Thousands attending joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial
photo: Combatants for Peace
At last we know when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict began. It started
in 1873, exactly seventy-five years before the creation of Israel, and the
first casualty in this conflict was Aaron Herschler. His name opens the official
list of the Israeli Defense Forces soldiers killed in the line of duty. On
Memorial Day every year, that list is broadcast on a special channel of Israeli
TV, mournful music accompanies name replacing name on the screen until the
whole list is run through, from 1873 to 2015. Also on the rest of the year, the
List of the Fallen can be found online.
This year Aaron Herschler was mentioned specifically in the Prime
Minister’s ceremonial Memorial Day speech.
"The blood of our loved ones is soaked in the soil of Israel. Our boys and girls fell on a mission to secure the
existence of our nation. The first to fall was Aaron Herschler in 1873, when Arab
rioters attacked a Jewish neighborhood here in Jerusalem. Aaron was a yeshiva
student, he cut off his studies in order
to repel the rioters, he tried to catch them but they shot him and he was
mortally wounded. He was the forerunner for all the fighters who came after him
and defended their homes".
After the Prime Minister’s speech, diligent journalists went to the
archives to find out more about that Aaron Herschler. Indeed, the case had been
widely reported in the country’s first Jewish newspaper, which started appearance
a short time before. According to the contemporary report, there had been no
rioters attacking a Jewish neighborhood but simply Arab bandits, stealing both from other Arabs and from Jews. They
broke into the house of Aaron Herschler, 23-year-old yeshiva student, to steal
money. Herschler tried to chase them and recover the stolen property. They did open
fire, severely injuring him, and he died at the hospital a few days later.
In January 1873, when this incident happened, the Zionist movement
was still in its infancy. Theodor Herzl, was a boy of thirteen in Budapest and
had no idea that he would grow up to be a renowned Zionist leader. The first
Zionist settlement in Israel, Petah Tikva, would be established only five years
later. Aaron Herschler was born in Hungary and came to Jerusalem to attend a Yeshiva
seminary and join the "Old Yishuv", the ultra-Orthodox Jewish
community which for centuries lived among the Arab residents of Jerusalem under
Ottoman rule. Members of the Old Yishuv were not enthusiastic about Zionism, to
say the least.
What would Aaron Herschler have said if he could have known that a
hundred and fifty years after his death there will be in this country a mighty state,
with a mighty army. What would he have thought if he could know that the army of this country would retroactively enlist
him in its ranks, and that that county’s Prime Minister would hail him as the
first among 23,320 soldiers who gave their lives for this country? And on the
other hand , what would have those anonymous thieves said if could have known that
the bullets which they fired at the young man pursuing them would be considered
in retrospect as the first shots in a war which would last more than a hundred
years, a conflict that would figure prominently on the agenda of international
diplomacy and engage the attention of the American President and the leaders of
Europe and Russia and China?
Aaron Herschler was not the only shade from the past which Netanyahu
conjured up. Also figuring in his speech was Shlomo Ben Yosef. Shlomo Ben-Yosef
had been a member of the Jewish nationalist underground known as Etzel of Irgun,
and on 21 April 1938 tossed a grenade at an Arab civilian bus on Rosh Pina–Safed Highway, in revenge and
retaliation for acts committed by Arabs in the same area. Ben Yosef was sentenced to death and
hanged by the British Mandatory authorities, and came to be considered a hero and martyr for
his cause. In the state of Israel his face appeared on a postage stamp and
streets were named after him in many cities. In a song written in 1939, poet Shlomo
Skolski praised Ben Yosef and held him up as a model and inspiration for young
Jews. The most well known words of that poem are "You don’t conquer the
mountain top/If there is no grave on the slope." Those were the words
which Netanyahu quoted in his speech on the occasion of Memorial Day 2015, and
he too presented them as the model and recommended way of life for young
contemporary Israelis.
"Our proud
people this day bow down their heads and flag in the greatest of all gratitude to
our loved ones who had fallen. Our persecutors and enemies change face, the battlefields
remain virtually the same. The more the threats of our enemies to destroy our
home increase, the more increases our determination to defend that home. Our
spirit has not weakened throughout the years, it grows ever stronger.
We have seen that great determination in this past summer in Operation
Protective Edge - such courage and fellowship and togetherness and sacrifice. Unfortunately, in
the Middle East as it is we have to continue to fight for our place. Our place
here is not to be taken for granted without such a sacrifice. Only through the Iron
Wall, each stone of which is held by our sons and daughters in the IDF - only thanks
to them can we go on living here and raise our children and grandchildren. Dear
families, our loved ones who had fallen have all become the foundation stones of
that Iron Wall.”
The term "Iron Wall" is taken from a well-known 1923 article
by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the founder of the ideological current from which today's
Likud party emerged. Jabotinsky argued that
it was impossible for the Zionists of his time to hold dialogue and reach
agreement with the country’s Arab inhabitants. Instead, he urged his fellows to
concentrate on establishing a strong Jewish military force, strong enough that the
Arabs would have no choice but to accept Zionism, paving the way for peace. Evidently, Netanyahu believes that the same
still holds nowadays, nearly a century later. Except that if the great force
built up by Zionism and Israel in these hundred years was not enough to
“convince” the Arabs, it is doubtful if anything ever will.
