I write in relation to your formal complaint to SBS about The Promise, a four part series broadcast by SBS on four consecutive Sunday evenings from 27 November 2011. Your complaint was among a number of complaints investigated, then reviewed and determined by the SBS Complaints Committee, chaired by the Managing Director, Michael Ebeid, which met on 17 January, 2012.

The SBS Complaints Committee is constituted under Code 8.9 of the SBS Code of Practice (see annexure 1) and was convened in light of the number of complaints that the broadcast of the 4 part series The Promise breached the SBS Codes of Practice.

The SBS Complaints Committee investigated, reviewed and determined each of the complaints about each and all of the 4 episodes of the series The Promise, including your complaint by email received on 28 November 2011.

This letter is to advise that your complaint was not upheld and the reasons for SBS’s decision.

Your complaint was investigated against Code 1.3 of the SBS Codes of Practice (see annexure 2 below). Some of the complaints investigated also raised the issue of accuracy and balance, perhaps seeking to invoke Code 2.2 of the SBS Codes of Practice (see annexure 3 below). Code 2.2 has no application to this drama, being limited to programs produced by SBS’s News and Current Affairs division. The Promise was not produced by SBS’s News and Current Affairs division.

Your complaint specifically included concerns that The Promise:

• presented one-sided Palestinian propaganda;
• was anti-Semitic; and
• characterised Jews as liars, untrustworthy and wealthy while Palestinians are portrayed as poor, loving and considerate.

That complaint was investigated and reviewed specifically. In addition, the Complaints Committee investigated and reviewed all complaints in respect of three over-arching Code-related issues raised across all the complaints taken as a whole, which, in summary, were that the program:

• was anti-Semitic;
• promoted, endorsed, or reinforced inaccurate, demeaning or discriminatory stereotypes (relevantly of Jews and/or Israelis); or
• condoned, tolerated or encouraged discrimination or prejudice against Israel and/or Jews as a people or a religious group.

Allegations of historically inaccuracy were investigated and reviewed insofar as they related to the above issues. But, as noted earlier, accuracy per se is not a Code requirement in respect of a drama such as The Promise.

Some complaints alleged that the broadcast of The Promise (either in a particular episode or collectively the series) amounted to racial vilification. These allegations have been investigated and reviewed against the Code provisions precluding condoning, tolerating or encouraging discrimination or prejudice. The advice of SBS Legal department also was taken into account in this respect.

In assessing against The Promise against Code 1.3, the Complaints Committee had regard to Australian Communication Media Authority’s test of the ordinary, reasonable viewer as defined by the ACMA’s Investigation Report No. 2537 of 2 March 2011. It states:

“In assessing the content against the Codes, the delegate considers the meaning conveyed by the relevant broadcast material. This is assessed according to the understanding of an ‘ordinary, reasonable’ viewer.

Australian Courts have considered an ‘ordinary, reasonable’ viewer to be:

A person of fair average intelligence, who is neither perverse, nor morbid or suspicious of mind, nor avid for scandal. That person does not live in an ivory tower, but can and does read between the lines in the light of that person’s general knowledge and experience of worldly affairs.[1]

The delegate asks, what would the ordinary, reasonable viewer have understood the program to have conveyed and, in so doing, the natural, ordinary meaning of the language, context, tenor, tone, and inferences that may be drawn.

Once this has been ascertained, it is for the delegate to determine whether the material has breached the Codes.”

The Complaints Committee’s investigation and findings

The Complaints Committee noted that The Promise is a high quality drama series that was written and directed by Peter Kosminsky and produced by DayBreak Pictures in association with Stonehenge films, Canal+ and Arte France. It was produced in association with SBS TV although SBS had no editorial control over the production. It was first broadcast on Channel 4 (UK) in February 2011. It was nominated for a BAFTA TV Award for the Best Drama Serial. Apart from the United Kingdom and Australia, the drama has been sold to SVT Sweden, YLE Finland, DR Denmark, RUV Iceland, RTV Slovenia, Globosat Brazil, TVO Canada.

The Promise is a four part work of fiction. Its dramatic narrative makes reference to some political or policy debates between the Jewish/Israeli and Palestinian communities and, at different times, to the political status of the area. But these references are incidental to the purpose of the series, namely, the dramatisation of the personal experiences of two related people, a grand-daughter and her grandfather, visiting the same region six decades apart.

On the Channel 4 website Peter Kominsky describes the series this way:

This is first and foremost a drama. I wanted to take two characters on a journey – starting pro-Jewish but then becoming less certain, in keeping with the thrust of our research. There are no caricatures – all the characters are based on people we met, read about or interviewed. One character is a soldier who was in Belsen, another is an Arab thrown out of his village in 1948. It would do an immense disservice to a complex situation to attempt to over-simplify it. I’m not attempting to be definitive. It’s not a comment piece. It would short-change the viewer to tell them what to think in a simplistic way.

The series is detailed and the characters portrayed are complex in the interwoven storylines which show a range of political and personal positions. As Mr Kominsky says, the film did not claim to be historically accurate, nor to be a documentary. However, it is fair to conclude that by the end of the series the sympathy of audience is more likely to be with the Palestinians than with the Israelis.

The SBS Codes of Practice do not limit the subject matter of fictional dramas, nor do they restrict the range of political views presented. Consistent with the general principles of freedom of expression, Code 1 (General Programming) of the SBS Codes of Practice acknowledges that SBS will broadcast a broad range of program material:

SBS’s programming can be controversial and provocative and may at times be distasteful or offensive to some. Not all viewpoints presented will be shared by all audience members.

Allegations of anti-Semitism

The Complaints Committee found that the series was neither anti-Semitic nor racist. While many characters in the series display increasing antipathy towards Israel, Israelis and Jews at different times, this is merely part of the dramatic narrative, creating the conflict that provides the momentum of the storyline. As you know, it is quite common to portray individuals, groups or even nations in a negative light as a part of a dramatic work.

The central character is a young English girl, Erin, who appears in the contemporary storyline, and provides the dramatic relief for the historical storyline, whose central character is her English grandfather, a British soldier Len. These two characters are brought together by being shown to make similar journeys, driven by their respective relationships with people who happen to be Jewish, a lover in Len’s case; and a school friend in Erin’s case.

The changing political perspectives of the central characters across the narrative, is a matter of politics, not race or religion. As the characters develop, the series traverses issues of betrayal, trust, love and loyalty. These highly emotional issues are the standard structures of drama on television, stage and film.

It was the view of the Complaints Committee that the series does not, demonise Jews either individually or as a collective, nor deny their individual and collective right to selfdetermination and therefore does not vilify Jews or Israelis.

Further the Complaints Committee does not accept that the program simply made the Jews look bad and by contrast made the Palestinians look unproblematic. True, some Palestinian characters criticise Jews as being “greedy” or having “stolen” land or homes but the Palestinian “suicide” bombers are obvious negative characters among the Palestinians, where the drama finds it colour in actions rather than words.

