When bonds overcame differences

SDEROT, ISRAEL // "We were brothers, best friends," said Arieh Cohen, in the southern Israeli town of Sderot. "They used to come and visit us, many times. And we'd go and visit them in Gaza, where we'd go to cafes and to the cinema together." Mr Cohen, now in his fifties, still remembers friendships with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip from more than 20 years ago. Back then, there was no sealed border separating Israel and the Palestinian enclave, so the two sides lived as neighbours and friends.

Today, the headline narrative of these two peoples has turned to one of animosity. Residents of Sderot overwhelmingly supported the recent three-week assault on Gaza, framed as a way of stopping the rockets that for years had been fired into the Israeli city from the Palestinian strip. A township of around 20,000, Sderot is an echo chamber of staunchly rightist, nationalist and militaristic viewpoints. But scratch the surface and a very different picture emerges.

"Of course I have things in common with people in Gaza," said Mr Cohen. "My family is from Morocco, so we lived an Arab life, spoke Arabic, heard Arabic music, everything." During the mid-1950s, around 200,000 Jews migrated to Israel from Morocco. Known as "Mizrahi" or "Oriental" Jews, these new arrivals were disproportionately sent to peripheral parts of the new Jewish state - at one point, Sderot's population was around 90 per cent Moroccan.

"You'd wonder around Sderot and all the cafes would be playing [the celebrity Arabic singers] Umm Kulthum and Farid al Atrash," Mr Cohen said. Disconnected from the Israeli centre, these Moroccan-origin communities were drawn to Gaza City, effectively their nearest large cultural centre, following the 1967 war in which Israel occupied both the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian West Bank. "I remember Gaza as a big Arab city with lots of people," said Sasson Sara, who last visited the strip during the late 1980s. "I would go there two or three times a week - it was fun and I always wanted to be there."

Mr Sara is from a family of Iraqi Jews who migrated to Israel during the 1950s. He believes it is this Middle Eastern background that enables strong relations with his neighbours in Gaza. "We could talk about everything; family, business, culture or food, everything in Arabic," he said. "There is chemistry between us, a click. We had personal friendships and those friends from Gaza would often come and visit us, staying until the early hours of the morning."

Mr Sara is no longer in regular contact with these friends, although he says he does still call each year to wish them a happy Eid. Like many in Sderot, he separates the years of violent attacks, starting with the first intifada of 1987, from their cause, the Palestinian demand for self-determination and an end to Israeli occupation. Firmly right-wing, Mr Sara supported the recent Israeli assault on the strip that killed around 1,300 Palestinians, injured more than 5,000 and left tens of thousands homeless. "If you are told that it's either your life or his, what would you do?" he said.

"Hamas and others fired rockets from there into Sderot and they could have killed me." Rockets fired from Gaza - typically crude projectiles with no guidance device - have killed 20 Israelis in eight years, although thousands more have been terrorised by the often daily barrages. While many in Sderot share Mr Sara's pro-military stance, others think differently. Some time before the war, the group Another Voice was formed by Sderot residents seeking to promote dialogue between the people of Israel and Gaza. Another Voice comprises Israelis of diverse backgrounds and ethnic origin who are united in the desire to break the monotone pro-war discourse within the Jewish state.

"I don't feel that the killing and destruction in Gaza is for me, it is not in my name," said Nomika Zion, one of the group members. "We have friends in Gaza and we try to talk with them every day. We begged [the Israeli prime minister Ehud] Olmert and [the Israeli defence minister Ehud] Barak to do everything to create a dialogue, because when you don't shoot you can achieve more. But in the end we had this brutal, brutal operation in Gaza."

At the onset of the Israeli attacks on Gaza, around 500 Sderot residents signed a petition asking the government to immediately halt the operation. Members of Another Voice maintained a vocal opposition throughout the Gaza war, despite constant attacks, harassment and threats from other Israelis. Members of the group also maintained a blog, titled Life Must Go On in Gaza and Sderot, penned by two friends - "Hope Man" in Gaza and "Peace Man" in Sderot [http://gaza-sderot.blogspot.com].

The internet provides a ready medium for the two peoples to communicate at a time when actual connection is impossible. Gaza has been under an Israel-imposed siege since the Hamas government violently ousted Fatah members from the strip and took control in June 2007. Most Gazans cannot get the permits allowing entry into the Jewish state. Israelis, meanwhile, have been prohibited from entering Gaza for many years and have been too fearful of entering the strip for much longer.

Gazasderot.com is a web project comprising regular, short film clips that focus on seven residents from each side of the impasse. "The screen is always split in two, showing clips from each side, Sderot and Gaza," said Robby al Maliach, 28, a filmmaker who directed the Sderot productions. "You can't ignore the other side because it is always there, on the other side of the screen." Directors were in contact throughout the two-month project, via e-mail. "It was really positive, we each liked the other's films," said Mr al Maliach.

"There was a sort of magic between us." The project ended as scheduled just a few days before the Gaza war began on Dec 27. Attempts to keep up the filmmaking during the three weeks of war failed because workers in Gaza could not function. Mr al Maliach, who is also from a Moroccan-Jewish home, believes the Mizrahi outlook is fundamental to ending hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians. "People in Gaza are just like people in Sderot, people who were forced to be at war," he said.

"Moroccans know Arab culture, a great, rich culture. We understand that the culture is based on respect and that we don't need fancy words to make peace." One of the characters featured in the web-film series, Yaffa Malka, 45, remembers the days before enmity. "As a teenager I would go regularly to Gaza with my uncle, who was known there as Abu Haim," she said. "I would wander around the shops on my own and I never felt afraid. And my uncle always had Gazans staying over with him, here in Sderot."

Mrs Malka, of Moroccan origin, also frames those former friendships in ethnic terms. "We speak an Arabic that is very similar to the Arabic in Gaza. And the way we run our lives and our families is more like the Arabic way - the big families, the children. It is very Arab, this connection. "I guess there are fanatics who won't allow coexistence to happen. "But we long for the neighbourliness of those good times."

* The National