Internationally renowned Israeli singer Noa writes letter appealing to Palestinians in Gaza
Dear Palestinian brothers,
It is with a heavy heart I write to you today. Gaza is burning. The
border with Israel is under fire. Children on both sides of the fence are terrified, traumatized for life, wounded in body and soul. Life!! Life is lost. Blood flows! Pain and tears and anguish abound.
How familiar it all is, my brothers? How well we know these images, this fear clutching our throats, hope slipping away from our hearts?
A new year has begun. I am sitting here near my computer in the dark night, in my home by the sea. This sea that is ours, our Mediterranean sea, our culture, we the people of wandering, we the homeless, the homesick, we the fighters ,the builders, the survivors, our dreams like waves and tide, pulled by the moon and stars to eternity.
Since that fateful day in 1994 when Rabin was murdered a few feet from me, since that awful moment, I have dedicated much of my public life to singing and speaking for peace.
I have seen the peace process rise and fall and rise like the breast of a woman breathing in the night. I have seen opportunities missed, so many missed, so many chances, so much ignorance and stubbornness and bullheadedness, so much beauty trampled under the heavy boot of pride.
I have sung and I have spoken, I have argued and I have embraced, I have been moved to tears so many times, I have made the most unlikely friends? Friends I would give my right arm for, friends I would run across the border under fire to protect.
And today, today I say this; we have one joint enemy, one awful joint enemy and we must all work together to eradicate it! That enemy is fanaticism my friends. That enemy is extremism in all its ugly reincarnations and manifestations.
That enemy is all men who put ?god? above life, who claim "god? as their sword and shield, who claim ?god? is on THEIR side. Jews,
Muslims, Christians, all share this black streak. All have fallen to this
destructive, horrible fanaticism at some point in their histories and the results have been devastating
I have often spoken out against fanaticism in my country, for I find it
repulsive and unbearable. In government, in settlements, in synagogues, I am passionately against it. I have risked my career and my wellbeing for this belief.
Now I see the ugly head of fanaticism, I see it large and horrid, I see
its black eyes and spine-chilling smile, I see blood on its hands and I
know one of its many names :Hamas.
You know this too, my brothers. You know this ugly monster. You know it is raping your women and raping the minds of your children. You know it is educating to hatred and death.
You know it is chauvinistic and violent, greedy and selfish, it feeds on
your blood and screams out Allah?s name on vain, it hides like a thief uses the innocent as human shields, uses your mosques as arsenals, lies and cheats, uses YOU, tortures you, holds you hostage!!
I know this is true my brothers!! I know YOU know the truth!! And I know you cannot say it for fear of life so I will say it for you!! I fear
nothing!!
I am privileged to live in a democracy where women are not objects but presidents, where a singer can say and do as she pleases! I know you donot have this privilege (yet?but you will, inshallah, you will?)
I know you are SICK of being held hostage by this demon, this ugly beast, not in Gaza, not in Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan, not
anywhere!!! You are a people destined to flourish in peace! Your
majestic history is overflowing with creativity, literature science and
music, endless contributions to humanity, not crippling, torturing
fanaticism, yelling Jihad and Shahid!
I see you sometimes, out in the streets, demonstrating with the
monsters, yelling ?death to the Jews, death to Israel!! But I don?t
believe you! I know where your heart is! It is just where mine is, with my children, with the earth, with the heavens, with music, with HOPE!!
You want nothing of this but you have no choice! I see through your veil of fear my brothers, through your burka! I embrace your hopes for they are mine!
My country has made many many mistakes over the years, I have watched it miss so many opportunities, and as a citizen of this country I am the first to admit it and criticize its foolery. I demonstrate, I vote, I speak out, I sing loud and clear.
But, now, today, I know that deep in your hearts YOU WISH for the demise of this beast called Hamas who has terrorized and murdered you, who has turned Gaza into a trash heap of poverty, disease and misery. Who in the name of "allah? has sacrificed you on the bloody alter of pride and greed.
My brothers, I cry for you. I cry for us too, yes, I cry for my fellow
countrymen suffering the bombs in the south and north and everywhere, I cry for the kidnapped soldiers and the murdered ones, for their bereft families, for the innocence lost forever, but I cry especially painfully for you for I know your suffering, I feel you, I feel you!!
I can only wish for you that Israel will do the job we all know needs to be done, and finally RID YOU of this cancer, this virus, this monster called fanaticism, today, called Hamas. And that these killers will find what little compassion may still exist in their hearts and STOP using you and your children as human shields for their cowardice and crimes.
And then? then, maybe, Inshallah, we will again have an
Opportunity we will again pick up our broken bodies and souls and walk slowly towards each other, reach out a tired hand, look into eyes filled with tears and with a choked voice say: ?Shalom. Salam. Enough. Enough my brother ?. you want some coffee? Here, sit for a while?let's talk?.we know the words, we know the songs, we know the road?.
