29 Oct 23 | Israel, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Palestine
Peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict may seem like a distant dream, but even now there are those on the ground working to build understanding between the two peoples. The Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) is an umbrella organisation which helps bring together more than 170 groups across the region seeking dialogue and mutual understanding. ALLMEP this week helped organise a seminar, The Gaza War in Israel to amplify these voices. One of the largest grassroots Israeli-Palestinian groups is Standing Together which, according to its mission statement, mobilises Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in pursuit of peace, equality and social and climate justice. Two of the speakers at the seminar, Sally Abed and Uri Weltmann, represented the organisation, whose members have been arrested in Jerusalem for putting up posters with the message: “Jews and Arabs, we will get through this together.” Weltmann warned of an increasingly authoritarian atmosphere in Israel following the 7 October atrocities. He pointed to comments by Israel’s police commissioner, Kobi Shabtai. who said: “Anyone who wants to sympathize with Gaza is welcome to get on a bus and go there.”
Index attended the seminar and has been given permission to print edited versions of one-minute monologues given by some of the expert panel members.
Sally Abed is a Palestinian leader of Standing Together (Omdim be’Yachad/ Naqef Ma’an), the largest Jewish-Arab grassroots movement in Israel. She is running for city council in Haifa as head of a Jewish-Arab list. She was recently profiled in a New York Times article about Israel’s peace movement in the shadow of war.
The first thing I want to say is to hold the people of Gaza in your prayers. It’s just heart-wrenching to see [what is happening] and to feel so hopeless and so helpless, and to not be able do something about it. Especially here from Israel as a Palestinian. I do want to say that I think a message for me as a Palestinian that is very important for me to portray to everyone in the world [is] there are Palestinians in Israel who are going through the experience and the humanitarian loss and the catastrophe that the Israeli public has gone through.
Our cause for Palestinian liberation is a very just cause. However, we cannot justify the extreme measures that Hamas has took to advance this cause and I think one of the most important things that we need to hold [onto] right now as a Palestinian liberation movement, and as Palestinians, is our rights, all of us as civilians, for life – to live securely. I really want to hold that very, very tight.
Listen to us, listen to the people on the ground here in Israel. We are often overlooked. We are seeing amazing cases of radical empathy of victims, Israeli victims who have lost dear ones, and who have people in captivity right now and who are still calling for a ceasefire, who are still calling for ending the occupation, who are still calling for peace. We need to join these people and we need to really hold our humanity together as people and isolate our leaderships at the moment.
Uri Weltmann is the national field organiser for Standing Together (Omdim be’Yachad/ Naqef Ma’an), and a member of its national leadership. He lives in Tel Aviv-Yafo.
Since 2005 there have been 16 major military operations carried out by the Israeli government against the population of the Gaza Strip. None of these military actions brought safety and security to Israelis. All of these military actions only wreaked havoc on the civic population in Gaza, causing many innocent lives [to be lost] including children, and each one of them merely planted the seed for the next major military operation. I fear we are going in the same direction. I fear our government is pushing us into yet another round of violent bloodletting, yet another round of taking a terrible toll of human life of Palestinians in Gaza, and yet another round of undermining the safety and security of us, the people who live in Israel. We need to go about it in an entirely different direction. We need to go for an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on UN resolutions. We need to go in the direction of ending the siege and ending the occupation, and securing the independence, freedom and justice of both peoples. This is what Standing Together is doing, and we are doing this not on the West Coast or the East Coast [of the USA], or Europe. We are doing this inside Israeli society, organising Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel, which we think is the only way for us as an Israeli peace movement to go about it.
05 Oct 22 | Afghanistan, Africa, Americas, Asia and Pacific, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Europe and Central Asia, India, Israel, Kenya, Magazine, Magazine Contents, Middle East and North Africa, North Korea, Palestine, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, United States, Volume 51.03 Autumn 2022, Volume 51.03 Autumn 2022 Extras
The autumn issue of Index takes as its central theme the FIFA World Cup that will take place in Qatar in November and December 2022.
A country where human rights are constantly under threat, Qatar is under the spotlight and many are calling for a boycott of the tournament.
Index spoke to journalists, human rights activists and philosophers for the latest issue to understand their view on the tangled relationship between football and human rights. Is football really the beautiful game?
Upfront
The Qatar conundrum, by Jemimah Steinfeld: The World Cup is throwing up questions.
The Index, by Mark Frary: The latest in the world of freedom of expression, with internet shutdowns and Salman Rushdie’s attack in the spotlight. Plus George M Johnson on being banned.
Features
An unholy war on speech, by Sarah Myers: A woman sits on death row in Pakistan. Her crime? Saying she was a prophet.
Perfecting the art of oppression, by Martha Otwinowski: Poland’s art scene is the latest victim of nasty politics.
Poland’s redemption songs, by Martin Bright: In anti-apartheid solidarity, reggae rode with revolution in Europe.
Fighting back against vendetta politics, by Hanan Zaffar and Hamaad Habibullah: In India, tackling fake news can land you in a cell.
The mafia state that is putty in Putin’s hands, by Mark Seacombe: The truth behind the spread of pro-Russian propaganda in Bulgaria.
Bodies of evidence, by Sarah Sands: A new frontier of journalism with echoes of a crime scene investigator.
