“I know that a Jewish state can only be a dream,” Yoram Kaniuk once told me, “but I want to have my dream.” This literary giant and eternal dreamer passed away last night (Saturday) at the age of 83, and an important critical and humanist voice fell silent in this land.

The dream of Israel is one for which Tel Aviv-born Kaniuk nearly gave his life at the age of 17. He lied about his age in order to join the Palmach Brigades and was shot in the leg on the slopes of Jerusalem’s Mount Zion. Six decades later, having finally reached his renown as one of Hebrew literature’s most powerful voices, he told the tale of that war. His book, 1948, is not only a stray from the typical Zionist narrative, it is honest, irreverent and eye opening.

Kaniuk was a quintessential Israeli “sabra.” He was certainly a Zionist, in that he felt the Jewish nation would have no future without a home. Still, he was concerned for the wellbeing of every soul on this soil and frowned at the Israeli Right’s abduction of Zionism. His understanding of the term was miles apart from that which is common in contemporary Israel. “Our Zionism was on the coast,” he told me in another conversation. “When we dreamed of a state here, Jerusalem was not meant to be a part of it, never mind the West Bank and Gaza.”

The Kaniukian middle way may seem contrived to some, but in today’s Israel it is revolutionary. Kaniuk rejected the world view of Messianic religious Zionism, which combines Zionism as an existential solution — a life-saving project — with biblical context and extreme nationalism, a mix that permits inequality and atrocities. He was active in the struggle to secure the right of return for the refugees of Iqrit and Bir’im and cooperated with Palestinian intellectuals long before it was considered “acceptable” behavior. His disdain for mixing synagogue and state played out most powerfully in 2012, when he successfully appealed to remove “Jewish” from the “religion” clause in his Israeli ID card. To this day, he is the only Israeli to have achieved that feat.

He who molds reality with his own hands knows it can be formed into anything. Kaniuk’s reading of Jewish history — and particularly...

A night that is almost too calm turns violent, then calm again, and then comes the day to make conclusions. Photography by May Castelnuovo.

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It’s 2 a.m. when we arrive back to Istanbul from Bursa. Istiklal Avenue is busier than at noon. Street musicians are everywhere, many playing “Bella Ciao,” the struggle’s adopted anthem. On our first day here, hearing it played in the square was a thrill. It took three days for it to become a chewed-up hit.

Even here, with all these people about, the spirit of the struggle seems less than invincible. Young folk have their photo taken by a graffiti potrait of Erdoğan, as though this were Disneyland and he Mickey Mouse. We are standing across from the now-repaired Pizza Hut restaurant’s windows, at the very spot where carnage caught us off guard the morning we arrived. Now it’s a different sort of damage that shakes us.

Just as cynicism takes over, there comes the burning sensation and Disneyland is forgotten. The barricades in Beşiktaş were again so badly gas-bombed that the entire Taksim district is in agony. Once more, things seem “real.” In more than one way, it is the police that keep the movement’s momentum alive.

Once the pollution recedes, we descend toward Beşiktaş, to the barricade where we were pepper-gassed the night before. Instead of a battle, we find an argument. Some of the activists favor descending down the dark street — the no-man’s land where I got burned by the gas canister — and “provoking” the police again. Others prefer to maintain a peaceful hold of the high ground. A girl interrupts excitedly, saying something about a camera and photos. It takes us a while to figure the camera in question is ours. She wants the keepers of the barricade to stand together for a group photo.

This may be the most wonderful, and at the same time most discouraging photo of the entire journey. They are here, so many of them. They control of the very heart of the city of 18 million souls. They are young and proud, and they are posing. They...

It’s time to take a look around and see what’s happening off the square, way off the square. Photography by May Castelnuovo.

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ISTANBUL/BURSA, Turkey — On the day we arrived, the metro station at Taksim Square was closed. The following day was a Monday. We took the train into town expecting to alight at least one station north of the square. To our surprise, the train went all the way to Taksim. The station was open and we emerged from it with our first sense of normality.