Shalom
Salam
With a broken heart still yearning to love,
Your friend,
Noa
click here to read the article Israel-based iPeace website
Reaction to Noa from Israeli-American director Udi Aloni, creator of the 2006 film Forgiveness (Mechilot, winner of the Woodstock Film Festival Audience Award and Shulamit Aloni's son)
Dear Achinoam Nini,
I chose to answer you, and not the entire raging Right, because I believe that the betrayal of the peace camp, at this of all times, exceeds the damage caused by the Right a thousand fold. The ease with which the peace camp gives itself over to the roars of war hinders the creation of a meaningful movement that could a true resistance to occupation.
You roll your eyes, use your loving words in the service of your conquering people and call upon the Palestinians to surrender in a tender voice. You bestow upon Israel the role of liberator. Upon Israel – that for over 60 years, has been occupying and humiliating them. "I know where your heart is! It is just where mine is, with my children, with the earth, with the heavens, with music, with HOPE!!" you write; but Achinoam, we took their land and imprisoned them in the ghetto called Gaza.
We have covered their skies with fighter jets, soaring like the angels from hell and scattering random death. What hope are you talking about? We destroyed any chance for moderation and mutual life the moment we plundered their land while sitting with them at the negotiation table. We may have spoken of peace, but we were robbing them blind. They wanted the land given to them by international law, and we spoke in the name of Jehovah.
Who are the secular people of Gaza supposed to turn to, when we trample on international law, and when the rest of the enlightened world ignores their cry? When enlightenment fails and moderation is seen as a weakness, religious fanaticism gives a sense of empowerment. Maybe, if you think about the mental situation of the people under siege in Masada, you could get a better sense of what’s happening in Gaza.
The seculars in Gaza find it hard to speak against Hamas when their ghetto is being bombarded all day and all night. You would probably say that 'we would not need to shell them if they held their fire,' but they fire because they are fighting for more that the right to live in the prison called Gaza. They are fighting for the right to live as free citizens in an independent country – just as we do.
"I know that deep in your hearts YOU WISH for the demise of this beast called Hamas who has terrorized and murdered you, who has turned Gaza into a trash heap of poverty, disease and misery," you write. But Hamas is not the monster, my dear Achinoam. It is the monster's son.
The Israeli occupation is the monster. It and only it is responsible for the poverty and the sickness and the horror. We were so frightened of their secular leadership, which undermined our fantasy of the Land of Israel, that we chose to fund and support Hamas, hoping that by a policy of divide and conquer were could go on with the occupation forever; but when the tables have turned, you choose to blame the effect instead of the cause.
You write, "I can only wish for you that Israel will do the job we all know needs to be done, and finally RID YOU of this cancer, this virus, this monster called fanaticism, today, called Hamas. And that these killers will find what little compassion may still exist in their hearts and STOP using you and your children as human shields for their cowardice and crimes." It is the same as if your Palestinian sister would write: "Let us hope that Hamas does the job for you, and rids you of the Jewish Right."
So maybe, instead of ordering around a people whose every glimmer of hope we have surgically eliminated, you could help your brothers and sisters in Palestine rid themselves of the occupation, oppression and the arrogant colonialism inflicted by your country. Only then can you urge them to fight democratically and return Palestine to the mental state it was in before we pushed it into the corner of the wall that we built.
And if your brethren in Palestine choose Hamas, you have to respect their choice, just as the world's nations respected Israel when it chose the murderous (Ariel) Sharon. Hamas is theirs to fight, just like you fought him. That is what democracy is about. Only then can you and your brethren in both Palestine and Israel share – as equals – the joy of the land, the sky and the music; only then can we fight for equality together, for every man and woman living living in our holy land. Amen.
6 comments
Re: Letters between Israeli Artists Noa, singer and Udi Aloni, filmmaker.
Noa and Aloni
Unfortunately you are both delusional. There are no moderate Arabs. How can there be when they are taught to hate the Jews ( not just Israelis) from their very birth. Aloni what did the Gazans do when Israel uprooted Gush Katif. Did they resume the productive greenhouse activities that could have provided jobs and revenue? Did they establish a democratic society on their own? Of course not because all they want is to destroy Israel! They don't want what we want. A safe home, a productive society, intellectual freedom, a future for their children. They aspire for their children to be Shahids and destroy Jewish children in the process. Wake up you are not dealing with people who share your values, who share your humanism, who share your aspirations. Ours is a culture of LIFE. Their's is a culture of DEATH.
Chaim , DC USA
Re: Letters between Israeli Artists Noa, singer and Udi Aloni, filmmaker.
Oh Udi please some basic facts
1) Hamas is part of the Islamic Brotherhood, (it is written in their own charter) which was organized in 1928! 20 years before Israel even became a state. The Brotherhood was formed after the fall of the Caliphate when Turkey lost WW1.
2) Brotherhood's direct activities against Jews and Israel started in the 1930s when there was no occupation and no Arab refugees!
