I went down to the Negev to participate in this year’s Nakba Day events. The fact that it’s the 68th year and little has changed depressed me; the sense of unity and the bubbly optimism of some of the activists encouraged me.

“I will not come with you to the march!” my adolescent son exclaimed. “I’ll sit at home and watch it. Wasn’t our home taken away from us during the Nakba? So here. You go, and take your little boy who doesn’t understand anything, and leave me alone.”

“Don’t you support the right of return?” I ran after him to his room. “I want to know the truth. Answer me!” The Jewish mother in me got the better of me.

By the time I got to his room, he was tucked in his bed. “I support it, of course I do. I just don’t think that spending the whole day travelling just to stand in the sun waving a broomstick and a plastic flag will give you back your village, that’s all. And enough with all the emotional blackmail, please.”

My parental authority died that minute, and left me speechless and mournful. I dragged myself out of his room, completely resigned, as if I had just been expelled from my village. He may have a point, that adolescent brat. Another march and another protest – for 68 years, and what for? Why is it important? And in the current climate in Israel, is there hope at all?

Adam, my younger son, got out of the shower and tried his luck at rebelling, albeit to no avail. I told him he could take whatever he wanted from the sweets cabinet as well as a ball, so that he could be social and play with the other kids while important men delivered their speeches.

I took the biggest Palestinian flag I could find – it came in a special delivery from Bil’in – loaded my car with Palestinian lace and dressed in red and white complete with a checkered scarf. Only a hat was missing to be a walking Palestinian flag.

In solidarity with the Palestinians of the Negev, the Association for the Protection of the Rights of Refugees organized this year’s march in the south, to link the protest of both past and present house demolition and land expropriation. The organizers...

A new holiday was established by the binational, bilingual school kids at Neve Shalom Wahat al-Salam. We painted, cooked, built puppets and celebrated. Only the roar of aircraft on their way to Gaza brought a small reminder of reality.

Please mark down May 7, 2016 as the first “Peace Holiday” – a new addition to the already crowded calendar of the binational, bilingual school of Wahat al-Salam – Neve Shalom. It is in the proximity of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Nakba Day, Independence Day, Land Day, Passover, Easter, Mimouna, Asraia and al-Miarg’. With grief and bereavement rituals, religious celebrations and festivals all around, we struggled to find a single date that was free of the baggage of ethnic and religious divisions that fuel the long-standing national conflict.

The “Peace Holiday” is an initiative launched by small children – Jews and Palestinians – following a democratic vote in their student council. The holiday is intended for parents and families of the school in the village of Wahat al-Salam – Neve Shalom as well as for the general public. Actually, it is for every human being who is simply tired of war.

Preparations for the event lasted several months. We had to make fateful decisions that would determine the future relations between the Arab and Jewish peoples, Israelis and Palestinians, that would affect the situation in the Middle East and, of course, influence world peace. For example: should we invite US President Obama? The Pope? What about the Dalai Lama? Should we send an invitation to President Rivlin? And should we write a letter to world leaders asking them to make peace? No less important, we had to decide what we would sing and what kind of food each class would bring.

My third-grader Adam and I decided to bake a chocolate cake with a colorful rainbow made of sweets, though such an item was not included among the suggestions we were given, and it wasn’t particularly healthy. But naturally, on a holiday, we can permit ourselves to indulge in sweets more than on ordinary days – so we strayed a little from the suggestion list.

Each class was assigned a different rainbow color, in which it was supposed to make banners, flags and a “Man of Peace” mascot character. The third grade’s orange seemed very nice but, in the process of preparing our character, we couldn’t decide whether it would be a...

Moroccan Jews have always celebrated Mimouna with their Muslim neighbors – and still do in Belgium, Italy and France. But in Israel, this charming custom fell prey to Zionism’s primeval instinct to divide and rule. 

Mimouna, the Jewish-Moroccan post-Passover festival, always offers an interesting glimpse into Ashkenazi-Mizrahi relations in Israel, by virtue of being the only Mizrahi custom that successfully acceded into the Israeli mainstream.

