The Protest (really a mobile vigil) Against Violence in Palestine started slowly as you would expect during the dog days of August. We milled around at the Barclays Center Sports-Big Event complex waiting for the go-ahead at 4 PM. That loitering was put to good use since we made new friends, entertained a sampling of hecklers but mostly caught up on the local news from Gaza. Most of the marchers had family there and their stories were ordinary and heartbreaking. There was scant food, water only two days a week, and violence coming from everywhere. As you moved from group to group you could catch snatches of English interspersed with the Arabic: a father died sitting at home, two children wounded by shrapnel, an Aunt vaporized in front of her family.

This was the narrative of the March to The Church of Saint Luke and Saint Matthew a mile away. We each carried a paper flower—there many more than you could hold—attached to which a child’s name. My little one was six years old.

Once underway to the Church, conversation—somewhat breathy–continued. Apparently these so-dangerous tunnels feared by Israelis besides providing Hamas corridors are vital avenues for sustenance and supplies. I discarded the thought quickly—after all, this was a humanitarian march—but if my family was blockaded in place would I build a tunnel too? That’s the problem with witness like this you can’t go half way in.

By the time we reached the Church my mind was snagged by the Egyptian peace talks—maybe our consciences bind to the concrete when swamped with this much grief—and the resistance to even considering removing the blockade. As I affixed my child’s name to a makeshift clothesline/shrine my sightline took in the devotional places in that sanctuary seeking rest from the day, from the chaos, from this pain. Much too easily thought of. Hope, there, seemed like just hard, hard work.

Rector The Rev. Michael Sniffen, had invited us in from the sidewalk with an enthusiasm which interrupted the buzzed monotony of this hot summer walk. He promised chants, speakers, good food and company. He even had an encouraging message from Anglican leaders in Jerusalem–that last was better than a bottle of water.

-The Rt. Rev. George E. Packard

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The frightening aerial war being waged by Israel against Gaza brings many recriminations and much finger pointing. Who started this? What incident set it off? The kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank? Or the earlier murders of two Palestinian teens involving Israeli snipers which went largely unreported because such incidents are so common? Or the revenge murder against a Palestinian teenager who was burned alive? Is it rockets fired from Gaza into Israel or is that retaliation for a drone strike by Israel on Gaza? It’s the same scenario played out for decades. Tit for tat is the common refrain. In the context of all that is going on in Syria and Iraq, the Middle East appears to be a cauldron.

Pierre Whalon, bishop-in-charge of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, wrote on July 10: “An Israeli invasion of Gaza could be the match that sets off the powder keg…. It is therefore crucial that people of faith not only pray fervently, but also contact their governments’ leaders to demand that every possible effort be made to prevent a conflagration which could even spill over into a Third World War.” That’s a pretty grim prognostication. And a necessary encouragement to contact our government to exercise its considerable influence.

One thing is certain. As with previous assaults by Israel on Gaza, there is no proportionality in either the firepower of the two sides, nor its devastating consequences. So far, over 100 Palestinians have died, mostly civilians, including women and children, but not one Israeli. Diane Sawyer of ABC news committed a gaffe in reporting on the conflict, showing a displaced family among the rubble of what was their home, referring to it as an Israeli family. But it was actually a Palestinian family in Gaza. No Israeli homes have been destroyed. Brian Williams of NBC news, on the other hand, accurately reported on the “lopsided” nature of the attacks.   He noted most of the rockets fired from Gaza into Israel are shot down by a largely U.S. taxpayer funded Iron Dome which intercepts incoming missiles. But Israel’s bombs are the most sophisticated money can buy and Gaza has no defense against them.

There are 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza, crammed into poverty stricken cities and refugee camps that have been there since the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Unemployment is 40%. Israel controls Gaza on three sides with a desolate border fence and a navy blockade. Israel destroyed Gaza’s airport in an aerial assault years ago. Egypt controls the southern border and has no desire to absorb Palestinians into their country. Gaza is often described by its residents as an open air prison. It is part of the ongoing Occupation of 4.4 million Palestinians. And it is one of the most densely populated pieces of land in the world. And one of the poorest.

Israelis living in the modern city of Tel Aviv 43 miles north of Gaza can live their lives without ever thinking about the conditions of life in Gaza. Until now. All of a sudden, air raid sirens are going off and people have 15 minutes to seek shelter because Hamas now has a few longer range rockets.  One angry Tel Aviv woman screamed “We must wipe out Hamas once and for all.” One Hamas spokesperson said Hamas was achieving its purpose, to get the attention of Israelis and to strike fear.

