It’s Saturday already, and the report is still not completed. For some reason, I’m having difficulties summing it up. As it were, the information is open and out there in the media. Arrest of a journalist and social activists in the Gaza Strip. They are accused of normalization with the Zionist enemy. Activity for normalization is considered “treason, a crime, and wrong on religious, national and moral grounds”. As it were. In fact, the people under arrest are known, their activity open, and the claims against them do not suggest any ‘security’ accusation. On the basis of this information, a Zoom meeting of several worried Israelis is being held… Is the Zoom talk of worried Israelis endangering the security of the Gaza activists (who are not hiding their activity)? Will writing the names of the Israelis and Palestinians who are united in their worry about the arrestees harm, or benefit them, or not change their situation? I don’t know. It’s hard… Unlike the previous Zoom talks, in this one the pandemic is pushed to the margins. The arrest of our Gaza friends takes up most of the circle time. Against the background of information coming from Gaza we try to explain the situation to ourselves, and realize our own possibilities for action. The claims raised against Rami are outrageous. In times of pandemic, this whole heel-digging in pathetic “patriotism” seems irrelevant. Rami has a direction, a horizon, a plan of action. He is active and an initiator. Among us are many who understand the Palestinian position and are willing to meet it. Rami’s actions are geared so that Palestinians too will understand Israelis.
About an hour and a half after our Zoom begins, Liora speaks, and in charming nonchalance tells about her talk with Manar. “We spoke for several hours”, she says… Two young women speaking about trouble that one of them has been subjected to against the background of conflict between the two nations. Each of these women belongs to a different nationality. They talk. They do not argue, do not confront each other, do not make accusations. They talk. How relaxed that word is, “talking”. How simple. And if that whole madness is “cleared”
up around it, how natural, how normal. True, it’s not only Liora, it’s Roni and Nahshai and Rami and Arik and Julia and many others who talk with our friends in this split up space, but the simplicity with which Liora describes their talk has a different kind of normal feel to it. Within the existence of the ongoing conflict to which the pandemic has now been added, we are all trying to reach that same simplicity of conversation. In the background, the conflict and the pandemic are two curtains that wrap all of us, a kind of setting for a play we all take part in whether we like it or not, refusing to be extras and trying to rewrite the dark plot and turn it into an optimistic text. All the talkers on Zoom are very focused on the arrest of our activist friends. Various directions of action are suggested. They all pass through all of our sieves. Some of us were present in the large Zoom talk of April 6, as a result of which, apparently, the activists were arrested. There is no clear way, we must wait and see how things turn out for the Palestinians and hope for good news, light our lighthouse and speak with another voice. Light and voice, vision and sound, observation and listening.
Participants were Hanan, Jaber, Roni, Nomika, Arik, Rami, Oded, Noga, Malki, Liora, Nahshi, Shmulik, Ghadir, Marwan, Mary, Julia, Neta