Published: 20 July 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
THE CONTROVERSIAL ONLINE DISCUSSION featuring Combatants for Peace sparked intense chat and questions when it was held on Sunday night.
Combatants for Peace (CfP) is made up of former Israeli soldiers and Palestinian combatants who have renounced violence and try to promote empathy and understanding of the other side in the conflict.
Organised by Kehillat Masada Synagogue in partnership with Emanuel Synagogue, the session featured presentations by two members of CfP, Sulaiman Khatib (Palestinian) and Tuly Flint (Israeli) who shared their personal journeys from being “combatants” to promoters of non-violent engagement.
The CfP session was originally scheduled to be held in June as part of the Peace is Possible series, a program of five talks by NGO groups, organised by Masada, Emanuel and the NSW Board of Jewish Deputies. But it was removed from the series at the last minute. Although no official explanation was given, The Jewish Independent understands it was because the NSWJBD was uncomfortable with its inclusion in the series, under its auspices, and that CfP and one of the groups that participated in the series, Roots, don't work together due to political reasons.
Ahead of the session on Sunday night, which was moderated by Rabbi Gad Krebs from Masada, the NSW Board of Jewish Deputies criticised the forum and specifically, CfP. “While Emanuel Synagogue is free to host whomever it wishes, for an organisation to refer to ‘Palestine’ as ‘a country under Israeli occupation’ plays fast and loose with the truth and gives out a damaging and inaccurate message,” NSW Jewish Board of Deputies CEO Vic Alhadeff said.
In Sunday night’s forum, Sulaiman Khatib, a founder of CfP, told the audience he grew up in a village near Jerusalem and spent 10 years in an Israeli jail as a political prisoner after throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at soldiers, and attacking two Israelis in Jerusalem to take their weapons to use in the “armed struggle”.
Through his time in jail, he said he learned the wisdom of non-violence, through hunger strikes, reading Gandhi and Mandela) and was able to “turn the other into a brother. Accepting, opening your heart to the other side’s narrative is a painful journey,” he told the audience.
“You feel you are a good person, standing on the right side of history, it’s easier to stay on your side than accept the other. I saw a documentary about the Holocaust, which opened a window of humanity about the Israeli side.
After jail, he said he and his friends realised there is no military solution to the conflict, which led to him joining CfP. “Our Israeli partners reached this point from practical experience. They realised the Palestinians are here, like us, there is no way to defeat each other by military means.
“Both people have a legitimate claim to the same land,” he continued.
Sulaiman was followed by Tuly Flint, who was also born Jerusalem but grew up in nearby Holon till he was 14. He then moved to the Negev, studying at Midreshet Gurion, an ecology-focused boarding school, and at the same time, his family decided to move to the West Bank “to build a village”, but practically, it was a settlement.
“I worked alongside Palestinians in building the settlement: I was a high school student from the Negev trying to earn some money, and they were residents of the nearby villages.”
“During the first Lebanon War, I wanted to contribute as much as possible and joined the Golani Brigade, an infantry combat brigade. I went to the paramedic course and was a company medic. I fought and treated the casualties on both sides. I went to an officers course and returned to Golani as a young officer. During the first Intifada I was a platoon commander in Gaza. I saw it with my own eyes, and did other things that I am ashamed of today.
“I decided to stay in the army because I had an educational vision – I wanted to influence from within, so that things would be done humanely.
"By the end of my service, I was a company commander and commanded 110 soldiers, in Lebanon, in the Occupied Territories and in Gaza. During the Second Lebanon War I was already a deputy battalion commander and later a lieutenant colonel. I commanded 700 soldiers. I finished my role as a battalion commander and moved on to serve as a therapist.
But it was the 2014 war in Gaza, Operation Protective Edge, that really shocked him. “I saw up close the suffering of the soldiers and the Palestinians. I re-discovered what I had known long ago: the eyes and gaze of the trauma victims are the same eyes and gaze on both sides.”
Tuly said he left Gaza with three resolutions: “I refused to go in [the occupied territories] with a uniform ever again; I would take care of myself, treating so many soldiers in so many battles takes a toll; I would look for a movement that would allow me to do something right, to fix things that I think are wrong, and to meet the people.”
After joining Combatants for Peace in 2014, Tuly said “working with Palestinian fighters is healing my heart. For me, the movement is a bridge between being a fighter and being a man of equality and peace.”
His old friends in the Golani Brigade still speak to him, but in private. “Now we are working on a third narrative: making religion a solution not a problem, beyond Jewish and Muslim.”
When both presentations were over, Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins, chef rabbi of Emanuel Synagogue, asked both men for the CfP position on peace, and BDS.
Sulaiman: “Our struggle is to liberate people on both sides, jointly and non-violently. The mainstream on both sides are not happy with that. We believe in coalition-building. But people find it hard to break the taboos and red lines of both sides and come together.”
One of these, he added was the politics of legitimacy. “Palestinians have the power of legitimising the Jewish state – I know this is controversial."
Tuly: “We try to change people’s hearts. We want people to know that there are people on the other side who want to meet them. My daughter has never met a Palestinian.”
The session provoked some intense chat and debate among the audience members, which Sulaiman said was to be expected. “It’s normal, for people whose cause is close to their heart. No one has the perfect formula to make everyone happy, and that is not our goal anyway.”