In addition Erin is critical of Omar’s suggestion that it is disrespectful to leave the home of the of the “suicide” bomber in Gaza she says “…. I didn’t respect his daughter, she murdered three people. I’ve been blown up by a suicide bomber. OK. I know what I am taking about”. In a similar vein, in the contemporary storyline, the principal Palestinian character Omar, is threatened with a gun by a Hamas supporter at the home of the “suicide bomber”, and tells Erin they have to go because “the son is Hamas and he will not have me here”.

The drama presents a range of views and perspectives, and the characterisation of the main Jewish characters, including Paul and Clara are nuanced. The same is true of the Meyer family, who are shown as complex characters. The point is underlined as the Meyer family, individually and as a whole, continues to show Erin respect and provide her with support and hospitality although she challenges and criticises them at almost every level.

Although The Promise has two interwoven stories set in different times, it is about the drama of various human relationships, which happen to involve characters from different cultural and political groups who are brought into conflict. It is the differences and tension that is critical to the drama, not the identity of the players.

Discrimination or prejudice against Israel and/or Jews as a people or a religious group

The Complaints Committee reached the conclusion that the various political or policy debates between the Jewish/Israeli characters on the one hand, and the Arab/Palestinian characters on the other hand were incidental to the main purpose of the storyline in the drama series as a whole; namely the dramatisation of two personal journeys made some 60 years apart as a young girl becomes obsessed with her grandfather’s diary.

Like all drama, there is tendency towards a binary play of “good guys” and “bad guys”. That characterises all drama, to a greater or lesser extent, and is almost inevitable given the need to hold the viewer’s interest. It is an oversimplification to cast the drama as being bad Jews versus good Palestinians.

After a careful investigation and review of each of the episodes individually and the four part series as a whole, the Complaints Committee is of the view that the film does not breach Code.1.3.

Inaccurate demeaning or discriminatory stereotypes

The Complaints Committee noted that many complaints specifically referred to stereotyping of Jews, including allegations that Jews are stereotyped as liars, untrustworthy, wealthy, conspiratorial, cruel, hateful and violent. The Complaints Committee considered that this was an incorrect reading of complex characters, which ignored their individual and collective positive characteristics.

Some complaints alleged that this perspective was reinforced by a contrast with the depiction of other (non-Jewish) characters in a favourable light. Some complaints focused upon the disparity of wealth. For example, in the contemporary storyline, The Promise depicts the Meyers as being rich family. These are Jewish characters, but their wealth has a dramatic function in the narrative, about the effects of political turmoil reaching every Israeli. The drama is set in one Jewish family’s home, almost in isolation.

The Complaints Committee rejects the allegation that the use of one family involves any stereotyping, positive or negative. It is simply a family around whom a drama is hung. There is no suggestion that the Meyer family is a typical Israeli family, they are clearly affluent. However they can be contrasted against the settler family who appear to be only moderately comfortable. The Complaints Committee found that as only two Jewish families are shown, the ordinary reasonable viewer would not conclude that these families typify Jewish or Israeli society.

Conclusion

This is a complex drama, that is obviously presented as a work of fiction. Each of the main characters has many facets. Obviously, some viewers will focus upon particular facets of each character. But in any drama as densely layered as The Promise, characters are depicted at different time in different ways; the loving father may also be a stern taskmaster, the reckless teenager may be a loving daughter too. The portrayals vary with the narrative and the development of the drama. This is typical of all drama.

The Complaints Committee is satisfied that the ordinary reasonable viewer fully appreciated that The Promise was a fictional drama and nothing more than that. The Complaints Committee found that that the characterisations in The Promise did not cross the threshold into racism, and in particular that it did not promote, endorse, or reinforce inaccurate, demeaning or discriminatory stereotypes.

In the light of some early representations after the first episode of the series was broadcast, SBS prefaced the broadcast of each subsequent episode with a reminder that the film was a drama to negate any suggestion it was a historical or documentary film. SBS considers that the disclaimers highlighted what is obvious from the content of the film, that it is a work of a fiction.

If you consider that this response is inadequate you are entitled to take your concerns to the Australian Communications and Media Authority for external review. SBS appreciates you raising your concerns with us, and would like to assure you that SBS presents a wide range of factual and fictional program material on the Middle East.

Yours sincerely

Sally Begbie

SBS Ombudsman

The late Andrés Escobar, reacting after his sadly infamous own goal in 1994

By Anthony Frosh

In attempting to ban DVD sales of The Promise, a polemical mini-series recently screened on SBS, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) have done a proverbial Andrés Escobar.

Attempts, or even perceived attempts, at censorship only ever result in cultivating more interest in the object of the censorship. If you want to get your high school students to read their physics textbooks, you can’t do much better than banning them.

I only saw the first episode of the series. As a piece of drama, I found it too unsophisticated to keep my interest. One of the first things I noticed, besides the lame acting and dialogue, was that Israeli youths were driving far more expensive cars than those driven by even some of their most spoilt Toorak or Vaucluse contemporaries, a sure sign that the film makers had little interest in being true-to-life. Perhaps they were trying to perpetuate a stereotype (that has nothing to with Israel) about Jews that one might sometimes encounter in Western universities concerning Jewish kids being rich and spoilt.

The first episode, although lacking in accuracy and realism, seemed more balanced than I had expected. Later, I heard that the hostile portrayal of Jews, Zionism, and Israel, really takes off as the series progresses. When I heard this, I wondered whether this was an example of the hostile media phenomenon, whereby emotionally invested parties perceive relatively neutral or balanced media content as strongly hostile to their own side.

However, if this were merely a case of the hostile media phenomenon, then the scientific literature predicts that Palestinian advocates would have also had similar reactions; that is, they would have perceived the series as being highly hostile to their side. A little bit of research reveals this is not the case. Australians For Palestine (which would be more accurately named Australians against Israel) called for supportive submissions to SBS and the relevant politicians within the communications portfolio concerning the series. I also witnessed a number of anti-Semites on Facebook championing the series.

All this leads me to believe that ECAJ is accurate in its perception of the series as anti-Semitic. As for their comparisons to Nazi propaganda, well I have not seen the series other than the first episode, but I think everyone should be extra-cautious when it comes to Nazi comparisons, as these risk trivialising the horrors that Nazis represented.

None of this changes the fact that censorship is not only wrong in principle, but is highly counterproductive. ECAJ’s efforts will sadly see a lame piece of propaganda disguised as art get far more attention than it deserves. It will also result in the Australian Jewish community once again being labelled as advocates of censorship and media control.

An Israeli soldier carries a ballot box used in voting by soldiers, as part of a mobile army polling station (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)

By Geoff Bloch

The international community and moderates on both sides of the Israeli Palestinian conflict have, for decades, called for a two-state solution to end the military jurisdiction Israel maintains over some 1.6 million disenfranchised Palestinians living in Yehuda and Shomron, Israel’s ancestral homeland otherwise known as The West Bank. But Jewish settlement over the past 44 years, coupled with the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) insistence on the right of return for millions of refugees into Israel and the PA’s refusal to recognise Israel as a Jewish State, mean that a two-state solution will forever remain a pipedream. It is time to grapple with reality and ask whether there is another solution.