In contrast, one angry elderly Palestinian man in Gaza screamed over the rubble where nine Palestinian bodies lay “We are not people! They do not see us as people!” The nine dead were young men who had gathered to watch the World Cup at the ironically named Fun Time café. The café was obliterated. “It was a normal social occasion,”a local policeman employed by the Palestinian Authority, Wael Soboh, told Agence France Presse.“The boys ate their Ramadan iftar meal here, and then began watching the match. It is not a military area.” Israel later said it was targeting one alleged terrorist.

Hamas in Gaza is largely an outgrowth of 66 years of a teeming mass of humanity that has as bleak an outlook as the barren place it is. Gaza is a breeding ground for rage and violence, and it’s directly proportional to the draconian conditions Israel applies. Hamas stands defiantly against the State of Israel for having displaced 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 from what is now Israel, wiping out over 400 Palestinian villages and towns. The creation of the State of Israel is known to Palestinians as the Nakba, the catastrophe. Israel says it will not negotiate with Hamas until Hamas recognizes Israel’s right to exist, accepts the (moribund) Oslo accords and renounces violence. So Hamas must give away its main bargaining chips before it can get a seat at the table while Israel says it will not agree to any preconditions. Yitzhak Rabin, former Prime Minister of Israel, assassinated by an Israeli extremist for making a peace agreement with Yasser Arafat was quoted as saying “You don’t make peace with your friends. You make peace with your enemies.” Is there any option to Israel and Hamas eventually sitting down to make peace? Does the Tel Aviv woman really believe Hamas can be wiped out?

In the midst of the current war in Gaza, a remarkable event occurred in Tel Aviv on July 8. The White House Middle East chief, Philip Gordon, spoke to an Israeli audience moments after the conference participants returned from taking cover during an air raid warning. He said, “How will (Israel) have peace if it’s unwilling to delineate a border, end the occupation and allow for Palestinian sovereignty, security and dignity? How will we prevent other states from supporting Palestinian efforts in international bodies, if Israel is not seen as committed to peace?”

This is a sign of the U.S. administration’s frustration with the recent failure of peace talks largely because of Israel’s defiance of international law in pursuing its settlement expansion in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which has continued with impunity for decades. It may also be a sign of the shifting political landscape where previously blind eyes are now beginning to see Israel’s intransigence and willingness to maintain its occupation in perpetuity, the world be damned.

Israel’s latest assault on Gaza is a tragic display of firepower that is inflicting mayhem and death mainly on innocent civilians, including children, which substitutes for any perceived desire to end the occupation. That’s the refrain Israel doesn’t want to hear. End the occupation.

Canon Brian J. Grieves

Steering Committee, Palestine Justice Network

The Episcopal Peace Fellowship

A word from Archbishop Tutu:

As the Presbyterian General Assembly gathers for its biennial meeting I reach out in prayer and solidarity that the Assembly will make a strong witness for reconciliation, justice and peace. I am aware that the Assembly will consider two overtures on the confounding and intractable conflict in Israel and Palestine, one naming Israel as an apartheid state through its domestic policies and maintenance of the occupation, and one calling for divestment of certain companies that contribute to the occupation of the Palestinian people. Both are worthy of adoption, by speaking truth in the first instance, and owning up to the Church’s complicity in maintaining the occupation through its investments in the second.

The sustainability of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people has always been dependent on its ability to deliver justice to the Palestinians. I know firsthand that Israel has created an apartheid reality within its borders and through its occupation. The parallels to my own beloved South Africa are painfully stark indeed. Realistic Israeli leaders have acknowledged that Israel will either end its occupation through a one or two state solution, or live in an apartheid state in perpetuity. The latter option is unsustainable and an offense to justice. We learned in South Africa that the only way to end apartheid peacefully was to force the powerful to the table through economic pressure.