Chasing after rights, by Ben Rogers: The activist on being followed by Chinese police.
The double closet, by Flo Marks: Exploring the rampant biphobia that pushes many to silence their sexuality.
Is there a (real) doctor in the house? By John Lloyd: One journalist uncovers the secret of Romania’s doctored doctorates.
The mice hear the words of the night, by Jihyun Park: A schooling in free expression, where the classroom is North Korea.
The most dangerous man in Guantanamo, by Katie Dancey-Downs: After years in Guantanamo, a journalist dedicates himself to protecting others.
America’s coolest members club, by Olivia Sklenka: Meet the people fighting against the surge in book bans.
Special report: The beautiful game?
Victim of its own success? By Simon Barnes: Blame the populists, not the game.
Stadiums built on suffering, by Abdullah Al-Maliki: Underneath the suds of Qatar’s sportswashing, fear and terror remain.
Football’s leaving home, by Katie Dancey-Downs: Khalida Popal put women on the pitch in Afghanistan, before leading their evacuation.
Exposing Saudi’s nasty tactics, by Adam Crafton: A sports journalist is forced into defence after tackling Saudi Arabia’s homophobia.
It’s foul play in Kashmir, by Bilal Ahmad Pandow: Protest and politically motivated matches are entwined in Kashmir’s football history.
How ‘industrial football’ was used to silence protests, by Kaya Genç: Political football: how to bend it like Erdoğan.
Xi’s real China dream, by Jonathan Sullivan: While freedoms are squeezed, China’s leader has a World Cup-sized dream.
Tackling Israel’s thorny politics, by Daniella Peled: Can Palestinians de-facto national team carve out a space for free expression?
The stench of white elephants, by Jamil Chade: Brazil’s World Cup swung open Pandora’s Box.
The real game is politics, by Issa Sikiti da Silva: Is politics welcome on the pitch in Kenya?
Comment
Refereeing rights, by Julian Baggini: Why we shouldn’t expect footballers to hand out human rights red cards.
The other half, by Permi Jhooti: The real-life inspiration behind Bend it like Beckham holds up a mirror to her experience.
We don’t like it – no one cares, by Mark Glanville: English football has moved away from listening to its fans argues this Millwall supporter.
Much ado about critics, by Lyn Gardner: A theatre objects to an offensive Legally Blonde review.
On reputation laundering, by Ruth Smeeth: Beware those who want to control their own narrative.
Culture
The soul of Sudan, by Stella Gaitano and Katie Dancey-Downs: What does it mean for deep-running connections when you’re forced to leave? Censored writer Stella Gaitano introduces a new translation of her work.
Moving the goalposts, by Kaya Genç and Guilherme Osinski: Football and politics are a match made in Turkey. Kaya Genç fictionalises an unforgettable game.
Away from the satanic, by Malise Ruthven: A leading expert on Salman Rushdie writes about an emerging liberalism in Islamic discourse.
13 May 22 | Israel, Media Freedom, Opinion, Palestine, Ruth's blog
Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh
This week I was planning to write about the Queen’s speech, delivered this week by HRH Prince Charles, as the British Parliament began its new parliamentary session and the Government outlined it parliamentary priorities. There are now six proposed pieces of legislation by the British Government that will impact our collective rights to both freedom of expression and privacy in the United Kingdom. But my views on the ideological incoherence of the Government’s approach to freedom of expression will have to wait until next week.
Because today we mourn the death of another journalist. On Wednesday, Shireen Abu Akleh, a well-known and well regarded Palestinian-American journalist was killed while doing her job in Jenin.
According to Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) Shireen is the 17th journalist to have been killed in the line of duty in 2022. Index has fought to defend the rights of journalists for over fifty years. Every attack on a journalist is an effort to stop people speaking truth to power. It’s an attempt to quash dissent and to impose a single world view. And every death seeks to silence not just the voice of journalists but through them the voices of all of us. We cannot allow those who seek to repress their populations to win.
Today our thoughts and prayers are with Shireen’s family and loved ones. And as much as we mourn her today, we remember and honour the work and sacrifices made by her, her family and the sixteen other journalists who have lost their lives in 2022.
6 January – John Wesley Amady, Haiti
6 January – Wilguens Louis-Saint, Haiti
9 January – Pu Tuidim, Myanmar
17 January – Alfonso Margarito Martinez Esquivel, Mexico
5 February – Rohit Biswal, India
9 February – Evariste Djailoramdji, Chad
10 February – Heber Lopez Vasquez, Mexico
23 February – Maximilien Lazard, Haiti
1 March – Yevhenii Sakun, Ukraine
13 March – Brent Renaud, Ukraine
13 March-1 April – Maks Levin, Ukraine
14 March – Oleksandra Kuvshynova, Ukraine
14 March – Pierre Zakrzewski, Ukraine
15 March – Armando Linares Lopez, Mexico
23 March – Oksana Baulina, Ukraine
Late March – 2 April – Mantas Kvedaravicius, Ukraine
11 May – Shireen Abu Akleh, Occupied Palestinian Territory
Each of these brave journalists needs to be remembered and celebrated for their work and their sacrifice. And their families need and deserve both the truth and, most importantly, justice.
