Coexistence Exists

January 4, 2009 - 4:38 PM by Molly · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Blogging, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Politics, Religion, coexistence 

It’s no surprise that main stream news is focusing on the current situation in Gaza and southern Israel. Watching CNN’s coverage Israel looks like a battlefield right out of any epic war movie. The images are constantly played over and over again—which means I get worried phone calls from America, over and over again.

But there is more to life than the images on the news. In Jerusalem, all is pretty much quiet. Yes, tensions are high and I feel the added stress, but life is still not the media’s picture of Israel. In fact there is more coexistence happening on a daily basis than most people are aware of.

Here is Jerusalem Jews and Arabs work together building fancy new high rises or the new light rail train across the city. Today I spoke with an Arab-Israeli who was taking a five-minute-break from his moving job. He sat drinking coffee with his co-workers, both Arabs and Jews, and spoke about the weather (the very cold Jerusalem winter) and my dog’s funny looking sweater (I though he might be cold, but the dog clothing thing is just not for me). The point is that small talk still exists—talking still exists and not all forms of communication are from one rocket to another.

On a larger scale, I think back to the recent coexistence projects I filmed in the Israeli mixed cities of Acre and Lod. Again, the news’s projection is all about violence and crime in these areas, rather than focusing on the positive stories taking place.

Most people now think of Acre as that city that had riots this past Yom Kippur. But Acre quickly recovered from the fighting and both sides remain relatively calm during the current military operations. When I was there in November, I didn’t feel tensions, but rather found the coexistence projects’ efforts really taking effect. The Israel21c video below shows some of the projects, sponsored by the Jewish Agency, that are taking place in Acre.
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Last month, I filmed a story about a new coexistence project in Lod. Aviv Wasserman, a native Israeli, founded The Lod Community Foundation about six months ago with the goal of getting this poverty-stricken city back on its feet. Aviv is hardcore, and now lives in Lod where he has set up shop in his apartment. From his office-apartment to monthly meetings, he has built a network of concerned citizens that want to rebuild the city together. Lod is a very diverse city (Jews, Arabs, Russians, Ethiopians, Bedouins, Christians, etc.), but Aviv has managed to have representatives from each community take part in the committees and meetings. Again, you can watch the video below to learn more about his incredible project.
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So, there you have it, the other side of conflict. It does exist, even if it doesn’t make the news.

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A tenuous coexistence

October 10, 2008 - 10:57 AM by David · 5 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Religion, coexistence 

AcreRiot.jpgThe Yom Kippur shutdown usually works. Whether you’re a secular Jews or a non-Jewish resident of Israel, you know that on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, you don’t drive or play music in public out of respect to those who are observing the holiday.

But one man in the northern coastal mixed Jewish-Arab city of Acre didn’t abide by the unwritten societal rule – and as a result, all hell broke loose.

According to The Jerusalem Post’s report,
Tawfik Jamal – a resident of Acre’s Old City – made his way to the predominantly Jewish Ben-Gurion neighborhood in the eastern part of the city, blasting loud music from his vehicle., Jamal denied he had intended to provoke local residents, saying he had driven with his 18-year-old son and the son’s 20-year-old friend carefully and quietly from the Old City to the Ben-Gurion neighborhood, three kilometers away, to pick up his daughter from her fiancée’s home.

But police dismissed Jamal’s claims.
“This was a provocation. An Arab driver arrived in a Jewish neighborhood on Yom Kippur with blaring music, and refused to leave when asked to by local residents. We believe he was intoxicated. This was a deliberate act,” Galilee Police spokesman Ch.-Supt. Eran Shaked said.

The verbal confrontation between Jamal and the local residents quickly deteriorated into violence, as rocks and bottles were thrown at Jamal’s vehicle.
According to Jamal, he and his two passengers fled the car. The three were taken to hospital where they were treated for light wounds and discharged.

And then, to show you how rumors can spread faster than reason, false reports that Arabs were seriously harmed or killed by Jews reached the Old City, and then things began escalating.

Responding to the rumors, hundreds of Arabs set out from the Old City toward the Ben-Gurion neighborhood, walking down a main road, smashing store windows and cars along the way. Reports said the mob shouted “Kill the Jews,” “Allahu Akbar,” and “If you come out of your homes, you will die.”

At the same time, a few hundred Jews had congregated in the streets of the Ben-Gurion neighborhood. Fearing a deadly clash, police acted quickly, mobilizing “a very large force” to prevent the two groups from confronting one another, police said.

So, was it a deliberate provocation from an Acre Arab? An overreaction from the Acre Jews? And was the escalation simply the culmination of animosity that’s been built up between the two sides over years of living near each other?

Let’s not forget that in the scores of other areas in the country – in Haifa and the Galilee and in Jerusalem – there weren’t any similar reports. Let’s hope this was an aberration, and not a sign of a deterioration in relations between Israel’s Jews and Arabs.

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