Ezra Nawi
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Ezra Yitzhak Nawi (; 1951 – 9 January 2021) was an Israeli Jew, left-wing,
human rights Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...
activist and pacifist. He was particularly active among the
Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu ( ; , singular ) are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Bedouin originated in the Sy ...
herders and farmers of the South Hebron Hills and against the establishment of
Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...
s there, in what
Uri Avnery Uri Avnery (, also transliterated Uri Avneri; 10 September 1923 – 20 August 2018) was a German-born Israeli writer, journalist, politician, and activist, who founded the Gush Shalom peace movement. A member of the Irgun as a teenager and a vet ...
described as a protracted effort by settlers to cleanse the area of Arab villagers, in the prevention of which he played a key role. He was described as a "
Ta'ayush Ta'ayush is a grassroots movement engaging since 2000 in non-violent collective action and civil disobedience in Palestine/Israel. Ta'ayush (, ; lit. "coexistence" or "life in common") is a grassroots volunteer movement established in the fall of ...
''nudnik'' (nuisance)", and "a working-class, liberal gay version of
Joe the Plumber Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher ( ; December 3, 1973 – August 27, 2023), commonly known as "Joe the Plumber", was an American conservative activist and commentator. He gained national attention during the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign season wh ...
". He was regarded by some as an extreme leftist activist and troublemaker. He was charged with numerous infractions of the law, with convictions ranging from
statutory rape In common law jurisdictions, statutory rape is nonforcible sexual activity in which one of the individuals is below the age of consent (the age required to legally consent to the behaviour). Although it usually refers to adults engaging in sex ...
, illegal use of a weapon and possession of drugs to assaulting two policemen, In addition, he also served several short stints in prison as a consequence of his activism. Defenders claimed that many of the prosecutions were politically motivated. David Shulman regarded him as a major obstacle to the theft of Palestinian land, and considered him an Israeli exponent of
Gandhian The followers of Mahatma Gandhi,one of the prominent figure of the Indian independence movement, are called Gandhians. Gandhi's legacy includes a wide range of ideas ranging from his dream of ideal India (or ''Rama Rajya)'', economics, environ ...
civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active and professed refusal of a citizenship, citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders, or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be cal ...
. Nawi once said that he would strike back when attacked. He came to international attention after being convicted in 2007 of participating in a riot and assaulting two police officers in connection with the demolition of Bedouin homes in the
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
by Israeli border policemen. His trial and imprisonment spurred a worldwide protest against his treatment that elicited 20,000 signatures. In 2008, Nissim Mossek produced a film on his life, private and public, which had mixed reviews. In 2015, an undercover pro-settler group taped him bragging that he had identified Palestinian land brokers willing to sell land to Israeli or Jewish brokers to the PA security services. Under Palestinian law, such sales are a capital offence, and Nawi claimed they would be tortured and killed. The case triggered a political backlash in Israel and there were calls for England and France to stop foreign funding of two Israeli civil rights NGOs, Ta'ayush and B'Tselem, whose members were involved in the incident. Nawi and two others were arrested, and then released and banned from the West Bank for two weeks.


Biography

Ezra Nawi was born in
Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
, one of five siblings, to a Mizrahi Jewish Iraqi family originally from
Basra Basra () is a port city in Iraq, southern Iraq. It is the capital of the eponymous Basra Governorate, as well as the List of largest cities of Iraq, third largest city in Iraq overall, behind Baghdad and Mosul. Located near the Iran–Iraq bor ...
, which had made
aliyah ''Aliyah'' (, ; ''ʿălīyyā'', ) is the immigration of Jews from Jewish diaspora, the diaspora to, historically, the geographical Land of Israel or the Palestine (region), Palestine region, which is today chiefly represented by the Israel ...
from
Kurdistan Kurdistan (, ; ), or Greater Kurdistan, is a roughly defined geo- cultural region in West Asia wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, languages, and national identity have historically been based. G ...
shortly before his birth. His mother gave birth to him when she was 14 years old. He was raised by a grandmother who spoke to him in
Iraqi Arabic Mesopotamian Arabic (), also known as Iraqi Arabic or the Iraqi dialect (), or just as Iraqi (), is a group of varieties of Arabic spoken in the Mesopotamian basin of Iraq, as well as in Syria, southeastern Turkey, Iran, Kuwait and Iraqi diaspor ...
, an accent he still retained. When Nawi was a teenager, they lived next door to Reuven Kaminer, a leading figure in Israel's Communist Party, and Kaminer, he has reminisced, influenced his activism. As a conscript in the IDF, he served in a combat engineering unit. After the 1973
Yom Kippur War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was fought from 6 to 25 October 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states led by Egypt and S ...
, where his duties included laying mines along the
Suez Canal The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...
, he went abroad, travelling widely in the US and Europe, spending some time in both the UK and Ireland. Nawi worked as a plumber. He was openly gay. He developed an interest in human rights, which he said comes from his experience of "belonging to a despised minority", after meeting Irish University lecturer David Norris and forming a relationship with him in
Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
when they met at Christmas in 1975. Nawi insisted on going home with Norris after meeting him at a party – it was mutual love at first sight – and Norris found his sterile home, replete with every modern commodity but where only eggs and tea were the staple, suddenly transformed as Nawi's spicy Middle Eastern cooking suffused his
Edwardian In the United Kingdom, the Edwardian era was a period in the early 20th century that spanned the reign of King Edward VII from 1901 to 1910. It is commonly extended to the start of the First World War in 1914, during the early reign of King Ge ...
home. Nawi mulled the idea of emigrating to Ireland; Norris helped him buy a home in
Ramot Ramot (, ''lit.'' Heights), also known as Ramot Alon (), is an Israeli settlement and neighborhood in East Jerusalem. Ramot was founded in 1974 as one of Jerusalem's so-called " Ring settlements", considered illegal under international law. In ...
. Their partnership, predominantly a mariage blanc since the physical side ended after three years, lasted 10 years, and ultimately broke up after Nawi refused to commit, having in the meantime fallen in love with an Israeli athlete, with whom he lived for a decade. The three remained on the best of terms. Nawi suffered his first stroke shortly after the release of an Uvda broadcast, Close friends attributed it to the severe harassment he had experienced. He suffered a further stroke in the summer of 2020, and during his hospitalization doctors discovered he had a brain tumour. He had recurrent minor strokes later that year, in autumn. He died on 9 January 2021 in Jerusalem at the age of 69. Shortly before his death, he remarked to his friend David Shulman, "I did something good with my life," and to Amira Hass that, "I could have done much more."


