Consider This from NPR - The Emotional Impact of the Israel-Gaza Conflict on Jewish and Palestinian Americans

Episode Date: October 15, 2023

It's been more than a week of war in Israel and Gaza, following Hamas attacks in southern Israel that left more than 1,300 Israelis dead. In response, Israeli air strikes in Gaza have killed more than 2,500 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials. The intense violence — and the prospect of more to come — is having a deep emotional impact on people who care about both Israelis and Palestinians.NPR's Scott Detrow speaks with Aziza Hasan, executive director of NewGround: A Muslim Jewish Partnership for Change, and Alyson Freedman, a member of Sisterhood Salaam Shalom. Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University performs breakthrough research every year, making discoveries that improve human health, combat climate change, and move society forward. More at iu.edu forward. Both sides are losing. No one wins in a war. People only lose in a war. Hassan Abu Galyoun is the tribal reconciliation chief in the city of Rahet, an Israeli city about 20 miles from the Gaza border. He spoke with a team of NPR journalists as he returned from the funeral of Tariq Mohammed, who was killed in an attack by Hamas last Saturday. I'm an Arab-Israeli who has relatives in the Gaza Strip and also in the West Bank.

And I have relatives here. We already have people who were killed and we have people who are kidnapped. My heart is bleeding for the ones on the east side or the ones on the west side. All of them are the sons of Adam. It's been more than a week now after that violent initial attack that killed more than 1,300 Israelis. More than a week of war. Israeli airstrikes on Gaza have killed more than 2,500 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, and Gaza is under siege. More than a million people have been told to evacuate on short notice as Israel's military prepares a ground

invasion of Gaza City. Gada Al-Haddad is a media and communications officer for Oxfam in Gaza. We try to calm the children down by telling them stories and telling them that these bombardments are only fireworks, but children or old, like my family children, started to realize that we are lying to them and these are not sounds of fireworks. It's all taking a heavy toll, even on people thousands of miles away from the violence.

What is really terrifying about this particular moment is as we're holding all these enormous pieces of, or this enormous grief that we're sitting with and the grotesque details of the murders and the kidnappings and then also the horrific retaliations in Gaza and the people who have nowhere to go and yet have to move and literally still are stuck. Aziza Hassan is the executive director of the interfaith group New Ground, a Muslim-Jewish partnership for change. We have to find a way to be able to

listen to each other's pain. Otherwise, we become more entrenched into these binaries, and it's really essential that we really lean in with a compassion. So it feels impossible sometimes, but I know that the path forward is literally reaching out one-on-one. Consider this. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has escalated to a level that many experts in the region are calling unprecedented. Could this war between Israel and Hamas make the idea of establishing common ground between Jews and Muslims even more elusive? We will have a conversation with two women who still hold out some hope. From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. It's Sunday, October 15th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. It's Sunday, October 15th. from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward,

working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at iu.edu. On the TED Radio Hour, clinical psychologists John and Julie Gottman are marriage experts. And after studying thousands of couples, they have found... Couples who were successful had a really different way of talking to one another when there was a disagreement or a conflict. How to be brave in our relationships. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR. It's Consider This from NPR. Like Aziza Hassan, Allison Friedman is also dedicated to creating meaningful connections between Jews and Muslims. She's a member of the organization Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom.

The organization has been really important to me because we build relationships between Muslim and Jewish women and work to combat hate through those relationships. She and Hassan sat down with me on Friday to talk about how this particular moment has tested their mission. To be honest, like the moment that we're in definitely feels very different. It's grotesque in so many different ways and horrific. And sometimes the most important way that we can show up for each other is literally just to check in on each other and to say, I'm here for you, however your loved ones, and not to focus on what right words are, but instead to literally be there as an act of radical listening so that we can actually figure out all of this together because it's too much for any one of us to hold.

