists from across the fragmented left abandoned the dichotomies and intellectual nuances of daily life and came together for a couple hours over something simple: the problematic nature of settlement expansion. Ironically, for this rare glimpse of leftie unity we have Mike Huckabee to thank.

Unlike New York, San Francisco or  Tel Aviv where footprints of lefty activity are easy to come by, the political realities of Jerusalem keep critical voices more under wraps. In a largely right-wing, religious city where young adults increasingly flee to Tel Aviv, there is a shrinking soap box for politically minded youngsters speaking out against the occupation and social injustice. 

In a more atypical format than the average protest, I came across a  group of activist musicians at a rock performance a few nights ago who provided through their songs an interesting perspective on apathy, political activism, and gender as it relates to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Called “Lo Dubim,” meaning “No Bears,” the band is comprised of a drummer, guitarist, bass player, and Greek mandolin player, and their sound resembles a Turkish slap bass version of Rage Against the Machine. 

In a song entitled “Cool Guy,” Lo Dubim draws attention to the hypocritical aspects of activism within Israeli society, and the difficulty of espousing one set of views while acting either by choice or force upon another. The lyrics tell the story of one activist with two faces: on the one hand, he is a latte drinking, iBook owning, coffee shop dwelling, army hating, peace loving, sensitive, new-aged civilian-cum-hipster. He rejects all notions of conformity associated with the army, and attends peace rallies and free concerts organized by left-wing parties and organizations. Yet in the very same breath, the protagonist is a member of the army and a default player in the perpetuation of racism and militarism. The protagonist champions the tenets of self-defense, even at the cost of violence and death. 

The  lyrics illustrate the frustrations and complexities of being an activist in a society of forced conscription. More broadly, the song criticizes the activism of convenience that allows socially minded individuals to celebrate their liberal views at opportune moments, even if their actions have a countering effect on social progress. The singer performed the song in tongue-in-cheek monotone, just sarcastic enough for the audience to consider the hypocrisy the lyrics suggest, while still angry enough to convey his frustrations with the wrong mix of ego and activism.

(Lo Dubim performs in Tel Aviv)

The performance was refreshing because it unmasked the holy image of the activist that is so full of morals and principles that he/she is lacking in self-reflection. On a personal level, I’ve encountered all forms of international activists since my arrival, and have truly been inspired and motivated by them. They encourage me to continue my studies of the conflict and find some place for myself in the large array of regional non-profits doing good work on the ground. But occasionally I find myself questioning the activist that becomes so noble that he/she loses her ability to listen, to connect to people, and to remember that the cause comes in a context. The song is simultaneously a tribute to the importance of activism, while also a reminder to keep our own aspirations for funky, phatty righteousness subordinate to our goals for social change. 

My first introduction to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict came from my third grade Hebrew school teacher. She had cool crimped hair and was young so I liked her. To boot she had an Israeli boyfriend who wore hip jean jackets, and whenever she went to visit him in Jerusalem she brought us back small wooden camels from the Old City. These were our lone connotations with the region, and they satisfied our hintings of curiosity.

After an internationally broadcasted rally in support of the Oslo Accords, I remember our teacher gathering us into the center of the classroom and telling us, “we can’t give them more land. If we do, they will just keep wanting more.” We weren’t really sure who “they” were, but the explanation was sufficient enough to a room full of third graders who only semi-understood the meaning of the Hebrew prayers we crawled our way through each week.

Until my junior year in college when I took a course on Palestinian literature, I had scarcely been given the opportunity in school, synagogue, or with family and friends to hear a Palestinian perspective. To this day it is my fascination with why and how this narrative was deleted from my extensive religious education that propels my interest in the region. The answer is complex, and can’t only be blamed on one factor like ignorance, or pride, or fear. Yet before the age of twenty, I was taught indirectly or by omission that Palestinians were peripheral and amorphous; that they were instigators. The gaping holes in my own education underscore the need for organizations that work within Jewish society to promote a more complex story.