Political activism

His interest in human rights developed over several years while he shared his home in Jerusalem with a West Bank Palestinian, Fuad Mussa, who feared an
honour killing An honor killing (American English), ''honour killing'' (Commonwealth English), or ''shame killing'' is a type of murder in which a person, usually a woman or girl, is killed by or at the behest of male members of their family or their male ...
because of his homosexuality. Nawi was convicted on charges of allowing his partner to live illegally with him in Israel. The difficulties they encountered acquainted him with the hardships of Arab life, and, he said, this was a turning point that led him to embrace an activist role in the West Bank in the 1980s. Friends and clients of Nawi's raised £30,000 to bail out his companion when Fuad was arrested after restrictions tightened during the
Second Intifada The Second Intifada (; ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its Israeli-occupied territories, occupation from 2000. Starting as a civilian uprising in Jerusalem and October 2000 prot ...
. An appeal was made to the President of Israel,
Moshe Katsav Moshe Katsav (; born Musa Qassab; 5 December 1945) is an Israeli former politician and was the president of Israel from 2000 to 2007. He was also a leading Likud member of the Israeli Knesset and a minister in its Cabinet of Israel, cabinet. He ...
, for his release, and an ex-gratia permit was eventually given to them to allow the couple to reside together in Jerusalem. By then, however, the relationship had broken up. Nawi had in the meantime joined the Jewish-Arab human rights organization
Ta'ayush Ta'ayush is a grassroots movement engaging since 2000 in non-violent collective action and civil disobedience in Palestine/Israel. Ta'ayush (, ; lit. "coexistence" or "life in common") is a grassroots volunteer movement established in the fall of ...
, where his fluency in both
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
and
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
allowed him to serve as a liaison between local Palestinians in the Hebron area and Israeli activists. According to
Amiel Vardi Amiel Vardi () is an Israeli classical scholar, an authority on Latin literature, and an activist on behalf of Palestinian people, Palestinian rights. A Jerusalem, native-born Jerusalemite, he teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and live ...
, a
classics Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...
scholar of
Hebrew University The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. It is the second-ol ...
and co-founder of Ta'ayush, he had an instinctive sense of relations with Palestinians which other activists, many of them Jewish intellectuals, lack. He used surplus earnings from his plumbing trade to subsidize his activities, and was reputed to charge exorbitantly for his services in order to earn enough money to donate to the fallāḥīn. According to
Ian Buruma Ian Buruma (born 28 December 1951) is a Dutch writer and editor who lives and works in the United States. In 2017, he became editor of ''The New York Review of Books'', but left the position in September 2018. Much of his writing has focused on t ...
, his activism is more practical than political. Nawi himself said of his work, "(T)his is not about ideology. It is about decency". According to Max Blumenthal, he is widely revered by young activists as a guide and mentor in the West Bank. Nawi, one of several Israeli activists in the South Hebron hills but according to David Shulman, the "real hero" of the area, is said to have adopted the distinctive cave-dwelling
Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu ( ; , singular ) are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Bedouin originated in the Sy ...
resident in this zone, Eighty to a hundred members of these families, of the Bedouin al-Hathalin clan,
refugees A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...
from
Tel Arad Tel Arad () or Tell 'Arad () is an archaeological site consisting of a lower section and a Tell (archaeology), tell or mound, located west of the Dead Sea, about west of the Israeli city of Arad, Israel, Arad in an area surrounded by mountain r ...
in the aftermath of the
1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...
, dwell at Umm al-Khair, a village south of
Hebron Hebron (; , or ; , ) is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Hebron is capital of the Hebron Governorate, the largest Governorates of Palestine, governorate in the West Bank. With a population of 201,063 in ...
, 30 metres from the Israeli settlement of Carmel, Har Hebron. This is one of the many khirbehs of that area. They eke out a rough livelihood pasturing their goats and sheep on rocky land purchased from its Palestinian owners in the early 1950s. They are hardscrabble farmers of desolate hills where, according to Nawi, "nobody else would even try to grow anything," but where these Bedouin are often prevented from working the land. His attachment to these people and their biblical way of life flowed, he said, from his first encounter with them. He thought their distinctive lifestyle was subject to an "existential danger" in the way their fields were burned, their grazing stock poisoned, their wells poisoned, or demolished, their aged beaten and their land expropriated. He has been assaulted by settlers while helping Palestinians harvest olives from their own olive groves. Some, fearing for their lives, would not return to their fields unless Nawi accompanied them. He slept overnight in their houses to deter IDF soldiers reportedly throwing rocks at dwellings after dark. He was active in many of their encampments from Bi'r al-'Id to Susia and Umm al-Kheir. His arrival on the scene when settlers attacked a Bedouin family near Twamin and stole 450 head of their sheep livestock, was sufficient, according to Rabbis for Human Rights, to cause the settlers to desist and retreat. Nawi and this small group of activists have been described as an "independent aid agency": "whatever cash went into their hands was immediately translated into solving the problems of the poorest of the land." For the last decade he has set up summer day camps for Bedouin children, brought in projectors to show them films, and taken them on trips to