It wasn’t the normal kind of normality. For one, there was a car burning right outside the station, in broad daylight.

But the street-food stalls returned to the square following their weekend break and an overall sense of routine could be felt. Order had been established: The protest movement was in Taksim. The police were in Beşiktaş, and the rest of the city went about its normal business. Daytime is about dancing, nighttime about crying; stuffed clams are yummy, and so is köfte.

Down on Istiklal, we did witness something unique: a march of Istanbul’s lawyers protesting the use of gas.

This was indeed moving. But by now, on the dawn of our third day, the situation began to seem a bit stagnant. Meanwhile, we are told that other cities are not nearly as relaxed. Last night Ebu Zer showed us a clip filmed in Ankara. In it, a woman is heard begging the police not to gas her residential neighborhood where children are sleeping and older residents suffer from lung ailments. Her plea is not respected. Izmir is said to be the scene of much turmoil, and in Antakya one demonstrator was shot dead.

It’s time to leave Istanbul and we choose the city of Bursa as our destination. It has been the setting of several demonstrations in previous days and is located only three hours away, which would allow us to return swiftly should the police enter Taksim. In the hot afternoon, we board a ferry and head out across the mavi (blue) Marmara Sea.

The Istanbul team heads into the clouds of gas. It starts off pretty well. Photography by May Castelnuovo

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ISTANBUL — On Sunday night, newly reunited after the lost kidney scare, May and I went to dine with two compatriots. One was Or Heller, Channel 10′s man, whom we tried to reach earlier, and Anshel Pfeffer, who reports here for Haaretz. I bit into the delicious Adana köfte and thought of Ruthie, who loves Istanbul so much, and would have come here if not for her work. What should I bring her when I return? Adana doesn’t travel well, and anyway she’s a vegetarian except for when she travels.

Thank Goodness for Anshel, who came up with an idea that may provide a nice solid memento: a tear gas canister. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I’m headed for Beşiktaş. Here everything is so sweet, there – the police are present. There are clashes.”

I did know about me. I wasn’t coming. Ebu Zer and Soner are hosting us and I promised them we would arrive before 10:30, but May’s eyes were agleam. She wanted those shots. How to argue with a creative spirit? I conceded, but warned that we would only stay for half an hour.

The street outside the restaurant was full of relaxed tourists and the buzz of restaurant hosts trying to lure them in. Nothing at all betrayed that two blocks away was a graveyard of overturned police vehicles. We emerged out of the hotel district, skirted the overturned cars and continued downhill, towards the Bosphorus shores and the Dolmabahçe Palace, a grand piece of Ottoman waterfront property, in which Erdoğan has an office.

On the hillside rising above the palace is the famous football stadium of Beşiktaş. As we approached, eyes already teary, we saw that stadium being taken apart before our eyes. Demonstrators were tearing off fences and other elements of its exterior.

A cloud of teargas loomed past them at the foot of the hill. We descended as far as we could amongst the hordes of young, masked rebels but were chased back again and again by the torturous sensation.

All...

Two Israelis out to explore Istanbul’s awakening are joined by two locals, or rather by 200,000 locals, and for a dance, no less. Yet they find themselves lost in memories of home, then simply lost. Photography by May Castelnuovo.

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ISTANBUL — We are at “The Kebap” restaurant, near Taksim square, right where we left off and with a great view of the Bosphorus. Now noises rise from the street outside. Young people are climbing from the ferry port of Kabatas: suburban kids from the Asian side. While at noon the ravaged square played home to a thin gathering of oddballs and hardcore types, the afternoon promises to be different.

When we return to the square, it is already buzzing with festive spirit. Two good friends come to meet us here. Soner and Ebu Zer hosted my girlfriend Ruthie and me on Couchsurfing two years ago. Ebu Zer is a student of mineral processing and Soner just concluded his studies in the field of shipbuilding. They take us down a staircase inscribed with graffiti accusing the ruling party of Zionism, into the garden of Eden – Gezi Park in the afternoon. It is full of handsome young men like themselves and beautiful girls, all of them relaxed, happy, inspired by hope.

