“Knocking On the Tank”
The “Seeds of Peace” program organized by Confronti has now celebrated its seventh consecutive year. The 2005 edition was held at the beginning of March, and included meetings with leaders of the Israeli and Palestinian civil society engaged in dialogue for peace, in Rome and several other Italian cities (as well as Lugano, Switzerland).
“Why dialogue? Just to ‘knock on the tank’,” began Mustafa Qossoqsi. With this he was recalling the despondent cry of the driver (“Why didn’t they knock on the tank”), with which the novel—Men In the Sun by Ghassan Kanafani—was concluded. It is a tragic odyssey of a group of Palestinians traveling clandestinely to Kuwait who died of asphyxiation (before arriving at their destination) in the tanker truck that transported them. Mustafa Qossoqsi is a young psychologist from the Almadina Institute of Psychotherapy of Nazareth. He made these comments in a public meeting held at the Centro Pro Unione of Rome on March 2nd, the conclusion of the three day Rome portion of the program “Seeds of Peace,” promoted by Confronti.
“We knock on the tank not only to make others see that we exist, and for our primordial survival instinct – but also for our moral, and psychological well being – and for the love of our future,” Mustafa continued, clarifying the reasons that have pushed him, an Arab Israeli, to believe in the value of dialogue with his fellow Hebrew countrymen. His secular and political reasons revolve around two fundamental concepts—identity and healing. “My entire life as a Palestinian in Israel has been marked by the trauma of being disregarded. Being disregarded moved me to search for my Palestinian identity. The choice to dialogue is the consequence. It was born from the conviction that a healthy identity cannot be founded on the negation of other people’s identity, including that of the State of Israel. Dialogue, then, is a way to heal wounds, and personal pain; it is a way to free yourself of the weight of your own history by talking about it. Dialogue is life, monologue kills. Very often Israelis and Palestinians have engaged in long and deeply wounding monologues.”
Seated around a table in front of about a hundred people with Mustafa were: the Israeli Rabbi of Italian origin, Roberto Arbib, and the Palestinian Sufi Muslim Sheikh Ghassan Manasra, charter members of the group “Abraham’s Way,” Ali Abu Awwad, Palestinian, and Emanuela Cassouto, Israeli, both active in “Parents’ Circle” (an association composed of relatives of victims of the conflict), and Mossi Raz, formerly a parliamentarian of the Knesset and currently director of the Center for Peace at Givat Haviva. This year the group was made up of three Israeli Jews and three Palestinian Muslims: peace educators, peace workers, religious leaders, and leaders of the civil society invited by Confronti to take part in the program “Seeds of Peace.”
The fact that everyone came here obviously shows how important it is for Israelis and Palestinians to be able to meet outside their own country, because meeting there is difficult, hindered by insecurity, mistrust, and mutual fear. “Today the Middle East is in a delicate moment but loaded with hope,” emphasized Paolo Naso, director of Confronti. “Our program is like a workshop on peace education. Peace, when it is signed by the politicians, will only make sense and take effect if the Israeli and Palestinian civil societies believe in it and want it. The “Seeds of Peace” program is specifically geared to this process: to facilitate dialogue and cooperation at the grass roots level, primarily among educators who have a big responsibility in the formation of consciences and in influencing public opinion.”
The motivations of Mustafa were different from those of the two activists from Parents’ Circle who were pushed into dialogue, relevant to their need to break a painful chain of mourning and to regain hope for their own and their country’s future. “I joined Parents’ Circle because I thought that the cycle of killing and vendettas did not have to be a part of my life anymore,” Emanuela said, trying hard to hold back the emotions. “Before I was born, my maternal uncle had been assassinated at the refinery where he worked by Palestinians who wanted to avenge the death of five fellow countrymen, killed the day before by the Israelis. This death stained my whole life. They gave me the name Emanuela in memory of this uncle who I never knew. In his honor I had to be a good student and a nice girl. Years later I married a pilot of the Israeli Air Force. Four years after the wedding he also was killed by the Egyptian Air Force that wanted to avenge the shooting down of an Egyptian plane by Israel.”
