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 Dear Friends,

       This email is a repeat of the blog I sent from http://robertaindia.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/are-you-for-Israel-or-palestine/
Please follow that link to sign up to receive the blogs, or sign up for these emails.

I am sending it via this list too because here I also add a few upcoming workshops as well as an opportunity to click above to support this work. Every few days here in Israel I receive more email requests for Nonviolent Communication (NVC) trainings from organizations throughout Israel, Israel's territories/ Palestine; from Jewish groups and individuals; women's groups, teachers, facilitators.  Just this morning I reported this to several Israeli friends. They said how encouraged they feel to hear that there is interest in NVC from inside of Palestinian territory; that this gives them hope that their dream of peace, and a peace based on mutual respect and safety, is possible.  When I tell Palestinians that religious and non religious Jews also are interested, that I am Jewish, I receive the biggest smiles and welcome and  curiosity.

At the present time, the retreat next weekend has a wait list only. We are turning away Palestinians and Jews. Your support will allow us to create a second training, either at the same place in the West Bank, or in the Northern West Bank, for people all over the Palestinian Territory to join, and in Tel Aviv or  in the North, for Jewish and Palestinian Israelis.

                                                                                                                               Jerusalem, January 20, 2011

Are you for Israel or Palestine?

by Roberta Wall

Dear Friends,

 

I almost feel too overwhelmed by some of what I have seen and observed this week to write about it.  And, as I have said before, I want my words to water the seeds of peace and understanding in everyone who reads them.  I'm not feeling confident about this because I realize that some of what I have heard and witnessed doesn't water the seeds of peace in me; sometimes I see things that water the seeds of despair and anger. And it takes a lot of inner work for me to transform the despair and anger into something that at least restores me to a place where openness and connection and understanding are possible.

So my request to you, dear reader, is that if you are reading this, or watching some of the links, and notice that you are feeling angry, hopeless, or thinking thoughts about people being "bad" or "victims"- my request is that you stop and breathe and feel your emotions and stay with that until you can ask yourself what would be a way of responding to this that will be more likely to bring peace and understanding into the world.

That is what I am doing here, over and over.

Last night I celebrated Tu B' shvat, the New Years of the Trees, with a group of religious Jewish women in the Old City where I am living. We shared an amazing array of fruits of the trees,blessing each one,  dragon fruit , guavas, coconut,  olives,  dates and figs. We read from Jewish texts about the healing of our relationship to trees being part of the healing of the world that we are here to do. We drank and ate and sang.

Then, today, on the day of  Tu B'shvat, I went with a group of Jews organized by Rabbis for Human Rights to plant  olive trees in the West Bank, in  an area close to Jerusalem that is under Israeli military control. We walked from the bus through a rocky field. The soil was a beautiful rich dark red brown, amazing to see in the middle of this  dry stark landscape. After a few moments, I realized we were walking through a cemetery of olive trees- only a few feet of  the graceful trunks remained.  The rest had been cutoff  in the night by residents of a nearby Jewish settlement.  About 200 hundred of us, Palestinian and Jewish, planted 5o trees, each with a Jewish prayer for peace tied around tender new trunks.

Through a translator, I spoke with the Palestinian man who supervised my tree planting. I asked him if there was ever any dialogue between the people in the settlement and the village.  No. I thought of the women I met in Bethlehem last year who told me they wanted to learn Hebrew so they would talk to the Israeli women and make peace.  I asked an Israeli man I was referred to in the olive grove if he knew of anyone who would be willing to travel to Bethlehem to teach these women Hebrew. He said yes, he had just this week heard about people set up to do this. When I arrived home, this man had sent me an email with information about a program that is getting together Israelis learning Arabic and Palestinians learning Hebrew. He also sent me a link to an article about him. Buma Inbar lost his son in Lebanon and is dedicating his life to peace.

As we walked back to the bus, I stopped to talk to the Israeli army members who were standing by. I asked the officer who appeared to be in charge, why did they do this. He said, look, there are crazy people everywhere.  It was teenagers from the settlement. I asked if anyone has brought together the settlers and the villagers to talk about this- I felt relief to hear it wasn't something organized by the policy makers of the settlement; I imagined that at least some of the residents of the settlement would recognize that this cutting of trees is not in anyone's interest or in alignment with the Jewish teachings, which say, even in the case of war,

When in your war against a city, you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you into a besieged city? Deuteronomy 20:19.