What about you, Allison? What's felt different about this past week? I think this is so personal, what's been happening for everyone in different ways, depending on your background, your history, your family. And so, as Aziza said, just checking in on people. And, you know, those personal connections is what's most important. And Allison, I'll start with you here. Can I ask what, if any themes have emerged, any specific details or parts of the circumstances that you found yourself returning to as you try to sort through this in conversations? I've heard this feeling of isolation from both Jews and Muslims. You know, it feels like no one is paying attention on a personal level and that other people are being supported, but they're not

being supported. And I've heard that from everyone. Can I ask, I mean, in as much as you want to say on the radio to just that basic question you're both talking about, Aziza, how is your family, how are your close friends handling this? You know, it's hard. It's like the, there are no words for the jitters, for the anxiety, for the concern. My family is spread out all over the world, like many Palestinian families. And as I check in with people, they're just hurting. They're hurting so deeply and wondering how it is that we can just call people numbers and watch buildings fall down and not realize

that there's human beings inside of them and that they're not stories of people who have names and faces and moms and dads and and children who are dying and i think of all the at least a million were told to evacuate their homes in gaza um go to southern Gaza. And like, how are a million people going to move over 24 hours, and especially under these conditions? I don't know. But I'm also checking in with friends who live inside of Israel-Palestine, who are Israeli, and they're going from funeral to funeral of their families, of their friends' children. And there are no words to describe the awful that we're feeling right now. And yet, I know that even though I at times don't have any of the right words, it's actually just really important to step in and to do what our traditions tell us,

is that when people are grieving, you go and you see them. You see them, you hold them, you bring them the things that you see that they need, and you just, you're there. Allison, same question to you. Can the level you feel comfortable sharing it, how your family is, how your friends are, and what are the specific hard conversations that you yourself are having about this? It's been really difficult. I would say that there's so much polarization right now. It's so hard to talk about these issues. I support people that are in pain. I stand with people that are hurting. And I think it's very easy right now to say I stand with Israel or I stand with Palestine and to not necessarily think about how complex these issues are and how you can stand with all people that are in danger, that are being killed, that don't have the right to self-determination, don't have education and the right schools. I mean, there are so many things that are wrong right now. And so I've been having a lot of conversations where I have just been telling people to take a breath and kind of trying to

rehumanize both Israelis and Palestinians. There are a lot of people right now in Israel, in Gaza, all over the world, who do not want to think about conversation, let alone reconciliation right now. There is a lot of anger, and a lot of just entrenched feelings and entrenched rage. And I'm wondering, you both work with groups that are all about trying to have hard conversations, interreligious dialogues, relationships. What's the case for that right now? Like, have you found yourself just having to make a case

for that basic thing and why it matters, why it's valuable, why it is worth trying to forge and create in moments of pain and violence and tension. Aziza, do you want to go first? I think right now, it's not necessarily about dialogue. It's about being there for people that you know, and being there in grief. And so, like, what we've been seeing is that even with the people who need space and who just need to be supported right now, there are also other spaces that we're still continuing to convene, and we're seeing that people are more eager to come to the table. Because people understand the importance of radically seeing each other, and they're hungry for spaces that create the possibility of being able to step forward in this really hard time.

Allison, anything you want to add? You know, as I said, I have been involved already in interfaith dialogue about what's been happening this week, and it was incredibly powerful and really beautiful to share moments of grief and anger and connection together. But there certainly were people in that group that weren't ready to do that, and that's okay. You have to have space for that as well, for how different people are going to process what's going on. That's Alison Friedman, a member of the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom. And we also spoke with Azizah Hassan, the executive director of New Ground, a Muslim-Jewish partnership for

change. Thanks so much to both of you for making the time to speak with us and taking the time to speak with us. Thank you for making the space. Thank you so much for having us. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. This message comes from Wondery. Kill List is a true story of how one journalist ended up in a race against time to warn those on the list whose lives were in danger. Follow Kill List wherever you get your podcasts.