Last month I had the chance to interview Eitan Bronstein, the director of Zochrot (meaning “remembering” in Hebrew), an organization that teaches Israeli citizens about the Palestinian Nakba, or commemoration of the 1948 displacement and expulsion of Palestinians from their land. Zochrot’s mission is to supplement the traditional narrative Jews are taught about the founding of Israel with one that is more complex and inclusive.

For those who haven’t been been keeping up with Israeli news in the last several weeks, members of the Knesset have recently passed two bills, one that outlaws government funding of all organizations that commemorate the Nakba, and another that bans the use of the word “Nakba” in textbooks that are used within Arab schools.

Adopting precisely the opposite mantra, Zochrot speaks loudly about the Nakba so that the Jewish collective memory can include acknowledgment of Palestinian history. Representatives from Zochrot also hold gallery exhibits and give tours of former Arab villages throughout the country, marking tour sites with signs that delineate the original Arabic names of destroyed villages.

According to Eitan, while some version of a two-state solution may be imminent, reconciliation can not occur unless Israel formally and informally acknowledges the Nakba. In this sense, every Jewish child that is taught only one narrative, whether in Israel or the United States, becomes another barrier to reconciliation.

But just as important as acknowledging the Naqba within mainstream society is understanding that the event does not stand alone as a historical occurrence that was left behind in 1948. The continuing struggle of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza for statehood and recognition is equally a part of acknowledging the Nakba.

As part of the AIC’s efforts to connect their work with that of other Israeli organizations, I had a chance to travel to Tel Aviv to interview Eitan for a podcast. Below is the fruit of the interview. Enjoy!

Zochrot Podcast

I have this flaming gold Obama tee-shirt that looks like something I won in a giant cereal box, or maybe at a NASCAR event for democrats. It reads “Obama! Our 44th President!” in bubble letters, and boasts a sparkly sketch of our new leader. 

Since arriving in Israel I’ve kept my Obama shirt under wraps in the bottom of my suitcase, a safe distance from the controversy and disapproval surrounding Obama’s Cairo speech, and away from debates about settlements, outposts, and home demolitions. Of course, my own Obama fever has not gone anywhere, nor have my personal political convictions changed. But at the end of a long day I prefer to get on the bus politically ambiguous and wait until I get home and write these blogs to let it all out. 

For Palestinian families in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, Obama and his “Yes You Can” motto have been reincarnated as an appeal to the international community to wake up and speak out against home evictions and demolitions. 

In light of yesterday’s bleak news--two new evictions were carried out in Sheikh Jarrah despite international outcry--we’re all hoping that the residents’ attempts to leverage Obama’s motto can garner further support from the international community. 

Sheikh Jarra has fallen into the middle of Netanyahu’s struggle to make Jerusalem the unified capital of a Jewish state. In effect, this policy means the demolition of thousands of Palestinians’ homes in East Jerusalem and the building of apartments for Jewish residents in their place. The demolitions are occurring under the premise that the Palestinian homes have been illegally built upon land conquered by Israeli military force in 1967, and based upon disputed land deeds from Ottoman days. Yet for residents such as the Ghawi family, their house has been their home for 53 years.  

The loss of families’ homes means the physical and psychological displacement of children and an interruption of the family stability necessary for children to learn and feel safe. The demolitions occur despite that the U.S. state department has called for a halt to further apartment development, as has the UN, the EU and the Palestinian Authority.

Yesterday I received a text from a friend saying that the Hannouns, a Palestinian family central to the struggle to resist displacement, had just been evicted. While my friend sat near their house, the Hannouns stood on the street watching the army and border police throw all of their belongings into a dumpster. Because Mr. Hannoun did not have time to put on his shoes before the eviction, he had to search the dumpster for his shoes while onlookers watched. By the time my friend left the house, a new family of settlers had already moved in. 

Of course Obama can’t flash a smile and suddenly break the self-defeating policies of a right-wing government. But even though the Hannouns have already been evicted, I still hope that somehow the image of the Hannouns being forced to leave their homes makes it to Foggy Bottom so that Washington can advocate more strongly on behalf of East Jerusalem, even if it means further aggravating a relationship with Netanyahu. As it is, Netanyahu does not want any peace defined by compromise. Yes, the neighborhood has now received New York Times coverage, and Hillary has spoken about East Jerusalem in front of dignitaries and reporters. But Washington is racing against the slated eviction of thousands of other Palestinians in East Jerusalem, and tomorrow more settlers are preparing their belongings for their new homes.