One of these girls takes Ebu Zer’s left pinky finger. Another takes my right pinky. Ebu Zer explains that this is how villagers hold hands to dance in the Black Sea region. A circle forms around a man who plays some very strange version of the bag pipe, the Turkish tulum, and another, who films everything on a cellphone. A third man, standing in the circle, sings out cautions and backhanded compliments aimed at Erdoğan. The dancers repeat them cheerfully.

Here, Erdoğan isn’t called Erdoğan. He’s called by his middle name, Tayyip, a choice that reflects lack of respect. I can’t help but thinking of our prime minister, known by his nickname, Bibi. Tayyip and Bibi, foes though they may be, do share a lot, and so do their opposers. When we first stepped back into the square, the sense of déjà vu for Tel Aviv of 2011 was so strong that...

When two Israelis pop over to experience a neighboring country’s revolution, they get their first glimpse of graffiti, in the full sense of the word. Photographs by May Castelnuovo (click to magnify in a new tab).

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ISTANBUL – Nothing seems strange at first, Istanbul does seem atypically sleepy and empty on arrival, but then, it is a Sunday morning. The sense of normality persists on the way up the hill that cradles the historical district of Beyoglu. Even at the top, a few blocks away from Taksim square, it is only disturbed by a chemical stench, not unlike that of acetone.

I don’t think much of that smell at first, nor of the ruckus of service vehicles, traveling up elegant Istiklal avenue. I simply think of them as a nuisance. Go on, morning cleaners, come and part and leave the street to pedestrians and cute historical trams.

But hold on. This really is acetone, or turpentine, or some other paint diluter. Tankers full of it are driving up Istiklal to clean off graffiti.

There is plenty of graffiti here, some of it proposing police posts be used as public restrooms, others comparing Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to one of various fascist leaders or to a mangy dog. I have never seen anything remotely similar on Tel Aviv’s streets, not even on the hottest days of that summer in 2011. Should we have vandalized? Would we have gone further? Will the Turks?

The rage grows more and more colorful, more and more bold, as we advance up the street. Last night the police finally withdrew from Taksim Square, leaving it to the protesters. And the protesters took it. The further we walk, the more diverse are the signs of anarchy. Trash is strewn everywhere, mixed with the sorry remains of shop windows. At one corner is a black bank. It was burned down to the ground. At another, a Pizza Hut restaurant was destroyed. Corn and cabbage cover the floor, mixed into a fresh salad along with hundreds of advertising leaflets and the tiny splinters of what once was a table. At the...

When a pleasant tour of the Sea of Galilee turns into a display of potentially deadly racism, life becomes even more complicated for an Israeli representative.

Peter Brueghel The Elder’s “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee” (Wikimedia Commons)

It was a gorgeous day to be on the water, and the water itself was gorgeous. The Sea of Galilee, stroked by springtime winds, overlooked by mountains with names as beautiful as the slopes themselves: Arbel, Golan, Jabel Ash-Sheikh, Mt. Canaan.

Our group was made up mostly of American tourists. There were two Israelis, myself being one, and one Palestinian. This tour of the Holy Land is given by Mejdi, which offers dual narrative tours of the entire country. I accompany the group in the role of the Israeli, which means I must let go of much of my critical bias and reflect diverse viewpoints, including that of both the Israeli mainstream and of the Right. It’s an acquired skill, but it’s doable (especially in this kind weather), in a landscape I identify with peaceful kibbutzim and delicate Hebrew poetry. With so many things that are beautiful about the Israeli identity.