3) Udi writes "(Hamas) fire because they are fighting for more that the right to live in the Gaza prison. They are fighting for the right to live as free citizens in an independent country – just like we are."
No Udi they do this because they reject any peace agreement, irrespective of honourable behaviour according to Article 13 of their charter.
Further the goal is not an independent country it is Islamic State which would ultimately be joined together with Syria according to the ancient borders as in the times of the Caliphate.
Their charter echoes the theme thruout based and built upon Sayyid Qutb, book Our Struggle with the Jews, the ideological founder of the Brotherhood, depicting Jews as the mortal enemy of Muslims.
Hamas openly call for genocide of the Jews as required in the Koran for the final Judgment Day which they now see as coming sooner rather than later.
ben yaacov , herzliya
Re: Letters between Israeli Artists Noa, singer and Udi Aloni, filmmaker.
. Noa
Was this a response to Noa's letter? Did he even read her letter? Both seem to be naive and blind.
Tony, New York
Re: Letters between Israeli Artists Noa, singer and Udi Aloni, filmmaker.
Respecting the Palestinians' choice"
"And if your brethren in Palestine choose Hamas, you have to respect their choice, just as the world's nations respected Israel when it chose the murderous (Ariel) Sharon."
The "murderous" Sharon disengaged Israel, and 9000 of its people, from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria, and committed himself in an official capacity to the creation of a Palestinian state with territorial contiguity.
Hamas was indeed elected democratically, like the National Socialist Party was in Germany. And just like Adolf Hitler, a charismatic but honest visionary, clearly spelled out his plans and his programs in Mein Kampf to the whole world, Hamas clearly spelled out its commitment to the destruction of Israel and the mass killing of Jews in general in its own Covenant. And like the National Socialists did in Germany, Hamas combined electoral success with a bloody putsch against its political rivals, taking the Gaza Strip from the PA by force and hurling Fatah men from buildings. This is the group which has ruled Gaza and this is the group that has continued to attack Israel ever since. And just like far far greater numbers of German civilians were killed in Allied air raids than British civilians were killed in German air-raids, Palestinian civilians now do, sadly, get killed in the inevitable Israeli counter-atttack.
jake
Re: Letters between Israeli Artists Noa, singer and Udi Aloni, filmmaker.
1. "Hamas is the monster's son", he says
And he is dead right, but not about the "Israeli occupation". Hamas is the Palestinian wing of the Moslem Brotherhood, which was founded in Egypt in the '20s and has had grassroots support in Gaza, which has been culturally linked to Egypt, ever since. In fact, the covenant of Hamas itself specifically mentions that as 'the Islamic Resistance Movement', it is an integral and inseparable part of the trans-national Moslem Brotherhood movement.
It is also important to note the name QASSAM, the rocket used against Israel, the same name as is found in the 'military wing' of Hamas "Izadeen al-Qassam". This was the name of a Syrian preacher, Sheikh Izadeen al Qassam, who organized Islamist Palestinian groups in the early 1930's to conduct terror attacks against Jewish civilians. He was ultimately killed in a skirmish with the British, and proclaimed a martyr among the Arabs. All this, of course, happened well before the beginning of "Israeli occupation", although, seeing as Mr. Aloni claims Israel has been occupying the Palestinians for 60 years, I'm not sure what his frame of reference is.
We need to fight relentlessly against the poetic platitudes of the over-confident, self-satisfied Udi Aloni and his ilk with the cold, hard facts. That will be the first step in countering some of the propaganda which has been spoon-fed to an eagerly listening, albeit underinformed world, by these attention-seeking glory hounds.
Re: Letters between Israeli Artists Noa, singer and Udi Aloni, filmmaker.
We’re talking about war? Where is it? There is no equality: Israel is using white phosphorus and planes to attack "Hamas", killing innocent children and old people in the process. All this in the name of defending the rights of the Jewish people and fighting the terrorism...all the Palestinians are terrorist...all the Arab people are terrorist... Palestine is occupied for 60 years now. What I don’t understand is that even if Israel wins this "dirty war", the Arab world and especially the people in the Arab streets will be angry at Israel. How can Israel still speak about peace when the hands of its army are red from the blood of our people.
2006 is Lebanon. 2008-2009 is Palestine. I think peace is another political lie strategy of rich countries who would like to make a fortune by gambling with the future of the poor people. Maybe Israel can win this "dirty war" but history will never forget it. We teach history to our children.
We teach them to love their country and to believe in it every minute and every day, to be proud of our culture and our civilisation. And even to breath it when we’re in exile. I learned to love my country from the newspapers, to breathe it’s language from the Arabic books and to be proud of our history and our will to commit resistance.
Maybe resistance is terrorism? Israel where is your history: killing, occupation, bombing, colonisation, murder, massacre, carnage, Zionim...
I'm very angry and feel bad from being a human!!!
Ali ABOU-HASSAN