Last week I had the opportunity to interview Elise, former coordinator of the Jerusalem Project at the AIC, and a part-time sociology teacher at Bethlehem University. She spoke to me about life under occupation, the importance of advocacy, and her students. Below is Part 1, in her own words.

“It is very difficult to speak about life under occupation for me personally, because it’s difficult to victimize yourself. Even when you simply speak about daily hardships, many people think that you are exaggerating or trying to make pro-Palestine propaganda.  Palestinians have talked a lot to the international community about their suffering. It sometimes gets tiring. It is difficult to expose yourself so much, when you know it’s many times not leading to results.

One integral part of occupation is one’s inner pain, powerlessness and humiliation. You have no control over your daily life and are often incapable of making change. At the same time you are all the time judged, exposed and watched. Everything is surveyed around you. If you want to move, you can’t because you have to be searched. If you want to speak out, you might be arrested. If you want to go out in Ramallah, you are confronted by checkpoints.

Occupation is the degradation of humanity and therefore I believe that resistance is holding onto your humanity. When you go through the process of occupation and all your resources are taken away from you, people start to struggle and compete for limited resources and this explains some of the inter-factional fighting.

The act of constraining the time and geography of Palestinians by surrounding them with walls should not be taken for granted. People feel chained and shocked by the rapid changes in landscape. Landscape transformation is one characteristic of life under occupation. You see the trees, but there is a wall. The sky [is transformed] too. And now there are tunnels, so even under the ground is occupied.

Sometimes you feel as if you have lost the vision or scope of what’s going on. Many times you feel frustrated and powerless. And yet sometimes you find yourself dreaming of a brighter future. Many times you see the situation giving your life a meaning and role, especially when you feel that death could be very close, which makes you appreciate life more.

In East Jerusalem, you feel like an immigrant in your home country and you don’t know when your papers will be seized away. Your space, your house might be taken at any moment. My parents were both born in Jerusalem and my grandparents came after the [Armenian] genocide, and I have many relatives who have been here for hundreds and thousands of years living in Jerusalem under Jordan and speaking Arabic. Now, when we go to West Jerusalem they look at us like “why don’t you speak Hebrew?” We hear the same discourse as if we are Moroccan immigrants not integrating enough. But people who came from Russia five years ago are treated as more Israeli than those who have been here for hundreds of years. We are treated like we are temporary, and they are eternal citizens.

One time I went to a store and I got a call in Arabic. When the shopkeeper heard me, she said “lo aravim po, get out” (no Arabs here, get out). So whatever you do, you are always confronted with the occupation and related power relations and your marginalization or demonization or inferiorization.

What makes me optimistic is first when I see my friends who are also trying to work on change and solidarity, when something happens to one of us, we share, we talk together, we cry together, we laugh together, we go to each other’s happy and sad events. When we are really depressed we sometimes have a party and dance.

When I see people challenging their inner despair, I become optimistic. When I see how the wall is turning into a site connecting people, how international groups come and see the occupation with masks removed, this makes the occupation less concealed. When I see how many people from abroad are becoming interested, who are challenging their governments, it also gives me optimism.

I think sometimes we are blessed to live under occupation, because you start realizing what matters to you most in life. An occupied body is being tortured, but you are also being challenged to hold onto both death and life. When you are challenging death you are holding onto life, and when you are holding onto life, you know the value of things more, because you feel life inside you.

I saw a little girl in Jenin refugee camp once. The whole refugee camp was destroyed by Israeli soldiers. She had lost everything. But she told me she had a dream that she wanted to become an architect and turn the refugee camp into a clean place with swimming pools and nice houses. This gives me optimism that people, despite everything, are having their share of little dreams. This gives me optimism to see that even in a refugee camp, people are singing and crying together and connecting to each other. It’s a special feeling.

As a Christian, we always have the feeling that eventually there will be justice. When you see South Africa, what happened in India with Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King, you see that eventually there was some kind of justice, not total justice, but some kind of justice, and you hold onto that dream.”