“We are two peoples who have paid the highest price. Everyone of us has a thousand reasons to accuse the other,” Ali said dryly (but no less emotionally), relating his story. “I participated in the first Intifada during the Eighties. I spent four years in jail. After that I was wounded by an Israeli settler and, while I was in Saudi Arabia recovering, I received the news of the death of my brother, assassinated by an Israeli soldier. I believed I would not be able to survive this pain. The word “peace” was the farthest thing from my mind back then. Then one day an Israeli Jewish woman, who had also lost her loved ones in the conflict, arrived at my house and was able to help me see that there was a lot of pain and humanity on the other side as well.” After a short intense silence he continued with words which looked toward the future, “Coming to Rome from such a bloody conflict, I have seen the grandness of this civilization, what humankind can produce, and I thought of what we can still make of our country, if we choose the path of peace.”
Emanuela concurred and added to his words of hope, “My experience as an activist of Parents’ Circle gives me hope for a future of peace for our people. If the people who have suffered most are able to talk about it, that means that the option for dialogue is still possible.”
From a declared spiritual approach I recall the witness of Rabbi Roberto Arbib and the Sufi Sheikh Ghassan Manasra, who founded the group “Abraham’s Way,” with the intent of bringing Jews and Muslims together to learn to acknowledge each other because both are sons of the same father Abraham. This is a brave objective because it is not easy in a land in which Islam and Judaism view each other as enemies.
In the encounters that they organize, they strive to deepen their understanding of the mystic aspects present in Muslim Sufism and the mystical current of Judaism (the chassidismo and the Qabbalah), with the goal of bringing to light the common elements of the two religious traditions.
Rabbi Roberto Arbib said, “The idea that God has put the two people together so they can know each other is a part of my religious being, today, in Israel. My grandfather was also a rabbi who was active in Rome in Jewish-Christian dialogue. I believe that everyone must come to their own realization that we can all live together under the tent of Abraham. It is a tent that is symbolically open on three sides to be able to welcome everyone.” Meanwhile Sheikh Ghassan Manasra emphasized that “Abraham’s Way” proposes opening dialogues within Islam and Judaism, in order to help the Jews understand that not all of Islam is an enemy, but only the extremist movements. Also, helping Muslims understand that the religious rhetoric which appears today, monopolized as it is by the fundamentalists, does not correspond to the authentic message of the Qur’an. In this arena, they promote training courses geared for the imams, which are particularly important in the recovery of the founding aspects of the Qur’anic message. As the Sheikh explained, there is not always a direct correlation between what is preached in the mosques and what is contained in the Qur’an. In their preaching, the imams often go back to medieval interpretations of the Qur’an which emphasize extremist positions, facilitating the fundamentalist drift.
The members of the group spoke of many such projects. The choice to dialogue is carried out by everyone of them in their projects, activities, and social programs that above all revolve around children and young adults because the future of the planet is in their hands. “All for Peace,” an Israeli-Palestinian radio station, and “Crossing Borders,” a bimonthly newspaper written by Israeli and Palestinian Jordanian students, are two of the many programs promoted by the Center for Peace at Givat Haviva, which facilitates understanding and dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, represented here by its director Mossi Raz.
A clear awareness that the story of the Middle East encompasses everything and everyone, strongly underscored this encounter, and not only in the sense of a collective responsibility – which brings to mind our guests’ reminder of how very important the role of the international community is in the solution of the conflict – but also in the sense that in a globalized and interdependent world, that which happens in one part automatically involves the others, and makes us all actors in the same shared destiny. At the conclusion of the meeting, the words which Mustafa said to the public were directly to the point and effective, “You also need to knock on the tank, because you are also inside.”
Giovanna Caggia