Jericho Jericho ( ; , ) is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, and the capital of the Jericho Governorate. Jericho is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It had a population of 20,907 in 2017. F ...
where, for the first time in their life, they can have an opportunity to swim. He has introduced computer technology in these communities, installed solar panels and electricity-generating windmills with the assistance of an Israeli engineer from COMET:ME for a Palestinian refugee camp. He helped ambulances get through roadblocks and handed out cash to poor people. He has organized Ta'ayush activities which involve escorting children to school and protecting them from
settlers A settler or a colonist is a person who establishes or joins a permanent presence that is separate to existing communities. The entity that a settler establishes is a Human settlement, settlement. A settler is called a pioneer if they are among ...
. After a
Knesset The Knesset ( , ) is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Israel. The Knesset passes all laws, elects the President of Israel, president and Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister, approves the Cabinet of Israel, cabinet, and supe ...
committee grilled an IDF commander on the way children were being prevented from going to school, the IDF instituted armoured personnel carriers to accompany them. Such escorts however do not apply when summer camps are conducted, and, according to Nawi, a settler quipped that while the
Geneva Convention upright=1.15, The original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are international humanitarian laws consisting of four treaties and three additional protocols that establish international legal standards for humanitarian t ...
guaranteed children the right to a schooling, it says nothing about their right to summer camp. His role has drawn scorn from both the military authorities, who have detained him on numerous occasions, and from local settlers who have previously assaulted him, thrown rocks at his car at night, threatening to kill him when he intervened and who have been suspected by the police of intending to assassinate him. He has complained of multiple forms of harassment, from repeated fines for petty traffic incidents where enforcement is otherwise loose, to having his business audited and receiving a huge tax bill to, he suspected, having his phone monitored and being subject to vicious homophobic taunts. Some brand him ironically as "the saviour of the Arabs" whose concern for "unfortunate" Arabs extends to assisting them when they are "stealing" what settlers consider to be state lands in the southern Hebron hills and
Gush Etzion Gush Etzion (, ' Etzion Bloc) is a cluster of Israeli settlements located in the Judaean Mountains, directly south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the West Bank. The core group includes four Jewish agricultural villages that were founded in 1943 ...
. Nawi said he did not yield ground when settlers attack, claiming that, rather than running away as other Israeli volunteers do, he hit back. In a 2005 interview, he went on record as saying:-
The settlers have become used to seeing Israelis caving in and crumpling when they get beaten. I don't cave in. If anyone beats me, I strike him back. And I'm not exactly a pip-squeak.
The Israeli academic David Shulman states that Nawi is non-violent and recalled in sworn testimony an incident that took place in Susya in 2005, where Nawi was subject to one such assault:-
"I have been through many difficult moments with him—attacks by settlers, in particular—and I have never seen him respond to violence with violence. On one occasion in Susia, in 2005, settlers broke a wooden pole over his head, and he stood his ground without hitting back. I was right beside him, and I saw it. I have witnessed such instances many times. He is committed to nonviolent protest in every fiber of his being".
In opposing such settler actions, which he said "serve the state's interests," Nawi is on record as saying that, "I'm here to change reality.. The only Israelis these people know are settlers and soldiers. Through me they know a different Israeli", and stated his conviction that their acts "are destroying Israel. We (Israelis) have to live side by side with the Palestinians as good neighbours, not as conquerors". Mere presence can be, he maintained, a deterrence. In one particular episode in January 2003, captured by Shulman's eyewitness account in his book, ''Dark Hope'' (2007), armed settlers wearing skullcaps and
tzitzit ''Tzitzit'' ( ''ṣīṣīṯ'', ; plural ''ṣīṣiyyōṯ'', Ashkenazi Hebrew, Ashkenazi: '; and Samaritan Hebrew, Samaritan: ') are specially knotted ritual Fringe (trim), fringes, or tassels, worn in antiquity by Israelites and today by o ...
fringes, and hailing from a daughter settlement of Ma'on called Ma'on farm (''Havat Ma'on''), charged down on Twaneh peasants sowing their traditional fields while Nawi was present. As shots were fired their way and stones rained down on the sowers, Shulman got the impression Nawi seemed to relish the moment, as he rallied those about him with the cry, "Don't be afraid. Stand your ground". Joseph Dana expresses a similar view. In an incident at the village of Safa, in the face of tear-gas and live ammunition, Nawi's reaction to Dana's anxiety was to smile, slap him on the back and quip: "quite an adventure you are experiencing!" His approach, Dana concluded, cuts the tension in the air. Shulman has recently argued that he was one of three exponents of Gandhi's principle of
satyagraha Satyāgraha (from ; ''satya'': "truth", ''āgraha'': "insistence" or "holding firmly to"), or "holding firmly to truth",' or "truth force", is a particular form of nonviolent resistance or civil resistance. Someone who practises satyagraha is ...
in the West Bank, alongside Abdallah Abu Rahmah and Ali Abu Awwad, with the difference that Nawi was Jewish, and has probably, unlike the former two, never read a word of Gandhi's writings, but simply "reinvented Gandhian-style protest on his own.". Nawi's activism, according to Amira Hass, has brought him to the verge of bankruptcy.