The first time I heard about Hebron was through a zen-like roommate of mine when I had just arrived in Jerusalem. He had a long beard that he always twisted while he prayed, and was devoted to the study of Kabbalah. “Hebron. It’s the soul, man,” he said.

Granted there are many differences between my former roommate and I; he is religious and I’m secular; he prays after he pees, and I wash my hands and call it a day. But we got along well. For my roommate, Hebron is a sacred and personified piece of land where he can feel a holy presence, and to me, it is the city of imprisonment that my activist friends have always mentioned while shaking their heads in disbelief. After you leave Hebron, you have an uncanny urge to take Obama on a tour. You feel sick to your stomach and want purported social justice advocates throughout the American Jewish community to speak less selectively about the facts on the ground. You want to film a sundance documentary and postmark it directly to AIPAC. You don’t want to go back, but you don’t want to forget it, either.

Last week I had the chance to travel with several interns and internationals to Hebron to take a tour of the historic city. In case you are unfamiliar, Hebron is the southernmost city in the West Bank, and within the municipality, Palestinians live neck-to-neck with Jewish settlers who have come to “retake” the land as part of what they view as a holy war. While most other settlements in the West Bank are much like the ones represented in the New York Times–a cluster of newly built Sears rent-a-houses on a fortified hill–Hebron’s settlements overlook Palestinian streets, living rooms, and children, and their water towers overshadow Palestinians’ smaller rooftop tanks. The war over water is always revealing.

Interspersed throughout Hebron are checkpoints manned by Israeli soldiers. Some are matchbox road blockades through which all Palestinians must pass to get from their houses to the market. Others are metal turnstyles that lock automatically behind passerby, and soldiers must grant permission to all Palestinians who wish to leave a two block radius outside the mosque. To get to the holy mosque to pray, Palestinians must go through three checkpoints in the span of one block. I passed through the checkpoints in minutes, and I am not a Muslim. The Palestinian Muslim behind me who was born in Hebron was searched extensively, patted down, and treated like a seedy tourist with a criminal record.

I guess it’s a good time to throw in that last Thursday was my first time seeing a turnstyle checkpoint. I’d seen roadblock checkpoints before, and while all “prove to me who you are” blockades are degrading for those who live on the land, there is something about watching a grown man coming through a stadium-esque metal turnstyle at the mercy of a twenty-year-old boy as he travels from his son’s school to the next block that casts serious doubt upon the security justification. There are security threats, and then there is separation by design that calls itself Security to hide its guilty conscience. All the while, metal fences and barbed wire cover the open-air streets and block Palestinians from moving freely. While “human prison” has been used extensively by activists and advocates throughout time, I’m not sure how else to describe Hebron. Literal fences and barbed wire stand between the ground and the sky, and trash that settlers throw onto the metal fences and cages collects and rots.

Trash collects in a barbed wire fence separating Palestinians from settlers

Meantime, on the other side of the checkpoints, young settlers wearing colorful hippie clothing and tee-shirts with religious messages ride on carts up and down the streets and sing songs of happiness. If I saw them doing the same thing out of context in California I would probably jump on the wagon and sing along. Everyone loves a righteous cause, especially one put to a catchy melody. But here in the holy land their parade is at the expense of local Palestinians who on this particular street are sequestered to a small walking path on the side of the road manned by cement barriers and soldiers with uzis. I was not alive to see the pre-civil rights, segregationist 1950s in the U.S., but I imagine the visible signs of separation to look like this.

A Palestinian toddler crawls on the roof of her house underneath a metal barrier built to prevent settlers from attacking

The irony, and point of optimism, is that if my former roommate came with me on the tour, he would likely share my outrage, Kabbalah convictions and all. As an impassioned Israeli cab driver told me the other day, “We treat Palestinians like we were once treated in the ghettos of Europe. We of all people should know how this feels.”The hope is that voices like his will gain larger audiences until they are an accepted part of the international Jewish mainstream.

