TFF HumanJournal | A Tel Aviv House of Solidarity

Tommy Kuang

The Forbidden Flourish

July 10, 2024 20:00 Shanghai

October 8, 2023 was the day Raymond planned to depart from China to return to Israel. He had just finished a two-month summer vacation and was preparing to start his sophomore year at Tel Aviv University.

Less than 24 hours before his scheduled flight departure, an "Aqsa Flood" unexpectedly erupted in the northeastern corner of the Sinai Peninsula. On the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War and during Simchat Torah, Palestinian militant groups led by Hamas - designated as terrorist organizations under U.S. and EU law - launched an unprecedented rocket attack on Israel, followed by a ground invasion, resulting in thousands of Israeli civilian casualties. Biden called it the most painful day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

He watched these news reports on TV at his home in Guangzhou, initially feeling a bit dazed.

"It felt like just another familiar conflict, until you realize things seem to be developing in an uncontrollable direction."

But as an international high school student, his connection to this land went far beyond that. In his freshman year, coinciding with another conflict outbreak in Gaza, he participated in his first Model United Nations club activity, with his first task being to represent Israel in a verbal battle at the Security Council. Although attitudes towards Israel on the Chinese internet have always been mixed, his exposure to the history of Zionism's rise and fall, and stories of the Netanyahu family and Ariel Sharon, gave him a "distant reverence" for this country and people. From then on, a path of humanities, social sciences and Middle Eastern studies gradually opened up.

There was an anecdote circulating in school: Raymond sat alone in the study room, engrossed in a thick book "Jerusalem: The Biography". He was more or less a so-called orthodox liberal arts student, becoming a teacher's assistant after taking several AP history courses, working as a reporter for the school magazine for several years, and winning a high award in the "John Locke" historical writing competition. Then in college, he devoted himself to his favorite philosophy and Jewish studies majors. This academic year is his last undergraduate year in Israel. Raymond was solely focused on packing his course schedule, applying for research grants, and completing his graduation thesis on Jewish fraternities. After all, there's probably no better place in the world for Jewish studies than Israel.

Academic research is Raymond's interest, but he always views the content in books merely as illusions under a filter. When looking at everything else in the world, demystification is the theme that runs through it in his eyes. In Israel, he proved with his own experiences that the "distant reverence" formed in Guangzhou was ultimately just a superficial layer; deeper experiences beneath it often only become visible in one first-hand scene after another.

As one of the few foreign volunteers in this Israeli left-wing civil group, he stood in the central business district filled with office buildings, waving the red and black flag symbolizing anarcho-syndicalism, observing every person in this association, seeing them all as microcosms of Israeli society. Although this country's territory is small, it is a culturally rich soil that condenses thousands of years of Jewish diaspora history into one social environment; in Raymond's words, creating a situation where "the truth can be revealed everywhere".

Raymond saw through the complexity beneath the "Jewish" label in Israeli society that is not often seen. Jews living in the United States, belonging to wealthy social classes, returned to their "Promised Land" (Genesis 12:1) after World War II with an attitude of "self-perceived openness"; Ashkenazi Jews believe the Zionist movement is their way of making up for historical debts; Mizrahi Jews still have lingering fears about the wave of anti-Semitism in the mid-20th century; African Jews from Eritrea, Ethiopia and other places are already in a disadvantaged position in traditional Jewish hierarchies, and now face more racial issues; a small number of Jewish descendants who immigrated to Israel from Central Asia and even China find it even harder to integrate into mainstream society.

In his eyes, in one demonstration after another, the old accounts and lingering contradictions of the entire society are constantly stirred up in this complex face, "For example, taking this opportunity to (protest) again, some of Israel's previous pacifists and anti-Zionists, raise some agendas against the Israeli Defense Forces' 'mowing the lawn' (referring to intermittent high-intensity military operations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank), against emasculating the Palestinian government, and bring up again." As such, the large-scale demonstrations he experienced over a long period became an ongoing process that seemed as unsolvable as the turbulent Middle East situation.