Controversy

Nawi was convicted on a number of charges, including illegal use of a weapon and possession of drugs—he freely admitted to smoking
hash Hash, hashes, hash mark, or hashing may refer to: Substances * Hash (food), a coarse mixture of ingredients, often based on minced meat * Hash (stew), a pork and onion-based gravy found in South Carolina * Hash, a nickname for hashish, a canna ...
—for private use.


Statutory rape conviction

In 1995, Nawi was convicted of
statutory rape In common law jurisdictions, statutory rape is nonforcible sexual activity in which one of the individuals is below the age of consent (the age required to legally consent to the behaviour). Although it usually refers to adults engaging in sex ...
of a 15-year-old Palestinian boy, after their relationship had been reported to Israeli police by the boy's parents in 1992. The legal age for such relationships is 16 in Israeli law. The statutory rape case was appealed twice. The prosecution's case was difficult due to the length of time between the offense and the appeal process, and since the victim, one year under the legal
age of consent The age of consent is the age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to Human sexual activity, sexual acts. Consequently, an adult who engages in sexual activity with a person younger than the age of consent is un ...
, was reluctant to testify against Nawi. After 5 years, the High Court upheld the conviction upon final appeal. It found the relationship had been consensual, sentencing him to six months based on a
plea bargain A plea bargain, also known as a plea agreement or plea deal, is a legal arrangement in criminal law where the defendant agrees to plead guilty or no contest to a charge in exchange for concessions from the prosecutor. These concessions can include a ...
, of which he served less than three. In 2011 it was revealed that David Norris, a former partner of Nawi and the frontrunner for the position of President of Ireland at the time, had written a letter in support of Nawi on an official
Seanad Éireann Seanad Éireann ( ; ; "Senate of Ireland") is the senate of the Oireachtas (the Irish legislature), which also comprises the President of Ireland and Dáil Éireann (defined as the house of representatives). It is commonly called the Seanad or ...
letterhead, and sent it to the Israeli High Court. In the letter, Norris claimed Nawi was tricked into a plea bargain and requested a noncustodial sentence. This revelation caused him to withdraw from the presidential race.


2004 arrest and trial

He has been charged for infractions in the West Bank several times. In the first half of 2004, the Israeli prosecution filed three suits against him. The first concerned an incident that occurred after he accompanied a convoy to a harvest at Twaneh, where he was joined by Israeli novelists
Meir Shalev Meir Shalev (; 29 July 1948 – 11 April 2023) was an Israeli writer and newspaper columnist for the daily Yedioth Ahronoth. Shalev's books have been translated into 26 languages. Biography Shalev was born in Nahalal, Israel. Later he lived ...
and
David Grossman David Grossman (; born January 25, 1954) is an Israeli author. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages. In 2018, he was awarded the Israel Prize for literature. Biography David Grossman was born in Jerusalem. He is the eld ...
and anchorman
Haim Yavin Haim Yavin (; born September 10, 1932) is an Israeli television anchor and documentary filmmaker. He was one of Israel's leading news presenters, associated with the job for so many decades that he was known as "Mr. Television." Biography Heinz ...
. Nawi rushed to put himself between the settlers and the harvesting fellahin to protect the latter, and a settler filed a complaint to police accusing Nawi of attacking him. In addition he was caught entering Area A, forbidden to Israelis, while bringing a consignment of clothes to people in Yatta. He was also arrested for giving a ride back into the West Bank to a Palestinian who had been residing without a permit in Israel; and he was indicted once on suspicion he had hindered a settler from filming him as he helped the Palestinians. In the last instance, his lawyer questioned the plaintiff regarding the fact he had filmed the event on
Sabbath In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, Ten Commandments, commanded by God to be kept as a Holid ...
, whereupon the settler replied that he had a rabbinical ruling on
halakha ''Halakha'' ( ; , ), also Romanization of Hebrew, transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Judaism, Jewish religious laws that are derived from the Torah, Written and Oral Torah. ''Halakha'' is ...
or Jewish law, which determined that Sabbath may be desecrated if the aim is to stop a
goy In modern Hebrew and Yiddish, (; , pl: , or ) is a term for a gentile, a non-Jew. Through Yiddish, the word has been adopted into English (pl: goyim or goys) also to mean "gentile", sometimes in a pejorative sense. The Biblical Hebrew word ...
from stealing hay and straw, as were the Palestinians in the area, which belonged to the settlers. Nawi was convicted by the Magistrate's court and sentenced to probation and a fine of NIS 500. It emerged that the halakhic judgement had been written by the plaintiff's father a day before the trial. On appeal, the conviction was overturned by a District Court when his lawyer Lea Tsemel showed that the land concerned was owned by Palestinians.