There is a reason Jerusalem’s annual gay pride parade may lack the Madonna impersonators and carnivale style beats of LGBTQ celebrations in Manhattan and Tel Aviv, and it is the precise reason that the parade is so crucial to civil rights work in the city.  While the pride parades of Tel Aviv connote jumbo floats, street vendors and a celebration of the feats the gay civil rights movement has overcome, Jerusalem’s parade is a political act, and an honest reminder that among gay activists there is more work to be done within the ancient city.

In Jerusalem, the history of the parade has been one of constant struggle with the ultra-orthodox community and the local municipality. And in a city of religious-secular tensions and right-wing dominated politics, it also represents a struggle for greater tolerance and acceptance for all Jerusalemites, gay and straight alike. 

Before walking in the parade with a group of AIC interns and friends, I had the chance to interview Amit Lev from Open House Jerusalem, a non-profit LGBTQ advocacy group. While I waited to chat with him I sat in the organization’s living room, a makeshift gallery with Warhol-like paintings and photos of transgender models lining the wall.

Lev told me that in Jerusalem, the very existence of the parade can not be taken for granted. Five years ago, violence erupted during the parade as an ultra-orthodox counter protester stabbed a parade participant, the same year that Jerusalem’s mayor threatened to cancel the parade altogether. For him, the parade is about letting those who are not openly gay know that they, too are Jerusalemites, and that they, too have the right to express their identity.

For leftist activists involved in national politics, the parade was also an opportune moment to address other social issues like the ever touchy occupation discussion. It is no wonder that the cowbell masters and snare drum captains lining Bell Park are the very same beat makers from the weekly anti-occupation demonstrations throughout the region. From the Meretz Party to Hadash, the event was a chance for activists from across the leftie spectrum to talk about occupation, racism, sexism, and oppression of all forms.

By the time I left the post parade festivity (imagine a rainbow colored version of the final score from Broadway’s “Hair” and it’s like you were there, too), the connection between the struggle for gay rights and an end to the oppressive policies of the occupation was clear. As Kvisa Shchora (”Black Laundry”), an LGBTQ advocacy organization argues, one can not selectively choose to advocate on behalf of some oppressed groups and not others; the struggle for gay rights is as much about equal rights for the LGBTQ community as it is for Palestinians living under occupation.

There is something about fearless grandmothers standing their ground in the face of bird flipping, yelling, and spitting that makes me want to pump my (peaceful) fist and change my name to Gloria Steinem. This instinct isn’t because of some yearning to damn the man; it is out of appreciation for the unbreakable role women have always played in international peace movements. 

While Steinem deserves her praise, so do the largely unknown and unrewarded grandmothers, mothers, and young women (and occasional men! very important!) that fill Jerusalem’s Paris Square every Friday. They are the members of Women in Black, an international peace organization, and they hold weekly vigils to remind Israeli society that a mile up the road on the other side of an eighteen foot separation wall is a people under occupation. Their very presence is a rejection of the silencing mechanisms that would otherwise turn occupation into a normal fact of life. At the end of the day, no matter what your political convictions, occupation is not normal. 

(A video I shot during the vigil)

Women in Black began in 1987, and their activities have historically been a way for Israeli and Palestinian women to come together and oppose war and militarism. In my short time standing with the Women in Black, I witnessed young children yelling, parents giving the finger, and a couple men spitting. In response to the world, the Women in Black merely flashed the peace sign to all who resisted. And are you really going to argue with the peace sign? 

The reason I was so taken by the vigil is simple: Since I’ve arrived in Jerusalem I’ve grappled constantly with the normalcy of life here. In many ways, I feel like I’m in California: good weather, good friends, good beaches. When I’m not working I’m frolicking about the city and I don’t have to think about checkpoints or water consumption or economic development in Ramallah or Gaza City or Beit Sahur.

 The Women in Black unapologetically interrupt complacency, and no matter what is hurled their way week after week, they refuse to go away. Given the challenge Israel’s most recent wave of right wing politicians presents to Obama, the EU, and Arab countries alike, the presence of Women in Black is more essential to the Israeli left than ever before. Even for those who hate their message, and their peace signs, and that they are women, driving through Paris Square on Fridays means momentarily losing one’s train of thought and becoming distracted in the middle of conversation. And to those who fear what they might find by questioning Israel’s military presence in Palestine, such an interruption is infuriating.