Although I am far from being an expert on the subject, I did some work in the Middle East and had the opportunity to facilitate mixed groups of Israeli, Palestinians, Lebanese and others in their effort to dialogue and launch co-operation projects.

One of the good things about those project was that participants were ordinary people, mostly members of small NGO’s that had as a primary concern other issues than the ongoing conflict in the region. Talking to each other and starting a cooperation was in large part just instrumental to access public funding from international institutions.

Paradoxically, I think that particular mix of participants maximised the outcome in terms of peace building. The fact that meetings were not targeting peace activists avoided the “preach to the converted” situation, and the fact the issue at stake was not “peace in the middle east” prevented the discussion to reach a standstill (participants had to challenge only some of their beliefs in order to co-operate, and not all of them, all together).

I have lots of beautiful memories from those days. It is really a life-changing experience to witness people’s mind opening up to a different perspective on the reality, dropping – at least in part – a curtain of prejudices that drove their flow of thoughts for all their lives. It is beautiful to see fear and diffidence between the parties transforming in the will to challenge the other’s point of view through engaging in a common project.

One of the realisations that I incurred in myself, was that in the global debate over the Middle East conflict, and in particular over the occupation of the Palestinian territories, there is a voice that is seldom heard and that is of Israeli Jews who are against the apartheid regime their government is enforcing. Somehow, in the mainstream western media, the parties at conflict are stigmatised as “Israel vs. Palestinians” or “Israel vs. Arabs”. There is almost no coverage of the “Israel vs. Israel” struggle, though.

Most often than not, international organisations and one-off initiatives aiming to defend the human rights of the Palestinians get more coverage in international media than the prolonged and long-lasting effort by local Israeli organisations.

It is paradoxical and sad, though: ideally, Israeli activists could benefit from the trust of both parties as they are undoubtedly loyal to the state of Israel, and undoubtedly against the violations perpetrated by the Israeli government against the Palestinian population. They could act as the trait d’union between the two poles of the conflict, as facilitators in a very challenging conversation.

In reality – though – they are seen with diffidence by both Palestinians (after all they are [Jew] Israelis) and by Israelis (who call them either traitors or self-hating Jews [or even - as I recently discovered - nazis]).

As I said, this is both paradoxical and sad. Paradoxical, because the marginalisation of Israeli organisations from the public debate hinders the progress towards what the international community at large sees as the desirable outcome of the conflict [a stable and sustainable peace, with both parties rights enforced and protected]. Sad, because choosing how to consider Israeli human rights  and peace organisations (central to finding a solution or marginal) is mostly a question of choosing if the glass is half empty or half full, or in other words, it is just a matter of point of view and not of absolute truth.

Why I blog on this today? Well… because the Swedish national television has produced and broadcasted just a couple of days ago, a nice documentary whose title is exactly “Israel vs. Israel“. The documentary revolves around the interviews with four Israelis:

• Yehuda Shaul, an ex army-officer from breaking the silence, an NGO formed by ex IDF soldiers and veterans aiming “to expose the reality of the occupation back home [i.e.: Israel]“;
• Ronny Perlman an Israeli woman originally from Czech Republic now actively involved in checkpoint watch, whose goal is “to monitor the behaviour of soldiers and police at checkpoints; ensuring that the human and civil rights of Palestinians attempting to enter Israel are protected”;
• Arik Asherman, a rabbi from Rabbis for Human Rights an NGO aiming to be “the rabbinic voice of conscience in Israel, giving voice to the Jewish tradition of human rights”;
• Jonathan Pollak, a young Israeli from Anarchists against the wall, an informal direct-action group that sees the construction of the wall as an act of ethnic cleansing.

Although the documentary is in Swedish, 90% of it is footage from the interviews, which were done in English [if you don't speak Swedish you will only miss some historical background on the wall and Israeli settlements in Palestine, but the graphics on screen will still allow you to follow].

The beauty of the documentary is that it does not offer a single take on the issue: the reasons and the means for which each of interviewee chose to take action are different, and they all find a space in the documentary to be expressed. For example, Yehuda says:

In Israel people shouldn’t get the right to vote before they visit Hebron. Once you understand Hebron, once you confront Hebron, you are confronted with the most important question, and that is: “What do you choose? The land of Israel or the state of Israel?” Whether what is important is equality, democracy, rights or land…. and the settlers are afraid that people will pick the state of Israel above the land of Israel.

but Arik sees things from a religious perspective:

For as holy as the land of Israel is, human life is more holy. So, if you can prevent blood shed by territorial compromise… as painful as it is to give up part of the places that are so kind to hour history… [...] human life – hands down – trumps. It is so much more important.

It is interesting – though – to remark that all of them, at different points in the documentary, explain how they simply felt compelled to do something regarding the situation. Some of them even say that they had “no choice”.

Let’s hope more and more Israeli citizens will feel the same way.