No Israeli government has been prepared to annex the West Bank because that means offering Israeli citizenship to 1.6 million Palestinians. It is feared that such a significant demographic shift would, in time, impair the Jewish character of the State because of inevitable Palestinian and Israeli Arab population growth.

What so enrages the Left is not that Israel gained possession of the West Bank in a defensive war. It is that an indefinite military jurisdiction, coupled with Israeli settlement throughout the West Bank, is tantamount to annexation without offering citizenship and is therefore contrary to the social and democratic values upon which Israel was established. This mainstream festering complaint is constantly heard even from within our own ranks and must be satisfactorily addressed sooner or later.

So we have a classic “Catch 22” situation – Israel cannot annex and confer citizenship on West Bank Palestinians for demographic reasons and Israel cannot withdraw from the West Bank both for security reasons and because there is the small matter that over 600,000 Jews now call the West Bank home.

Even if, under a land swap deal or by annexation, Israel were to retain the main Israeli settlement blocs of The Gush, Maale Adumim, Ramot and Ariel (which collectively account for about 330,000 Jews), some hundreds of thousands of Jews live in areas which would be forfeited to the Palestinians under the kind of land for peace deal contemplated by the world community.

Even worse, were the UN General Assembly on 20 September to recognise a State of Palestine in areas captured by Israel in 1967, then perhaps all or most of those 600,000 Jews could find themselves living in a foreign state.

Because of the Palestinians’ racist condition that a nascent Palestinian state must be Judenrein, there would be civil uproar were there an attempt to evacuate Jewish communities from Yehuda and Shomron. By comparison, the forced expulsion of 8,000 Jews from Gush Qatif in 2005 would look like a non-event. Israel simply cannot afford a repetition of that horrible experience, which pitted Jew against Jew, let alone on a scale 75 times greater! The forfeiture of Gush Qatif was not only an abject failure, but it remains a national disgrace as many evacuees still have not been satisfactorily resettled or compensated over the past 6 years.

The two-state solution, which has for so long been the mainstream paradigm for a peaceful future, is therefore almost certainly illusory and unachievable for practical reasons. The international community and Israel herself must face facts and search for another solution.

After 44 years of settlement activity, Israel has almost certainly passed the point when it might have been practicably possible to annex only parts of the West Bank while avoiding the main centres of Arab population. Today’s reality is that if Israel wishes to retain her ancestral homeland, she must formally annex the West Bank even if that means taking on up to 1.6 million new Palestinian Arab citizens.

Most Israelis, today, would flinch at the prospect. After all, many militant Palestinians call for a one-state solution, believing that Palestinian population growth will outstrip Jewish population growth so that, sooner or later, there will be a majority Arab population between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea.

There may be a peaceful solution to this seemingly intractable problem – a solution which does not involve Israel forfeiting Yehuda and Shomron and does not compromise the Jewish character of the State. But understanding the solution calls for a basic understanding of some critical arithmetic.

There are currently 5.8 million Jewish Israeli citizens and 1.4 million Arab Israeli citizens. Jews outnumber Arabs by about 3.6:1. If Israel annexed the West Bank, the number of her Arab citizens would increase by 1.6 million to 3 million (assuming all Arabs took up citizenship), reducing the ratio of Jews to Arabs to 1.9:1.

The current rate of net population increase of Jews in Israel even taking aliya into account is 1.7% per annum. The current rate of net population increase of Israeli Arabs is 2.6% per annum.

Although opinions vary, there could be an Arab majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea within two generations at current trends.

Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which reflects the UN General Assembly resolution of 29 November, 1947, contains two laudable objectives which, tragically, appear to be on a collision course, regardless whether or not Israel annexes the West Bank. On the one hand, the Declaration calls for “…the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel” while, on the other hand, it guarantees “complete equality of social and political rights to all her inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex…”

It is conceivable that Israeli Arabs could one day control the Knesset, the army, the treasury, the police force and immigration policy. While this would be entirely consistent with liberal democratic values, things could change dramatically and adversely for the Jewish population. It may be politically incorrect to say so, but Arabs cannot be expected to identify with a flag which represents the Star of David emblazoned on a tallit or with a national anthem invoking nefesh Yehudi homiya - 2000 years of yearning of the Jewish soul for a Jewish homeland.

How, then, can Israel retain Yehuda and Shomron without trammelling the Palestinians’ social and democratic rights and without compromising the Jewish character of the State? Perhaps a solution is a variant of the obvious but unachievable goal of increasing Israel’s Jewish population so dramatically, that it outstrips the increase of her non-Jewish population. The solution is this: At the very same time as annexing Yehuda and Shomron and offering Israeli citizenship to Palestinian Arabs, Israel could amend her existing Law of Return, drawing upon Diaspora Jewry to increase the Jewish voting population by permitting Diaspora Jews to apply for Israeli citizenship without physically making aliya.

Israel’s Law of Return (enacted in 1950) already discriminates, justifiably, between Jew and Arab by granting a right to every Jew to Israeli citizenship upon making aliya. No such right is granted to Arabs. Granting citizenship to Diaspora Jewry is, in concept, perfectly consistent with the Law of Return. It could be augmented by an amendment to Israeli electoral laws so as to permit several hundreds of thousands of expatriate Israelis to vote from abroad as well.

Were this initiative properly promoted and coordinated through the World Zionist movement, millions of new Jewish citizens could be added to the Israeli electoral rolls and the impending political demographic shift could be staved off, effectively forever, given that there are millions of Jews of voting age in the Diaspora.

Most importantly, this initiative would not disenfranchise a single Israeli Arab, unless putting racial pre-eminence beyond their reach is to be regarded as a discreditable objective. It cannot reasonably be viewed as such given that the UN itself resolved that there be “a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel”. The world community should not be at all concerned about who Israel grants citizenship to, so long as the social and democratic rights of all her citizens are not adversely affected.

Increasing the Jewish voting population is to be preferred to other peaceful solutions which could bear adversely upon those rights. For example, given that the vast majority of Israeli Arabs live in the Galilee and the northern coastal plain and the vast majority of West Bank Palestinians live in and around Hebron and Shechem, it is theoretically possible for Israel to undergo constitutional reform and introduce parliamentary representation by electorate with a gerrymander ensuring Jewish control of the Knesset. Most right-minded citizens (let alone world opinion) would find anything short of one man, one vote, highly objectionable and would reject any such solution.

Of course this solution is presently unworkable given the current Israeli body politic, for a number of reasons. For example, Jewish Israelis would resent an equal vote being given to non-resident Jewish citizens to whom domestic issues would be of little importance and who have not demonstrated the ultimate commitment to Israel by making aliya. Jewish Israelis would also resent non-resident Jewish citizens voting when they do not have to live with the consequences of the political choices they make. Israelis might also be concerned about whether the contribution to Israel’s state revenues by an increased population would offset the inevitable increased cost of social and welfare programmes.

