It's now Friday morning (the program ended on Wednesday) and I'm in Tel Aviv, meeting a friend later today and hanging out with my hosts' dog, Max. So I figured I'd sum things up.
We had several full days in Cyprus that I never described here, though I've provided some photos. There were remarkable experiences:
Seeing Turkey's self-interested investments in the TRNC: on the one hand, they give material improvement to the "independent" state, but on the other hand they further blur the distinction between the TRNC and Turkey itself. Our guides explained that Turkey is using the TRNC as a bargaining chip for entry into the European Union: Admit Turkey and Turkey will soften or relinquish its hold on northern Cyprus.
The visit to the Sufi center in Lefke, northern Cyprus was memorable. It's not a single building but a compound, houses attached to other houses with pathways and courtyards between them. A group of male German travelers who have become Sufi were there at the same time as our group, in robes and Sufi caps and thoroughly European, rather than Middle Eastern, in appearance. The Sheikh who received us spoke for some twenty minutes, encouraging us to give up materialistic living in order that we may fulfill the unique destiny that each of us has. It was a loving and entirely accessible talk. He has a sweet smile (though his deputy's eyes and smile were sweeter still) and an engaging manner, even as he is well into his 80's. At the same time, some of the Sheikh's attendants handed out copies of his weekly teachings (much like the printouts on the weekly parasha that one finds in Israeli synagogues). These were filled with hateful ramblings about the failures of democracy and so on. You can see his writings here http://saltanat.org/. Not pretty stuff. The contrast between his personal and printed message was striking. Adam pointed out that inclusive ideas (all of us have unique destinies that need to be cultivated) do not necessarily go hand in hand with democratic ideas.
In Famagusta (on the east coast of Cyprus, more or less clear across the island after a very long and sweaty and exhausting bus ride) we toured a bit in the old city. The attraction where we spent the most time was at the former Cathedral, now a mosque, that you can see in a previously posted photo album. We ended that day at a restaurant built right up against the water. Were the TRNC more developed, there would be tens of similar restaurants built alongside it. Instead, it was fairly isolated. A cool night, starry sky, lovely restaurant, and the Sea. The 15-year old son of one of our participants was the first in the water - he more or less ran from the bus and pulled off his shirt and shorts as he ran, having put on his bathing suit first thing in the morning in anticipation of this moment. The rest of us were close behind. A night swim in the Mediterranean after our terribly long day was pretty dreamy. Oh, dinner was real good, too.
On our final full day in Cyprus we saw the national struggle museums of both the north and south. Suffice it to say that seeing the two sides of the battle fought through photos and sharply pointed explanations gives one a sense of the intensity of the conflict and the challenge of negotiating agreements when the two sides have such different narratives to tell.
The speaker scheduled to come Wednesday morning was thwarted by an airport strike in Greece so one of the coordinators of the program, Avishai Ehrlich, filled in with a presentation he had prepared for a different conference: The Ubiquity of the Holocaust in the Israeli / Palestinian Conflict. It was a poor choice for our program and the first indication of what we were to face in Israel. Avishai is an interesting and good man who is deeply committed to justice and equality. An Israeli who fought in the Six Day War, but politically very far on the Left, he spent much of his academic career outside of Israel, in the UK and elsewhere. Skeptical of nationalism anywhere and a constant advocate for the underdog, during his career Avishai became intensely critical of Israel's treatment of Arabs in Israel and in the Occupied Territories. In his presentation, Avishai pointed out accurately enough how Israel makes constant reference to the Holocaust to contextualize and justify its focus on security and legitimacy as a State, as well as how the Palestinians have come to use the Holocaust incredibly harshly to criticize Israel and give a frame of reference for their own situation. Still, the presentation was totally lacking in contextualization for our group. Adar Cohen, the only Jewish Israeli among the fellows, protested vigorously and a terrific exchange ensued among the fellows. It was distressing, though, because Avishai seemed unwilling to critique the grossly manipulative and fundamentally false equations in the Palestinian propaganda images he showed (one equating the Separation Wall in the West Bank with the rail tracks leading to Auschwitz). It wasn't that Avishai felt the equation was accurate, but he did not do his task to frame the material responsibly for the group, allowing it all to speak for itself. There was no critical analysis of what we were seeing as there had been all week in Cyprus. It was a case of poor pedagogy. And Adar and I (and some others, too, perhaps) suddenly felt very much on the defensive. Adam was excellent about shepherding the group through the tension.
