Speaking ‘in complexities’ is a casualty of Israel-Hamas war: panel

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A casualty of Israel’s war against Hamas, in addition to all the lives lost, is that “we have lost the ability to speak in complexities,” said Maya Savir, an Israeli writer and human rights and reconciliation activist.

One of four panellists in the Gabriel Safdie Middle East Event at the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival, she told a full house on Sunday that she rejects the categories of pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian. “I am pro-people.”

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While Savir said many Israelis and Palestinians, understandably, have lost perspective, “I hope we can keep our eyes on the ball — and the ball is equality and justice for all.”

On Oct. 7, Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.

Israel’s ensuing war against Hamas has since laid waste to the Gaza Strip and killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. The UN says a quarter of the region’s more than two million people face starvation.

Safdie, a native of Jerusalem, was eight when Israel was founded in 1948 and he immigrated in 1953 with his family to Montreal. He sees the Middle East Event as a way to bring together Palestinians, Israelis and others in conversation on activism, literature and the region’s future, and he sponsored a similar event at Blue Met’s 2023 edition. The same panellists and moderator, journalist Kareem Shaheen, reconvened Sunday at Hôtel 10 “to explore how the conversation might continue after so much violence, death and destruction.”

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Panellist Carlos Fraenkel, a McGill University professor of philosophy, said that, as a scholar, his core message is aligned with Savir’s — “insisting on the moral complexity of this conflict.”

“From the beginning of the war, I have felt unhappy about the amount of rhetoric,” he said. “Zionists describe Israel as the last bastion of civilization and Palestinians call Israelis the new Nazis. I find the rhetoric extremely unappealing.”

To panellist Rami Younis, a Palestinian journalist and filmmaker and citizen of Israel, what is happening in Gaza “is a siege and a crime against humanity. Look outside: There is a genocide right now. We can talk about nuance, but my people are being starved to death. Why do we need to keep reminding people that we Palestinians are human beings?”

Younis said he is heartened by pro-Palestinian protests spreading across North American university campuses, including an encampment set up Saturday on McGill’s downtown campus, and the fact that such protest “has become mainstream.”

To him, it feels like “a watershed moment. … I never thought I would live to see the day when Americans would wake up: They are starting to see us as human beings.”

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McGill said in an email Monday that it is considering its next steps as the number of tents have tripled since Saturday, many individuals involved are not from McGill’s community, and there is video evidence of “unequivocally antisemitic language and intimidating behaviour.”

In Israel, said Younis, Palestinian artists, thinkers and intellectuals have “been silenced,” targeted by Israeli authorities and “living in fear of ‘liking’ or ‘sharing’ the wrong posts on social media. … You know what it feels like to be a journalist and not to be able to speak up?”

Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip during the Six-Day War of 1967. Before that, Gaza had been under Egyptian military rule from 1949 and the West Bank and East Jerusalem were ruled by Jordan. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and, after Hamas seized control of the region, imposed a blockade there in 2007.

“I was always anti-occupation and it seems the occupation has occupied Israel,” said Savir. “Without ending the occupation, Palestinians will not be free and Israel will not be free. Nothing can come of a system based on inequality.

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“Recognizing one another is the essence of everything,” she said.

As the reality of Oct. 7 “was unfolding, the general sentiment was that Israel had no choice but to respond in some way,” said Savir. “I think this is changing because, surprise, war didn’t solve anything; surprise, a conflict cannot be solved using force; and the occupation cannot be ignored. Even people who felt there was no choice are speaking differently.

“There is a little bit of sanity in the lunacy.”

In 2023, Israel was “torn apart” by a disputed judicial overhaul by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Savir — an action she referred to as “a coup.”

If mainstream Israelis did not want to deal with “the discourse of the occupation,” they have since realized that “there is a connection between the occupation and the coup,” she said.

An anti-government protest in Jerusalem in March drew tens of thousands of people blaming Netanyahu for the intelligence and security failures of Oct. 7, saying the deep political divisions had weakened Israel ahead of Oct. 7 and calling for a ceasefire deal to free the hostages and for early elections.

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In Savir’s opinion, Netanyahu formed a coalition with the extreme political right to stay in power and has “no moral scruples.” At issue is whether there will be an Israeli leadership brave enough to act, she said.

For panellist Ehab Lotayef, an Egyptian-Canadian poet, writer and community activist who has advocated for Palestinian rights for decades, “what we are living right now is like nothing before.”

He said he has lost friends since Oct. 7 — within the Jewish community and outside it. He told of writing a poem about Vivian Silver, an Israeli-Canadian who had advocated for Israeli-Palestinian peace all her life and was murdered on Oct. 7 at home on Kibbutz Be’eri — and being asked by an Arab friend: “Couldn’t you find an Arab woman to write about?”

Despite being pessimistic about a way forward, “I think we should keep talking,” Lotayef said. “I hope that, at the end of it, we see a way out.”

Some people asked him: “‘Why don’t you condemn Hamas?’ and I said: ‘Why don’t you condemn the IDF (Israel Defense Forces)?’ — and we don’t talk anymore.

“Some of these bridges are broken,” said Lotayef. “I am hopeful some are being rebuilt.”

sschwartz@postmedia.com

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