Opinion: In search of a lifeboat for peace

People participate in a Tashlich ritual organized by Jewish Voice for Peace to mark the one-year anniversary of Hamas attack on Israel and calling for a ceasefire, on Oct. 6 in Los Angeles.

People participate in a Tashlich ritual organized by Jewish Voice for Peace to mark the one-year anniversary of Hamas attack on Israel and calling for a ceasefire, on Oct. 6 in Los Angeles. Apu Gomes / AFP / Getty Images / TNS

By ANN PODLIPNY

Published: 10-25-2024 6:00 AM

Ann Podlipny lives in Chester.

It’s been over a year since Hamas attacked Israel. Opinion in New Hampshire regarding the subsequent war in Gaza remains diverse and divided. For some, Israel is seen as a threatened democracy surrounded by Arab nations in a seemingly endless David versus Goliath struggle in which Hamas’s brutal massacre justifies full retaliation.

Others see Israel as an occupying force with genocidal intentions, a colonizing power claiming land and forcing the removal of its indigenous people. Accordingly, Israel is not a democracy but an apartheid state in which Palestinians are treated as second-class citizens.

Since Oct. 7, I like many others have felt horror, outrage, despair and grief. Given New Hampshire’s small Arab/Jewish population I’ve also been deeply impressed by and grateful for the tireless advocacy of New Hampshire’s peace activists. Five peace activists staged a sit in at Rep.Pappas’s office demanding his support of a cease fire resolution. Arrested for unlawful trespass they await trial in Dover District Court.

American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), NH Peace Action, NH Veterans for Peace, NH Coalition for a Just Peace in the Middle East, Palestine Education Network (PEN) and Not in My Name NH (NIMNNH) have held weekly vigils in silent remembrance of the war’s innocent victims and called upon towns to adopt resolutions demanding a cease fire, release of all hostages, resumption of humanitarian aid and an end to our taxpayer dollars funding Israel’s military.

UNH students and faculty have engaged in peaceful protests calling upon the university to boycott, divest from and impose sanctions upon corporations selling millions of dollars worth of arms to Israel. Two student leaders have been arrested and face criminal charges.

Bob Sanders co-founded NIMN, a group of New Hampshire Jews against the war who sponsor forums at synagogues and show films followed by discussions. Bob, a retired Jewish journalist, biked over 1,200 miles on behalf of RAW (Ride Against War) Gaza to fundraise and get signatures on petitions from state and local politicians. NIMN also published a full page letter in the Union Leader requesting an immediate and sustained cease fire, release of all hostages, humanitarian aid and crucial funding for UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees) and suspension of military aid to Gaza and the West Bank. It supports Sen.Sander’s 6 Joint Resolutions of Disapproval to block $20 billion in offensive arms to Israel.

Other New Hampshire humanitarians, writers like Jonathan Baird, Robert Azzi, Karishma Manzur, Joshua Meyerwitz and Jennifer Smith have spoken out condemning the violence and use of U.S. weapons to massacre Palestinians, especially women and children yet the war has continued to expand and escalate.

This existential conflict is well summarized by former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haji Amin al-Husseini who claimed, “It is impossible to place two distinct peoples who differ from each other in every sphere of their life in one and the same country. Creating a Jewish home in an ‘Arab ocean’ has no historical precedent and would make the Holy Land a permanent backdrop for blood.”

The following allegory illustrates my point of view. An Arab and a Jew are shipwrecked on a stormy sea. The Jew, the sole survivor of his family killed during the Holocaust, finds himself desperately clinging to a piece of flotsam when he sees an Arab drowning alongside him. If the Jew shares his piece of wood they will both likely die. Yet, this very same story can be told from the Arab perspective. His family had been killed during the Nakba. Clinging to the flotsam he knows full well that sharing it with the Jew might cost them both their lives. Therein lies the dilemma of a diplomatic solution. How to build a lifeboat for the two of them.

Meanwhile, New Hampshire peace activists continue to speak out vigorously. Will Thomas of NH Veterans for Peace in a protest before the Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Dinner exclaimed, “If Eleanor Roosevelt were alive today she would not be inside. She would be outside with us because she was a human rights activist who helped draw up the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Inside stood peace activist Karishma Manzur, silently holding her sign that said simply, ‘Cease Fire Now’. That is the ‘lifeboat’ for peace.