This reflection follows our event “Turning Hope into Action: Conversations with an Israeli and a Palestinian” that was held on March 16th at Temple Beth Sholom in Vancouver in collaboration with JSpaceCanada.
By: Avril Orloff
It was 4-ish in the morning in the Middle East when Ali Abu Awwad and Hovav Yannai joined us on Zoom. Israel is in the middle of a war with Iran, and neither man could travel to be with us in person. That they showed up at all – at that hour, from that place – spoke volumes.
The conversation was organized by the New Israel Fund Canada and JSpaceCanada, and hosted at Temple Sholom by their respective executive directors, Ben Murane and Maytal Kowalski. Ali is a long-time Palestinian peace activist and champion of nonviolence; Hovav is an Israeli who oversees NIF’s Civil Society Protection Hub.
I’ve been following Ali’s work for over 20 years, since his involvement with the Bereaved Families Forum. Having heard him speak before, his words the other night were not new to me. But that didn’t make them any less powerful.
Ali is an eloquent and passionate storyteller. He spoke of growing up in a family shaped by the PLO, being arrested at 18 for throwing stones, and serving three years in prison – at one point staging a 17-day hunger strike just to be allowed to visit his mother in another prison. It was there, he said, that he was first introduced to “the best weapon I had never used, which was my humanity.” He began studying Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mandela, and realized that a nonviolent way to achieve his rights existed.
Then in 2000, his brother was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers, and the question of revenge became urgent and personal. What stopped him wasn’t law or politics, but a visit. Bereaved Israeli families, people who had lost their own children to the conflict, came to his mother’s home and showed empathy, respect, even sorrow. “I was born in 1972,” Ali said, “and until 2001 I had no idea that Jewish people have tears.”
Realizing his enemies were also victims didn’t make his life easier, however. He now had to carry two narratives. He saw that both peoples are victims as well as survivors, both will do anything to be safe, and both think they own the land. “But no one owns the land,” he argues. “We belong to it – and we practice that belonging in a way that harms both ourselves and the other.”
What I found particularly striking about Ali’s story was his focus on identity. Peace negotiations, he maintains, focus on borders, water, security – never on identity. But he believes the real work is learning to argue about behaviours rather than identities. To hold your own story fiercely while making room for the other’s. Identity, in his framing, should be a home, not a weapon. The future he dreams of is “to live in a place where everyone’s identity is recognized and practiced without anyone paying the price of his own identity.”
Palestinians’ biggest enemy, he insists, is not Jews themselves, but Jewish fear. He described encountering Israeli soldiers at checkpoints, and instead of reacting to their humiliating behaviour, he steps back and engages them, because he recognizes they’re acting out of fear. I’ll be honest: I don’t think I could do that. I haven’t yet attained that level of spiritual evolution. All the more impressive to see someone who has.
In the Q&A, Ali pushed this further. “All of our activism, our efforts, our dreams – if they are not based on a clear, strategic, peaceful political solution where grassroots and political leadership come together under an international umbrella that promotes security and freedom for all the people of the land, it will fail.” And then, challenging the slogans that substitute for thinking on both sides: “It’s not about ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine has to be free.’ From the river to the sea, everyone has to be free. Jewish people. Palestinians. Everyone.”
Hovav Yannai offered a different but equally necessary kind of witness. His activism started, he said, when he served in the military court, where he saw that there was a different system of law for Palestinians and Israelis, and wondered why. Later he volunteered for the Social Guard and became active in civil rights and peace work.
He now works for NIF’s Civil Society Protection Hub, a program created to support activists facing intimidation, police brutality, or far-right violence. A Jaffa schoolteacher hauled before the Ministry of Education for her political views. Hostage families vilified for daring to protest. The Palestinian co-director of No Other Land arrested while a violent settler walked free. All of this while the Netanyahu coalition continues to advance anti-democratic legislation. What the Hub provides is support on all levels – physical, legal, moral, communal – so activists know they are not alone. “To fight back against these attacks,” Hovav explained, “gives a sense of legitimacy and public voice to these activists.”
Why does this matter? Hovav’s answer was pointed: the suppression of dissent isn’t just unjust – it’s dangerous. When nobody is permitted to ask hard questions, you get leaders who can promise “total victory” and face no accountability when it evaporates. “This is why it’s so important to hear different voices: because it’s the only way we will be able to create a political and civic discussion about our future.” Protecting unpopular opinions, in other words, is how a democracy protects itself.
And there is reason – carefully held, honestly earned – for hope. Ben noted that no other pro-democracy movement in the world has sustained weekly mass protests, with such a high percentage of the population, for so long. Hovav agreed that it was very inspiring. On the other hand, he said, “when you look at how Israeli society also supports this war and asks fewer questions, it’s confusing – merging inspiration and depression.” But his conclusion was clear: “We don’t have any other choice than to be optimistic, to look at this amazing activism and to keep using it, to keep pushing for a better future.”
Which brings the question home to us. Does it matter, Ben asked, what diaspora Jews think? Does our voice count? Hovav’s answer was unambiguous: “We need you badly.” He gave the example of a collaboration with former Canadian ambassador Jon Allen to counter a Knesset bill modelled on Canadian law. The coalition, he said, was stunned to discover that Canadians were paying such close attention to something they assumed nobody outside Israel would notice.
I came to this evening as someone with a long and complicated relationship with Israel – one shaped by family history, personal experience, and years of watching with growing grief at the widening gap between the country’s founding ideals and its political realities. I’m on NIFC’s Vancouver Regional Council because I believe in this work. And I left the evening with – not optimism, exactly – but inspiration. Deep appreciation for the courageous people who persist against all odds and keep showing us the way. Hope that one day the moral arc will truly bend toward justice. And a renewed commitment to being part of that arc.
The evening closed with Ben sharing something he’d heard from Vivian Silver’s son. “The most important thing I took from my mother,” he said, “is that things seem fruitless, but they have purpose. When you draw energy from the gap between the aspiration and the reality, you generate hope every day, again and again.”
We were with two men who live in that gap. And who keep showing up – at 4:00 in the morning, in the middle of a war – to narrow it. Hearing them speak rekindled something in me. Even when things feel darkest, they remind us: hope is not something that arrives. It’s something we make, by our actions, every day.
Avril Orloff is the founder of Outside the Lines, a Vancouver-based practice in experiential learning design and facilitation, helping teams think, connect, and work better together for over two decades. Away from work, she’s out in the street with her camera, drawn to the moments and details most people walk past. A member of NIFC’s Vancouver Regional Council, Avril’s involvement is rooted in a lifelong, deeply personal relationship with Israel – one that has never been simple, and that she wouldn’t have any other way.