2007 arrest and trial

On 14 February 2007, Nawi went to assist
Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...
families whose homes, several tin and canvas shanties, were about to be razed as illegal structures. According to Shulman, these Palestinians at Um al-Kheir, which lies a few meters from rows of red-roofed settler villas at Carmel, require building permits for any house construction or extensions to their tents or shacks and such permits are almost impossible to obtain since on average, in the
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
area administered by Israel,
Area C Area C (; ) is the fully Israeli-controlled territory in the West Bank, defined as the whole area outside the Palestinian enclaves (Areas A and B). Area C constitutes about 61 percent of the West Bank territory, containing most Israeli settle ...
, only one is released per month by the
Israeli Civil Administration The Civil Administration (, '; ) is the Israeli governing body that operates in the West Bank. It was established by the government of Israel in 1981, in order to carry out practical bureaucratic functions within the Israeli Military Governorate ...
for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian residents there. Palestinians with their large families regularly build without permits, and the occupation authorities regularly issue demolition orders, of which some 20 are carried out each month. Nawi considered such administrative actions "acts of war" since these Bedouin families lived in the area before the state of Israel came into existence. On that day, Nawi became involved in a clash with border police who had been sent to protect the bulldozers. Nawi threw himself before the bulldozers, and had to be dragged from their path to allow the demolition order to be executed. Though much of the incident was captured on video, the police testified later that, after they caught up with him inside a half-demolished shack, he raised his hands against them and resisted arrest in some 8 to 20 seconds not caught on video. According to
Ben-Gurion university Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) (, ''Universitat Ben-Guriyon baNegev'') is a public research university in Beersheba, Israel. Named after Israeli national founder David Ben-Gurion, the university was founded in 1969 and currently has f ...
professor
Neve Gordon Neve Gordon (; born 1965) is an Israeli professor and fellow of the British Academy of Social Sciences. He is a professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of LondonShany Littman: / After Losing Hope for Change, T ...
, in the video Nawi is seen disarming a Palestinian woman of a rock she had picked up some minutes before the alleged assault. He was arrested, handcuffed and charged, although the assault later alleged was not included in the original police statements. The videotape shows that, handcuffed on a police truck, and taunted by the police for assisting Arabs, Nawi told them: "I was also a soldier, but I did not demolish houses,.. The only thing that will be left here is hatred". At his trial, judge Eilata Ziskind determined on March 19, on the basis of testimony from the two police officers, that he was guilty as charged: that he had pushed the two policemen, incited people, behaved in an unruly manner and interrupted police in the performance of their duties. The decision led to a public outcry, with some 140,000 letters, according to Nawi, being sent to Israeli officials. Television footage filming the clash had been broadcast on Israel's Channel 1. According to Neve Gordon, the verdict was made notwithstanding "the very clear evidence" captured on film. Arik Ascherman, Executive Director of Rabbis for Human Rights, enjoined people to rally with him before a
Court of Appeal An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to Hearing (law), hear a Legal case, case upon appeal from a trial court or other ...
. Sentencing, in which he was expected to serve up to two years in jail, was originally scheduled for 1 July 2009 but subsequently postponed to 21 September 2009, after the judge had been presented with a petition organized in an international campaign conducted over the internet. In August 2009, in a preliminary hearing on sentencing the court heard several witnesses, such as Shulman and Galit Hasan-Rokem, testifying on Nawi's behalf. Aside from these academics, the former Deputy Attorney General of Israel, Yehudit Karp, speaking as a
character witness Character evidence is a term used in the law of evidence to describe any testimony or document submitted for the purpose of proving that a person acted in a particular way on a particular occasion based on the character or disposition of that per ...
and as a former head of a committee that had examined law and order issues in the
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
, wrote that the situation there was strongly distorted in favour of the settlers, and that this justified the way Nawi, whom she called a modern-day
Robin Hood Robin Hood is a legendary noble outlaw, heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature, theatre, and cinema. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions o ...
, behaved in conditions she considered "surreal". She took the trial as the start of a dangerous process in that root problems are not addressed, and injustices wrought on Palestinians are not met by appropriate application of relevant laws. According to Nawi, the judge instructed the court to find an interpreter to translate the sentence for Nawi's benefit, as if he, a Mizrahi Jew fluent in Hebrew, were actually a Palestinian Arab. In his own defence, given in an article in ''
The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...
'' at the time, Nawi spoke of his eight years of activism in the area, and asked rhetorically: "was I the one who poisoned and destroyed Palestinian water wells? Was I the one who beat young Palestinian children? Did I hit the elderly? Did I poison the Palestinian residents' sheep? Did I demolish homes and destroy tractors? Did I block roads and restrict movement? Was I the one who prevented people from connecting their homes to running water and electricity? Did I forbid Palestinians from building homes?" He called relations between the military, civil administration, the judicial system, the police, and the Jewish settlers, whom he regarded as the commanders, an " unholy alliance" where the end of securing full control of the
Land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definition ...
justified any means. The Palestinians were dehumanized so that everything was permissible: land-theft, home-demolition, stealing water, arbitrary imprisonment, and on occasion murder. "In Hebrew," he added, "we say ''damam mutar'', taking their blood is permissible". Elsewhere he is on record as arguing that the function of the violence is to "scare the Palestinians into not moving around or using their land for farming and agriculture." and that most settlers are motivated by religious ideas one cannot argue with, and that Arabs must leave. "They want Palestine." Nawi's case elicited the attention of several prominent international figures, including
Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...
,
Naomi Klein Naomi Klein (born May 8, 1970) is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses; support of ecofeminism, organized labour, and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism and Criticism of capitalism, ca ...
, and Neve Gordon, who organized a campaign to protest against his imprisonment, calling him "one of Israel's most courageous human rights activists", and his arrest, conviction and pending imprisonment "politically motivated". Additionally, Yehudit Karp petitioned the court asking for clemency on the basis that the state had failed in its obligations to enforce the law against Israeli settlers in the Palestinian territories and that Nawi's actions against the settlers should be seen in that context. The group
Jewish Voice for Peace Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP; ) is an American Jewish anti-Zionist and left-wing advocacy organization. It is critical of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, and supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign ag ...
presented the court with a petition signed by 20,000 people requesting clemency for Nawi. On September 21, the Jerusalem Magistrates' Court sentenced him to a term of one month in prison, and fined him NIS 750 ($202), ordering him to pay an additional NIS 500 ($135) to each officer he was found guilty of assaulting. Judge Ziskind, in her ruling, wrote that "even if there is a supreme goal, it cannot be used as an excuse to commit offenses", and that,
"Freedom of expression is not the freedom to incite and take actions that prevent or disrupt police work …Freedom of expression does not allow for riots, incitement or violence. Democracy cannot allow this, for if the law enforcement system collapses, anarchy will reign and democracy and freedom of expression will be no more...The fact that a person is acting in the name of one ideology or another, as justified as it may be, is no excuse to commit offenses in the name of that ideology, and in this matter there is no difference between left-wing activists, right-wing activists, religious, seculars, or other groups in conflict".
He was also put on three years probation, during which, if he insulted an officer, disturbed public order, or participated in an illegal protest, he would immediately suffer a further six months imprisonment. The Yesha Human Rights Organization, representing the Yesha or settlers' perspective, criticized the brevity of the one-month sentence, asserting that,
"One month in jail is like mocking the poor and emphasizes the selectivity of the law enforcement system in Judea and Samaria. (The system) allows Nawi to run wild, cooperate with
Hamas The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...
members and hurt settlers, and remembers to enforce the law only when he hurts policemen".
Incarcerated on Sunday, 23 May 2010, he served out his sentence at Dekel Prison, Emek Sarah,
Beer-Sheva Beersheba ( / ; ), officially Be'er-Sheva, is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the centre of the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in Israel, the eighth-most po ...
. Subsequent to this trial, ''
Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...
'' revealed that the prosecution had used as part of the evidence for its case Nawi's prior conviction for statutory rape. The story resurfaced once more in 2011 when the Zionist and blogger John Connolly revealed that the Irish senator and presidential candidate David Norris, a former lover of Nawi's, had written a letter to the Israeli court requesting clemency for Nawi at the time.