The overtures proposed at the General Assembly are not about delegitimizing the State of Israel, but about ending its suppression of 4,000,000 Palestinian sisters and brothers. It’s about naming an unjust system and refusing to participate in it. The stubbornness of Israel’s leaders in wanting to hold onto and settling land that is not theirs can only lead to tragedy for both peoples. For the sake of them both as God’s cherished, the strong witness of the two overtures is the only peaceful route left in the cause of justice and ultimate reconciliation. My prayers today are with the members of the General Assembly and with all the peoples of the Holy Land in Israel and Palestine.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

Editor’s note: We begin a recurring series featuring reflections from EPF PIN members, friends and colleagues coming out of their experiences on the ground in Palestine.  Here are three.

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Adapted from a sermon preached by the Rev’d Canon Richard Toll, Advent 2013

At the time of John the Baptist, the region which we now call the Middle East was a seething cauldron of controversy.  The Roman Empire had arrived about 40 years before the birth of Jesus.  The brutality of the Roman occupation was personified in the person of Herod the Great who was a great builder.  He built the temple in Jerusalem, the coastal city of Caesarea, the fortress at Masada, the Herodion where the discovery of his plundered tomb was discovered seven years ago.

Herod set the stage for cruelty by killing his own son and his own wife because he suspected them of disloyalty.   He ordered all the high officials of the temple in Jerusalem to be killed upon his death.  Thankfully, his orders were disobeyed.

John the Baptist was born into a world seething with injustice and brutality.  Occupation is an ugly thing to observe and John stood out among those who were trying to discover a way to live through what was being experienced.  The violent uprisings in Galilee and Judea were put down quickly and brutally.  The desert was one of the few places of refuge for John.  But people found him in the desert and they flocked down to the Jordan River to hear him speak.  Jesus became one of his admirers and was baptized by him in the River Jordan.  I was at that site three weeks ago on a Sabeel trip.  It ended in Jericho, the lowest point below sea level in the world.  The setting is beautiful.  The river is ugly, shallow and dirty as raw sewage rolls down the river.

And now in today’s gospel we find John in prison.  He will soon be dead.  Jesus affirms him, affirms his witness, affirms his prophetic voice.

Jesus entered into the seething cauldron and began to teach, preach and heal.  The cauldron was in danger of boiling over with violence and it did boil over 30 years after Jesus was crucified.  In order to put down the rebellion in the year 67, Jerusalem was destroyed along with the temple.

We often fail to recognize that Jesus was born into an occupation that was brutal, ugly, violent, and his entire life was spent under Roman occupation.  He died a violent death under the occupation.  His teachings come from the core values of his understanding of scripture — scripture he had received from the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, the Psalms, and the ancient stories of Moses and salvation.  He drew together these experiences of scripture and spoke to the people with love and compassion about the kingdom of God — not an empire or a kingdom as we know it but a kingdom built on values and relationships — relationships with each other and with God.  Jesus taught and preached nonviolence in the midst of a world seething with violence.  His message was listened to.  He was heard by the followers of John the Baptist.  He was heard by the oppressed, the sick and the lonely, those who were in prison.  He was heard, responded to — and a movement began with his disciples moving out in all directions to speak of the kingdom of God.

I returned from Jerusalem and Bethlehem on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving having attended a Sabeel conference in Jerusalem with over 200 people from 15 countries.  The subject of the conference was “The Misuse and Abuse of the Bible within the Palestine and Israel Conflict.” The Friday after Thanksgiving I awoke at 3 o’clock in the morning and I was crying, weeping and I could not stop.  I had been dreaming about conversations I had had with Palestine Christians who were living under military occupation.  I was hearing their voices and feeling helpless… so I cried.

I listened to the voice of a woman whose shop I used to shop in 20 years ago in Bethlehem.  The 28 foot separation wall goes down the road that used to be the main entrance to Bethlehem.  Her relatives’ shop is across the street and is on the Israeli side of the wall and it is closed.  Their land was confiscated by the wall.  The wall is on three sides of her shop and few tourists are able to find her shop which is the way she makes her living.

She recounted the story of putting out her laundry on the top of her home and noting a red dot on her chest.  She was being targeted by a sniper in the sniper tower of the wall.  She looked over and saw a very young soldier grinning at her through his rifle site.  Her neighbor had been killed by a sniper recently so she did not know if her time had come.

I listened to the voice of a 12 year old, arrested at 2 in the morning in his parents’ home, he was blindfolded, shackled and put in a van and taken for interrogation.  His parents were not allowed to be with him.  He was charged and later found guilty of throwing rocks.  99.6% of all Palestine children arrested are found guilty of throwing rocks and are placed in prison for days, weeks and even months.  When they come home, they wet their beds and admit to confessing to anything the police want them to.  Wouldn’t you if you were 12 or 13?

