At our October 21st Saturday morning Shabbat service, we welcomed community member Joel Braunold to give a talk on the present crisis in Israel in Gaza. Joel is the Managing Director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, and he holds dozens of relationships with policy makers and NGO heads in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.
****
For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates.
Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.
Transcript
At our October 21st Saturday morning Shabbat service, we welcomed community member Joel Braunold to give a talk on the present crisis in Israel in Gaza. Joel is the Managing Director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, and he holds dozens of relationships with policy makers and NGO heads in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.
****
For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates.
Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.
Transcript
Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann
Yeah, Chicago, Chicago, and we can take a seat. All right, Joel, it's all you come on up here, as you're kind of navigating your way up, I just want to introduce Joel brown old. We're, I feel really, really lucky. This community is full of really smart people who know a lot of things about a lot of things. Most of you know a lot of things about things that aren't necessarily your professional job, but you have a lot of opinions about like all of us. And I think in this moment right now, we are starved for high level, deeply informed, broad understanding of what is happening in our world. Generally, the particular expertise that Joel brings, is the Middle East. His his job before the job that he is doing now was running the Alliance for Middle East peace, which is the trade organization of all of the different people to people, organizations, Israelis and Palestinians, trying to do grass works grant grass work, ground up peace building. And I don't know I think of Joel is the James Bond of Middle East peacemaking, because he's like, everywhere he is behind the scenes, he's, you know, dropping me a note to say, Here's the address of the mosque, that you should go and go to the funeral of whether you're alpha, you may, because I've spoken with the executive director of the care the, you know, Muslim, that the what is it, the committee for Islamic Relations? Thank you in Chicago, and you should go and they want you Jews and rabbis to be there. And I say, really? How are you doing that at the same time as making peace in the Middle East? And so I asked if he would shed a little bit of light on I think something that is not as reported on which is all of the various forces that are feeding this conflict. Because we I think we all know, this conflict is not simply about history, or about justice or about rights. It's about it's there's a lot more, and I certainly don't know all of it. And I don't think we're gonna get to all of it in the, you know, half hour ish that we have with Joel I asked him to speak for about 15 minutes, and then to be able to, like, take questions. And so we'll see how it goes. All right. Thank you, everybody, for being here. And thank you for being here.
Joel Braunold
Shabbat shalom, everyone. Thank you, Rabbi Lizzi. And thank you, Rabbi Lizzi, alongside the other rabbis who did go to the funeral. It was very important for our community to be there. And it was very welcomed by the Palestinian American community in Chicago. And it was incredibly important. Now it's difficult to know where to start. Two weeks ago, on October 7, which was two weeks ago, and it feels like a lifetime ago, we woke up to this terrible news. As Rabbi Lizzi said, I used to run the Alliance for Middle East peace and I woke up to the news of dear friends and colleagues who were kidnapped 75 year old Vivian Silva, who is a giant in our movement, nephews of Mohammed Dawa Asha from giveth Aviva who were murdered, just unimaginable amounts of trauma. As the week progressed, and my current job is doing a lot more top down policy support. We were called upon to give policy support to governments around the world, our government, to help international NGOs try and get water, food and humanitarian supplies into Gaza to help guises Christian community support my staff members who have mothers and brothers and Gaza on a personal level. Seven of my first cousins and my brother have all been called up my brother called me to raise $60,000 for medical equipment for helicopter rescue, which they were lacking. It's been a lot and I I think it's to start with, it's important to recognize that, in one day, is all suffered more deaths from terrorism than the entire second intifada. In one week, the people in Gaza have experienced more war than they have in the previous 15. For Jews around the world, it feels like all of our triggering emotions of being alone and being abandoned have happened at once. And for Muslim and Palestinian Americans and Arabs across the West, it feels very much like a post 911 moment. And I think that's an important context. What October 7 represents and represents moving forward is really been, you know, there was a phrase in in Israel after the 1973 War, the Yom Kippur War of the collapse of the concept, and the concept that Hamas represented a tolerable terrorist threat collapsed, and that commerce is now an intolerable military threat. It is intolerable, it is not tolerable, and it is existential. But yet, I would argue that as great as the intelligence and security failure was, that led up to the events of October 7, the policy failure is as great for 15 years, people have been screaming, you can't invest in Hamas at the expense of the Palestinian Authority. This is a mistake to try and defeat the Palestinian national movement, by literally giving suitcases of Qatari cash into Gaza, promised to create ceasefire as enabling Hamas to control its own crossings. In the sliding gate. You're empowering an entity at the expense of a diplomatic horizon. And that collapse is also something that is motivating things moving forward. Because as well as left with no good policy