When using a battering ram to break down the walls to a city, a Jewish army should use wood from a non fruit-bearing tree to build the battering ram. Since only wood is needed (not fruit) to build the battering ram, it is wasteful to destroy a fruit-bearing tree.

Only trees that you know do not yield food may be destroyed; you may cut them down for constructing siege works against the city that is waging war on you, until it has been reduced. Deuteronomy 20:20

Now I'm dreaming of how we could get the villagers and the settlers together in an NVC  (Nonviolent Communication) dialogue- to explore what we can do to find ways of protecting each others' safety and well being.

This brings me closer to the title of this article.

On a visit to Jenin earlier this week, I was asked, "Are you for Israel or Palestine?"  That was the question Juliano Mer Khamis asked me at the Jenin Freedom Theater in the Jenin refugee camp, after we spray painted a sign together wishing a 7o year old American supporter a happy birthday.

I answered, both. I want to make room in my heart for both. He said, your heart must be awfully big. I thought about it, and then I said, if we can't make our hearts big enough to hold both, how can we ever expect peace, how can we expect to live peacefully together unless we can do that in our hearts.

"Are you for or against the Occupation?" That is the question the pharmacist in Jenin asked me after we chatted about his life- he and his wife lived in India for 4 or 5 years studying pharmacology, then returned to Jenin to raise their two lovely boys who were with us in the store. (I was in a pharmacy in Jenin because earlier that morning I was toasting, with scalding hot coffee, two young Palestinian men with very amazing haircuts,  law students at American University in Jenin, and I spilled the delicious fresh Arab coffee on my arm.)

I didn't know how to answer the question.  I feel clarity that my heart breaks  when I see and hear about trees being uprooted, and walls being built around people's houses, and people not allowed to travel freely and have the resources to educate their children and live normal lives-  just a normal life where you don't have to worry about the military knocking on your door at midnight or taking away your kids because they throw rocks or a million other things that are every day occurrences.  And I feel particularly despairing because it is in the name of Jews that a lot of this is being done. As a Jew,I have a dream that somehow a Jewish country will be better; will be in the forefront of creating systems and cultures of peace and sustainability, breaking new ground in advancing humanity.  And what I see and hear on the west bank and in the Palestinian sections of Jerusalem is very far from this.

Yet I resist saying I am for or against anything.  I am yearning for a new way to express my values and dreams in the public political forums. Not for or against. Not slogans. Not labels.

And I feel so frustrated because I suspected that in my stumbling around to avoid saying I am for or against the Occupation, I was losing the trust and connection we had built. I knew his needs for authenticity, trust and being understood weren't being met.  Neither were mine.

I went back to the Jenin Cinema guesthouse where I was staying and called Hagit, my Israeli NVC  buddy. She listened to me, and said, I hear how much you want to know what you could say that would contribute to peace and connection.

Yes. I want my words to contribute to peace, trust and connection.

I went out again, to the Jenin Freedom Theater.   Juliano asked me, do you want to meet a terrorist? He said it tongue in cheek, which I appreciated, especially as I have been in workshops where we have done work to break down the image of "terrorist."  And he introduced us to Zakaria.

Enemy Image Work

First, to give you some understanding of how I heard this question-Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, founder of Nonviolent Communication, explains that anytime we think of someone as "a something"- , e.g., a terrorist, a bad person, a gossip, a troublemaker, pushy, controlling, long winded... anytime we fossilize our actual experience with someone  into a fixed image of them, we are essentially committing violence toward them by cutting off their humanity; by encountering our idea of them, our judgment of them, our limiting view of them;  not who they are in this lviing moment.

So when I was asked, do you want to meet a terrorist, I re translated that in my own mind into, do I want to meet someone who has been labelled a terrorist. My response then is, yes, I feel very curious to meet someone who has been labelled a terrorist.

