'Biggest believer in coexistence and triumph of humanistic values has despaired' (archives)
Photo: Ziv Koren, GPO
Yael Gvirtz
Photo: Avigail Uzi
The summer we lost coexistence
Op-ed: Apart from Israel's president, not a single governmental figure has taken responsibility for the growing animosity towards Arab citizens following Gaza war.
Ahmed has always been a part of my life, and since my father's death I often call him when I seek comfort. He is much younger than my father, but since he was a teenager they worked together to bring people closer together.
Our conversation on the eve of the Jewish New Year was the saddest and most depressing conversion we ever had.
He is my father's only friend who was invited to the hospital to support us when we bid farewell to him, and his eulogy at the funeral deeply touched our hearts. He is a beautiful man, both on the inside and on the outside, a man of principles and good values, a loyal friend to many people, an optimist and a person with a contagious joy of life, even at difficult times.
Racism
Noam (Dabul) Dvir
Three brothers arrested on suspicion of assaulting an Arab youth in racist incident in Jerusalem.
It was preceded by a discouraging conversation during the war, when I called him in the midst of the tsunami of hatred against Arabs, out of concern for his and his children's wellbeing. They were all confined to their village, afraid to leave it and head to their workplaces in the cities.
The "death to Arabs" slogan was chanted by the Jewish public unhindered, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's call to boycott businesses owned by Israel's Arab citizens gained popularity among the hate group which opened day and night on Facebook. Ahmed's business in the village had not been visited by Jewish customers for many days.
We ended that conversation with a lot of concern and sadness, and with a great sense of shame on my part.
My shame grew when he called to wish us a happy new year on Rosh Hashana. Ahmed is a special person and he has many Jewish friends, including all those who have business relations with him. He is an insurance agent and owns an office equipment store. His livelihood from the insurance business was almost over and done with even before the war, due to the directive preventing Arabs from getting car insurance under the pretext of multiple accidents. This summer, all the inventory he purchased for the office equipment store ahead of the school year remained on the shelves as well.
But that's not the most important thing. The most important thing is that the Jewish suppliers he used to buy from for many years have been treating him from the moment the war broke out and after it ended as if they never knew him. When he arrived at their offices, they ignored him or treated him as a stranger and as an enemy.
The man I used to call every time I needed to "a place to lay my head down" over my father's absence, and draw some wisdom and optimism from in light of racism and my government's social destructiveness, turned into a broken-spirited man in the past summer. The biggest believer in coexistence and in the triumph of humanistic and liberal values became desperate.
I wish I could have offered him my shoulder this time, after the many times he generously gave me his and went out of his way to help me every time I was distressed. But my shoulder has also dropped in light of the pain and embarrassment over the ignorance and anarchy and xenophobia boiling in my people's blood, and over the fact that apart from Israel's president, there is not a single governmental figure who will take responsibility for this storm of animosity and curb and heal the demons it has created.
On the contrary. The failure of the war, which was turned into "the success of going back to routine life," raised by a further level the confidence of the arrogant politicians, who will reap in the elections the benefits of the evil, destructive and phobic spirit they have sown.
I am not very well versed in the Torah, although my grandfather was a Ger Hasid, but I have never heard of a scientific approval justifying a conduct of "you have chosen us out of all the nations." I have learned, from history and from our lives, how such a worldview has wreaked only havoc and destruction for its believers.
I wrote this piece in the midst of the month of atonement and mercy, placing the hatred and racism and ignorance in front of the Jewish self-examination, as long as there is a possible crack in this country's skies for the registration of acts of reform and improvement.