I would go on but what I have seen from my trips over the past 30 years to the occupied territories is that the occupation is getting worse, more brutal, more land confiscations, more settlements.  The occupation is killing the soul of the Israelis as well as killing the culture of the Palestinians.  We as Christians are complicit in this occupation.  We are paying for it though our taxes.  We are funding settlements, the wall, bypass roads — all with our tax dollars.

My first visit to Bethlehem was in 1983.  87% of Bethlehem since then has been confiscated for the walls, settlements, bypass roads and military installations.  When you sing or hear “O Little Town of Bethlehem” this Christmas season, it is very little today.

Jesus wept over Jerusalem on his final visit there before his crucifixion.

I wept when I returned from Jerusalem last month.  I will continue to try in my own way to help heal a sore spot in God’s creation that is so much in need of healing.  I will pray, I will preach, I will teach and most of all, I will pray for you to open your eyes and ears to any injustice that you confront or experience.  The gospel story can only be lived out by people like you and me who discover that we are the ones called to action.  Nelson Mandela is an example of how one person can make a difference.  We are all called to make a difference so the world can move in the ways of the kingdom of God.

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Illustrating sumud (steadfastness): Peggy Bronson reflects on a student’s daily journey from Jerusalem to Ramallah and back again

I had the privilege of being in Atlanta GA on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday and to visit the MLK Historic Site.  During the Civil Rights Movement in the US, I was a young child.  I had no idea of the wisdom behind the movement.  One day a small lady named Rosa Parks was too tired to give up her seat on the bus — which led to a boycott that shut down and bankrupted a bus service.

I wish that I could convey this hope to my Palestinian students that non-violent protest will win in the end.  Siham is in the twelfth grade.  She lives in Jerusalem and goes to school in Ramallah.  Before the wall was built — that would have been a twenty minute drive.  Today she must get up at five in the morning and leave her house by six in order to be at school on time.  The Episcopal Technological Vocational Taining Center (ETVTC) classes begin at 7:50 am.  She must use Qalandia Border Crossing which can take up to two hours to pass.  School ends at 1:20 pm and she will not arrive at home until four pm.  At the border she must cross on foot.  She will have to pass through a cattle chute that has four revolving gates.  She will have her backpack searched, go through a metal detector, show her Palestinian ID, and be fingerprinted.  The Israelis are not efficient in this process.  She may stand for hours waiting her turn.  

I want her story to be told so that she can have hope that life can be better once the Occupation has ended.  She deserves to live in her own FREE country.  Her father calls her several times a day with the same question, “Where are you?”  The fear is that she could at any moment be arrested and detained for just being a Palestinian.  The Israeli soldiers do not need a reason.  They can literally kill her and not be convicted of a crime.  All Siham wants — is go to school!

Siham  in her own words said, “Life is very stressful.  Everything is so hard to do.”  Yet each day she gets up at five knowing that she will not return home until four in the afternoon.  

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Tina Whitehead reflects on life and death in Jerusalem

A Palestinian friend of mine quoted this to me tonight.  It’s a poem written by James Shirley entitled “Death the Leveller,” written in the early 17^th Century.  Its words seem very appropriate now as word has just come of the death of Dr. Jim Ridgway, Founder and Director of Educational Opportunities, the travel company that most of us who are United Methodists have been blessed by in our travels to the Holy Land and all over the world.  In many ways, I have been able to be here in Jerusalem because of Dr. Ridgway and because of EO.  With guides and staff here, I join in sending the family my deepest condolences. To tourism in the Holy Land, Dr. Ridgway was indeed a king.

But I also experienced another death tonight. A young man in his early 40’s, a Palestinian, a Muslim whom I’d never met. Let me share the story with you.

Every day after work I take a bus to East Jerusalem and walk to the “coffee” where I meet a friend for tea.  It’s not a café or restaurant, but the men who come there just refer to it as “the coffee.”  And every day the same half dozen men can be found at tables, smoking their water pipes, drinking tea or coffee, reading the newspaper, playing cards or just sitting alone.  Although I don’t know them, or even know their names, I recognize most of them and they recognize me.  Not really too difficult as I’m the only woman there, the only Westerner, and probably the only Christian.

