Monthly Archives: May 2010

My Lunch with Yonatan Shapira

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Had the pleasure of meeting Yonatan Shapira for lunch in Evanston yesterday.  If you’ve never heard of him, Yonatan was an officer in the Israeli Air Force and flew hundreds of missions over the territories in a Blackhawk helicopter squadron during the course of his eleven year career. Following a targeted bomb assassination of a Hamas leader that killed fourteen civilians in Gaza, he became a prominent Israeli “refusenik,” authoring the Pilot’s Letter – a 2003 statement signed by 27 Israeli pilots who publicly refused to fly missions over the Occupied Territories.

Since that time, Yonatan has gone on to co-found “Combatants for Peace” a prominent organization in the growing Israeli Refusenik movement. A few years ago he gained some more notoriety for writing and performing “Numu, Numu,” a powerful protest song written in the form of an ironic “Lullaby to Pilots.”   (More recently, he’s become the object of a pop love song that’s currently making the rounds on Israeli radio – Richard Silverstein has the story on that in Tikun Olam).

I had known of Yonatan’s refusenik activism, but during our lunch conversation I was surprised to learn that he is also very active in supporting non-violent Palestinian actions in Sheikh Jarrah, Bi’ilin and throughout the Occupied Territories. (He was, in fact, arrested last January at a demonstration in Sheikh Jarrah.) He told me that this work has been transformative for him, explaining that as an IDF officer and even as a leader in the Israeli peace movement he has always been socialized to step forward and lead the way. He said he’s come to realize that the most important way he can serve now is to “stand behind” Palestinians in their non-violent campaign for liberation.

He told me numerous stories about his experiences at demonstrations. He mentioned that the IDF is increasing their crackdown on protesters, that they hire infiltrators to throw stones at the army to given soldiers the a pretext to open fire. None of it succeeds, of course: quite the opposite. The Palestinian non-violence movement is growing steadily – a “White Intifada” that  Yonatan believes has already begun. As a IDF officer himself, he explained the Israeli military mentality – that army commanders truly believe they have the power to “outlaw” these protests through the sheer force of their military might.

Yonatan also mentioned that as part of his support of non-violent Palestinian activism, he has also signed on to the internal Israeli movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) known as “Boycott from Within.”   Now that is the new definition of bravery: a high ranking Israeli Air Force veteran who comes from a military family (his father was a fighter pilot during the Six Day War) has now firmly put himself on the front lines of a global non-violence campaign initiated by the very people he himself had once been trained to attack.

I assumed that Yonatan would be made a virtual pariah for his public stands. He replied that as a military man he understands how soldiers think and generally knows how to engage them in dialogue even when they strongly disagree with him.  He also mentioned that his family is supportive of his work – his father “is not quite there yet” but respects his activism and his mother is “the most active of them all.”

Click below for Yonatan’s “Lullaby for Pilots:”

Pride and Prejudice #3: My Response to David

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Dear David,

Yes, it does indeed seem that the crux of our disagreement comes down to the historical issues surrounding the establishment of a Jewish state. Although I’m not a historian either, I am becoming increasingly sensitive to the ways in which we relate to our own history and how these perspectives impact on our reality today.

So yes, we do have very different views of the history of Israel’s founding – and as you put it, I am tempted to “counter your facts with my facts,” but I’ll refrain for now, only to say that those of us who have been raised on the Zionist narrative of events would do well to open our minds and our hearts to the reality of the Palestinian narrative as well. Otherwise I just don’t see how we will ever find a measure of justice for Palestinians – or peace for Jews.

On the most fundamental disagreement between us, you wrote:

But Brant, what really disturbs me is that I sense you are questioning whether the creation of a Jewish state in a territory with an indigenous Palestinian population is justified, given that inevitably, conflict would ensue.

Believe me, I’m disturbed by this as well. It has been a deeply painful experience to question the idea of Israel that has been so central to my Jewish identity for so long. But this is what it’s come to: I’ve reached the point in which I can’t help but question.

To be clear, I don’t disagree that the Jewish people have maintained a centuries-old attachment to this land – and I don’t disagree at all that we Jews should have a right to live in this land that we’ve long considered to be our ancient homeland. But I don’t believe that all this necessarily gives the Jewish people the “right” to have political sovereign control over it.

In this regard, I disagree strongly with Saul Singer when he writes about the Jewish people’s “legitimate claim to sovereignty.” What gives any people a “right” to sovereignty in a land? Let’s face it, when it come to these kinds of political claims, history has shown that might makes “right.” While I don’t think anyone can legitimately deny the Jewish claim to Israel as its ancestral homeland, it simply doesn’t follow that this religious/cultural connection ipso facto gives us the right of sovereign political control over it.

So yes, I am questioning whether by attaching 19th century European ethno-nationalism to Judaism, the Zionist movement was setting itself up for inevitable conflict. That’s invariably what nationalism does. You point out that there was “extreme Palestinian/Arab opposition to a Jewish state” and I certainly agree. But do we ever stop to consider why this might have been so?

Arab nations in general and Palestinians in particular had endured colonial control over the lands in which they lived for centuries. Following WW I, Britain and France extended the promise of decolonization to Arab nations – while at the very same time, the Zionist movement was increasing its own colonization of Palestine. How could Palestinian Arabs regard this with anything but alarm – especially since political Zionism was predicated upon the buildup of a Jewish majority in Palestine?

I see I’m slipping back into historical argumentation. So I’ll just end with this: where does all this leave us today? As I now see it, our insistence upon the “Jewish right” to Palestine will only prolong this 60-plus year old conflict. For me the important question is not “does Israel have the right to exist?” (or even, really, “does a Palestinian state have the right to exist?”) I believe the real question is “how can we find a way to extend civil rights, human rights, equality, and security for all inhabitants of Israel/Palestine?”

Like you, I hope against hope that this question can be sufficiently addressed through the peace process, culminating in a true and viable two-state solution. But I admit to growing cynicism on this front – and I truly fear the choice we will face should the peace process fail. For even if we disagree on the root causes of this conflict, I think we both agree that it would be beyond painful if it came to the point where are are forced to choose between an Jewish apartheid state ruled by a Jewish minority over a Palestinian majority or one secular democratic state of all its citizens.

So you see, David, these are the things that keep me up nights. But despite the painful issues involved, I’ve really appreciated this conversation. Please know that I’ve considered it, as they say in Pirke Avot, a “machloket l’shem shamayim” – a “debate for the sake of heaven.” I can only hope that it might, in some small way, inspire similar dialogues throughout our community.

In Friendship,

Brant