So we stepped off the dock of Kibbutz Ginosar and on board the King David, a boat that carries tourists and pilgrims on pleasure trips over the fabled Sea of Galilee. We have had a fine morning, wandering through the ancient remains at Tel-Dan and Banias, exploring Capernaum and enjoying St. Peter’s fish at a waterfront restaurant. We spoke of Syria and Lebanon, of the wars of recent decades, of the bomb shelters in Qiryat Shmona, of Tel-Chai and the tale of early Zionism in the region. Now was time to catch the breeze and enjoy a place of great beauty and spirit.

The wind’s caress turned rougher. The lake was choppier than I have ever seen it. The King David, designed to resemble the boats of first century fishermen, was big and steady, but other vessels suffered. Soon we saw two heads bobbing over the water, about half a cable to starboard. Closer to us, the lake’s ripples cradled a vacant jet ski. Clearly the two, who appeared to be wearing life vests, fell off their jet ski, were swept away, and needed our help, but we...

In the innocent year of 1909, a new Jewish neighborhood was established on the outskirts of Jaffa. A modest crossing of two streets, it was designed according to distinctly secular Jewish values. At its focal point, just north of the intersection stood not a synagogue but a high school. It was an elaborate, romantic structure. Its facade featured two columns representing Boaz and Yachin, the pillars of Solomon’s Temple.

Jewish culture had always centered around education, and the Zionist founders of Tel Aviv believed that so would the new Jewish society they were helping to establish. Fast forward 50 years, and the high school was torn down. The State of Israel, a decade old at the time, was priding itself on progress, and progress manifested as a skyscraper: 120 meters and 34 stories tall, the tallest tower in the Middle East, with the street was directly beneath it, forming a futuristic automotive underpass. The broader lower floors featured a wax museum, a public library and a department store. The roof over them bore an entire amusement park, while the tower’s top floor offered a popular observatory.

The Shalom Meir Tower was named after the father of its two developers, brothers Morderchai and Moshe Meir. Soon it is became commonly known simply as the Shalom Tower. I pass by it almost every day without thinking much about it. The sixties are over. Loftier towers rise over central Tel Aviv. The wax museum closed down years ago. No longer may visitors to the first Hebrew city witness its strangest exhibit: a wax reenactment of Charles Manson and the Family murdering Sharon Tate and her dinner company. “Meirland” was disassembled, ferris wheels and all.

Penn, Rovina and Shlonsky on display

Last night, for some reason, I mentioned that ferris wheel. I was passing underneath the tower with my girlfriend, Ruthie, and found myself looking up to where it once stood, all colorful and hopeful. “You got to see the Shalom Tower at its days of glory,” she said, “I was too young. Even the department store was gone when I first came to Tel Aviv from the South.”

She’s right, I thought, I was witness to history. We speak of the demolished high school as history. Its silhouette is today the...

A stroll west of West Jerusalem can lead to a surprising discovery, confronting the casual walker with various layers of the Palestinian tragedy.

A view of Jerusalem from a village trapped between an invisible border and a real separation barrier. (photo: Yuval Ben-Ami)

I just finished an ordeal at the Knesset. The next thing on the agenda was a long phone call, one that would last for at least an hour. Instead of walking about West Jerusalem for an hour, I decided to begin heading west on foot.

The brisk winter day was gorgeous. Beneath me, past the last row of city blocks, lay the gulley separating West Jerusalem from a ridge of lofty hills to the west. The slopes were made green by the season’s blessed rains. If I climbed down, then up again, I would arrive at the suburb of Mevaseret Zion, where busses stop on their way to Tel Aviv.

I found a street that turns into a trail and headed down, soon arriving at the abandoned Palestinian village of Lifta. Unlike many other villages that were emptied in 1948 and later destroyed, this one remains nearly intact. Lately, it narrowly escaped being replaced with a posh residential complex for Jewish Israelis. Walking among the crumbling stone buildings is a sad experience, but I could at least comfort myself in that Lifta remains as a monument.

While speaking leisurely on the phone, I crossed to the other ridge and began climbing a slope that I thought would lead me to Mevaseret Zion and to the bus. It did not.