Fewer and fewer Ashkenazis come out of it unscathed: Those who look down on Moroccan customs as primitive and uncivilized get their share of abuse, as well as those who pay lip service to multiculturalism by taking part in this gluttonous fiesta, especially politicians who likewise hope to pander to an otherwise skeptical electorate.

But now, a new group of Mizrahi activists calling themselves The Golden Age have “named and shamed” Zehava Galon, the leader of the left-wing (and predominantly Ashkenazi) Meretz Party, for never having celebrated Mimouna. They invited her to their party so that the next day they could call her out on her hypocrisy.

What is the fuss all about, I asked myself, and as part-Moroccan, I decided to delve into the origins of Mimouna. I tried to figure out how a custom that developed in a faraway Muslim land made aliya as part of the Law of Return and immediately started simmering in Ben-Gurion’s melting pot.

I browsed Arabic websites in search of information about how Mimouna, similar to our Muslim Ramadan, is celebrated in Morocco today. And it turns out that the Muslim neighbors play a central role in it: They keep the leavened bread during Passover, and as soon as the sun sets they show up at the Jews’ doors with basketfuls of sweets and pastries, and celebrate together until the wee hours. Moroccan Jews and Muslims in Belgium, Italy and France still celebrate it together, like they did in the old country.

In one video that I found, the Rabbi of Brussels addressed the mixed crowd and talked about the persecution of minorities in Europe, and asked who could better understand how Muslims feel in Europe today than the Jews. The Imam of Brussels, for his part, said in his speech that Muslims are bound by the Quran to maintain good relations with Ahal al Kitab, the People of the Book (i.e. Jews and Christians). It sounded too sweet to be true, and not...

Netanyahu is trying to paint Israel as a terror-stricken victim, while at the same time painting his country as one that has successfully defeated terrorism. No matter how he spins it, he cannot hide the fact that Israel is also an occupying power.

What does Netanyahu want from Europe? That the continent take a lesson from Israel on… what exactly? Last week we saw, once again, the desperate attempt to promote Israel to the “enlightened” international community through the back door of the war against terror. The prime minister uses sentences like “we are all part of one, big fight,” “once again the enlightened are pitted against the dark forces,” “black versus white.”

Netanyahu insists that there are good guys and bad guys. Not only does this mock the intelligence of the global community — and does very little to raise support for the country he represents — it also incites against the religion, nationality, and culture to which the terrorists belonged, people who likely grew in the extremist, murderous margins that no country wants.

Whenever millions of people are smeared for the religious affiliation, such as Islam, their nationality, like Palestinians, or culture — such as the Kurds — this is the first step in the guide to racism and hatred.

Like a juggler, the prime minister runs to every bloody corner of the world to proclaim “we have also been there, we got through it, and we can help you.” But who do these kinds of declarations actually serve?

First of all, Israel is not like Europe. Perhaps like colonial Europe from a hundred years ago. But it is definitely not Turkey or the United States. The notion that Israel is a peace-seeking country, an innocent victim that is not occupying an entire people and settling on its land — is anyone actually buying it?

The occupation of the Palestinian people, home demolitions, checkpoints, murder, settlements — and this is without even talking about Gaza — this government’s overall policy is nothing more than an occupation regime based on racism and power. This control is justified to the Jewish public with religious explanations that this land was promised to them thousands of years ago. Meanwhile, we tell the rest of the world that we must hold onto the West Bank because of the war on terror, which leaves us no choice but to use the power of the...

When Shefaa was granted permission to leave Gaza for a four-day visit to Israel to meet with a group of Jewish and Palestinian women, it was nothing short of a miracle. There she could tell her story and dispel the myths about life in Gaza.

All at once the activities marking International Women’s Day came to an end. Conferences, lectures, and ceremonies alongside commercials for spas, malls, and Botox — which were supposed to cause women joy for one day, while making the credit card companies extremely happy.