options, and Israeli friend called me and said, Why has the situation changed? Why this week? Does it feel like the world is swinging the other way? And I said, it's like you have a hole in the bottom of your boat. That if there is no policy capture to what your military objectives are, if you cannot express what comes next, what is it that you're trying to achieve? enables everyone to fill what you're trying to achieve with your worst their worst fears? Are you trying to create another Nakba? Is it about ethnically cleansing Palestinians off the land? Can you promise if you ask people to leave their homes that they'll be allowed to come back in? Because at the moment, no one believes you, and no one can hear you. And that is not just Gaza and residents. It is the entire Mideast from your allies and friends, your enemies. And into that space, people's worst fears are being imagined. And so Rabbi Lizzi asked me instead of doing a bottom up to do a top down sort of what's going on wider region. And I'll start with what Prince Turkey of Saudi Arabia said three days ago, Prince Turkey was the former US ambassador for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He doesn't hold an official position in the kingdom. I had an opportunity to meet with Prince Turkey in Riyadh four weeks ago. It's a very interesting, an experienced diplomat. And in his speech that he gave, he condemned Hamas for its terrorist atrocities. He condemned them for bringing this coming on. And he condemned this current government of Israel for their policies that have led to this point. And his condemnation was long and fulfilled. And he condemned Qatar for funding Hamas and the condemnation so you can hear coming across the region is that none of the Sunni regional allies that Israel has been trying to build relations with through the Abraham accords and others want to be led by Hamas. They don't want come up to take sees the order paper to try and change and move the region into that position. They don't want the Iranians and the Iranian allies whether it's Hamas or Hezbollah in the north, or their militias that happened to be the Houthis in Yemen, who fired cruise missiles yesterday that were shut down by the Americans, or their allies in Iraq are now attacking American bases. They don't want the Iranians to have this ability to dictate the order paper. But the Palestinian cause still lights up the app straights, it is still something that people will be motivated by. And it's something that is not ignorable. And in the shuttle diplomacy that Secretary of State Blinken did over the past week, where he visited eight countries and three days and then went back to Sr. Before President Biden came back. He heard a universal message that no country would take Palestinians. And people said to me, you know, how could they be so cruel? How can one host them? That's it wasn't an act of cruelty from the Arab states from their thing. They don't want to enable another refugee problem from the Palestinians. They want them to be able to stay on their land. And they said even if you're dealing with this intolerable threat militarily, you can't use if you can't promise us what comes next is this lead to a to a political process where we try and work out Palestinian national aspirations. If we can't have that conversation, then we don't trust you. And that has created a complex situation for Israel as it tries to navigate. It's justifiable horror and rage at the brutality of what happened. And that's very difficult for people not inside the Jewish community to hear when because of just the general suffering, because October 7, from the minds of many people has ended. And now it's about the Israeli response, and what's going on on a daily basis, and what's happening. But the brutality of the stories come out of what happened that day are unimaginable. And they're dripping out, as more and more information comes. And the level of brutality is important, because for Israel and Israelis, and this is across the board. Hamas turned into ISIS. And if it's ISIS than then there's no negotiation, there's no talking about it. And for the region, even if they are disgusted, and they are and you can hear there was an Arab reporter who interviewed you smell her near on television and said, What what did you expect to happen? Look at what happened and this obstruction and there's there's we didn't do this it was other people. It was this it was that? The reality is, there is disgust. But there was a question, what comes next. And if it is that, the only thing that can be done as a total war, against Gaza, and against 2.3 million people, the region will not tolerate it, and say Israel is stuck in this position. And as our own administration, we've leant on President Biden superpower of empathy, which was so needed, he has spent more time with the victims and the hostage families than anyone in the government as well. And you hear that from across Israeli spectrums. He has spent time despite his staff trying to rush him off, flying into a war zone, speaking to every last one of them, listening to their stories, hearing them and hugging them, while also giving the really important message, that if this is the equivalent of 59 elevens, that happened on one day, learn from our mistakes as well. And that while you persecute the military campaign to remove this intolerable military threat, recognize that you cannot make the same mistakes that we did to defeat ISIS, it took 85 countries five years. And ISIS, we knew that when ISIS was defeated, that territory would be returned to those countries where ISIS had been. How long does Israel have? Who will take over the territory once Hamas is God? These are questions that need to be asked and answered. And these are also questions not for you to have to answer as you think about this. It is not your responsibility, but it is the responsibility of the leadership in Israel. It is the live responsibility of our leadership, and others, that if people are willing to try and enable this, they have to have answers, because it is not fair. And it is not an expectation to start a situation that we don't know how it ends.