The houses atop the hill were not lined along neatly planned streets, as they would be in Mevaseret. Instead, homes were freely scattered along badly paved roads, some of them were new, others – as old as those of Lifta. This was a Palestinian village, and various signs told me that it was not Palestinian-Israeli, such as nearby Abu Ghosh. The roads really were in a very poor shape, and the roofs bore black water tanks, rather than the white ones typical in Israel.

How could this be? I have been walking west from West Jerusalem. I am supposed to be in Israel proper, in the “Jerusalem corridor” – sandwiched between the north and south...

Guernica Mural in Pais Vasco, Spain. (photo: Zarateman / Wikimedia Commons)

A survey conducted in Gaza this September showed that a majority of its residents would prefer Fatah to Hamas if elections were held. Early this month President Mahmoud Abbas spoke again of a two state solution and even hinted at compromising on the right of return.

What could Israel do in light of this but start a war? Israel can’t deal with peace. It has become a war machine, and I’m not referring only to its over-militant decision makers and those who take their orders. Decades of media bias and dogmatic education managed to turn its citizens into a blinded mob that always support violence: today’s Haaretz poll shows 84 percent back the current offensive. A foreign television crew with which I work interviewed passersby today on the situation in Gaza. “We know they die by the score there,” one Tel Aviv resident told the camera, “It’s not that we don’t know. We just don’t care.”

Of course Palestinians can be extremely militant and violent. You would be too, after decades of enslavement, and if you believe you could overcome such wrath, well then, you’d be like the majority of Palestinians. As for Hamas, I am not fond of them one bit — notice this piece begins with my faith in a survey that showed it weakening. The thing is, it is (or was, until recent events) weakening.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Right is only becoming more powerful. True, it lies, diverts attention, misinforms and uses fear-mongering to gain power and support. The media effectively dehumanizes Palestinians and fosters our sense of victimhood, and the media is run by powerful people with links to Jerusalem high brass, but the simple people have heads on their shoulders and hearts in their chests. They too share responsibility. We have all been failed by the Israelis in recent days, again, all of us – the world, the Israeli Left, and especially the Palestinians.

The Israeli Left does still exist, and bravely struggles in the face of mounting de-legitimization, but it may finally be declared too small to count. Now that Labor leader Shelly Yachimovitch expressed full support for Netanyahu and Barak’s actions, only the tiny Meretz party...

I’d be very surprised if any of you recall a post I published here last December. I was showing off my version of an Irish protest song from the 1980. The original refrain, penned by Irish songsmith John Maguire runs as such: “Hey Ronnie Reagan / I’m black and I’m pagan / I’m gay and I’m left and I’m free.” My girlfriend Ruthie and I applied the tune to a local politician, our staunchly anti-democratic, openly racist Foreign Minister Avigdor “Ivet” Lieberman, and were stunned to see it go viral on YouTube.

Since then, another protest tune recorded in our living room made waves. I put a particularly crass Facebook remark, addressed to “all leftists,” to music. Sung to a happy tune, its wishes of seeing us all raped by Palestinians, Sudanese refugees and elephants turned into a commentary on the common discourse in this country. The song has been viewed on YouTube 26,525 times so far.

Then the new elections were called, and Netanyahu and Lieberman merged their parties to form a right-wing bloc. Finally it seemed inevitable: an album had to be produced, and it had to be titled after its original hit tune: “Shak li, Ivet” – “Kiss My (Arse), Lieberman.”

The album was a bit of an experimental feat, since no such work has ever been produced here. Much greater talents then I have recorded Israeli protest songs, from Hava Alberstein to the Biluyim. The latter came closest to dedicating an entire album solely to the murky realities of Israeli politics and the occupation, but “Kiss My (Arse), Lieberman” demands to go a step further. Speaking on IDF Radio on Tuesday, critic Guy Tene was generous enough to credit it as being such an achievement. “It will undoubtedly prove a stepping stone in the history of Israeli music, “he said, adding that the album “is an unprecedented phenomenon in the Israeli discourse.” I was naturally thrilled.