However, over time, as Israel’s Arab constituency inexorably moves toward a majority and as world opinion to the current “occupation” intensifies, increasing numbers of Jewish Israelis would come to acknowledge the gravity of the problem and would be prepared to accept the imperative of finding a workable solution. Given that more draconian solutions such as population transfer are far beyond Israel’s moral compass, there is perhaps no other peaceful solution.

At the moment Israel is faced with two inter-related problems which have a common denominator. There is the pending demographic shift which has been met with a deafening silence; and there is the current problem of Israel’s occupation and military jurisdiction over the West Bank which has been met with a deafening cacophony.

The common denominator to solving both problems may be you and me and the rest of the Jewish Diaspora. The time may soon come for Israel to act unilaterally once again, in the absence of a negotiated settlement. But this time, instead of forfeiting land and her security as occurred in Southern Lebanon and Gaza, Israel could retain both her land and her security by annexing the West Bank, by offering citizenship to Palestinian Arabs and by amending the Law of Return. With some lateral thinking, the Jewish Diaspora might just hold the key to solving both problems simultaneously.

Geoffrey Bloch is a Melbourne based barrister.

Gaza missiles aimed at Israel

By Tamar Paluch

I have a shelter. It’s a few steps from my Jerusalem home; they serve coffee and have wi-fi. It’s open nearly twenty-four hours a day. It’s where I am sitting because I can’t go to work today in Ashkelon, some seventy kilometers away. Breakfast was served in Ashkelon with three intercepted Grad missiles. If I would have taken the bus at the usual time, I would have arrived at my regular stop on Ben-Gurion Boulevard just as the Code Red sounded. I don’t know where the shelter is on that stretch of road. I would have had to get down on the ground and cover my head with my hands and pray that the Iron Dome did its job. Precious Australian that I am, the only sirens that I was familiar with until this past year were memorial day sirens.

I work for an organization which is based in Sderot, the most well-known of the rocket-ravaged cities of the south. At our facilities in Ashkelon we operate a sheltered workshop for people with psychiatric disabilities. Being located in an old building, I always laugh that it is technically an unsheltered sheltered workshop. On any one day we have up to one hundred people on-site and, if the siren sounds, we have been instructed to huddle together in the building’s inner sanctum and hope that we all fit. This morning we were instructed to stay shut. We have just commenced work on a new building, and provided that this haslama (escalation) is brief – next summer the sheltered factory will truly be sheltered.

Most Israeli homes and workplaces have a fortified room. Unless you live along a border, this is just another room in your house which you hope will continue to hold your gas masks, children’s toys, and memories of the Gulf War. By law, all new homes and buildings must have a fortified room. However, those living or working in old buildings, such as where I work, have to make do – at least until the money arrives, for these rooms to be built. My colleagues tell of midnight sirens which leave no time to run to the public shelter. They huddle in the innermost room or corridor of their home and hope that the randomness of the rockets will land them in an empty field, though they are well aware that they could just as randomly fall right where they sit.

Speaking with my colleagues and clients from my “shelter” in Jerusalem, I hear the resigned fear in their voices – “Yes, it is awful. But we are used to this.” But what does it mean to be “used to this?” When the Gaza-Israel border flares up, the residents of the southern region brace themselves for punctured sleep and fireworks of the ugliest sort. At times like this, their lives are wholly disabled – sleeping with one eye open, fearful to leave their homes and children, reluctant to go to the bathroom in case a tzeva adom (Code Red) sounds mid-way. Our staff is used to providing top-notch mental health support to our clients, but they themselves are not immune to the vulnerability and fear that rocket attacks create for them and their families. The people of the region know that even once the border calms down this season’s seeds of trauma have been planted.

As we enter the first day of the fragile cease-fire, which has already been breached, nobody can know where we are headed. But we do know that time usually does not heal trauma. Eventually, as life returns to normal, the seeds of trauma will develop and its impact will re-surface. This will manifest in anxiety and depression, hyper-stimulation, sleeplessness and bed-wetting, domestic stress and violence, all of which will interfere with schooling, social and employment trajectories for years to come. A recent NATAL study showed that in Sderot alone, one in three residents suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and one in seven from disrupted daily functioning as a result of living in the shadow ofGaza’s rockets and missiles. The list of people seeking trauma-related mental health support is growing, and this is in the context of the significant funding cuts to the local trauma centers of recent years.

In a world in which we reduce tragedy to numbers and slogans, and color this situation in black-and-white, David-and-Goliath terms, it is easy to forget that the impact of living under an unrelenting and unpredictable siege is as insidious as the shrapnel of fresh ammunition – on both sides of the border. And, alongside the seeds of trauma, the weeds of weariness and animosity plant their roots. Everyday human trauma is indeed one of the most significant things we share, although we would never be so generous as to “credit” this to one another. Certainly the world around us hasn’t found a way to acknowledge this reality from Israel’s perspective. They are busy forgetting that Israel left Gaza in 2005 in order to create a border, with autonomy for the Palestinian population, and that the withdrawal could have been a precedent for further such steps in the West Bank. Except that hopes of a quiet border were quickly dashed, and even the International Red Cross is denied access to Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier kidnapped five years ago by Hamas – the elected government of Gaza. They conveniently forget that the people currently under fire live well within the 1967 borders that the world are so certain that should we withdraw to them, everything will be okay. I am of that school too – but as terror resurfaces, rockets fall and the world is silent, it is tempting to join those who say that this just shows the perverse disregard for our right to be here at all.

The world’s silence in the face of the past days’ events is more deafening than the noise of falling rockets in Israel’s western Negev. And, next month, the noise of the rockets will be drowned out once again – this time with the events which will accompany the Palestinian’s unilateral declaration of independence. And this declaration will be embraced by the world, without demands for dialogue and negotiation, without a commitment to non-violence, and without any expectation that the PA will take concrete steps towards accountability, both to its own cynically exploited people, and to its neighbor.

As for me, I can choose my shelter in Jerusalem over Ashkelon, just as I could – but will not – choose to be in Australia and not here. I can choose to evade the trauma of every day life in the south. But the people on the ground here – they don’t have such a choice. They have lives firmly rooted here – and more importantly, they have a right to be firmly rooted here, even if the rockets and the world’s silence seek to deny them that right. The right to nurse their wounds, to live in quiet, to live in peace, and to store their memories and toys in the rooms that were once shelters.

Tamar Paluch is an Australian olah. She is responsible for special projects at Gvanim Ashkelon, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating community-based employment and housing opportunities for people with mental illness. This article was first published on TeachingIsrael.