Conspicuously absent from the speech of Israel’s Prime Minister was
the word "peace" and the phrase "Our hand is always extended in
peace to our neighbors," which Israeli Prime Ministers traditionally tend
to include in their speeches - even if it often seems no more than lip service.
It was the speech of a leader preparing his people for a total war without
compromise, without presenting his listeners with the slightest hope of an end
to the bloodshed ever. Among other things, this can be considered as finally dispelling
the rumors and speculations of Netanyahu intending to invite opposition leader
Yitzhak Herzog to join his cabinet and serve as a Foreign Minister who would
present a moderate and dovish image to the world.
"We will serve the people from the opposition benches. It is
from there we will topple Netanyahu" stated Herzog. "Netanyahu is scare-mongering,
spreading poisonous propaganda. It worked in his elections campaign, but eventually
it will stop working. With his right-wing cabinet he is heading for a right-on crash
into the wall. His government will get into a dead end, and then maybe the
public will see sense".
***
At just the time that the Prime Minister delivered his speech of blood in Jerusalem, a completely different type of memorial event took place in Tel Aviv. It was the tenth time that an alternative Memorial Day ceremony was organized by the Israeli-Palestinian group of "Combatants for Peace", bringing bereaved Israelis and Palestinians who all lost their loved ones in the ongoing conflict together, let them tell their stories of the personal loss they experienced and comfort each other.
"The common Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony came out of
the initiative of a bereaved father,
Buma Inbar," explains Avner Wishnitzer who lost his own son Yotam at Lebanon
in 1995. "His intention was to make it possible for the bereaved families to
mark Memorial Day while emphasizing a message of reconciliation and an action
to prevent further bereavement. We are not strangers to pain. Many of us have
served in combat units, have lost relatives and friends. But we must always remember
that war is not a foredoomed fate but a personal choice. Precisely on this harsh
day we call upon both sides to acknowledge the pain and the hope of those
living on the other side of the fence, to try to prevent the next war. "
The first ceremony ten years ago was attended by some two hundred
people. Since then the number of participants kept increasing by the year, this
time already reaching many thousands. A
large hall was taken and filled to capacity, and many were left out and had to
squeeze into adjacent halls where the ceremony was shown on large screens. Big
screens attracted considerable numbers of viewers in the Palestinian
territories, at several European locations and in California. Many others – in
Israel, the Palestinian territories and wordwide, were watching at home via the
Internet. Until the last minute there was a tension on whether the Palestinian
bereaved families would be able to attend – a settler group tried to get their entry
permits to Israel cancelled. But eventually, the Palestinians did arrive and
were received with applause.
The Y-Net website concentrated on two of the bereaved parents who
participated. Iris Segev of Rosh Pina describes her son Nimrod, who was killed
in the Second Lebanon War, as a young man, full of life and laughter, with an
ever-present smile. Jihad al-Sre’ir of Idna village near Hebron says his son that
“My son Ala’a was my heart”. Ala’a was
killed in the village by IDF soldiers during Operation Protective Edge. Rather
than bitterness and seeking revenge, they – like others of the
Israeli-Palestinian Bereaved Familes’ Forum – found they could share their
pain.
Iris’ son Nimrod, 28 years old at his death, was a computer expert and held a senior position in
Microsoft. "In fact, his position as an army reservist was in process of
being shifted from a tank crew member to an army computer expert, and he did
not have to go on a tank to Lebanon in 2006. But he insisted. His tank was hit
by a roadside bomb which was immediately followed by Hezbollah anti-tank
missile. The missile explosion killed all four tank crew members.
"My husband spoke to him on the phone just before he went back
into Lebanon. Nimrod said he did not believe
he will live out this mission. He described exactly how it would happen. He
said if the tank would hit a roadside bomb it would be immobilized, and then it
will be a sitting duck for a missile. Hezi told him, 'If that's how you feel,
get out! Put down the phone, get away, don’t return to the army.' Nimrod
replied, 'That’s not the way I was brought up'. He also said that if we get a coffin,
he will not be in it. ‘There will be three sandbags inside the coffin to give
it a weight. I will not be in it, nothing will be left of me’. And that's
exactly what really happened. Six months later, officers arrived and told us
that parts of Nimrod's body parts were found in the morgue and we needed to do
another burial. It was a nightmare. "
"For years I just drifted, I
could not find any meaning, either to my life or to the death of Nimrod. Four
years ago I saw a TV documentary which shook me. It was called ‘A Heart from Jenin’,
about Ismail Khatib, whose 12-year old son Ahmed was shot to death by the IDF
fire. In the hospital, he decided to donate his killed son’s organs. The film documents
the father’s meeting with the three families whose children received the organs
– an ultra-Orthodox family from Jerusalem, a Bedouin family from the Negev and
a Druze family from Peki'in ".
