It’s an unfortunate fact of life that it takes a tragedy to move animosities aside. Haifa-based journalist Eran Singer – who hosts a regular program on Radio Reshet Bet in which he interviews Arab Israeli academics, journalists, social workers, medical professionals, and others in order to educate Jewish listeners about the country’s Arab communities – was among those who attended the funerals of the wife, daughters, and sister-in-law of Arab attorney Raja Khatib.
The women had been unable to get to a shelter in time and had been killed by an Iranian missile. Singer was not the only Jew who went to Tamra to offer his condolences and pay respects.
Other Jewish Israelis who are far removed from the hate campaign against Arab Israelis and regard them as equal citizens whose tragedies and triumphs are like those of all Israelis also went to pay their respects.
Among them were some who did not know the Khatib family personally but who, for the same reasons that they attend the funerals of soldiers and victims of terror whom they also didn’t know, came to stand with Khatib in his time of sorrow.
During the days of mourning, Khatib was visited by various Jewish dignitaries, including members of Knesset, Ministers Yariv Levin and Yoav Kisch, and President Isaac Herzog and his wife, Michal.
Herzog condemned all expressions of racism against Israel’s Arab citizens.
Singer, who attended the funeral in both personal and professional capacities, expressed fury toward those Jewish radicals who demonstrate and cheer with joy when Arabs in the country or the region are killed.
He is even angrier over the racist messages and images posted on social media in the immediate aftermath of the attack on Tamra.
Singer has pointed out on numerous occasions that the vast majority of Arab citizens in Israel are loyal, peace-loving people and that the number of Arab physicians and nurses in Israel’s hospitals and health clinics is proportionately much higher than the Arab ratio in the total population.
Arabs take care of everyone regardless of religion, gender, or political views, he has said repeatedly. He also noted that in the Galilee, Arabs and Jews share a closer relationship than elsewhere in the country.
This could well be because such relationships go back for decades before the establishment of the state. Whatever the reason, some of the Jews who attended the funeral contend that all of Israel’s citizens should be treated with equal compassion when they suffer tragedies such as that experienced by Khatib.
Upon hearing this, Singer is hopeful that a window for dialogue has been opened and that animosities between Jews and Arabs can recede and be replaced by friendship and cooperation.
The hatred in the DNA of some people is also directed toward Jews as well as Arabs. In Jerusalem, and probably elsewhere, there are certain areas in which the portraits or posters of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas have been defaced and torn.
This happens in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods in western Jerusalem. What kind of perverted mind is so insensitive as to do this again and again, and why have law enforcement authorities not found the culprit(s)?
In fact, it’s questionable as to whether they ever looked for a culprit.
Building Bridges
■ HEALTHY FRIENDSHIPS between Jews and Arabs already exist and continue to grow. In September 1975, Yitzhak Frankenthal and Roni Hirshenson, both bereaved fathers, founded the Parents Circle-Families Forum, whose 600 members comprise Israeli Jews and Palestinians who over the years have lost loved ones in hostilities.
Some of the Palestinians are reformed terrorists or first-degree relatives of terrorists, and some of the Israelis, while serving in the IDF, killed Palestinians in the course of military operations.
People on both sides realized that continuing to fight each other will not resolve anything. They understand each other’s trauma and have learned to see one another first and foremost as human beings.
Like many organizations, institutions, and movements in Israel, the forum is supported by American friends. Three of them – Lior Ben Zvi, Shiri Ourian, and Christopher Beachy – paid a solidarity visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, aiming to bring back to the US insights into the human side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
These stories are disseminated in order to gain more support from the American public to foster a peace and reconciliation process. While the trio was in Israel, war broke out with Iran, and they were unable to fly home to America.
After a mad scramble, the group managed to find someone who was willing to take them on a sailboat to Cyprus. The journey across the Mediterranean took 30 hours.
In an email sent by Ourian, she wrote: “We feel fortunate, but our hearts are not at peace. We leave behind colleagues and loved ones, many of whom are spending their nights in shelters – if they have them at all.
“Some aren’t even able to feed their families. Fear and uncertainty grip every corner of the region. And yet, even in these darkest moments, our organization’s resolve has never been stronger. We know that there are no winners in war, not in Palestine, not in Iran, not anywhere.”