2012 offensive language case

On 10 June 2012, Nawi was convicted of "offending public servants" by the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court, with Judge Cjana Lomp presiding, after it was alleged that he had called a deputy battalion commander of the IDF a "war criminal" during a clash at Susya in July 2009, when he and other activists tried to prevent Jewish settlers from establishing an outpost called ''Givat HaDegel'' (Flag Hill, alternatively ''Chisdi Hashem'' The Grace of God), and thereby depriving Palestinians of their land.


2013 traffic case

Following an incident with a military jeep in the South Hebron hills in March 2013, Nawi was charged with crossing a solid white line while overtaking. He was acquitted of the charge by Judge Miriam Kaslassy who stated in her ruling that "It's clear as day that we're not talking about random enforcement of a traffic violation", and that the police had made Nawi commit the offence. Nawi subsequently sued the state, and was awarded 45,000 shekels compensation. The Ministry of Justice stated that the policeman and the army officer involved in the incident would be prosecuted for entrapment.


2014 traffic case

In April 2014, Nawi, together with Guy Butavia, was stopped by police, while driving out from Jerusalem towards the South Hebron hills. The police stated that Butavia was not wearing a safety belt, that Nawi's license was not in order, and that they suspected the two of trying to hide something. A tobacco pouch was seized, on the suspicion it contained drugs. The two were detained for 8 hours at a police station, and released under house arrest for three days. The day after, the order was cancelled. Despite several allegations made by the police, the case was dropped. Both Nawi and Butavia sued the police for harassment, claiming $28,125 in compensation. They further claimed the incident was directed at them for being human rights activists, and that video taken at the time contradicts evidence presented by the police. In June 2019, the Jerusalem Magistrates Court found in favour of Nawi and Butavia, and ordered the police to pay them 7500 shekels in damages and compensation.


