Kicking and punching for peace

Budo for Peace is more determined than ever to build bridges between Jews and Arabs by engaging in martial arts.

By CARL HOFFMAN
Budo for Peace 521 (photo credit: Dorit Fridman)
Budo for Peace 521
(photo credit: Dorit Fridman)
At first glance, it seems strange to try to achieve peace between Jews and Arabs by bringing their children together to punch, kick and throw each other onto the floor.
Even the man who came up with the idea agrees that it is a little unusual.
“When I started Budo for Peace eight years ago, everyone told me it was a crazy idea. They were right – it is,” says Danny Hakim, 53, a black-belt karate instructor from Australia whose first karate lessons at age 13 were a bar mitzva present from his grandmother.
Crazy or not, however, the organization he founded and directs has brought together hundreds of Jewish and Arab children from all over the country to learn tolerance, friendship and mutual respect through martial arts.
But aren’t martial arts and peacemaking somewhat contradictory activities? “That’s what everybody asks me,” says Hakim, flashing his trademark smile.
“How can you fight for peace? Usually people snigger at the idea... until they understand the deeper philosophy of traditional martial arts. ‘Do’ means ‘way’ or ‘path’ – as in judo, kendo, aikido, karatedo. These are all different paths of martial arts. There are two meaning of ‘bu.’ The first meaning is ‘war’ or ‘conflict.’ But... if you look carefully at the Chinese character, it also means ‘preventing conflict.’ So Budo for Peace is a way of preventing conflict, using martial arts.”
He stresses that martial arts “is not about fighting. In all traditional martial arts – Japanese, Chinese or Korean – there’s a philosophy. And the philosophy is about respect and self-control. And it’s not something that is only talked about.
When you go into a martial arts class, you have to bow. When you see your instructor, you have to bow. It’s part of the rules.”
The philosophy is also, he says, about “achieving harmony within yourself. That is part and parcel of every traditional martial art. First, you sit down and meditate, trying to achieve calmness within yourself.
And once you’ve achieved harmony within yourself, you are able to have harmony with other people.”
He explains, however, that he is talking specifically about Asian martial arts.
“Because in boxing and other forms of what they call ‘martial arts,’ there isn’t that deeper philosophy.”
What about krav maga, the Israeli martial art that has grown almost exponentially in popularity in the past several years? “[This philosophy is] not part of the teaching of krav maga,” he notes, “but we are accepting krav maga instructors in Budo for Peace who have adopted our mission and goals – using martial arts to build trust between peoples and to create a more accepting global society.”
There is another thing about Asian martial arts that makes them a perfect medium for bringing Arab and Jewish kids together, according to Hakim: “It’s a culture that is foreign to both groups of our kids. There’s a Jewish culture, and an Arab culture. We introduce Asian martial arts as a third culture, adding another dimension that both groups consider exotic and ‘cool.’ Both groups of kids are following customs and rituals from that new third culture, coming together within that culture.”
There are, at present, some 34 Budo for Peace “clubs” throughout the country, each with anywhere from 10 to 20 pupils, both boys and girls. The children range in age from around nine to 16.
There is a roughly equivalent number of Jewish and Arab clubs, and each Jewish club is paired with a “twin” club of Arab children. The Caesarea group, for example, is paired with one in Jisr e-Zarka; Afula is paired with the lower Galilee village of Iksal, and Kiryat Gat with the Beduin village of Abu Kweidar, near Beersheba.
Training sessions for each club happen twice a week, lasting around 90 minutes per session. The first hour is devoted to physical training, which might be karate, judo, aikido, taekwondo, kendo or krav maga, depending on the expertise of the club’s instructor.
The last half-hour of each session is given over to Budo for Peace’s educational program, involving discussion, role playing, and other activities designed to teach the organization’s cardinal values of respect, harmony, self-control and self-improvement. Using the terminology of martial arts, the program’s 12 modules – written in Hebrew, Arabic and English – teach tolerance, coexistence, the prevention of bullying, and the avoidance of unnecessary violence.
All Budo for Peace instructors hold black belts or the equivalent in their chosen martial art. In addition, they have teaching certification and at least two years of teaching experience. The instructors meet three times a year for two-day seminars at which they share their knowledge and experience and discuss teaching techniques.
At one such recent seminar in Abu Kweidar, 56-year-old Budo CEO Nahum Katz – a retired IDF colonel and former high-school principal – points out the wide array of locations the program has reached.