A few moments later, a tall young man with noticeable darkened  markings on his face came up and introduced himself. To me, his demeanor was quiet and gentle. and he looked a bit familiar I remembered he was one of the Palestinian children in the Film Arna's Children, about the Jenin Freedom Theater. After horrendous violence and suffering, Zakaria has renounced violence for cultural resistance. I asked, how are you? He said, terrible. I have three children and I am raising them under occupation. The sadness in his eyes was unbearable.

I feel scared writing about this because I can imagine people reading this and feeling such pain, anger, despair, over the acts that Zakaria has taken responsibility for. I say to myself, I want to know the words to write that water the seeds of hope, peace and understanding, Of reconciliation.

When I encounter this man right now, when I listen to him right now, talking about the despair he feels for the limitations his children are growing up under, my heart is open and connected. I know that if I were to engage with him through the lens of "terrorist", I would not encounter the person standing right in front of me. I have a sense that this is peacemaking, how we are standing right now,  talking to each other.

I will post photos of these trips on facebook , unless I figure out how to do it in this blog ( does anyone know)?

Shabbat shalom, Roberta

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One Response to "Are you for Israel or Palestine?"

  1. Steve Says:

    Well, I'm overwhelmed by your compassion and determination and very proud of you. I always think of the nations like France and Germany that tried to exterminate each other... Many many more people died and suffered in those conflicts so maybe there is some hope....thank you for your blog and stay safe.

    Love

    Steve





                                                                           Roberta Wall
Dear Friends,                                                       Jerusalem, January 15, 2011

  This is really three entries in one. The first part is my arrival musings, then an account of the first Nonviolent Communication training I gave in the desert in the West Bank a few days ago.
        A huge thank you to those who contributed money. I would happily accept more- a group of Palestinian youth are traveling to the next retreat and I"d like to subsidize their participation; if I raise enough money, I can buy sleeping bags for the ECO Me center and the many participants in our retreat who don't have anything like that can use them first! I have a request for another training for Palestinians in the north west bank and I'd like to fund that as well as continue north to a religious Jewish area. Then I have another training in the far south at the end of March. In between, there are numerous trainings to organizations doing wonderful peace and education work.  I am connecting with other trainers and we have the opportunity to create ongoing programs all over the region over the next year.

         If you want to be on the registration list for the open training at the Dead Sea, end of January (information at very bottom of this page), please email Hagit Lifshitz at [email protected] . On  February 3, at an all women's Rosh Chodesh celebration, join me for -  Stop Giving Advice and Other Fun with NVC -at the Carlebach Moshav in Modiin.


January 15, 2011

When did the Journey Begin?

 

There is a spiritual teaching that there is no beginning and no end- that the notions of beginning and end, like birth and death, are illusions or, perhaps more gently put, merely convenient designations so we can communicate efficiently with each other.

 

This comes up as I endeavor to write about the beginning of my journey to Israel, now into the second week. Here is what I wrote when I was on the plane, January 5, EL AL flight Number 2 from JFK to Tel Aviv.

 

When I look deeply, I see there is no beginning or end to the journey. The journey didn't start on the plane, a few moments ago, when the Haredi (religious) man stopped in the aisle as he headed for his seat next to me. From the aisle, he quietly spoke to the flight attendant. I guessed he was asking for a different seat, not next to me. The journey that led to this began long long ago.

 

The journey had already begun when I was at JFK, and told a friend on my cell phone that my biggest fear about this trip was that my heart would close, that my heart wouldn't stay open when someone's religious or political views collided with something I value.

 

The journey had already begun when my father's cousin, waiting for the same flight at JFK,  going to visit her 5 grandchildren who live on the outskirts of Jerusalem, told me how much she had enjoyed my blogs last year and asked if I would blog again ( hi Carol!)

 

Taking a Seat

 

The clean shaven man from NY wearing a baseball cap declined the flight attendant's quiet request that he sit in the middle so the religious man could have the aisle seat, and not sit next to me. (I emphasize quiet request, because I felt really touched and relieved that this was all done quietly, without any sense of demand). Another man from a nearby row did move over, with a large back pack that wouldn't fit under the seat, so it wasn't going to work for him. He moved back. The middle seat empty again. The religious man never came back and someone murmured that he found something.