Click here to listen or download “Shak li, Ivet”

The budget for the project was zero shekels. All musicians participated pro bono, as did Hadas Reshef who painted the iconic cover, and producer Yaron Fishman. Although the album features many translations, nearly all of the album’s tunes are sung in Hebrew. Only one, a cover of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Songs,” is performed in English alongside...

With all eyes on Gaza, Israeli police forces shoot tear gas into an elementary school. Twenty-nine children were hospitalized and 19 people were arrested after police attempted to place eviction notices on several buildings in the Bir Hadaj village in the Negev. 

Smoke rises from an elementary school in the Bedouin village of Bir Hadaj after police forces shot tear gas at students (photo: Adalah)

Sometimes all a schoolteacher can do is hold up his cellphone and film children fleeing the playground, or being carried off by other teachers. Sleman Abu Laqia, of the village Bir Hadaj in southern Israel, found himself in this situation Monday morning. The schoolyard was supposed to serve as a safe zone for the children, while police stormed the village, giving out house demolition notices. It proved inadequate.

As things quieted down, Sleman collected the empty canisters, assembled them on a table beneath the sign reading “Bir Hadaj Elementary School” in Hebrew and Arabic, and took one more shot. It is this picture that appeared in my Facebook feed this morning, with a caption explaining that over twenty children were rushed to the hospital. I looked the story up in the Hebrew news sites. Haaretz – nothing. Ynet – nothing, NRG –zilch.

This only left one option: to travel down south and see for myself. Having boarded the train, I contacted Nadia Ben-Youssef of Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, and was literally relieved to discover that she knew what I was talking about. A story this intense, which goes completely ignored by the media, can make one fear delusion.

Shells of tear gas and stun grenades that were gathered after being used against Bedouin school children in the Negev (photo: Sleman Abu Laqia)

Nadia gave me some background. Unlike most Bedouin communities around Be’er Sheva, Bir Hadaj is recognized by the state. It is nearly impossible, however, for residents to...

No. I don’t like the concept of conflict tourism, but you see, people put me down for not engaging in it. Whenever exchanges of fire erupt between the IDF and the militants in the Gaza Strip, I find myself being discarded as “the detached Tel Avivian who’d rather sip his cappuccino then spend two hours in Sderot under fire.”

Try and make a political comment after being thus accused. Try saying that the IDF was first to strike this time around (as it often is) and that Netanyahu may well be maintaining tension in order to keep the Israeli public scared and out of focus pre-elections. No one here would listen. They’d say it’s the cappuccino talking.

So today, with four dead in Gaza in two days and several scores of rockets shot into southern Israel, I left the coffee behind and headed down to the fence. It’s not very far, to be sure. The train from Tel Aviv takes less than an hour to reach the city of Ashkelon, which was hit several times this morning. From there I thought of going on to Kibbutz Nir Am, sandwiched between the boundary of the Strip and the town of Sderot. It is the point in Israeli territory which is closest to Hamas territory that remains approachable, despite a heavy military presence.

Asher, a school bus driver, gave me a lift from near the railway station. When I told him that I plan to look over Gaza, he instantly asked: “Are you a leftist?”

“Why jump so soon to definitions?” I asked him, “Are right-wing people not curious?” I knew full well that saying “yes” would derail the conversation. It inevitably does in today’s Israel.

Asher pointed to a hill to the right of the road. “There,” he said, “this is where the army position is, from there you can see the F16s going in to bomb the Strip. Crazy assholes are really going at us today.”

“Well,” I said, “so are we. We are going at them, and with even greater might.”

“That’s nonsense,” said Asher,

“Didn’t you just mention the airplanes bombing them?”

“See?” he said, “I knew you are a leftist.”

Einat, a kibbutznik from Nir Am, picked me up at the junction and drove me all the way to the lookout, located a mile or so past...