Usually after sitting for a while, we leave, get into a waiting car and go to Ramallah.  Tonight, though, I was told that we were going to pay our condolences to a family whose son had died last night.  He had been arrested for driving without a license and put in jail.  While there, the police fired tear gas into his cell and he passed out.  He never regained consciousness and died shortly afterwards.  In the Muslim culture, the funeral is within 24 hours, so the son whose name I found out was Jihad, had been buried just this morning.  My friend told me that I knew the father, that he was one of the men who frequented the “coffee” and so it was appropriate that I come to pay my respects.

We drove up the Mt. of Olives, parked the car and walked down a steep road and through a narrow passageway until we arrived at the room where the men were congregating.  A man was reading what I learned was a letter of condolence from President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority.  I was very uncomfortable being the only woman present and decided to stay outside while my friend entered.  I watched him go to the front of the room and speak to the man who I assumed was the father.  I saw him turn and point to me, and then both of them came back to greet me.  The man had a red and white checkered keffiya wrapped around his head and as soon as I saw his face I recognized him.  What surprised me the most was the warmth in his expression as he took my hand and thanked me for coming.  He then escorted me to another room where the women were gathered.  I felt so very awkward, not wanting to intrude upon their time of grief, but a woman who must have been Jihad’s wife, greeted me and ushered me to a seat and brought me coffee.  She introduced me to an older woman, who again I could only presume was his mother.

His wife brought over a plate of dates and offered them to me.  It’s a custom at Palestinian funerals to drink the unsweetened Arabic coffee as a symbol of the bitterness of death, but to follow it with the sweetness of the date as a sign of the goodness of God and of life.  The women sat around the room while one woman read constantly from the Qur’an.  No one else spoke.

After about 15 minutes, Abu Jihad, the father, came and motioned to me that it was time to leave.  I embraced Jihad’s wife, not knowing what to say, in English or in Arabic, and again shook hands with the father. I later learned that their younger son had been killed a year ago by Israeli police.  Both sons lost to violence in a short time.

So much tragedy in this land.   It’s getting harder to see beyond these daily tragedies and retain a sense of hope that life will get better, that peace will come, that justice will triumph.  How many more senseless deaths will have to be endured?  How many more families will have to grieve?

I am thankful and humbled for opportunities like I had tonight to show solidarity with these people. I am constantly amazed at their graciousness in welcoming me and letting me be part of their lives.  I am blessed to be here.

Editor’s Note: Religion News Service published an article on 14 March recounting the experience of a Palestinian Christian who is an Israeli Border Police officer in the South Hebron Hills.  You can find it here.Based on my experiences in the Hebron District and my work and friendships in the Palestinian Christian community, I sought feedback from some colleagues which ended in Rifat Odeh Kassis, coordinator of Kairos Palestine, crafting a response.  A version of this appeared on Maan News Agency on 20 March 2014.

The Fifth Column: A Response to

Michele Chabin’s Article in USA Today

By

Rifat Odeh Kassis

March 2014

On reading Michele Chabin’s article “Israeli Christians seek integration, including army service” in USA Today, published on March 14, 2014 – an article focusing on certain Christians’ decision to participate in activities run by the Israeli state, on different public responses to that decision, and on the Israeli government’s direct recruitment of Christians for the Israeli army and other bodies – I stopped short at three points. Each point represents a major falsehood, misrepresentation, misunderstanding, or reduction; each point opens a door onto subjects unexplored in Chabin’s article, subjects we must discuss in order to truly understand the reality of Christians in Israel and Palestine.

The first word that made me pause appears in the title: the integration in “Israeli Christians seek integration….” The use of this word makes me think of the many immigrants to Europe who struggle to understand their marginalization within their new social contexts and often blame themselves for it; what they don’t see are the policies and attitudes that prevent them from becoming an integral part of society. In the case of Israel, then, some Christians fail to see the discriminatory policies, laws, and practices against non-Jewish citizens. (The fundamental tension of the Israeli state itself – its self-definition as both a democracy and a Jewish nation, its desire to serve as a model of democratic ideals and its simultaneous insistence on maintaining a Jewish majority – is often referenced and crucial to remember here.)