But before I allow capitalism to take over this article the way it took over International Women’s Day, I want to talk about the weekend I spent with a group of young women — Arabs and Jews from Israel and Palestine — to talk about women and war.

I tried to take advantage of this project to encourage one young woman, Shefaa from Gaza, to join the group. Maybe, just maybe, there will be a miracle and she will be able to get a permit. After three years of knowing each other from afar, two wars, the death of her aunt in a Jerusalem hospital, and her father’s surgery in Israel, her family was able to leave the prison that is Gaza for serious medical procedures. Shefaa, however, was not able to leave. Her dream was to visit Nazareth, Tiberias, Jerusalem, and Haifa. Shefaa (not her real name) is 30 years old, works with women in Gaza, a fashion designer with embroidery, and a member of a Gaza youth community initiative.

We speak on the phone and send messages back and forth. I get updates from her — like from other women — about the situation in Gaza. I did not believe her when she both Hamas and Israel allowed her entry permits.

Souvenirs from Gaza

Shefaa called to ask if I wanted her to bring me anything from Gaza. I’ll bring whatever you’d like, she told me over the phone. I laughed at this Arab custom, even among those with little means. The response is always, “No thank you, thank God we have everything, only you are missing.” So I responded with a smile: “Yes, bring yourself in one piece, you are the biggest gift I could ask for from Gaza on Women’s Day. See you soon.”

Our first meeting was very emotional for me. A long hug, tears, kisses, and another...

The keffiyeh has long been the dominant symbol of the Palestinian struggle. In honor of International Women’s Day, we brought together women to give the traditional embroidered Palestinian dress the respect it deserves.

Photos by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org

A woman is prettier, more feminine and more attractive when wearing a dress. That’s what they taught us, and I won’t get into the question of who is behind this theory and whom or what it serves. What is certain is that women have always held in special regard this specific article of clothing, which in some cultures represents hiding the beautiful body of a woman, and in other cultures to highlight and accentuate that glorious body. In both cases dresses represent the social status, economic status, strength and taste of the woman wearing them.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that just like in all of society, in the world of clothing (not fashion) women’s clothing fight for their place in the closet of public consciousness. That is the unique situation that occurs when said society is in a fight for survival, as a national collective fighting for national recognition and national liberation. In such a situation, what is thought of as more patriotic: the masculine or the feminine?

That is the situation in Palestinian society. Masculine items of clothing, like the black and white keffiyeh, have become symbols of popular struggle, of nationalism and Palestinian identity, which has taken its place on the world stage. Young women, too, have adopted the keffiyeh, worn around their necks as scarves at demonstrations, marches and public events. But the need for an authentic feminine Palestinian symbol has quickly risen, which has led the traditional embroidered Palestinian dress, “Fustan,” to be liberated from the back of the closet to its current rebirth among Arab women. Slowly slowly the long and heavy “thoub” dress has become a symbol of female pride and liberating creativity.

The natural and seemingly engineered shapes, embroidered with silk thread and with the patience possessed by only women, turn any black or white fabric into a piece of art. A cross-stitch and another cross-stitch, one next to another, long nights, line after line and the dress is covered in embroidery that...

An Arab teacher was recently attacked and fired for screening an ‘immodest’ film for his students, all in the name of protecting women’s ‘honor.’

This is the kind of article I am hesitant to publish in Hebrew or English. But out of my wholehearted belief that there are Jews in this world who can be part of our struggle, I decided to air our dirty laundry in other languages, after hanging it out to dry in Arabic here.

The story about Ali Muasi, the teacher from Baqa al-Gharbiya, has already made headlines. Muasi was fired for screening the much-heralded film “Omar,” which apparently goes against the principles of Islam, to his students. The man who led the attack belonged to the “Hidaya Group” for new converts in the city.

All the who’s who in Arab society condemned the decision. Everyone is disgusted: some by the fact that the teacher was attacked in front of his students, while others are horrified that the teacher dare show movies featuring nudity to his students. The film, of course, has nothing to do with sexual relations between men and women, but there is only so much one can do against rumors that the movie includes sex, violence, and religion.

