For Activists, a Week of Debate on Israel

I am a Jew. My Hebrew name is Hannah. My grandmother speaks Yiddish to me, forgetting that my Yiddish is extremely limited. I like the taste of Gefilte fish, cold and served with carrots on top. I have been to Israel and the West Bank, and I have Israeli family.

Even though I am a Jew, I did not participate in Tikvah's "Israeli Peace and Diversity Week." Instead, I attended every event by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) for Israel Apartheid Week. I am one of the organizers, I am an activist for Palestine and I am a Jew.

On Wednesday, SJP held a rally supporting Palestinian human rights and an end to 60 years of occupation. Shortly after the program began, a sizable group from Tikvah arrived on scene, cloaked in blue and white and carrying the magen daivd (the Israeli flag).

The group from Tikvah joined hands in an American version of Israeli folk dance. Their words-"Ya-osay shalom, Ya-osay shalom, Shalom aleynu, V'al kol Israel"-translate to "He will make peace, He will make peace, Peace for us, And all of Israel." This song, this prayer, conclusion of the Amidah, is a song of peace for all of humanity. It is not a song about Israel, the nation-state.

There is a sharp contrast between the peace described in Osay Shalom and the peace that Tikvah describes. It is critical to look beyond the rhetoric of "Israeli Peace and Diversity Week" and examine what kind of a peace Tikvah advocates.

What is the political, social and economic structure that supports this concept of peace? Does Tikvah's concept of peace include a presence of justice and fairness for non-Jews?

Can peace or its likeness exist in a country where tomorrow an American Jew can move to Israel and, in the words of Ismail Khalidi, a non-Jew representative of the Israeli government, "have more rights than I do"? Is it peace when a wall is constructed inside of the Green Line (the 1967 West Bank border with Israel proper), annexing almost 12 percent of the land for Jewish settlements? Is it peace when the International Court of Justice rules against the construction of the wall, yet its construction continues? Is it peace when Palestinian homes are demolished in order for Jewish-only roads to be built? Is it peace that these roads exist so that Jews may have the opportunity to drive in the Occupied Territories without having to be burdened with waiting in line for hours at a checkpoint with the indigenous Palestinian population?

In reflecting on the nature of peace, I am reminded of a Martin Luther King Jr. quote: "True peace is not merely the absence of violence, it is the presence of justice." SJP does not advocate an abolishment of Israel. We do not hate Israel or Israelis (some of our members are Israelis), but we ask for a different Israel.

We ask for an Israel that has the presence of justice. We ask for fairness, opportunity, dignity and the right of return for all Palestinians. We ask for electricity to be returned to Gaza, we ask for the wall to fall, we ask for the right to education, we ask for the life of a Palestinian to be valued as a life of a Jew.

I left the rally pained by the use of Jewish prayer as a political tool. Osay Shalom predates Israel and Israel does not own all of Judaism. But as much pain as I may have felt, I will never know the pain of being Palestinian at a checkpoint. I will never own the pain of living under 60 years of occupation while American Jews living in comfort call Israel a state of "peace and diversity." Peace-peace for whom?

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