Rather, one mass social movement after another is more of an organic combination of various social agendas advocated by different ethnic groups.

Perhaps more representative are the stories of individual members in one association after another. A girl named Little R he met in the "cabin" comes from an extremely conservative Orthodox Jewish family, at the bottom margin of Israeli society. Little R has a devout and traditional Jewish faith, shaves her head, wears a wig, and regularly purifies her body in public baths according to festivals. But she has also incongruously become a lesbian in this family, accepting the "secularization" ritual for those who come out in Orthodox Jewish families, facing double exclusion from both the family collective and social culture. In this situation, shelter from similar cultural groups becomes indispensable.

Indeed, Israel in Raymond's eyes is "a country that claims to be open and inclusive, very open to new trendy groups like sexual minorities," but, related or unrelated to Jewish traditional culture, many people hold conflicting values in many aspects just like the people in the "cabin". The rights of sexual minorities and extreme Jewish nationalism, although completely unrelated and even directly contradictory concepts on various dimensions, are somehow compatible and provide theoretical basis of legitimacy for each other.

What particularly impressed him was a photo that once circulated online but was rarely reported by mainstream Western media: an Israeli Defense Forces soldier standing on the ruins of Gaza, holding up a rainbow flag with "in the name of love" written in black. On social media platforms, the soldier wrote: "Despite the pain of war, the IDF is the only army in the Middle East that defends democratic values. It is the only army that allows homosexuals to freely be ourselves. Therefore, I fully believe our cause is just."

The headlines at the same time as this photo was released (November 2023) were almost all about the escalating hostage crisis and unprecedented high casualties in the Gaza Strip. At that time, over 14,000 civilians had died due to the war. On November 16, a press release issued by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned that "the serious violations against Palestinians in Gaza indicate that a genocide is brewing."

In 2011, American writer Sarah Schulman first used the term "pinkwashing" to describe the Israeli government's public communication strategy of "deliberately concealing continued violations of Palestinian rights behind the modern image represented by gay life in Israel."

Raymond himself positions on the progressive end of the ideological spectrum and is deeply concerned about the real situation of sexual minorities in Gaza under Israel's discourse power. He cites records of real experiences of LGBTQ groups in Gaza, "Global society sees how they (Israel) have turned 'pinkwashing' into an international atrocity show step by step."

In the "cabin" in Tel Aviv, many people like Little R gather cultural and ideological characteristics full of contradictions, but members who are more "purely" inclined towards communism and anarcho-syndicalism like Raymond are equally numerous. No matter how big the differences between left and right, they can hardly represent the mainstream voice of Israeli society, hardly represent the traditional views of the Jewish people, and even less represent Netanyahu's controversial political line today. In this "cabin", a loose yet ideal solidarity front has quietly formed:

They hope their homeland will become better, they know they cannot leave even if they want to, so they bravely and firmly straighten their backs and walk into the gatherings of the "cabin", gathering on the streets.

"The meaning is that now this society has many ills, so let's think about how to change it, let us have our own place, that's it. I've talked to different people, they also 'want to go deep into the mountains and forests to open up a piece of land', let's consider setting up such a commune, setting up a small utopia to survive; people generally have this kind of relatively reclusive feeling, but also (feel) thrown into this world."

Bartholomew once said: "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:46).

Today, this is the "Arab capital" with the largest Muslim population within Israel. Raymond once lived here. On normal days, he stayed at an archaeological site in the Upper Galilee valley near Lebanon in Nazareth, living a "4 am to 2 pm" life. He would get up at 4 am to work at the archaeological site, just to finish early before the scorching sun beats down. "Around 1:30, 2:30 in the afternoon you can't work anymore, because there's too much sunlight in this place, it feels like you're peeling off a layer of skin every day." After work it's entertainment: listening to lectures, drinking, playing cards, dancing, and then everyone must be in bed with lights out before 10 pm.