 

I  felt excited to process this experience, to connect with people around it, so I said to my baseball cap neighbor, I really want to appreciate the level of commitment that man has to the ways of his ancestors. And I want freedom to live my ways too. No response. I guessed he didn't want to engage, so I'm journaling!

 

I am sitting here with so many emotions. Would it bother me at all if a Buddhist monk asked to sit separately? Maybe, but in a different way. There is a difference in my reaction. What is it? What is it?

 

I'm not taking any of this personally. I appreciate the quietness of his words to the flight attendant; I never felt a vibe of hostility. I can guess various religious principles that he is upholding, ones that are important to him to keep focused on his path, clear in how he related to the world. It's easier for me to be truly ok with this when I imagine that for him, his decisions are coming from pure love- love of God, of his Rabbi. It's not so easy for me to have a fully open heart about this when I feel fear from telling myself that if too many situations like this arise, EL AL will publically accommodate separate seating by, for example, setting up separate seating on the plane.

 

That scares and bothers me. Why? It didn't bother me when I wanted an all women's train car in India.

 

Why this?

 

When I imagine that El Al or the State of Israel will change their policies and make women sit separately, the fear arises that this trajectory will destroy Israel.

 

I see how these thoughts arise from fear and from yearning for Israel to be a society and state where everyone's needs and values are freely and equally respected; where the most observant religious Jewish life can flourish- but not at the expense of anyone else's religious or secular life.

For now, I want to cultivate a mind that is so spacious, it can contain these fear thoughts, but the thoughts don't take over. I want a spacious mind that can hold the thoughts, examine them, approach them with curiosity, to learn about myself, maybe something about the world.

 

This inquiring mind might ask, so, is there room in the world, in Israel, on this plane, for religiously observant men who want separate seating?

 

Why, yes, yes there is. And how can we create that room, that space, without the cost of other people's freedom. The flight attendant did that by asking people to switch, until she found someone willing. So this is about people living together in community (the plane!)  And finding the level of willingness that people have to accommodate each other's preferences.

 

Is there a risk in the accommodation? Yes, there is a risk that people will feel resentful just in the asking. There is a risk that accommodation will be the tip of the iceberg.

 

I'm wondering what my neighbor thinks and feels about this. I wonder if he is Palestinian. I am yearning to talk and connect with him about this. I see that my way of creating a spacious heart around this is to connect with people about it. I want to hear what the women in the next rows are feelings, and the men who were asked to change their seat.

 

I look deeper- I discover that what I'm concerned about is that people around aren't judging the religious man. I really want acceptance and openness and understanding of his ways. I see my own work here- as I look more deeply into myself- I see what Marshall Rosenberg called" enemy images" lurking- imagining that the secular folks around me are judging the religious man, even reviling the observant. And I see the image of the religious man as being a threat" to peace.

 

I see within myself everything I fear encountering on this journey.

The journey has begun.

 

January 6-Arrival Day

 

My dear friend Hagit picks me up at Tel Aviv airport. We drive to the Old City in Jerusalem where I am staying for the first month. After settling in to my old room again, we go off for a walk and hummus in the Old City.  I can't resist a bead shop and see a lovely necklace to come back to. We pass open shops and stalls displaying  jewelry, lots of scarves and hangings I recognize from India, mounds of spices, dates, nuts, the cooked sweetened Arab dessert cheeses, Armenian pottery shops, men playing backgammon, religious Jews pushing baby strollers.  I am happy to be back here.

 

January 7. I meet my Israeli family (my niece's grandparents in law) for a wonderful Israeli breakfast.  They share their grief and fears about the growing influence of religion over the country.

 

  At night I go to the Kotel- the western wall of the Temple- where thousands of Jews from all over the world are praying, singing and dancing.  Religious Jews, secular, young Americans on student trips singing peace songs in Hebrew.  Then I am so excited to go to dinner at Emuna's house in the Old City, deep in the Jewish quarter, one of the centers of religious Jewish life.

 

On Saturday morning, I first go to the monthly Shabbat service of the Reconstructionists, a pretty left group; then to lunch with a wonderful group of religious women.