‘Would you show this kind of thing to your sister?’

The teacher was immediately fired by the mayor, prompting a battle over freedom of expression and occupation, protection of teachers, religious control over the public sphere, secularism and progress in the face of religious coercion and silencing. The entire conversation took place in the freest sphere in Arab society: Facebook.

That’s where everyone speaks, condemns, supports, analyzes, and responds. There are those who said “finally someone is stopping the educational anarchy,” and there are those who think that those who attacked Muasi are nothing more than a few bullies. There were those who saw the religious man who spearheaded the attack as the man who would save the city from secular ideas against conservative Islam.

To tell the truth, this week I was rather pleased by the passionate debate among my people. Finally we are talking about social, moral issues in public — and there is a plethora of opinions. Furthermore, this is an internal discussion that ostensibly has nothing to do with Israeli or Jewish society.

Everything seemed fine until I heard the recording of the violent event in question. I couldn’t believe...

Netanyahu’s magic solution for all of Israel’s problems is to fence the state in. But he will still be left with over a million Arabs, potential beasts of prey, and all the incitement in the world will not remove them.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month announced a plan to surround the State of Israel with fences — to keep out “beasts of prey.” I was left with an inescapable thought: I must ask the prime minister, what about me? If Israel is a villa in the jungle and is being fenced- and walled-in for fear of attack by the beasts of prey – namely Palestinians and other enemies such as the Arab countries and Iran – then what about me? What is my role, as a Palestinian-Arab citizen born right here, in the backyard shed of the fancy villa-estate?

According to the prime minister’s analogy, I must be categorized as a “potential beast of prey.” I might bite, chew and throw up the remains of the State of Israel right here within its walls. All those of my people, who have been expelled, are out there around the world and in refugee camps while I live inside the villa as an “operational failure” of the Zionist Jewish project. I mean the Zionist, Jewish and democratic project, of course. I almost forgot to mention that everything here is Jewish and democratic.

I take this pill three times a day as part of my rehab from the old “equal Palestinian citizen” disease, but it doesn’t really help. Apparently the only plan in store for me is to castrate and tame me, turn me into a domesticated pet, or cage me in close to the Holot detention center (Israel’s desert detention facility for African asylum seekers), and throw me some leftovers from the kosher feast of the lords of the land.

After 70 years of intense taming perhaps I could be allowed to rake the lawn at the prime minister’s official residence, and be promoted from beast of prey to the post of dedicated watchdog of the wondrous sole democracy in the Middle East.

It is no secret that the current right-wing government has outdone itself in disseminating hatred, hostility and plain incitement against its Arab citizens, day in day out, as part of its survival plan — as a distraction from the ongoing failure of handling all the...

The Zionist dream is disappearing due to the rise of the messianic Right. Jews who are worried must know there is an alternative: building a society based on equality and democracy.

The end of the Zionist era is upon us. Perhaps it is time to close this chapter in the history of the Jewish people. The Zionist movement has succeeded, and now it is time to take down the monster before it goes too far.

You, our Jewish cousins, established a state in the most unjust way possible. One cannot hide the Palestinian people or what they have gone through any longer. The state of shock following the Second World War and the founding of Israel has begun to lose its significance. When considering everything that successive Israeli governments have done to Palestinians — continuing occupation, the siege on Gaza, the spread of settlements, rising violence and racism — we simply cannot go on like this.

I must admit that I almost said goodbye to my dream of a Palestinian state with an Arab-Palestinian majority — one that could have been established here following the British Mandate. It was a dream state replaced by force with the State of Israel, which turned me and a million other Palestinians into a minority. It is clear to me that there are two peoples living in one holy land. One of them is my people, the indigenous people of this land. The other, our cousins, have been here for generations, the majority of whom came here from all corners of the globe.