A photo from the Sheikh Jarrah protest

By Liam Getreu

While in Jerusalem a few weeks ago, I decided to go to East Jerusalem properly for the first time, and posted this originally on my blog. While my Jewish education was occasionally punctured by more honest accounts of Israel, overwhelmingly the narrative and issues I discovered below were missing from my ten years in a Jewish day school – it was all land of milk and honey, all the time, something consistent with all my peers’ experiences. It is integral that in supporting Israel from Australia to be the best democratic home of the Jewish people it can be, we understand the issues that face all of Israel’s citizens on the ground, including Palestinians in east Jerusalem, something I had never before been given the chance to do. Next time you’re in Israel, I can’t recommend highly enough going to see what I saw with a group like Ir Amim; it will provide a very strong, realistic understanding of just one terrible situation in Israel, and how important it is for us, as Australian Jews, to support efforts to correct it.

I had a very busy day that Friday in Jerusalem – not only did I go to check out the Sheikh Jarrah solidarity protests, but I also went on a tour of east Jerusalem neighbourhoods with Ir Amim.

First, a bit of background: As I’ve written here countless times, the nature of a divided or shared, or a united Jerusalem is frequently cited as one of the main stumbling blocks to peace. Palestinians demand that they have east Jerusalem as their capital, whereas the current government of Israel wants to keep the land it conquered from the Jordanians in 1967 as Israel’s ‘eternal, undivided city’

More and more, however, it is increasingly untenable for Israel to sustain such a demand. Whether we like it or not, Jerusalem retains significance for the Palestinian people, which is no more or less legitimate than our claim of significance of the city. We are in no place to judge, or compare who ‘wants’ the city more – this is counterproductive and a zero-sum game. We must accept the current reality of the city, and the aspirations of both people, and share the city between Israel, the state of the Jewish people, and a future state for the Palestinian people.

It is in some way from that position that Ir Amim comes, the organisation describing itself as committed to “an equitable and stable Jerusalem with an agreed political future”. Ir Amim investigates and researches the reailty on the ground in Israel – for example, the inequity in the resources provided to the paving and re-paving of roads in neighbourhoods in Palestinian east Jerusalem as opposed to Jewish communities. Given that Israel annexed east Jerusalem and includes it in its territory to this day, it stands to reason that the division of resources should be fair and equitable.

The tour I went on visited various Jewish neighbourhoods¹ over the green line in east Jerusalem, including Gilo and Har Homa.² We also visited Palestinian neighbourhoods over the green line in Jerusalem, including Beit Safafa, Sheikh Jarrah, Jalal Mukaba and Abu Dis.

The difference between the Palestinian and Jewish neighbourhoods is stark, impossible not to notice, and even harder to dismiss. While Jewish neighbourhoods have municipality provided swimming pools, well-paved roads and lots of schools, the case is the diametric opposite for Palestinians. In Jerusalem, despite west Jerusalem Jewish suburbs of Malcha and Rehavya being under the same municipal jurisdiction as east Jerusalem Palestinian neighbourhoods like Sheikh Jarrah and Abu Dis, and Palestinians making up almost 35 per cent of the entire population of the city, only around 10 per cent of municipal funds are directed to them.³ When Israel claims to be all embracing of its Arab minority, where equality supposedly not only written in law but also evident on the ground, this is surely unfair, unjust and wrong.

In my opinion the most clear and alarming difference is in education of Palestinian youth in east Jerusalem. Ir Amim has commissioned many reports on the matter and has concluded that there is vast inequality. While Israeli law entitled all Palestinians in east Jerusalem to free, public education (something the vast majority want, because private education is so expensive), a shortage of more than 1,000 classrooms makes it impossible for them to receive their rightful benefits. As it stands, because there is that huge gap, and because many Palestinians can’t afford education or the schools run by UNRWA are too full, there are more six per cent of Palestinian children who are unable to attend a school.

For all the talk of a defunct and hostile Arab school system, where textbooks preach antisemitism and the destruction of Israel, here Israel is, with a chance to educate Palestinian children along pluralist and tolerant lines, and the opportunity is ignored. It is at best negligent and at worst criminal. If education is the key to a lasting peace, where both Jews and Palestinians are taught mutual respect and tolerance, then Israel is failing itself here.

It is a crying shame that when Israeli politicians speak of an undivided Jerusalem the reality on the ground is that the municipality and the state are dividing it already – not necessarily geographically, but ethnically, dividing services unequally and ruining chances of a credible labelling in the international arena of Israel as free, democratic and equal for all its citiens.

After the excellent Ir Amim tour I had a break (a smoked salmon sandwich at Aroma on Hillel St, naturally) and then went to join the weekly demonstration by the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement. The demonstration is in protest against civil inequality and the occupation, but has stemmed for a particular situation in Sheikh Jarrah, where Jews are allowed to claim properties they lost when Jordan took over east Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1948, while Palestinians are unable to do the same to properties lost in either 1948 or 1967.

It is atrocious that Israel allows such blatant inequality and discrimination. In Sheikh Jarrah and many other neighbourhoods of east Jerusalem, Jews are now using Ottoman deeds to re-claim their properties. For the most part I don’t have a problem with that – if there is a genuine consensus on the need to re-settle all refugees from the ’48 and ’67 wars in their original homes then fine. However, if Jews are going to be able to do that, then there must be the same opportunity afforded Palestinians who lost their homes using the same type of documents. Allow both or allow neither, but allowing only one is racist.

The demonstrations, which targets the mostly religious settlers occupying the homes of former residents, occur weekly and seem to aim to raise awareness, build a community of Israelis and Palestinians, together, against the occupation, and to try (however in vain it probably is) to convince the settlers to move out. They marched through the neighbourhood and shouted chants, like the most poignant, “1, 2, 3, 4 Occupation no more / 5, 6, 7, 8 Stop the settlers, stop the hate”. Even as the settlers tried to drown out their shouts with religious music on big speakers, it was as if the power the demonstrators gained from pursuing a noble cause managed to overcome it all.

The protests have been joined by public intellectuals, academics and writers in the past, including Bernard Avishai, Peter Beinart and David Grossman – while regrettably they are not part of the mainstream Israeli psyche, they are well on their way. After all, it is only so long that Israelis can go on, increasingly isolated from the world and not looking internally at their own problems, seeking to solve them to re-gain the moral high ground.

Many will criticise what some members of SJSM have said, or what they stand for, or other initiatives they have joined. Indeed, while some there who would prefer an Israel with no Jewish character and only a single secular, democratic state between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, there are far more who are campaigning for a two-state solution. You cannot delegitimise an entire organisation or an entire political movement based on the political affiliations, or the Facebook friends of some of its members, as some have tried to do.

That Friday was enlightening – I did not realise the strength of the new Israeli left, a movement that centres around organisations like SJSM and blogs like 972 magazine. I had not understood the extent of the inequality in east Jerusalem, something that I refuse to stand for, something runs contrary to the intentions of the founders of Israel and of central elements to Jewish faith and culture. The next time you’re in Israel I can’t stress enough how worthwhile these tours are, and how great it is to be involved in the New Israel Fund, an organisation that supports SJSM and Ir Amim in the work they do.

Liam Getreu is a graduate of Bialik College and Habonim Dror and is a former chairperson of the Australian Zionist Youth Council and the Australasian Union of Jewish Students. He is a director of New Israel Fund Australia. These are his personal views.

