MIDDLE EAST: Russian-speaking Israelis and Palestinians hope common language will bring them closer

Record ID: 349811

  • Title: MIDDLE EAST: Russian-speaking Israelis and Palestinians hope common language will bring them closer
  • Date: 17th December 2013
  • Summary: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (RECENT) (REUTERS) PEACE MARCH ON SEA FRONT ACTIVISTS MARCHING, CARRYING BANNER READING IN ENGLISH: PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST EDI ZHENSKER, PEACE ACTIVISTS, WALKING WITH THE PEACE MARCH MAN TALKING THROUGH MICROPHONE, SAYING IN HEBREW: "Let each person come with his presence, get up from his comfort, from his fun, from his couch at home and join us to make
  • Embargoed: 1st January 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel, West bank
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA3DW449NFGVV92MTO569T466JT
  • Story Text: Several hundred Israeli peace activists marched along the Tel Aviv seafront to voice their concerns with the impasse of the ongoing peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

    "Let each person come with his presence, get up from his comfort, from his fun, from his couch at home and join us to make peace," an activists wearing a white T-shirt with the word 'Peace' written on it, shouted through a megaphone.
    The march was organised by Israeli peace campaigners united by the idea of promoting peace in the Middle East.
    Six hundred Palestinians from the West Bank were expected to participate but at the last minute their request to enter Israel for the peace march was turned down by the Israeli authorities.
    They held their march in the West Bank town of Jericho instead, in coordination with the Israeli campaigners.

    "We want the government to hear us. There are enough people both in Israel and the Palestinian autonomy who want and need peace. They are prepared to do everything possible for the government to understand this," said 31-year-old campaigner Edi Zhensker from the Russian-speakers' Israeli peace movement Our Heritage.
    The group was formed in 2007 and has been active in seeking contacts with the Palestinian Russian-speaking community ever since.
    Over 1.3 million Jews immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union in early 1990s, mainly from Russia and Ukraine, in search of a better life and political stability, escaping economic hardships and insecurity of the crumbling communist empire.
    Dr. Alla Shainskaya, a biochemist from the Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk, immigrated to Israel in 1990.
    A senior scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science and a chairperson of Our Heritage, she believes the economic vulnerability and safety concerns of the Russian-speaking immigrants was used by the right-wing politicians to lure them into supporting electorates with promises of a brighter future.
    Shainskaya said the majority of Russian-speaking immigrants settled in the North of the country, near the border with Lebanon, and in the South, close to Gaza, adding that the recent wars with both were a decisive factor for their anti-Arab sentiments and leaning towards the right.
    The Russian-speaking community in Israel is generally associated with a ultra-nationalist foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu party. The party has grown into one of Israel's largest political forces on the strength of votes from Lieberman's fellow immigrants from former Soviet republics and is allied with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud.
    A settler living on occupied land where Palestinians seek statehood, Lieberman has been outspokenly sceptical of the negotiations that resumed in July after a three-year impasse, saying that reaching a permanent peace deal was impossible.
    Shainskaya argues that peace with the Palestinians is within reach and that the Russian-speaking immigrants, which account for around 20 percent of the total population and represent a potentially powerful force within the Israeli electorate, would be in a good position to negotiate it.

    "We will be bringing people, we are going to discuss issues, and I believe, we will be able to prove that we have a partner. This is the most important thing," Shainskaya said.

    "Territory does not decide anything as we very clearly understand from where the bombs may fly over to us and that there are no means to stop them. But they (Israelis) do not believe there is a partner, they don't know our Russian-speaking Arabs (Israeli Arabs), and there are a lot of them in Israel. We want to establish a direct dialogue," added Shainskaya at a meeting with Russian-speaking Palestinians in the West Bank town of Beit Jala, near historic Bethlehem.
    In a move to build up direct ties with the Israeli public, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, last year gave his blessing to the creation of the Palestinian Committee for Interaction with Israeli Society.
    Russian-speaking Palestinians, graduates of universities from the former Soviet Union, were called in to help bring in the Jewish Russian-speakers as one of the means of reaching a broader Israeli society.

    "The Russian language is a language which we and our friends from the former Soviet Union and we, the graduates of Russian universities, speak. This makes it easy and makes the conversation flow well because once you speak to someone in Russian they consider you close to them or as a dear friend," said Khaled Khaderat, a graduate of Irkutsk University.
    The Palestinian Interaction Committee and Our Heritage became partners in their search for common grounds in future peace campaigns. Over the last year they have been meeting regularly and planning their joint activities.
    At the meeting in Beit Jala Israelis presented their plan of monthly activities to promote understanding at 'people-to-people' level, including mutual home, school and village visits.

    "We have a lot in common apart from the language. We can conduct our talks in Russian, the language which is not associated directly with the occupation. Through the Russian language we can bring people closer and resolve issues which would be hard to deal with in Hebrew or Arabic," said Edi Zhensker who came to Israel from the Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa with his Russian-speaking parents 23 years ago.
    For the last two years he's been the executive director at Our Heritage.
    Over 10,000 Palestinians who graduated from universities in the former Soviet Union now live in the West Bank. About 2,000 more Russian-speaking Arabs live in Israel. In the West Bank cities and villages there are about 2,500 Russian women who followed their Arab husbands to the Middle East.
    Khaled Khaderat, who is 45 years old, met his 42 year old wife Olga, in the Siberian city of Irkutsk in Eastern Russia where they both studied law, shortly after arriving in Russia in 1989.
    Khaled went back to the West Bank in 1995 seeking work opportunities. He married Olga two years later, despite fears that she would not like living in his native land.

    "When we met, she was not yet my wife then, and I thought about bringing her to Palestine. I was scared that our life would not please her and she would not like our life here and I painted for her a much worse picture of what our life and society were really like. So when she came to Palestine she was happy and surprised since it was different from what I had told her," he said looking through the old photographs of their student life in Russia.
    Almost 18 years later the family feels settled in historic Bethlehem.
    Khaled and Olga have four daughters: Lisa, 15, Katya, 14, Dasha, 8, and Natasha, 6.
    They all bear Russian names, all bi-lingual and Muslim.
    Olga, an Orthodox Christian believer, stayed with her faith. She said she liked her life in Bethlehem but the lack of peace was a constant worry.
    Even though she and her daughters hold Russian passports, being residents in the West Bank means the family is restricted from travelling beyond the security wall separating Israel and the West Bank.

    "I can't go to Jerusalem to visit Holy Sepulchre. I have lived here for 17 years and have only been there twice. Sometimes I conduct tours for pilgrims who come to Bethlehem and I feel envious when they tell me that they have been to Nazareth, walked around Jerusalem in the old town. I don't have any chances to do that," Olga said, adding it was especially hard for her as a Christian not to be able to visit the holy sites.
    Peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians have been on and off for decades.
    Many Israelis and Palestinians feel disillusioned with the process and have doubts the current U.S.-brokered round will bring in results.
    But peace activists on both sides believe they represent a potentially decisive political force which has a good chance of influencing the future.
    Recently U.S. President Barack Obama said he believed it was possible to reach a framework agreement over the next several months that would not address every detail of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but could move things forward.
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