Joel Braunold
as well. And the Israeli Palestinian conflict as well as Arab conflict has always been a space where geostrategic battles have been fought. Between the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, there was the war of attrition, where Russia would give Egypt sort of military assets that would go and do surveys. And the whole thing is the Israelis responded is how can we respond without dragging the Soviet Union? Okay. And we've seen this constantly. And, you know, it's actually interesting, the Madrid process in 1991, was chaired by Russia and the US and the Oslo Accords were jointly held, because the point was that we could bring the superpowers together to try and actually solve one of these conflicts and actually get out of ourselves. Of course, we all know the Israeli Palestinian conflict has not been solved. And so now we see different powers, regional powers and others, once again, utilizing this for their own purposes. As I described, we've got the Iranian part of this, that the Abraham accords was trying to hold back, but given the lack of policy or political horizon for the Palestinians has been shaken to its core, and we'll have to see if it can survive. We'll see if the Turks continue to move to a more even handed thing between the Israelis or if it will collapse backwards to where it was before. And now we're seeing that as the US has tried to persecute the campaign against Russian aggression in Ukraine. The Field Division has now switched to Gaza, and Russia and China and other geostrategic competitors of the us look at this and say, See, look, the US has its own issues. It's got his own things. The US doesn't stand for international humanitarian right So law or the law of conquest or anything else. And so this once again motivates something else. And that the conflict that is so close to so many of us and who have family members there have a motive connections is now just another paint by numbers board for geostrategic interests of what happens. And this is the complexity of what's gone on and what happens next. And this is a time limiting factor. And this is why we need a policy. No, no one can tell you in the next five days, 10 days, three weeks what that policy could look like who might take over Gaza, who will who won't, but the one thing is clear, for Walter wall in as well. It can go back to how it was before, and how we can how this moment can help propel to a different perspective. And what can happen next is essential. And whether as this was persecuted, humanitarian pauses can happen so that we don't have a cholera outbreak in Gaza. And that requires water and power. How can you do that without that being diverted to come us? These are all difficult, complicated conversations, but ones that must be asked. And we have to hold in our heart collectively, the shared trauma humanity of what's going on right now. Because ultimately, as much as people are fighting about how a baby was killed, or who hits a hospital, for the people in the region, it's reached beyond that level. The brutality of what happens on October seventh is emerged into the heart in the story of Israel. And it's never going to be unpicked, no amount of advocacy, or forensic analysis is going to change that. And much like the hospital, it does matter from accountability and justice and ICC perspective, but from a practical of escalation perspective, it doesn't matter. It is a symbol of, of lives lost of people dying, and if you know, every day as as the collateral damage, if you want to call it that way or as a targeted strikes hit in heavily populated areas. And the statements that are driven from Rage and pain of Israeli officials that are dehumanizing are occupying the ears of people who see what's going on. And they just see dead civilians. And this is the complex problem that we now see. And it will not be a short problem, and it will go on, or it'll be long. But I will say in terms of some elements of of positivity. The first is we haven't seen a collapse, like we did in May 2021 of inter communal violence in Israel, the Arab citizens of Israel have shown a level of restraint and responsibility of not wanting to be at war not wanting to be dragged by Hamas. We've seen statements from Iman other, the leader of