In January this year, an advertisement (see left) appeared in a magazine called Physician Life that is sent to registered physicians like me in Australia.  Sponsored by an organization called Towards Hope Foundation the advertisement was seeking funds to support the treatment in Melbourne of Malak, a young girl visiting from Gaza, who had been born with no ears, and as a consequence, was deaf.

What drew my attention to this unusual advertisement was the statement that the required operation “cannot be done anywhere in the Middle East”.  Having worked in Israel some years ago, and knowing a little of the medical facilities available there, I questioned the veracity of the statement.  First, however, I checked with my medical sources in Jerusalem, and received confirmation that the particular operation and the special hearing aid required were available in the major teaching hospitals of most of the cities in Israel.

I wrote to the editor of the magazine with this information, and advised this was false advertising. This was particularly so, since there is an organization in Israel, the Peres Centre for Peace, that handles humanitarian aid requests of this nature for the children of Gaza.  I am advised the organization has been in operation since 2003 and has had more than 6,500 referrals since, the majority being for complex operations.  Costs of the procedures are apparently borne by the Centre.

I checked the website of the Foundation at that time, and found much anti-Israel vitriol, as well as advertising of a pro-Palestinian political public rally to be held at the University of Technology in Sydney during May.

Subsequently, the editor of the magazine wrote to the person who had submitted the advertisement, and received back a vitriolic letter containing material consistent with what I had seen on the Foundations website.  To resolve the matter, the editor then invited me to write a letter to the magazine for publication.  This appeared in the May-June issue of the magazine.  So far, as of the July-August issue of the magazine, there has been no response to my letter.

This week I rechecked the website of the Foundation, and was surprised.  There is no anti-Israel vitriol anymore, merely details about Malak, and her recent arrival in Melbourne.  At the click of a button, I accessed a two-minute video screened on the ABC in June telling Malak’s story, and showing her, her mother, and those who are trying to assist.  This was a wonderful change to what I had seen previously, and something to be commended.

Moreover, on the website, there was a note warning about possible fraudulent endeavours of two Islamic organizations that are said not to be registered charities in Victoria allegedly collecting funds to support Malak.

What has happened to seemingly turn this matter around, from vitriolically attacking a country whilst supporting a humanitarian endeavour, to showing beneficence without the politics?  Perhaps the Towards Hope Foundation has now taken notice of that entity called the Peres Centre for Peace, and is concentrating its efforts to help Malak and other children in need.  I ask myself if this change has occurred in part because of my objection to what was a misleading advertisement in a physician’s magazine, and my persistence in ensuring the matter was not swept under the carpet – or am I dreaming?

Dr Bernie Tuch is a Sydney based physician.

Self-determination - a human right?

By Andrew Wirth

I recently attended Melbourne University’s Festival of Ideas to hear a debate entitled: “The Middle East: the Cockpit of National Identities and Perpetual Conflict… can the idea of two states –Israeli and Palestinian – be made to work?” Naomi Chazan and Mark Baker, (representing “progressive Zionism”) presented a nuanced and compassionate – almost anguished – attempt to embrace and honor two conflicting narratives. In arguing for a two-state solution, they acknowledged both Jewish and Palestinian identities struggling to find purchase in a disputed piece of land.

Saree Makdisi, speaking from a Palestinian perspective, replied (paraphrasing): These are just nice words. Israel’s establishment led to the dispossession of Palestinians, many of whom are refugees who have not had their basic rights met to this day. The only way to redress this wrong is to accept that Palestinian refugees have the right of return to their places or origin, and to live in peace alongside the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine.

And in case anyone had any doubts “This is just a matter of human rights. Simple. How can you argue with that?”

In arguing for one state, Makdisi wasn’t arguing politics. This wasn’t about settlers, facts on the ground, the “bantustanisation” of Palestinian territory, or a rejectionist Israeli leadership making the two state solution impossible to implement in current circumstances. While these are very real and legitimate issues, they could in principle be overcome with appropriate policy implementation, and do not reflect human rights limitations inherent in the idea of two states for two peoples.

The essence of Makdisi’s position seems to be that while a two state solution might provide an opportunity for Palestinians to live as free and equal citizens within a state that fully enshrines their human rights, only the one state solution provides acceptable redress for the dispossessed refugees. The argument that the return of refugees is essential is constructed in the language of human rights, and hermetically sealed with the righteousness of the oppressed. The potential loss of Israel as a Jewish State becomes simply a side effect, desirable or unfortunate depending on ones view on nation states in general, and Israel in particular.

Arguments about the right of return typically focus on several familiar themes: who and how many are the Palestinian refugees; how ought we apportion blame for the initiation and perpetuation of their plight; how ought we interpret and apply the various moral-legal frameworks that apply to this problem – in particular the UN Charter on human rights, and UN resolutions 181 and 194: and of course Jewish and Palestinian claims of “sacred rights” to land, which can be asserted but not argued. These are important issues. Yet such discussion, which fills the pages of the Jewish News, Galus, and other media invariably gets bogged down in historical and legal disputation, and is often unproductive and unenlightening.

Let’s take it as a given that the Jews of Palestine/Israel were at least partly to blame for Palestinian dispossession, and that a human rights perspective should inform any solution to the problem. Left Zionists have for years used the language of human rights to defend two states against the Zionist right. It is ironic, and in fact quite disorienting now to have this very language used to invalidate their position. During question time at the debate, several of the most poignant objections to the position being defended by Baker and Chazan were put by Jews in the audience. These Jews – and they felt obliged to introduce themselves as such – seemed unable to validate a Jewish state on the grounds of justice and human rights. It is as though years of being the oppressor has made this language unavailable to them.

So how can we argue a case for a two as opposed to a one state solution on human rights grounds?

I would suggest that this position requires:

• that the “human rights cost” to the Palestinians of foregoing the right of return to their original home towns (as opposed to living in a genuinely independent Palestinian state alongside Israel) is less than the “human rights cost” to Jews through the loss of a space in which they can enjoy national self determination; and
• that a human rights loss for one group can in some circumstances be legitimately weighed against a human rights loss of another group.

It is important to reiterate that one-state proponents are not simply asserting that Palestinians should enjoy full democratic/civil rights within a State. This they could achieve in an appropriately implemented two state solution. Rather, their argument rests on the notion that there are essential aspects of human rights that can only be realized by returning to their original towns, villages and homes.

There are unarguably powerful personal, emotional and cultural values attached to familial and clan history, property and birthplaces. Bradley Burston touches on these intangible values (for both “sides”) in a recent article in Haaretz. The inability to return to such places is a painful emotional and cultural loss, which must be appropriately recognized and acknowledged, and nothing in this piece is intended to diminish this important issue. The question being raised is whether the difference between returning to ones original family home on one hand, or reestablishing a home within a genuine Palestinian state nearby on the other, really constitutes an unacceptable human rights infringement? What is the incremental gain of returning to places of family origin, as expressed in the language of human rights? If we look to the 30 articles in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights there are only two whose fulfillment is conceivably dependant on the right of return.