Victims of this systematic discrimination often vote for the most right-wing parties in their new host countries – thinking, whether consciously or unconsciously, that becoming members of the hardline right will grant them the integration they yearn for. They try to become, in other words, more Catholic than the Pope. And will this help them? Of course not: they will remain “outsiders” in the eyes of the majority, will remain unwanted, will remain the “other” that the right-wing wishes to exclude. This is the same fate that non-Jewish citizens suffer in the state of Israel, despite the fact that they are not immigrants (and that, indeed, their families have lived their for generations upon generations), and no matter what they do to prove the contrary.

The second point that struck me is the quote from a Palestinian Christian man who serves with the Israeli army in the city of Hebron – I’ll call him “the victim,” because he has been damaged by the system that marginalizes him and yet brainwashes him into seeking this form of acceptance. This victim should accompany other victims, like the refuseniks (young Jewish Israeli citizens who refuse to fulfill their mandatory army service), who see, for example, the Jewish settlers in Hebron as the major threat to the Israeli state. These settlers insist on living in the very heart of a Palestinian community, depriving Palestinians of water, use of the streets, access to schools and hospitals and places of worship; forbidding them from practicing normal life in scores of other ways; and often physically assaulting them. They maintain that all these practices contribute to the security of the state of Israel, and they consider all non-Jews to be outsiders who should be evacuated from “their” country. The Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, committed in 1994 by American-born Israeli Baruch Goldstein, is just one example of this mentality.

The victim’s decision to “serve” the settlers in Hebron, protecting them in their enclaves, will not change their opinion of him. Moreover, the Israeli decision to assign this and other victims to a military post in Hebron is a telling one. Israel didn’t dispatch him to the state borders, or to Bethlehem or Ramallah, where he would have been in contact with his Christian sisters and brothers: stopping them at checkpoints, humiliating them at roadblocks, arresting their children in the middle of the night. This contact could have awakened some uncomfortable, important feelings in him: feelings of confusion, feelings of connection with the people whose oppression he was sent to enact. Israel does not want this to happen: the idea is to sever those possible connections, to fragment communities, to quash empathy and solidarity where it might arise among Palestinians of any and all backgrounds. These divisive tactics are appearing more and more in national legislation: on February 24 of this year, the Israeli Knesset passed a bill that creates a legal distinction between Christians and Muslims, categorizing Christians as non-Arabs. Israel actively seeks to make Palestinians forget that they share a history, a community, and a struggle. The only way its victims can “protect” their country is by refusing to serve as another instrument of their own occupation and oppression.

The third and final point I must take issue with is a quote from the writer herself: “Indigenous Christians say they can trace their roots back 2,000 years to the time of Jesus. But they complain they feel sometimes like second-class citizens in the Jewish homeland and are denied top private-sector jobs and positions in government.” They feel sometimes like second-class citizens? The author must know, as any halfway competent observer knows, that non-Jewish citizens of Israel rank as second- or third- or fourth-class citizens. In the social hierarchy that is the Israeli state, Ashkenazi Jews are the privileged first class, followed by Sephardic Jews. (These two categories contain other sub-ranks and divisions, of course, but this is not the topic of my text.) The Druze, who have been serving in the army and “protecting” their country for the past 50 years rank third or fourth; despite their service, they are continually subjected to discrimination in many professional and social contexts and their cities are not allocated the budgets that Jewish ones are.

What about Christians, then? Will they become the equals of Israel’s Jews? Will they be able to return to the villages they were expelled from in 1948 and many years thereafter? (Let’s think of the village of Iqrit: in 1951, the Supreme Court ruled that the villagers could go back and inhabit their homes. But the military government found pretexts to refuse their return, and the Israeli army destroyed the entire village later that year.) Will Israel have a Christian prime minister soon? Or a president of the state? History, policy, and reality respond with an overwhelming “no.” The population of Israel is 20% non-Jews, in addition to thousands of Russians, Asians, and Africans, both Jews and non-Jews. Yet the state discourse, policies, and practices insist on Israel’s Jewishness above all else. It is not interested in equality. It needs second-class citizens to be what it is.

In any situation of oppression, some of the oppressed direct their anger toward the oppressors. But some do not. Instead, they channel their frustration toward their peers, their fellow oppressed. They try to erase their past, hoping that the future will bring them a better lot in life, a new reality – and often, in the process, becoming more racist than their most bigoted neighbors. Nonetheless, history reminds us that these projections will never truly help the oppressed. Their oppressors will continue to see them as strangers – or, at best, as a fifth column, a group used to undermine their own country without ever gaining the respect of those who seek to serve them.