Kadesh, Mansur Abbas, the leader of an Islamist movement in Israel, make statements saying this is a place that we will not be dragged into. And we have to be able to try and utilize this moment. We haven't seen East Jerusalem explode, we've had two Fridays, and it's managed to remain relatively calm. And as off the work of hundreds of dedicated professionals, conflict resolution people, security services, religious authorities, desperately trying to keep the powder keg from exploding. But we also seeing extremists use this opportunity to do things in the West Bank. We also seen from ourselves in the West Bank trying to motivate and other things. And these are things that need to be pushed against. But we haven't seen that. And I will say that Rabbi Lizzi, Rabbi Earhart, Rabbi Josh Ferguson, the other rabbis who attended the funeral of, of the Wahhabi family is also an important thing, because here in Chicago, we have the largest Palestinian community outside of Santiago and Chile in the Middle East. We are the largest Palestinian city in the West. And it's something that I would say that many in our community don't know, and have had no connections with and are surprised. I think it's in dela, it's important for all of us to find those opportunities that we collectively try and make sure that our communities are safe and secure. Here, because that is the least that we can do. And I'll pause there and happy to answer whatever questions some of you might have.
Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann
Want you to think for a minute Can you hear me okay? If you if you plan to ask a question, think about how to just distill it down into a question. And, and so that the folks I know we have a bunch of folks at home who are who are connecting. And so I want you to be able to be heard. Come close to that, like lean in. Asked me introduce yourself to please
Speaker 3
Hi my name is Sherif Yang I'm not a member here first time here and I we are definitely enjoying it and appreciating it. My quick question to you is I feel like I'll speak for my Myself, I need to be more educated. And I would like suggestions for books to read. Someone suggested, can we talk about Israel and we're reading that. I also love those letters to my Palestinian neighbors. But I just wondered if you had a few suggestions that are balanced pieces of information, thank you.
Joel Braunold
They're like, it's like, you know, pick out of a library, I'll just give one book rather than a lot. Like I'm a person of narratives and stories. That's how I enter you know, I could give you geostrategic books. I don't think they're the most interesting. I'm a huge fan of city of oranges by Adam Lavoie, that tells the story of yaffle, from the perspective of five Jewish families and five Arab Palestinian families, I think actually captures a lot of the humanity of, of pre-state as well. And I think it's a very interesting book. That's meant a lot to me. You know, sort of like everything in this conflict. It's sort of the books you suggest, sort of tell on who you are, which is why like Adam, and a few others, you know, I can tell you, you know, righteous victims by Benny Morris has a very interesting new historian book, Tom Cech gives the 7 million I think is very interesting. A lot of people like a frown cash, Shlomo benami was have scars of war, scars of peace. There's more contemporary books. But you know, I would say if if there's a collection that really represents a Palestinian narrative and a collection that really represents an Israeli narrative, read both. And have a rich diet of news as best as you can. I Adam Lavoie is the author in the book is called city of oranges.
Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann
And if you need that repeated, you can go back and listen to the podcast which will be up in you know a day or two. All right, great. A quickie sure
Speaker 4
I'm Ricky lipids I fall. Can you tell us what's clapping locally? I think it's was a surreal surely a privilege to be at the funeral? What might be happening upcoming who might be organizing it? I know it would come through through a Mishcon email, but can you give us some sense of for people motivated to link hands and proclaim humanity? Where? Where can we look for that?