Article 13 (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 17 (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

I say conceivably because there is ample scope to critique the applicability of these articles as related to Palestinian right of return. What is the definition of one’s own country? Is loss of property occurring in the context of intercommunal war arbitrary? However, once again, for this discussion let us accept that at least some Palestinian human rights could only be fulfilled in Israel proper.

The key question is what legitimately follows from this? Does demonstrating that some Palestinian rights can only be addressed by right of return automatically warrant their implementation, or does the legitimate exercise of a right depend on the implications for other parties of exercising that right? My right to free speech does not extend to yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre if no fire exists. In the instance of the right of return, the consequent loss to be considered is that of Jewish national self-determination.

The loss of a space within which Jewish cultural expression, language, religion and sense of home are not vulnerable, but can flourish freely – and where the physical safety of Jews, if not guaranteed, is at least a matter of Jewish responsibility. These are conditions Jews have not enjoyed for two thousand years, during which they have repeatedly “experimented” with living in dominantly non-Jewish societies – an experience characterized by exclusion, expulsion and ultimately extermination. The meaning of the loss of a Jewish state is once again to be at risk of such events. This is an experiment that Jews might wish reasonably not to run again.

But can such risks be viewed within a rights framework? Nowhere does it state in the UN charter that everyone has a right to live in a society in which they form part of the dominant cultural group. However, most national or cultural groups either already live as part of a majority group or have the potential to move to a homeland where that is the case. Those groups that do not enjoy actual or potential self-determination as a national majority (Roma, Kurds, Tibetans and, historically the Jews, among others) have suffered and continue to suffer infringements of their rights.

Thus, even though living within a national majority group is not an explicit human right, and this is key, the enjoyment of human rights, historically, appears to be contingent on such a status.

Set against the rights described in articles 13 and 17 of the charter (which a two state solution may compromise for Palestinians), rights that Jews have not enjoyed (and in many cases still do not enjoy) in their precarious existence as minorities in Christian and Muslim societies include:

Article 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

Article 3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 7. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law.

Article 9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Less clear, but I think also arguably relevant are:

Article 15. (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.

Article 27. (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community…

Palestinian advocates might reasonably say- “that’s a shame, but your loss of a national space is not a Palestinian responsibility”. If the argument is conducted as a zero sum game then one can take that view. However, if the conversation is genuinely about ensuring universal human rights for all (and not just a tactic), then the case must be made that the realization of those rights only achievable through right of return (but not in a two state solution) justifies the loss to another group of several arguably more fundamental rights. This is not simply an appeal to justice based on intuition, but is implied in articles 28 and 30 of the UN charter itself.

Article 28. Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 30. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

Those arguing for unlimited Palestinian right of return are arguing for an international order in which the realization of fundamental Jewish rights is put at risk. A case against the full implementation of the Palestinian right of return/one state solution need not be predicated on denial of any Israeli responsibility for the refugee problem, nor even on denial that some Palestinian rights might be forgone in a two state arrangement. One can argue, in the terms of the UN Charter, that the loss of rights for the Jewish residents of Israel (and the broader Jewish community) inherent in a one state solution underpins a strong case for a two state solution.

Advocates of a Jewish state as part of a two state solution should not have to feel apologetic, whether in a university debate, with colleagues over coffee, at the shabat dinner table or in the blogosphere, whether confronting critics on the right, or as in this instance, the left.

One of the chaps onboard the previous "Freedom Flotilla"

Vivienne Porzsolt, a spokesperson of Jews against the Occupation Sydney, is taking part in “Freedom Flotilla 2”.

Galus Australis conducted a one-shot (i.e. no follow-up) email-based interview with Ms Porzsolt. Below is the interview, completely unedited:

Galus Australis: We understand that you are planning to take part in the “Freedom Flotilla 2” to Gaza. Can you tell our readers when the flotilla is leaving and what is the route that your boat is taking?

Vivienne Porzsolt: For security reason, the details of the time and place of departure and the route are not announced.

Galus Australis: We understand that the flotilla organisers claim that their goal is to break the siege on Gaza and deliver goods to Gazans, but how do you respond to detractors who argue that  in addition to the Israeli government continuing to ensure the supply of humanitarian aid, the new Egyptian regime has already broken the siege by opening the borders on their side of Gaza. Thus why is a flotilla necessary when goods could simply be transported across the Rafah Crossing from Egypt into Gaza?

Vivienne Porzsolt: While the Rafah Crossing was eased for a few days to allow women, children and older people through, men between the age of 18 and 40 were not. Now only 400 people a day are allowed through. This is the same as before the easing and much less than the 1200 before the closure. The Rafah Crossing even when fully open, cannot take goods, particularly industrial goods. The siege of Gaza is not just a matter of humanitarian aid. The people of Gaza must have freedom of movement and be able to build an economy, not continue to be mendicants reliant on charity.

Galus Australis: Detractors also argue that the humanitarian situation in nearby Syria is far worse than anything in Gaza. How would you respond to their claims that any aid flotilla ought to be headed to Syria and not Gaza?

Vivienne Porzsolt: The situation in Syria is very bad and I very much hope that the Syrians will be able to overthrow the brutal regime. But the situation in Syria is far less brutal than Gaza under the onslaught of Operation Cast Lead which killed 1400 people, injured many more, and destroyed housing and infrastructure. It has not been possible to re-build because of the siege. Besides, this is a matter of human rights not just humanitarian aid. The siege is illegal and causing significant suffering.

Galus Australis: Do you have any maritime experience?  What skills do you personally bring to the ship that you will be sailing on?

Vivienne Porzsolt: Like a passenger on any boat, I have no maritime skills. Our boat Tahrir (Arabic for Liberation) owned with the Canadians, Danes and Belgians, will be sailed by a qualified crew of 5.

Galus Australis: The activists on the Mavi Marmara were famously armed. How will you respond if you become aware that activists on your ship are also armed?

Vivienne Porzsolt: This is ‘famous’ because it is based on the official Israeli government version after the Israeli commandoes had seized and smashed all communication equipment owned by all passengers on all 6 boats of the first  Freedom Flotilla 1.  A few activists on the Mavi Marmara - 30-40 of 400 activists – seized whatever was at hand such as the railings from the gangways to protect themselves when they came under attack by the IDF. This attack was an illegal act of piracy in international waters.

Galus Australis: Likwise, activists on a previous flotilla ship were recorded chanting “Khaybar Khaybar ya yahud, Jaish Muhammad saya’ud,” which means “Jews, remember Khyabar, the army of Mohammed is returning.”  How will you respond if activists on your ship chant this or similar anti-Jewish chants?

Vivienne Porzsolt: This story may or may not be true. Of course, all of us sign forms committed to equality of all regardless of race, religion, gender and so on. My presence as a Jew standing up for human rights is a strong counter to any anti-Semitism that may arise in connection with the anger so many around the world rightfully feel at the actions of the Jewish State.

