In the first of our pieces leading up to Israel’s election on Tuesday, Gideon Levy returns to a 1997 photograph of Israeli and Palestinian lawmakers together – and to a political world that now seems almost unimaginable.
A photo from Spain in 1997 shows Israeli and Palestinian lawmakers together. It wasn’t from another planet
It’s a tattered photograph of a group of elegant men and women on the steps of a palace. In the centre is a tall man – today he is Spain’s King Felipe VI; at the time he was the heir presumptive, the Prince of Asturias. Around him, standing in rows, are 10 members of Israel’s Knesset and 10 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. The photo was taken at the end of a weeklong trip to Strasbourg, France and to Valencia, in Spain. This group picture is not only from another time, but from another planet. With Israel’s election impending, I remembered it, along with the reality that once existed here but will presumably never return.
Here is Marwan Barghouti behind Gaby Lasky; Qadura Fares, the Palestinian minister for detainee affairs, with Haim Ramon and Yehuda Harel behind him and Yitzhak Vaknin of Shas in front of him; Maxim Levy of Likud and David Tal, also of Shas, behind the Spanish prince; Hisham Abd al-Raziq, whose face and hands are scarred from the bomb that exploded while he was holding it, in front of Dedi Zucker; and Eitan Cabel on the far right.
The Israelis were from Labor, Likud, Shas, the Third Way and Meretz – nearly the entire political spectrum, minus the Arab parties. It was 1997, the year of the dream and peace.
“Evening was about to fall in Strasbourg, and we were about to return the hotel by taxi. Only two people chose to walk. One took a map of the city from a pocket of his very Israeli windbreaker. The other held a map in his burnt hands and together they began to walk, crossing the bridge and drawing farther away, until they became two images in the dark. From afar, they appeared to be deep in conversation. The darkness concealed the burn scars on the face of Abd al-Raziq, a PLC member from Gaza. His companion on the walk was Harel, a settler from the Golan Heights and an MK for the Third Way, a partner in the Likud-led governing coalition. Their walk didn’t spark any special interest among their colleagues,” I wrote (Haaretz Hebrew, 28 February, 1997).
That’s how we were: beautiful, enlightened, humane, moderate and, above all, so normal. The most powerful memory I have from that wonderful trip is the memory of normalcy. Maxim Levy talking about the great price he paid for excellent briefs at a department store, Ramon buying Hugo Boss at a bargain and showing his purchase to Palestinians, who wanted their own. No one thought there was anything exciting about an evening stroll in Strasbourg by a former terrorist from Gaza and a settler from the Golan.
We calculated around 100 years of imprisonment and exile combined for the Palestinians. Abd al-Raziq alone had 21, and Ramon tried in vain to get him to explain how he got through all those years. There wasn’t even a moment of tension, hatred or desire for vengeance. We didn’t even notice that these feelings had disappeared from our conversation. It was an organised tour of classical Europe by a group of middle-aged people, most of them new acquaintances. As in nearly every organised tour, the members gradually formed a group, without a smidgen of difference due to religion, race or sex. And, even more astonishing, without them even noticing it.
Together, we nearly died laughing when Maxim Levy bowed to the palace guard, in his gold-embellished uniform, thinking he was the prince. Together, we shrugged when an usher at the European Parliament asked one of the MKs where we were from and he replied, completely naturally, “Israel and Palestine.”
When Ramon said “Shabbat Shalom” on Friday even, Barghouti corrected him: “Shabbat hasn’t yet begun.” Peals of laughter arose one evening from the two Shas MKs’ conversation with Dalal Salameh, a PLC member from the West Bank refugee camp of Balata, who wore a white hijab.
A few of these people have since died. Five years after the trip, Barghouti was arrested, convicted of murder and given five life sentences plus 40 years. The West Bank is on fire, Gaza is devastated. Spain would not host Israeli lawmakers today, MKs from Shas and Likud would not dream of participating, it’s doubtful that members of the Democratic Party would.
But I will never forget that trip, which proved, at least to everyone who was a part of it, that peace is possible.
Republished from Hareetz
Gideon Levy is a Haaretz columnist and a member of the newspaper’s editorial board. Levy joined Haaretz in 1982, and spent four years as the newspaper’s deputy editor. He was the recipient of the Euro-Med Journalist Prize for 2008; the Leipzig Freedom Prize in 2001; the Israeli Journalists’ Union Prize in 1997; and The Association of Human Rights in Israel Award for 1996. His new book, The Punishment of Gaza, has just been published by Verso.