Joel Braunold
Match? Yeah, throw that one to you. Because I'm my I helped out there as a Jewish Chicago home, but professionally, my I'm, I'm all around the world at this point. So yeah, so
Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann
I mean, first of all, I think there's not enough. And I mean, the one of my questions to, to Joel was going to be, you know, I, there is a deep lack of trust, I think like a golf of a lack of trust. You know, that goes both ways. But I think, in this particular case, getting through that in the current climate, while also saying things like, you know, if you're a Jew and saying, like, I support Israel, I think would be an affront to the Palestinian who is like, but do you know what they're doing to us right now? And so I think the the deep lack of truth, and then, you know, and then saying, but but the conversation obviously goes both ways. But do you support what Hamas did say might be and, and that like, that's actually we would need to move the lens to be about something where I mean, like, there was just no argument that, like, what happened to this kid was, was horrendous and any person of conscience needed to be there. The question is, like, Where can we gather in places of trust and safety for you know, for the people who show up, which I think feels both risky and very important. And, and there's a lot of room for that. What were you going to say?
Joel Braunold
I'll just say, I think it's important to be authentically ourselves. You know, the reason I reached out to Lizzi, Rabbi Lizzi, and Rabbi Ari and others is I thought it was important that you know, Rabbi arias and modern Orthodox rabbi from Skokie Valley and is a proud religious Zionist. I think it's very important that the heart of the Jewish community turned up. And I think you should come up with who you are. Right now. When people's bloods boiling my own interpretation, I would look to our state leaders to invite Palestinian American Chicago land representatives and Jewish community leadership to just talk about safe insecurity of our community and just start there. Just the whole should be neutral. Let's just start there. And then through those interactions, if we're in the same room, people can just even start no Going through one another. I think that's the place to start. We don't need to take at a time of peak trauma now to start building that. And, you know, I can go into the whole critiques of how PT People to People can work and calm work. But I think right now, we are all suffering from a lack of feeling safe, secure, and heard and listened to. And I think it's very important that our elected officials, whether they are Jewish elected officials, Palestinian elected officials, neutral elected officials, do their jobs as elected officials of our state and bring us as two communities to a place that we can both hear from them about what they're doing to make us safe and secure here in the state of Illinois. And I think that that's the place that I'd like to see it start.
Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann
Here, if any, let's say I can't like go very far with this. So let's see. Yeah. Avi, and then Aiden, why don't you ask your questions in order? And then Joel can sort of Oh, fine. All right, Avi. Go ahead. Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 5
Recognizing the extreme problems of policy, from a practical standpoint with choices versus real ground, passengers, shoulder pain, so
Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann
I'll just written out Mr. Game. Can I repeat Oh, given the historic policy failures that have brought us to this moment? And you said earlier, Israel doesn't have any good options. What are Israel's options given hostages, given just where we are? What are Israel's options? And then, do you want to say your question, Aiden? Yeah,
Speaker 6
my name is Gilbert. I wondered how the, the status of the remaining hostages, which is the overwhelming majority of changes the calculus for diplomacy, security responses, and the people to people work.
Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann
Great. And Aiden kind of adds to that, how does the the existence of another, the remaining hostages, which is the overwhelming amount of them, change the calculus?
Joel Braunold
The issue of hostages both in Jewish law, and in Israeli policy tradition is incredibly complicated. There is no higher throughout our Talmudic tradition and our religious tradition. We just sang a new hair, like the role of rescuing hostages is probably up there with the higher things we can do in Israel traditionally paid an incredibly high price for hostages. And Hamas knows that. And it's been it's not been interesting. It's been clear that from an Israeli government planning position, the prioritization of return of hostages is not the prime mission of this war. And it's difficult to say that, but it's been very clear. It's of course, Israel, as call it calling for the unconditional release of its hostages. And, and but that's not the prime objective and, and the voice of the hostage families as protests happening, and as well as they try and get their voice heard more. And it's it's complicated, and also creates a division between Israel and its allied Western countries who are looking to get their citizens out. And, you know, there's been news reports that Western allies are pushing on as well to prevent the grand invasion or delay it. So there can be more time for hostage negotiations. And a command says also, you know, as we heard, we heard the good news on our Shabbos that two American hostages were released. And Kumar said it was for humanitarian purposes, I mean, not humanitarian to to release the hostages that you took, and the babies and the children and the other people that you took, right, we're not just talking about soldiers in uniforms. So, you know, spare me that. And there's clearly a way that Hamas is trying to utilize a drip drip approach to try and buy more time and try and do it. Hamas would release all the hostages tomorrow vessel will just stop because it feels like it's one, as I said, Israel cannot have this intolerable threat on its southern border. And so that's the complication. And for your policy question about what do you do, and where's the