Archaeology was once one of the must-do items on his life bucket list, and perhaps also a way for him to constantly "demystify" book content through first-hand experience. "If you can make friends with an archaeologist, I think it would be a very lucky thing. There are just so many favorable qualities about (them)." Despite the huge daily workload, everyone could always share weal and woe, enjoying simple life together. Just like on the streets of Tel Aviv, it seems like something can bring people together.

There are no political slogans all over the streets like in Tel Aviv or protests every other day, but the archaeological camp really seems to be that "deep mountains and forests" in the mouths of "cabin" participants.

On weekends in Nazareth without archaeological work, Raymond stayed at the home of an Arab guy T. About 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs, not including over 3 million Mizrahi Jews who originally came from the Middle East and were deeply influenced by Arab culture. But T doesn't belong to either of these categories: he is a stateless refugee residing in Israel, busy applying for Israeli residency.

After the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli authorities took de facto control of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and offered residents of these places the opportunity to join Israeli nationality, which was rejected by many Arabs who were unwilling to recognize Israel's occupying sovereignty. In a sense, T is an activist and representative among stateless Arabs - he is active among that group of people with complex backgrounds and beliefs in the "cabin". This identity seems to exclude B from both Muslim and Jewish cultural circles at the same time, but it also allows him to be a "very pure self" without constraints. Equally pure is the trust and affinity born as humans, which is T sending an invitation to stay after becoming familiar in the "cabin". A whole summer of living together began like this.

This is the hospitality that even Raymond, who has long used the backpacker app Couchsurfing, admires, "a very anarchist ambiance."

"(This victim) is not someone I know very well, but I still feel very sorry despite that... The people who die in war are not those who intensify conflicts, but including these people who advocate peace, advocate reconciliation and solidarity, they are also victims of war, they (these members) died very regrettably."

War is always so cruel. Peace activists full of ideals like those in the "cabin" will not receive exceptional forgiveness.

As of press time, it is difficult to search for reports about Nazareth being affected by the war on Chinese internet. Under the protection of the "Iron Dome" anti-missile system, this holy city, like many other places in Israel with strong religious colors, has not received many direct threats from religious extremist armed forces. Beyond that, year after year the situation does not improve, and the departure of one vivid life after another that one knows around them constantly amplifies the contrast inside and outside the holy city.

Different people have different interpretations of the historical narratives of this region in the past, but no one can deny three common themes: religious conflict, religious conflict, and religious conflict. Perhaps one of the most famous geopolitical terms in modern history, the "two-state solution", hopes that Palestinians and Jews on this land - and the Islamic and Jewish religions they represent behind them - can each establish their own nation-state here and coexist harmoniously.

It's hard to say if the "two-state solution" has ever truly succeeded. One peace agreement after another has been signed over the past decades, only to come to nothing afterwards. In Raymond's eyes, Israel's "aggressive appearance" today is largely because it has been hijacked by extreme ideologies such as Zionist far-right, and a more ideal solution is the ultimate destination for the so-called Israeli-Palestinian issue.

He supports the "one-state solution". In this proposal, nationalism is no longer the basis for nation-building, and ethnic differences no longer define the essence of the state. Jews and Arabs will establish their united state. "An Israel-Palestine state is completely reasonable." Raymond feels religion is at the crux of the current situation: "Considering the significance of religion to Israelis, change can only happen within religion. How the problem is solved depends on how religion deals with its relationship with politics, how it deals with its relationship with other religions, how it deals with its relationship with secularism."

"Judaism has preserved and defended the concept of God for mankind, and regards it as the core truth of religion," is an excerpt from the progressive Pittsburgh Platform adopted by the Jewish Enlightenment movement (Haskalah) in 1885. Thinkers in the movement like Mendelssohn once advocated that modern Jews should at least try to integrate into mainstream Western society in one aspect - namely the so-called secular society. At least, Raymond also firmly believes that the universality embedded in Jewish doctrines and the ethical principles contained in Jewish faith are potential seeds for changing the status quo. Nationalism is the number one enemy, "a dead end" in Raymond's words. The process of the Jewish people changing from historically victimized to victimizers (of Palestinians) under a certain narrative is the best proof.