“Tonight we have right here people from Mughar in the north, people from Iksal, Afula, Haifa, Jisr e-Zarka, Hadera, Kiryat Gat, Ra’anana, Holon, east Jerusalem, Hebron, and from this village, Abu Kweidar. That’s how spread out we are, and we’re very proud of that,” he says.
“This seminar is a meeting of the instructors and the young leaders together,” he continues. “We have these meetings every three months. Each of the instructors has brought along two or three young leaders, who are the highest rank in each club, and the best in leadership development. They are the future leaders of the organization.”
One of the most enthusiastic participants at the seminar is instructor Hanan Drawshi, a Muslim Arab woman from Iksal, a village in the lower Galilee.
Drawshi, 25, has been studying karate since the age of 16. She has been with Budo for three years and teaches a club of 15 pupils – boys and girls ranging in age, she says, from almost four to 18.
Asked if she enjoys what she is doing, she is quick to reply: “Sure! You can do things that you can’t do as just a regular karate instructor. You can teach values.
And it’s nice to see all these people from different places coming together and enjoying themselves and each other. It’s a good idea.”
Her reply is even more ardent regarding whether she thinks she and her organization are making a difference.
“Sure we’re making a difference!” she exclaims. “We’re making peace!” She reiterates Hakim’s sentiment that “people think martial arts is about violence, but we do the opposite. We make peace through martial arts.”
Like Drawshi – who is a landscape architect in addition to being a karate teacher – virtually all Budo for Peace instructors have “day jobs.” They hold such disparate positions as high-school teachers, tour guides, social workers and business executives. Shlomi Quartler, for example, who teaches a system called Pine Forest Karate in Herzliya, is the Israel manager of Dell Computers.
AS A non-profit organization, Budo for Peace relies on contributions for 100 percent of its operating expenses. How much does it cost to get one local club up and running for a year? It’s not cheap, says Katz.
“To open a new club, from A to Z, costs around $16,000 per year,” he says. “It’s not only the instruction that costs money, but it’s also the activities in the community; the cost of buses for the different clubs to meet and train together; trips; summer peace camps; and many, many other activities.”
The total cost rises rapidly considering that the organization hopes, he says, “to open 23 new clubs this year, all over Israel, in addition to the 34 we have right now.”
This year, Budo for Peace has also had to deal with the expense of sending a mixed team of Jewish and Arab instructors and pupils to this year’s International Karate Championships in Sydney, where teams from more than 100 countries will compete. Following a send-off party at the home of the Australian ambassador on November 5, the team will depart for Sydney on November 13 and compete in the championships on November 23.
Shouldering the cost of sending the team to Australia and back is one private donor who asks emphatically not to be named. He is more than forthcoming, however, about why he supports Budo for Peace.
“My wife and I believe that the best form of philanthropy is toward education,” he says. “And we firmly believe that education is not just about a teacher standing in front of kids in a classroom. Budo’s type of education is active and interactive. It’s going to break through to the underprivileged classes and bring different groups in our society together. This is a cause to contribute to, and I only wish it would become more popular around the country and worldwide. It needs to get substantially larger funding.”
And what are the Budo for Peace team’s chances at the international championships in Australia? For Hakim, competing is only part of Budo’s agenda at the games.
“The main reason [for going to the games] is to be a living example of our vision and to recruit affiliate countries,” he says. “We’re launching ourselves internationally. We are going to get other countries to join us as affiliate members, sharing our vision of using martial arts for social change, martial arts for peace.”
At a time when missiles rain down on Israel from Gaza, Lebanon has launched a drone into Israeli airspace, and Iran regularly issues threats to annihilate the Jewish state, punching and kicking our way toward peace may indeed seem like a crazy idea. But watching Arab and Jewish children practicing their karate moves in a Beduin tent in Abu Kweidar, one is reminded of the famous saying by sixth-century BCE Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu: “If there is to be peace in the world, there must be peace in the nations. If there is to be peace in the nations, there must be peace in the cities. If there is to be peace in the cities, there must be peace between neighbors. If there is to be peace between neighbors, there must be peace in the home. If there is to be peace in the home, there must be peace in the heart.”


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