The defeated Palestinians have reconciled themselves to the situation, and have acted with relative restraint toward the invaders and their army. The Palestinian Nakba dispersed my people, and despite the fact that my family members are now in refugee camps in Europe after they fled their original refugee camps in Syria, I believe that the vast majority of my people are willing to live alongside the Jewish people in a place where we are equal. On the basis of freedom, democracy, and equality.

I want you to understand how difficult this is — how much of it depends on dialoguing, forgiveness, seeking justice, and correcting past injustices. I believe, however, that this is truly possible. People have done this in the past, after bloody struggles in places such as South Africa, Ireland, and Bosnia.

This is all very possible. We are...

They are journalists, educators, and physicians, who until very recently were dependent on the recently-outlawed Islamic Movement for their living. Now they leave behind a void that cannot be filled. An inside look at the women who play a critical role in Israel’s Palestinian society.

By Samah Salaime (translated from Hebrew by Tal Haran)

The outlawing of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel received some attention from the Israeli media, before it vanished from the news cycle. When the movement did make headlines, however, it was portrayed as religious, militant, nationalistic and male-dominated. The truth is that alongside the women of murabitat, who seek to protect Al-Aqsa Mosque from extremist settlers, the decision to ban the group also outlaws the activity of many women who have done invaluable work within Arab society. And yet no one mentions them. So who are the women of the Islamic movement? They number in the tens of thousands, they are religious, they are diligent activists, and are committed to the cause.

Ever since its founding 30 years ago, the movement’s leadership has recognized the immense potential of recruiting women to its ranks and institutions, opening its doors to them (albeit with a separate entrance) in all supposedly “female” areas: taking care of small children, schooling, charity, humanitarian aid, health and welfare, and the realm most tempting for the young women — higher education.

Sisters, not friends

Some say that the movement’s original plan was to build a kind of “self-service” platform for Arab society, namely by creating social alternatives for all the services that the state had neglected for many years. The Islamic Movement decided to give up the never-ending chase after civil equality. Hopes and dreams were thus transformed into working to create an independent, ideological, national and religious Islamic society.

This project began with a gentle and disciplined army of women, destined by their very gender to raise a new generation of Muslims more conscious of their own religion, more educated and more involved. “How can one do without women?” asked me one of the activists. “We are real partners in our activity. All of us gain from this situation – women, men, our entire society”.

In Islamic activism, apparently, everything is permitted – as long as limits are maintained vis-a-vis right and wrong. There is no prevention of activity. On the contrary, the women I interviewed insisted on explaining to...

2015 was a year full of murder, stabbings, homophobia, and gender-based violence. I can’t wait for it to be over.

Damn you, 2015. Your place is in the dustbin of history. Leave us alone.

You fraud. You began to shower us with specks of hope when the last elections were announced. We thought perhaps that the Israeli voter would cast away the thick layer of anxiety that has been sewn around him over 20 years of right-wing rule. Arab citizens worked tirelessly to put together the Joint List — for themselves and for the supporters of cooperation and democracy. For a second you let us believe it was possible, that perhaps this year would bring change and hope. But when the prime minister stood before the country and incited against us — the Right won. Power and fear-mongering defeated clairvoyance and hope.

The Jewish people were dragged once again into the prison of anxiety, built by a right-wing regime drunk on endless power.

How could a year that brought us Likud MK Oren Hazan — accused of using meth and pimping out women — be a sane one? A year that crowned Miri Regev culture minister, Naftali Bennett — who has proudly “killed many Arabs” — was made education minister, and Ayelet Shaked, who has made it her duty to target human rights NGOS, was appointed justice minister. And alongside all of them stands Benjamin Netanyahu, who serves as the head of five top government ministries.

Lost in the Mediterranean

Day after day, the blanket of Israeli democracy shrinks to the size of a yarmulke that barely covers the Jewish head, leaving the body of the nation naked and vulnerable.

Go, 2015, become invisible like Shas’ Aryeh Deri who disappeared alongside Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon when the going got tough. Evaporate somewhere above the Leviathan gas field, where you can burn along with the absurd gas deal that recently passed.