priority of order of what you do with these hostages? And it's, it's a nightmare. It's genuinely a nightmare. And, you know, I think in addition to the policy options, it's who gets to decide. So we've seen the Benny Gantz joined the war cabinet, with Gadi Eisenkot, the two former chiefs of staff in the wall cabinet, but it's still extremely unclear who is actually making decisions. Is it the wall cabinet or is it the wider security cabinet and it's important because you know, who gets to decide how As what ends is it those four, where it's two, two of the opposition and two of the liquid? Is it the wider group that includes SmartSwitch, and bank there and others. And that's really important to try and understand. It's not clear if ra dairies in the cabinet or not like it's this bizarre thing that he's in the pictures. But technically, he's not a government government minister. But he's the chair of shots. And all of this is important, because what policy options are required, like who's making the policy decision, and yet ale appeared, the Leader of the Opposition was clear that he didn't join the government, because he doesn't think that they're able to, you know, at the end enable to hand this off to the PA or some other thing for Palestinian self rule. And he doesn't want to be part of that. And he doesn't think that they're really empowered to make those decisions. And so there aren't very good policy options. But also, there's a restriction of the policy horizon, given the politics and the people who have been ruling the country for the past eight months. And that, again, really restrains so many of the regional allies who are trying to work through their own relationships with this new government in reverse as well, very tough, very difficult, and how they could do that. And so it's just exacerbating the problems. So what are the options, you know, Golan, the defense minister said, some level of ground invasion and then followed by a base of operations that you could do counterterrorism from, and then some sort of new security regime, ruling over Gaza. And as many have pointed out, that was the US plan for Iraq. And it didn't particularly work. So like, what what does that look like? And how, and there's no easy answer, right? It's not like a god. Yeah, well, that was really tough to figure out. And the analogy I spoke to an AJC crowd, I can see friends who were there before. And, you know, the analogy I gave is that you basically have a patient who now is riddled with cancer, has diabetes, and has gout and is like lying on the hospital bed. And they're like, Well, how do I get better? So well, you know, we need to have talked about this like a little bit beforehand, and like trying to deal with it now. And so that's really complicated. To the second question, I think I answered a lot of it. But in terms of p2p, I mean, I encourage you all to there was a wonderful piece that was put out on Friday, by Nam Schuster on nine seven to know arm as a friend. She has been part of the People to People community for many years. She's a stand up comic, later skit was you know, coexistence my ass. And read that we none of us have had time to grieve. You know, I had a very progressive funder, call me and say, you know, where's the ceasefire movement in Israel? And I said, I'm gonna say something really horrible. I said, why I said, they've literally been massacred. I said, the base of magnets, the base of labor, were the people in the Gaza envelope, that's where they live. That's where they are. It's just unimaginable. So you know, the people to people community, some are calling for ceasefire. Some are, some are, you know, there's been a push by some of the hostage families who have, or people who have lost people to call for an end of the secession. So So there's, there's a multitude of voices coming from that community. But it's really difficult both in Palestinian society and in Israeli society to offer competing voices. We've seen activists arrested in as well. There's tremendous pressure in Palestinian society. And even when you dig below the surface, and there's a huge debate about Hamas, there's a feeling like, this isn't the time to have that conversation. Just like any other people, there's a rally to the flag moment, like when there's war, and there's bombing going on. And it's it's very, it's a very tough moment, but I'll just say, no one's had time to grieve. And I think that's very, very important that, you know, they can hear supporters screaming online, and the people who are literally who have been like the number one people standing up against occupation, who have gone to every single, you know, protests and everything else, they're grieving, the sitting there and grieving. And, you know, there's a real feeling and progressive as well as well. And this isn't towards Palestinians who they're not expecting this from, by the way, but from parts of the progressive left of just true abandonment, and through an inability to recognize the pain and trauma they went through, that this is all what decolonization means. And, and even those who are scholars of decolonization, Adam Schatz wrote a beautiful piece in the London Review of Books yesterday, that you you have to have the moral fortitude to be able to condemn it. You just have to. And if you don't have that, then you're not right. It was all just a facade. It's just ethno tribalism. Right. And it's just a different version of it. Right. You know, for a lot of people who have come to fruition over the past few 15 years, they came to fruition after the Second Intifada, and you know, they've often you know, rockets or fireworks and this and that, and the brutality of what Hamas did. They haven't, you know, experienced they haven't, they haven't had to justify that before or splane are condemned. And at their first opportunity, they sort of fell flat. And and in many ways they're a reflection of the same people within parts the Jewish community who explain away settler violence, or like extreme levels of of that and sort of how that looks and, and it's just definitely tribalism. And it wasn't really based off a worldview of universal human rights, because it clearly can't be. And so that's a challenge that also people are starting to unpick through. And what does that look like?
Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann
Wow. Oh, man. Well, this, this was the half hour. I feel like we could stay here for a lot longer to continue talking. And I and I would love that, and I don't know what your afternoon looks like after we, after we make kiddish. Are you are you at liberty to share your own opinion for what you wish would happen in this moment?
Joel Braunold
I mean, not really. Look, I always check. I think I've checked with Lizzi like my current job, like, the more I spend a lot of time with very strident people on either side, because peacebuilding is peace building is not a liberal value, okay? Like it is a liberal value, but it's not liberalism, okay, it's not progressive. If if all you're doing is speaking to other progressives, you haven't done anything. Okay, it peacebuilding should inherently make you uncomfortable, it should make you feel like, you know, and humbling that if you're wrong, what does that mean? And like all of the other things that should just make you panicked without but focused on what you're trying to achieve. And so, it, it disables me from, from writing and doing other parts, but it puts me I think, into an arena where I try and find and develop information and policies that give to other people, I'll just say, I think that my honest opinion, isn't about what should or shouldn't happen. There's lots of ideas flying around. And I really can't talk about those. But I will say that, it's really about trying to hold in your hands, the collective humanity of what's happened. And if there's one phrase I come back to again, and again, it is always that, yes, there is a tremendous asymmetry of power. But there is an absolute symmetry of fear and mistrust. And if we do not deal with that symmetry of firmness, trust, however, that's dealt with, it doesn't mean it just has to be people, two people, it could be working on worldview analysis, that if people are motivated, motivated by religious lobby that Islamic or Jewish, or they're motivated by human rights, or they're motivated by Pan Islamism, whatever it is, trying to identify the elements that don't shatter their identities to get to a situation where we can deal with this fear and mistrust. And if we can't get there, we're not going to get anywhere. And that that requires whether you're going for a one state solution or a two state solution or Confederacy, I don't care what the political outcome is, I do care, but I'm saying it doesn't matter what it is, the baseline underneath requires some of that. And I will say, going back to the hospitals and everything else, we've reached a point when no one, there's no belief in what anyone says. And there's only a recognition of what is happening on the ground. And it's into that vacuum that all of the negative actors thrive. And so that's the complication. And that's the difficulty and that's the hardness. And so, I think that as much as difficulty as it is, is to try and hold that in our heart and I will say as Jews it it is it is not obvious, and it is not natural, and it is not it is not automatic, that you will have an influence on Israelis. Okay. And if you do want to be able to use your privilege, it requires you understanding Israelis today. And I you know, that's very important. Okay? And, and even if it's difficult, you have to, if you want to be able to use the privilege of being Jewish, if that's how people want to throw it on you to be able to talk to your brothers and sisters who are there, you have to see them as brothers and sisters. And you can then use that however you want. But if you can't do that first part, there's no privilege to be used. And so for me, at least for me, personally, it's never been about climbing in a hole with someone. It's about working out. If I'm outside of a hole, how can I actually help them out? And that's more difficult in some ways because it requires peacebuilding rather than just solidarity.
Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann
Sure, thank you so much. So again,