''Uvda'' investigation

In January 2016, hidden camera recordings of Nawi were broadcast by Ilana Dayan as part of the Uvda ("Fact") investigative series on Israel's Channel 2. The report revealed Nawi bragging he had passed on to the
Palestinian National Security Forces The Palestinian National Security Forces (NSF; ) are the paramilitary security forces of the Palestinian National Authority. The name may either refer to all National Security Forces, including some special services but not including the Inter ...
the names of Palestinian land
broker A broker is a person or entity that arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller. This may be done for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither ...
s willing to sell land to Jews. In the recording, Nawi relates how Palestinian property dealers mistook him for a Jew looking to purchase land, and says, "Straight away I give their pictures and phone numbers to the Preventive Security Force. The Palestinian Authority catches them and kills them. But before it kills them, they get beat up a lot." No reports have confirmed that Nawi's actions brought about the execution of any Palestinians, a practice which, according to
Amira Hass Amira Hass (; born 28 June 1956) is an Israeli journalist and author, mostly known for her columns in the daily newspaper ''Haaretz'' covering Palestinian affairs in Gaza and the West Bank, where she has lived for almost thirty years. Biogra ...
, the PA has long abandoned.
Mahmoud Abbas Mahmoud Abbas (; born 15 November 1935), also known by the Kunya (Arabic), kunya Abu Mazen (, ), is a Palestinian politician who has been serving as the second president of Palestine and the President of the Palestinian National Authority, P ...
said that the PA does not execute land vendors, but sentences them to hard labour. Several unsolved murders in recent years have, however, been regarded as related to such sales. Itzik Goldway, a reserve sergeant in the IDF and decorated veteran of
Operation Protective Edge The 2014 Gaza War, also known as Operation Protective Edge (, ), and Battle of the Withered Grain (), was a military operation launched by Israel on 8 July 2014 in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory that has been governed by Hamas since ...
, together with his girlfriend, Julia T., are right-wing activists from the '' Ad Kan'' ("(I've had it) Up to Here") NGO, an organization whose existence was unknown until the ''Uvda'' programme was broadcast. They succeeded in befriending Nawi by infiltrating
Ta'ayush Ta'ayush is a grassroots movement engaging since 2000 in non-violent collective action and civil disobedience in Palestine/Israel. Ta'ayush (, ; lit. "coexistence" or "life in common") is a grassroots volunteer movement established in the fall of ...
. With Nawi, they observed attacks on Palestinians by Jewish settlers. They then made the tapes which Ad Kan passed on to ''Uvda''. The quality of the video as an accurate piece of reportage has been questioned. Nasser Nawaja, a Palestinian resident of Susya who has spent a lifetime defending his village from the threat of expulsion and field researcher for the Israeli human rights NGO B'Tselem, was also present in one of the putative operations, in which the land broker purportedly tried to sell Nawi, an Israeli, land which belongs to Nawaja's own family. Nawi said that he "feels like crap" for fingering these agents by deceptive means. Nawi reacted to the report's claim that he used measures of entrapment by stating that
The opposite is true. He came to me and presented himself as a land broker. Since I assumed he was sent to frame me and tarnish my name in the Palestinian community, I had no choice but to report the incident to the Palestinian Authority, lest I be deemed a land buyer. I regret that the report is part of the effort to sabotage my activities, and the activities of my friends alongside the Palestinians.
The Palestinian penal code, adopting a principle from the previous Jordanian legal system, imposes a sentence of
capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...
for anyone convicted of the sale of land to Israelis, or, according to other sources, to Jews. The law, defended by Palestinian officials as designed to prevent takeovers by settlers, has never been officially implemented. Ad Kan, the day after the programme was telecast, filed a complaint with the Israeli police against Nawi and two other Ta'ayush activists, and against B'Tselem's Nasser Nawaja. On 11 January 2016, Nawi was arrested at
Ben Gurion airport Ben Gurion International Airport , commonly known by the Hebrew language, Hebrew-language acronym (), is the main international airport of Israel. Situated on outskirts north of the city of Lod and directly south of the city of Or Yehuda, i ...
, after purchasing a flight ticket, on the suspicion of being an accessory to manslaughter, of conspiring in attempted murder, of contacting a foreign agent, of transporting an individual in Israel without a permit, and of using drugs. Subsequently, both Nasser Nawaja and a third activist Guy Butavia were arrested, denied a lawyer, with a gag order being placed on their cases as well. Butavia was released on 21 January, and Nawi remanded until 24 January. The immediate release of Nawaja was ordered by a judge, for what his lawyer called a "false arrest", since Israel had no jurisdiction in the matter. The police transferred him to Ofer prison, in what B'Tselem called a contempt of the court ruling. On 24 January a judge ordered Nawi's release to house arrest, and criticized the prosecution for failing to clarify the allegation that he was involved in the death of a Palestinian selling land. Nawi had tipped off relatives of a certain Abu Khalil that the latter was considering a land swap with an Israeli, Yonathan. His relatives would have been harmed by the sale. Some time afterwards, Abu Khalil died. The police failed to provide evidence on the cause of death. An appeal by the police against the lower court decision ordering his release was rejected on 25 January by the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court. According to his lawyer, Eitan Peleg, the police failed to determine whether the putative victim was dead or not. On 28 January, Judge David Shaul Gabai Richter nullified the cause for the arrest of both Butavia and Nawi, stating there was nothing in the evidence to substantiate the police's central allegation. He rejected a police appeal that Nawi be banned from the West Bank. He added that the case was part of a political controversy in which one side attacked the other. It was not the court's function, he concluded, to bother with politics. An appeal by police against the decision, which ruled that a ban infringed their freedom of occupation and expression, was heard on 31 January, and partially overturned Richter's ruling. The police requested that the two activists be barred from the West Bank for 2 months was partially accepted when judge Moshe Bar-Am ruled reasonable suspicions exist, and that they were to be denied entry to the West Bank for two weeks.