The tone was softened later in the day when we heard from former mayors of the Greek and Turkish halves of Nicosia, who told about how they found opportunities for cooperation across the border not by focusing on ideology or rhetoric or broad policies (the sorts of things that national governments focus on) but instead by focusing on practical matters like sewage and long-range zoning plans (the sorts of things local governments focus on). Theirs was a hopeful and sweet presentation.
We soon headed south to Larnaca for our flight to Tel Aviv.
Shortly after settling into the hotel, well past 1:00 AM, several of us went for a night swim in the Sea, right behind the hotel (the Marina). Glorious.
Our programmatic base in Israel was the Academic College of TelAviv-Yaffo
http://www.mta.ac.il/En/Pages/default.aspx, an award-winningly beautiful place with an expansive, academic spirit. Avishai had been on the faculty at the College until his recent retirement. After a warm welcome from the College's leadership (and a delicious Israeli meal), we had our first program. This was meant to be a presentation on the narratives different groups in Israel tell about the Israeli Palestinian Conflict. Already a divergence between our study on the divisions in Yaffo and an exploration of the conflict in general was apparent.
The first speaker was the Orthodox Rabbi Michael Melchior, a former MK and Minister and a passionate advocate for equal rights for Israeli Arabs and an end to the Occupation. He favors Jerusalem being the shared capital of two states and spoke powerfully and clearly. The second speaker was a member of Likud who was not elected to the Knesset, thank God. He offered a hateful, bigoted, triumphalist, literalist argument for total Jewish sovereignty in the entire Land of Israel. It was simply enraging to hear. It was filled with his analysis of the motivations of individuals and groups with whom he has never spoken. This last aspect was the most troubling for us in the context of our program: how can there be meaningful dialogue with another if one decides for oneself what the other is thinking. That is, how can one claim the right to define the other instead of the other defining him or herself?
Our scheduled Arab scholar was not able to come and so an Israeli scholar, again on the far left, spoke in his place. Here there seemed to be an argument that Israel cannot succeed as a Jewish democratic state and needs to be reconstituted. I actually agree that Israel being both meaningfully Jewish and truly democratic is aspirational and likely not fully achievable. But I think the outcome can be good enough that the State remains legitimate as constituted.
I staged a minor rebellion following this set of presentations. Fed up with Avishai's incapacity to moderate a discussion without injecting himself into it as a participant, when an afternoon break started I asked for an opportunity to speak to the fellows without the presence of the staff. The staff, with raised eyebrows but, I think, happy to let a good group process go forward, filed out. I checked my impressions with the group - that Avishai was not handling his role appropriately and that Adam was perhaps speaking too much in the discussions (crowding out time for fellows to ask and learn for ourselves) and found that there was general agreement. We made a request to Avishai. Over the remainder of the trip, there were attempts made to control the learning process in our lectures and presentations so as to allow the learning to be more open and less agenda-driven. Saul Shapiro, the staff member in charge of our intra-group facilitations, led this effort.
Later in the evening we saw the film Ajami, an intensely painful portrait of the deadly and deeply depressing conflict in Yaffo's poorest neighborhood. The film (nominated for an Oscar) portrays the drug- and crime-ridden tensions among Jews and Arabs, Christian and Moslem Arabs, Israeli police and the local population, all in the context of the wider conflict. Pretty devastating. It was very hard to see one of the fellows, Raja'i, a terrific 25-year old Palestinian from the famous Nusseibeh family (keepers of the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for 800 years), wrung out like a rag at end of the film. Instead of a proper discussion of the film, we heard from a Jewish and Palestinian activist in Yaffo. The former made some outrageous remarks - most memorable for me that there was a deliberate conspiracy on the part of the Jewish educational establishment to provide Arabs in Yaffo with a substandard education so as to keep that population back in Israeli society. I challenged her to offer some evidence for her claim. (Avishai supported me in that demand.) Some evidence was offered, which in no way adds up to a conspiracy in my view, but at least there was something to which to attach her charge. She also stated that Israel was engaged in a kind of ethnic cleansing in Yaffo. I was beside myself and feeling that the week in Israel would be a unending, biased presentation of Israel's ugliest faults and wrongs. In conversation with a with a sweet fellow about why I was so upset about what we'd seen and heard that day, I got very stirred up and ended up venting my frustration such that it sounded to him like I was enraged. Behaving badly: this was not a good sign. I was clearly not handling the situation well.
On a long walk on the beach with other fellows I calmed down and by the time I went to sleep I decided that I had to chill out and remain in control of my emotions and that it would be ok.
In another post I'll write more, to walk through the week in Israel on the program. It remained problematic for me throughout, though not as intensely as on the first day, but it was hopeful, too. The program ended very well. More another time.
Shabbat Shalom,
Joel
0 comments:
Post a Comment