The bottom line is that the foundation of the State of Israel, the Jewish homeland, was founded on the dispossession of the Palestinians. Until this is addressed, there will continue to be rage even hatred of Jews. I believe in and profoundly hope for a future for Jews and Palestinians living side by side in mutual respect. This is not possible unless Israel shifts its course to one based on international law and human rights, not the ‘Iron Wall’ of military might. That is why I am sailing on the Freedom Flotilla 2 – Stay Human along with 1000 other activists from 50 nations to break this brutal, illegal siege.

[Seen a good/bad movie at the Jewish Film Festival? Send us your kvetch/kvell and we'll post it to the intertubes!]

It’s that time of year again, where I surrender my active lifestyle for sitting still for two hour blocks, empty my wallet and embrace the high quality selection of films that screen in Sydney and Melbourne for the Jewish Film Festival.

If I were to hear about a Hollywood film featuring a suicide bomber roaming the streets of New York, who, on the verge of detonating his shrapnel-filled belt, encountered some locals who challenged his thought process; I would assume it’s another one of those romantic action blockbusters to put on the wait-’till-it-comes-on-TV list. The film For My Father, directed by Dror Zahavi, did not take place in New York but in Israel, and besides a couple of minor stereotypes, seemed very authentic.

Terek is a frustrated Palestinian who finds himself in a situation whereby the only solution he can foresee is to blow himself up to redeem his family’s honour. On the drive through the scenic Judean Hills to Tel Aviv, he appears tormented at the upcoming task ahead, yet resolute in his commitment. Once in Tel Aviv, he heads for the bustling shuk (market) and builds up the courage to do the deed, only to find the button doesn’t work.  He scrambles out of the shuk and meanders the back street alleys of Tel Aviv.  It is in this down trodden alley of Tel Aviv where he meets an elderly electrician and his wife who help him fix the detonator button, and an Israeli young woman who herself is marginalised by her Orthodox family.  Through these characters he develops a degree of compassion for the ’enemy’ and a peek at the complexities that envelope their lives.  With mounting pressure from his comrades back in the West Bank, and a new found affection for a few Israelis, he is forced to decide what his next move will be.

This powerful film had me captivated from woe to go, and elicited my tear reflex a couple of times.  It is refreshing to see humanistic approaches to the age-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  I had never before thought about the mental process that afflicts a suicide bomber in the days and minutes before their premature death.  Nor had I really imagined that a suicide bomber was a human being with positive emotions, a family and aspirations.

For My Father does not glorify terrorism, but it did force me to acknowledge my prejudices and recognise the human aspect of both sides of the story. Politics aside, we are all programmed with the same gamut of emotions.

*

For My Father is screening in Melbourne tonight. Click here for details.

Problems these days need creative solutions.  If young Jews in the Diaspora are assimilating, let’s send them on a free, ten day tour of Israel to encourage Zionism and procreation.  If Palestinians and Israelis are fighting, let’s create a joint international AFL team to promote peace and harmony.  And, if there are homeless, marginalised and disenfranchised citizens of the world, let’s create an international soccer tournament to boost their self-esteem and motivation.  That’s exactly what social entrepreneur Mel Young thought (the latter idea, at least), and it brought the Homeless World Cup (HWC) to fruition.

The HWC, which began in 2003, is an annual competition where various nations compete for the title of street soccer champions.  In September, I was fortunate enough to volunteer at the HWC, hosted this year by the soccer-loving city of Milan. Forty-eight countries participated, from Kazakhstan to Poland to India.  Each nation that participates has a grass roots street soccer program at home, and the HWC is the highlight of the calendar.  The meaning of “Homeless” is quite broad, and encompasses people who have been homeless at some point in the last two years, as well as people who make their main income as a street paper vendor; or are asylum seekers; or are currently in drug or alcohol rehabilitation.  Whilst some countries like the Ukraine (who were victorious this year) send off an indestructible team; others, like Australia, send off a well-rounded, committed team with a strong sense of mateship, but who also happen to be less talented on the pitch.

Now, before the skeptic in you starts to question the sense of allotting funds to this project instead of building houses, have a think about what the real issues are for homeless people. Building a roof over their heads would be appreciated, but it is as useful as giving a malnourished World Vision child an apple.  Sure, it’s a relief, but then what happens tomorrow? The issues of homelessness are complex and more often than not involve social issues (at least in developed countries anyway).  The official HWC website espouses, “the impact is consistently significant year on year, with 73% of players changing their lives for the better by coming off drugs and alcohol, moving into jobs, education, homes, training, reuniting with families and even going on to become players and coaches for pro or semi-pro football teams.” Money redistributed to simply providing a roof can not achieve these social changes.

From my experience of schmoozing with the players, coaches, managers and referees, the above statistic sounds about right.  There are those players for whom this tournament is merely a ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card, only to return to that ‘imprisonment’ after the games.  One young man who was representing Switzerland was an asylum seeker from Eritrea. His biggest obstacle in Switzerland was integration, which included struggling to learn proficient German, but more importantly, meant fitting in.  Whilst being a part of a team was great for his morale, and he bonded with his fellow Swiss competitors, he did not perceive that much would change upon return to Switzerland.  He would still be isolated, without a community and continuing to struggle to learn proficient German.

On the other hand, I met Japanese players who were shy and lacked self confidence at the beginning, but were crying at the end due to the love and affection showed by the rest of the players.  It had given one American woman who had troubles at home a sense of purpose and new community.  A Nigerian player participated two years ago and has since undergone training and now coaches the Nigerian League.  A young South African man found refuge from the streets of Cape Town and has since kept out of trouble by engaging in football.  Time and again, stories pour out from each country about how street soccer has made a positive difference in players’ lives, even if it is just motivation.  The camaraderie between teams is the antithesis of an under-sixteens netball game.  All the other teams support each other, even when they are in direct competition.  The Australian team, which won the award for fair play, was known for barracking for their opposition during the match, and always included the opposition in a post-match rendition of Waltzing Matilda.

Noticeably lacking in my eyes were Muslim countries, as well as Israel.  Afghanistan competed in last year’s HWC in Melbourne, and won the tournament, but they absconded after their victory and their title was rescinded along with a twelve month ban.  Female participation from these Muslim countries would also be refreshing, burqa or not.  Israel has plenty of citizens that fit the criteria of ‘homeless’, especially as more and more refugees from Africa seek asylum, and the division between the rich and the poor continues to expand.  Israel often has a stigma marked against it, and given the demonstrated camaraderie at the HWC, I suspect it is a great forum to curb this stigma, boost morale, and an opportunity for Israel to present itself beyond the confines of ‘the conflict’.  I have been informed that there will be a joint Israeli/Palestinian team at next year’s game in Rio, although I am hazy on the specifics.

Who knows, maybe sport will be the creative solution needed to solve some of Israel’s conflicts!

Keren Tuch is a Sydney-based physiotherapist, former Hineni madricha and intrepid world traveller.