There in the Mediterranean you will find hundreds of bodies of children, women and men who were swallowed up by the waves as they tries to flee Syria. Millions of refugees in just one year, and humanity tended to them. They fled an unimaginable hell and became part of the most difficult immigration crisis since World War II. The old, white continent passed the test, while the rest of the world —...

Joint List head Ayman Odeh headed to the United States this week, prompting mixed reactions from Israel’s Palestinian citizens. Odeh: ‘I am here to tear the mask off of Netanyahu’s lies.’

Perhaps I am foolish and do not understand the ambush of the Palestinian people that awaits Joint List head Ayman Odeh when he visits Uncle Sam? Perhaps the decision by Foreign Policy Magazine to choose him as a “global challenger” is really just part of a plot to bring him down? To force Odeh to swear allegiance to the flag of the state of the Jewish people?

This week Odeh traveled to the U.S. as the chairman of the Joint List for the first time, a diplomatic visit that will include a stop at the Haaretz conference in New York; public speaking events; and meetings with members of Congress, representatives of the State Department and the White House, Palestinian and Jewish activists, civil rights leaders, and more. The visit led to heated arguments on social networks in Arabic — which eventually made their way to the media — over whether Odeh should have even visited in the first place.

Opponents of the decision, which include social and political activists, claim that he is either “a traitor trying to undermine the Palestinian people,” or “naive and does not understand global politics by traveling to the snake pit of America, the source of evil and terror against the Arabs.” There are those who have hinted that a lot of Jewish money has been poured into the visit, while others criticized the attempt to represent Arab society on the international stage, arguing that Odeh does not speak in their name. The saner voices called on Odeh to come home and not despair when he finds out that U.S. policy is soundly behind Israel. “Just buy some cologne at the duty free and come home. The game is rigged!”

The discussion is, of course, legitimate, and I am happy there are many who are following the activities of members of Knesset and the Joint List. I can also understand the frustration and desperation due to the current government, not to mention the growing fascism and aggression toward Palestinians. The situation is dire, to say the least. A trip by the elected leader of the largest minority in the country may be seen as an attempt to take a page out of...

The lives of two more women, a mother and a daughter, were taken in a shooting last week. What must Arab women do to rid our streets of criminals?

I know, dear readers, that you must be having a hard time disconnecting from what is happening in France and Mali and across the world, or from the stabbing attacks on both sides of the Green Line.

While I was busy trying to do whatever I could for the women in my society, I found myself in a different world this past week. I tried to escape it as best as I could, but to no avail. My feet dragged me to a backyard in Ramle, where I disappeared among a crowd of hundreds of mourning Arab women following the murder of a 50-year-old woman and her 30-year-old daughter.

I hugged and kissed women I did not know; I wanted to be with them, to be strengthened by them. I cried with my friends who have lived and worked in Ramle since I came to this city as a social worker specializing in teenagers and women 15 years ago.

We waited for hours until the bodies of the mother, Nariman, and her daughter, Sundus, made their way from Abu Kabir Forensic Institute to the family home. When the tears stopped temporarily, the women spoke with one another about the crisis of Arab women in this country. The mother has another daughter who studies in Jordan, she is on her way. She was told that her mother was in the hospital, although she ended up finding out the awful truth through Facebook. I thought about this teenage girl, traveling alone with this storyline playing in her head: “Your mother and sister were murdered, the man you rejected as a husband is the primary suspect.”

Our lives are worth less

An elderly woman said, “Everyone is going crazy. Everything is murder. Murder. Human life is worthless these days.” Another woman in her forties said, “Don’t let the damn police tell you stories. They know who the murderer is and who has weapons, they are only good at catching little kids with knives, leaving us with the criminals and their pistols.” Another woman called out, “If only we were Jews, imagine what they would do. A Jewish woman and her daughter murdered by gunfire? Half the country would go crazy.”

A teacher...