Responses

Both B'Tselem and Ta'ayush criticized the programme for basing their investigation almost wholly on materials passed onto them by people who infiltrated Nawi's group. Rabbis for Human Rights suspended their collaboration with Nawi until hearings could clarify the circumstances. Veterans for
Breaking the Silence Breaking the Silence may refer to: Films * ''Breaking the Silence'' (1992 film) a made-for-TV film directed by Robert Iscove * ''Breaking the Silence'' (film), a 2000 Chinese film * '' Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror'' ...
refused to reply to inquiries by Channel 2 stating: "We don't work for the
Stasi The Ministry for State Security (, ; abbreviated MfS), commonly known as the (, an abbreviation of ), was the Intelligence agency, state security service and secret police of East Germany from 1950 to 1990. It was one of the most repressive pol ...
and we don't reply to the Stasi inquiries. Whoever wants a Soviet bloc-style police state—good for them". Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin Netanyahu (born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who has served as the prime minister of Israel since 2022, having previously held the office from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime min ...
commented that the documentary had "unmasked radicals among us, whose hatred for settlements has pushed them over the edge to the point of delivering innocents for torture and execution. Those who encourage murder cannot continue to hide behind the hypocritical pretense of caring for human rights." Defense Minister
Moshe Ya'alon Moshe "Bogie" Ya'alon (; born Moshe Smilansky; 24 June 1950) is an Israeli politician and former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, who also served as Israel's Defense Minister under Benjamin Netanyahu from 2013 until his resignation ...
linked the incident to the
BDS movement Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is a nonviolent Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel. Its objective is to pressure Israel to meet what the BDS movement describes as Israel's o ...
and said so-called "peace groups" would even kill Palestinians in order to trash and tarnish Israel.
Naftali Bennett Naftali Bennett (, ; born 25 March 1972) is an Israeli politician and businessman who served as the prime minister of Israel from 13 June 2021 to 30 June 2022, and as the alternate prime minister from 1 July to 8 November 2022. Bennett was t ...
cited the case in an attack on the bona fides of the
New Israel Fund The New Israel Fund (NIF; ; ) is a United States–based NGO established in 1979. It describes its objective as social justice and equality for all Israelis. The New Israel Fund says it has provided $300 million to over 900 Israeli civil society ...
and the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
in funding Israeli human rights activists, and called on the British and French ambassadors to stop funding both Ta'ayush and B'Tselem. Yuval Diskin stated Nawi should be jailed quickly but cautioned that "the data shows that there is no basis for comparison between violence coming from the right and violence coming from the left." B'Tselem commented on its
Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
page that while opposed to tortures and executions, reporting Palestinians who intend to sell Israelis Palestinian land was "the only legitimate course of action." Attorney Leah Tsemel, who defends Palestinian rights, said the complaint would not be difficult to deal with. Gideon Levy criticized ''Uvdas presentation, writing that it systematically ignored the crimes of Israel's occupation of the West Bank, and noted that Nawi was being likened to the perpetrators of the Duma arson attack. Both Levy and
Amira Hass Amira Hass (; born 28 June 1956) is an Israeli journalist and author, mostly known for her columns in the daily newspaper ''Haaretz'' covering Palestinian affairs in Gaza and the West Bank, where she has lived for almost thirty years. Biogra ...
wrote that ''Uvda'' had failed its brief as an outlet for investigative journalism by lending its services uncritically to what Levy called a McCarthyist right-wing organization about which nothing is known (Levy) or passing on a "puff piece for a privatized, mini-Shin Bet" (Hass). They say that no background research on the sources or the contexts had been conducted. For David Shulman, Nawi's work is one of the main reasons why the civilian Palestinian population in the South Hebron hills still maintains a precarious purchase on fragments of their historic lands, and the entire episode, mounted by "moles" from a shadowy organization to discredit him has, he concludes, all the appearance of a sting operation to trap him and "legitimize the theft of Palestinian land."


Films about Nawi

Nawi's story has been recounted in two documentary films. In 2005, Canadian-Jewish filmmaker Elle Flanders made a documentary entitled ''Zero Degree of Separation'', which intertwined the story of her family in Jerusalem, for whom Ezra Nawi once worked as a gardener, with the lives of two gay couples, one of which was Nawi and his companion. In 2007, a further film about Nawi's life and work, "Citizen Nawi" (''HaEzrach Nawi'') directed by Nissim Mossek and produced by Sharon Schaveet, premiered at the
Jerusalem Film Festival The Jerusalem Film Festival (, ) is an international film festival held annually in Jerusalem, It was established in 1984 by the Director of the Jerusalem Cinematheque and Israeli Film Archive, Lia van Leer, Lia Van Leer, and has since become th ...
, where it won a special jury mention. The film documents the plight of the Bedouin, the difficulties of Israeli-Palestinian relations, and the hardships of being gay. Made over five years on a shoe-string budget, it was judged a somewhat messy docu by ''
Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' film critic Leslie Felperin, who thought its director "too in love with its subject to ask tough questions". Yet, he added, it managed "to expose both Israeli and Arab bigotry and has its heart in the right liberal place". Raya Morag sees the film as basically about deep-seated Israeli homophobia and racism. Dan DiLandro, reviewing for ''Educational Media Reviews,'' wrote that the film had a number of evident problems, technical and narrative, yet judged it "an important work that shed light on many of the area's conflicts and dynamics". Michael Fox, writing for '' J. The Jewish News of Northern California'', finds "Citizen Nawi" to be "a rough-hewn profile in courage that diligently tallies the cost of conscience", and writes of the "discomfiting power" of a "raw and occasionally wrenching film", which stirs a "certain
cognitive dissonance In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is described as a mental phenomenon in which people unknowingly hold fundamentally conflicting cognitions. Being confronted by situations that challenge this dissonance may ultimately result in some ...
" when one "sees Nawi threatened and insulted in the crudest terms by religious Jewish settlers and embraced as a trusted friend by a Palestinian family living in a tent". For Fox, as the film follows Nawi's travails with his lover, run-ins with the police, and battles with settlers, it suddenly jolts one out of the initial impression that Nawi's activism has liberal roots:-
"One just assumes that Nawi has always been a liberal, and that his treks to the West Bank reflect a longstanding empathy for the Palestinians. It comes as a shock when he remarks well into the film that he wasn't particularly aware of or concerned about their day-to-day hardships until he got involved with Fuad".
Nawi's instincts, Fox concludes, are those of the
humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanism" ha ...
, and the director Mossek's gutsiest move was to have made "a film that doesn't aim to inspire us with platitudes but instead tries to shock us with the hard business of building a road to peace". Nawi's example has also influenced the Israeli film-maker Ra'anan Alexandrowicz.


See also

*
List of peace activists This list of peace activists includes people who have proactively advocated Diplomacy, diplomatic, philosophical, and non-military resolution of major territorial or ideological disputes through nonviolent means and methods. Peace activists usua ...


Notes


Citations


Sources

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