Cypriot-Israeli relations
■ THE MULTIFACETED relationship between Cyprus and Israel dates back to before the establishment of the state, when the British Mandate authorities confined some 50,000 Jews – most of them Holocaust survivors – in refugee camps on the island, which was a British protectorate at the time.
Between 1946 and 1948, around 2,000 Jewish babies were born in Cyprus.
Neither the Cypriots nor the Jews were well disposed to the British and formed a natural alliance against the British authorities.
That alliance has remained to this day with strong diplomatic, economic, cultural, and educational relations as well as the trilateral gas deal with Greece. Jews have lived in Cyprus since ancient times, but their numbers have dwindled over the centuries.
There was a small Sephardi Jewish community together with Jewish refugees from Russia and Romania some two centuries ago, but most left in 1948 and went to Israel or countries elsewhere.
During COVID many Israelis moved to Cyprus, and the numbers have continued to grow. It is estimated that some 12,000 Israeli expats live on the island today. Chabad is a very visible presence in Cyprus, which is not surprising, given that it is active wherever there are enough Jews for a minyan (quorum).
Israelis had been vacationing in Cyprus long before COVID, and some even bought properties there so that they could have a place of their own whenever they returned. Traveling time by plane is less than an hour.
Aware of a growing Israeli population on the island, Chabad, in 2003, sent Rabbi Arie Zeev Raskin from Israel to Cyprus to boost Jewish religious life there. Two years later, he was officially recognized as the chief rabbi of Larnaca, where he resides and where a synagogue, mikveh (ritual bath), and Jewish cemetery have been inaugurated.
There are also other places in Cyprus with Jewish communities made up mostly of Israelis.
It is a small wonder that Larnaca was designated as one of the key locations for those who wanted to exit or enter Israel when Ben-Gurion Airport was officially closed recently due to the eruption of the war in Iran.
There were so many Israelis in Larnaca that every hotel was fully occupied.
Some people who left or entered Israel chose to travel via Jordan, but most Israelis were reluctant, fearing that they would be subjected to hostility.
There are patriots in every country, including people opposed to the existing regime. Israel is no different. There were numerous reservists among the stranded tourists waiting to come home.
When interviewed by Israeli reporters, they said that all they wanted to do was change into their uniforms, kiss their wives and children goodbye, and head for their units.
Israel-Iran War
■ ONE OF the positive aspects of Israeli operations in Iran is the change of character seen in Israel’s prime minister. Bibi the Belligerent is hopefully history, even though he is still talking about what needs to be eliminated in Iran and Gaza.
Aside from this, Netanyahu is now showering compliments left, right, and center, no longer claiming that everyone is against him and wants to unseat him; he even apologized to journalists for keeping them uninformed regarding his plans to strike Iran.
Many people wondered what ploy he would use to remain in office when the next Knesset elections came around; now, everyone knows.
Everything has a price
■ BUT THERE’S a price for everything. Iran, though considerably weakened, has hit back with a vengeance, causing death and destruction. Among those killed were three generations of a Ukrainian family that came to Israel to receive treatment for seven-year-old Nastia Borik, who suffered from a rare and aggressive form of cancer.
Nastia came with her mother, Maria Peshkurova, and was followed by her grandmother, Lena Peshkurova, and two of Nastia’s cousins, Ilya Peschkurov, aged 13, and Konstantin Totvich, aged nine.
Any death is tragic, but Nastia’s relatives came to Israel not only to give her moral and emotional support but also to escape the traumas of the war in which Ukraine is embroiled with Russia.
Nastia’s father, Artem, is a soldier in the Ukrainian Army, which is why he was unable to join his family in Israel. The tragedy was covered extensively by the Ukrainian media.
But there have also been many other tragedies that have affected Israeli families.
Although it states in the Book of Devarim (Deuteronomy) that a man should not go out to battle or be assigned for any military purpose during his first year of marriage, this Torah teaching is not upheld in modern Israel, where casualties have included young men who were married for only a few months.
The tragedy is no less traumatic for the parents and sweethearts of 19-, 20-, and 21-year-old fallen soldiers who appear to comprise the majority of those who have paid the supreme sacrifice in defending the state and the nation of Israel.
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