 

On Sunday I go with Nurit to visit Palestinian friends of hers in the Old City. One friend asks if I can give an NVC class to Palestinian women about how to speak to the children. You bet I would!

 

Going from world to world, feeling at home in all of them, that is the journey for me. Truly feeling at home- open to the gifts and wisdom, the concerns and fears, of everyone. I am feeling so alive in this diversity of Jewish life and Palestinian life.

 

Everyone who I am telling about the Nonviolent Communication trainings I am here to do is curious, and supportive. Everyone wants peace and understanding.

 

January 12

Eco ME, Dead Sea

 

Yoram kindly drives me out to the Dead Sea from Jerusalem, to the site of my first NVC training here. The residents of the Eco ME (Middle East) center have asked for two day training for their community. I arrive the night before and sit at the camp fire with them,
Israelis, Palestinians, Europeans, playing guitar, violin drum, singing under the stars, warming around the fire from the chilly desert night air. This group of 12-15 people, mostly young Israelis, have built a temporary center in this part of the west bank of Israel that's accessible to Israelis and Palestinians without special permits. Over the three days I am there, I see a continual flow of Israelis and Palestinians coming by to talk, eat, play music, to be together. Something is happening here.

 

In the first day of the workshop, we learn and practice listening for our own needs and for the other person's. We begin by each person connecting with something they did that day for the community that they feel grateful to themselves about doing. Then, impairs, we identify the needs of ourselves that we were meeting by doing this.  Then we think about something someone else did in the community that we are grateful about; and identify the needs that met. In exercises like these, as a whole group and in pairs, we learn to bring our awareness to the needs that everyone is meeting or wanting to meet by doing what they do.

  Then we spend time learning to listen beneath words that may be hard to hear; we listen for the needs the person is trying to meet with their words. We listen for what is important to the person, not their words.

 

Later, after a delicious lunch cooked over the open fire by two young German supporters,   each person goes out into the desert to journal through a difficult communication, learning to identify thoughts and distinguish them from feelings. Breaking though images we have of one another, translating them into what we are feeling and really wanting. Learning to not blame the other person for our feelings, learning to communicate to ourselves and to the other person what is it that is really important to us.  We also worked on other NVC principles, such as learning to look carefully to make sure that our requests of the other person aren't really demands.

 The day is rich and deep.

 

On Day 2, we work on creating clarity and structure within the community.  I help them brainstorm about creating a community and a structure for the community that meets everyone's vision and needs. To do this, we set up two circles. First the core group of founders sit in the inner circle, with the other residents sitting around them. The founders talk together and identify their needs- what they are dreaming of for Eco ME, what their concerns are. Then we switch- the non founding residents sit in the middle and do the same. The founders sit in the outer circle, listening for the needs. Throughout the process, I coach and help each group identify their needs, and distinguish them from the particular strategies we will work together later to develop.  On large sheets of paper, I write the needs of each group, putting them together in one working sheet.

 

It is amazing to see how the needs of the two groups completely mirror each other. For example, the people in each group want inclusion- the founders want more inclusion of the newer members because they need more support and also value the contributions of the other residents; the other residents want inclusion so they can give the gift of support and make the contribution to the vision. Everyone wants greater clarity in communication and information flow.

 

I am so grateful to NVC trainer Miki Kashtan, whose training I attended in November, where we modeled this system of creating one list of needs for all the members of the community, creating an energy and consciousness of willingness to address everyone's needs, of their willingness to create systems and communities that are committed to valuing and even meeting everyone's needs. This is what is happening at Eco ME.

 

EcoME also is the site where Hagit and I will offer our first open NVC retreat together. There are already more than 50 people coming, close to half Israeli and half Palestinian. People from outside have volunteered to come and provide Arabic translation. Others will come and cook and host us. It has grown so big that we have brought in a third trainer. Hillia is an amazing Israeli woman who will facilitate the groups of young people who are coming to the retreart-include a rather large group from the West Bank. She has been bringing NVC into schools in Palestinian and Jewish Jerusalem. I am so happy for all of the support and participation.

 

 


 
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