"The film opened to me a new, humane perspective on the other
side. I especially wanted to thank Khatib for what he did. Also thank him for
the sense of mission and understanding I gained from him, the understanding
that I should not just sit passively grieving for my son, but do something so that there will be no more
bereaved mothers like me, on either side. That
there will be no more sons going out to be killed, none on our side or
theirs. When I tried to get my letter to Khatib I found the Bereaved Families’
Forum. Immediately I knew I wanted to be a member of that forum.
Iris is involved in a project which brings together Israeli and Palestinian
women - all of whom have lost children in the conflict. They speak at schools
and community centers, conducting dialogue, expressing their grief and giving a message
of reconciliation.
“It is exactly bereavement which brings the desire for
reconciliation. Nimrod died and I could not accept it. It did not make sense. I
felt that what I want to do is not to stop others from going out and getting killed.
It is unconceivable to me that mothers go on sending their children to the army
and thinking it will not happen to them. I grew up in this country and took in
the atmosphere we live by the sword and that we will not have a country if we
don’t fight. But I do not want my son to protect me. I want to protect my son. The
most important thing for me was to do all I can so that such things like this will
not happen any more, that there will be peace. Palestinians come with me to the
schools, we tell the story from the personal and human perspective. They are my
friends. "
Jihad Ahmad al-Sre’ir, from the West Bank village of Idhna near
Hebron, lost his son Ala’a in July 2014. He died nine days after being shot by soldiers
with live bullets. Today Jihad al-Sre’ir is a member of the Israeli-Palestinian
Bereaved Families’ Forum conflict and prays for an end to the conflict.
Ala’a was 21 when he died. "He was working in the
village," says Jihad, "and the month of Ramadan was marked at the
time. On that day he came home, and after 19:00 it was permissible to eat after
fasting. The custom is not to go to sleep, but to eat a meal that lasts until
the wee hours of the night. Around midnight, after we ate, Ala’a said he was
going to visit his grandfather, who lives about 200 meters from our house. He
went with his uncle, my brother, and there seemed to be no problems, everything
was quiet. If there had been any
tensions, I wouldn’t have let him go out. We did not know that there were
soldiers. There are large trees near the road. My brother said he heard someone
say to them, 'Come here'. These were soldiers. There was a war on in Gaza, but
in our village nothing was going on. I do not know why the soldiers suspected
them. "
Ala’a was shot by IDF gunfire. "My brother said he heard two
shots. One of the shots hit my son and smashed through his belly." He was
taken to a hospital in Hebron, where he remained for nine days, and on July 29
died.
Until the incident Jihad used to work in Israel in construction and
renovation jobs. “Four or five months after the death of my son I was forbidden
to go out again. They took my approval, the note said ‘Forbidden by the General
Security Service’. They killed our child and then they took away my job. Now
I'm sitting at home. All my life I worked in Israel, I have friends there."
(It is a standard policy of the Israeli authorities to deny permits to
relatives of those killed, on the assumption that they might be inclined to
acts of revenge.)
After the disaster, Jihad became a member of the Bereaved Families’
Forum. "Even before the disaster I had Israeli friends, with whom I keep
in contact by phone. We don’t want bloodshed.
We want peace. 'God willing, let my son be
the last’. Every night since then, I feel like it just happened. I still live for
the moment, but pray to God to stop the conflict, for our children and yours.
"
Jihad received a phone call from Osama Abu Ayash, one of the forum’s
members on the Palestinian side, who invited him to Bethlehem, established his connection
to the forum. "When I joined the forum. We went and sat with some Jewish
representatives. Everyone had lost a relative. I said, 'To have peace, to have
a future, I'm coming'. We exchanged phone numbers and since then we are in
contact."
- Would it not have been more natural to seek revenge?
"God forbid. That is not the aim of Islam. I would just like
whoever did it to my son to be brought to justice. At the forum we all sit
together and talk. We understand each other, everyone had lost somebody dear".
***
A great number of young people roamed the streets, watching
fireworks and listening to loud music from the loudspeakers. Yearly, the State
of Israel tries to recreate the atmosphere of the spontaneous enthusiasm which prevailed
in the streets of Tel Aviv night after the UN adopted the Partition Resolution (1947).
The new fashion which spread on this Independence Day were giant plastic
hammers - almost as high as the kids holding them - decorated with Israel's
national flag. The children ran through the streets, busily hitting each other with these hammers.
Among the many flags that festooned Dizengoff Street, there suddenly
shows a surprising item in a shop window: two relief maps hanging side by side –
a map of Israel as it is now, with the Occupied Territories included, and next
to it a map of pre-1967 Israel, within the internationally recognized Green
Line borders, which are only rarely displayed nowadays. It was the Bauhaus Store,
a shop dedicated usually to Tel Aviv's unique architecture and to nostalgic
accessories of the 1930’s and 1940’s. Not really a store with a clear political
agenda. But the two maps were hanging in
the window, side by side.