More contradictory things lie between established geopolitical facts and the legitimate rights and interests of the two peoples based on historical origins. The territorial allocation plan reached by UN General Assembly Resolution 181 has been constantly violated to this day, with the erosion of Palestinians' homeland by Israeli authorities being one of the main issues. Raymond opposes restorationism and sympathizes with the plight of Palestinians after World War II and especially in recent years; but he also acknowledges that it is an undisputed fact that Israel's claim to statehood has sufficient legal basis (the "partition of Palestine and Israel" as a UN resolution defaults to the evil consequences of colonial rule in the Middle East), and is even more an enduring belief in Jewish classics.

Perhaps, for this region, what is controversial is not just history itself, but rather from when to interpret history.

Perhaps, for ideals like those anti-nationalist ones in the "cabin", discussing and defining the status quo itself is a kind of desecration of the ideal: "'Occupation' itself belongs to a nationalist vocabulary," Raymond says.

"Seeing these things, you will feel that you are facing war atrocities...anyway, it's happening around you, whether you've been to Israel or not." For a while, Raymond simply turned off his main Instagram account.

"(Is it that) for example, if I'm Chinese, I can be less affected by this thing, can stand aside, or even be indifferent? I don't think so." Raymond is not afraid to openly discuss so-called sensitive issues with others, perhaps one of his main things in the "cabin" is to have sensitive discussions with people. What exhausts him immensely is identity politics discourse. "Many people are keen on labeling, self-proclaiming as 'leftists', but in fact fueling anti-Semitism and Islamophobia." In New York, groups with differing opinions "draw lines" under the watch of police and onlookers, refusing dialogue. Similarly, social media algorithms constantly push content that only caters to people's preferences, and news reports are no exception - polarization in political views is thus widened time and time again.

Francis Fukuyama once argued that the foundation of modern society is still the "nation-state", which needs to constantly consolidate hypersensitive identity recognition. Back to Israel, identity politics is uniting people. Rhetoric like "guns pointing outward in unity" naturally dominates the public opinion field. "Uniting everyone" seems to be exactly the power that Raymond hopes religion will possess in this region in the future. No one knows when this ideal - or the peaceful "one-state solution" in the ideal - can become reality; but in the direction that Raymond and the pacifists in the "cabin" are unwilling to see, nationalism is playing this unifying role.

And behind the appearance of unity, the people in the "cabin" suffer the worst. According to Raymond's account, some of them who are partial pacifists have already faced imprisonment for refusing military service. The active demonstration activities and original agenda of the "cabin" have also been interrupted by constant warfare.

But who knows if this is a good thing for them, at least in some sense. The unity of nationalism seems to also mean easing of the situation.

The remaining sporadic conflicts are sufficient for most Israeli residents to resume their normal way of life. Of course, friends and family from China still occasionally express concern about his safety in social media messages - even though the large-scale battles between long-range rockets and air defense missiles are no longer the main topic of Sabbath conversations.

Some travel and lifestyle magazines often quote a saying, allegedly an old Israeli proverb: "Pray in Jerusalem, play in Tel Aviv." As the conflict subsides, thousands of pilgrims continue to visit Jerusalem, while Raymond can also spend a pleasant afternoon with friends on the other side of Tel Aviv on weekends.

He can now focus more on his future and reality: As the academic year ends, Raymond will bid farewell to his life as a "naive" in Israel and return to reality. Awaiting him is the campus in Morningside Heights on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The lunch food carts run by Arab immigrants on 116th Street should still be thriving, though it's unclear if there will still be banners and protest activities set up by the two opposing sides.

Another part of reality is his upcoming summer internship at a law firm in Guangzhou.

There probably won't be any of these things there.

Editor: Raymond Fang