Reflections of an Israeli Peacebuilder Who Also Serves in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)

Gail's first letter to us, dated September 29, 2024:

Hi Guy and Heidi!

Former student here! I follow your newsletters and articles very closely on Linkedin, and now I thought I would share something with you! After graduating from CU, I made aliyah [emigrated] to Israel and drafted into the IDF. After serving in the IDF for almost 3 years, I went on to complete my master's degree at the Hebrew University in Conflict Research, Management and Resolution in 2022. For the last few years, I have been working in various peacebuilding NGOs in the Israeli-Palestinian context, in roles related to program development and coordination, monitoring and evaluation, and dialogue facilitation. The NGO with which I am currently working,  Amal Tikva,  carried out in depth research regarding the state of peacebuilding and civil society in Israel after October 7th. Amal Tikva works to build capacity for sustainable and scalable peacebuilding between Israelis and Palestinians. We work mainly at the NGO, donor, and academic levels to support the development of sound theories of change rooted in strategic thinking and best practices. I thought you might be interested in reading the report - especially the key findings and key recommendations sections. It relates a lot to many of the analyses you have carried out in the last year in your own articles. Let me know what you think!

Heidi's response to Gail:

Gail, this is a fascinating and stunning report.  I've read the executive summary in its entirety, and have skimmed the rest of it. I am particularly surprised at how low the numbers are of people who reported relatives killed, displaced, or staff called up. The image we have here is that it would be 100%, particularly for Gazans, but it was far lower than that, and often the numbers were higher for Israelis than for Palestinians.  

I'm also surprised that the peacebuilding organizations, by and large, are still active, and are actively doing what you call "engagement."  I gathered that this is now primarily with one side only, not Jew/Palestinian engagement, but I will have to read more carefully to confirm that -- or get a clarification from you. 

I was particularly interested in your Recommendation #3 about engaging spoilers.  Yes, this certainly does have to happen.  But is it even remotely possible?  The report asserted that it is necessary to change the narrative and convince people that they are much more likely to meet their goals through nonviolence than violence.  Peacebuilders, of course, believe this is true.  But from what I read (from both Israeli and Arab sources, though only the English translations) is that Hamas, certainly, and by some accounts the majority of Palestinians, and even Arabs more broadly, believe that God told them that it is their religious duty to kill Jews and destroy Israel. There is no way to uphold that religious belief with nonviolence.  So the obvious question is,  can peacebuilders realistically change this narrative, if it is religiously based and so deeply entrenched? I am doubtful.  But I'm open to evidence.

The other thing that this report doesn't discuss at all is the situation in the north with Hezbollah.  It was undoubtedly written before the latest events there, but I gather Hezbollah has been shooting rockets since October 8. So the possibility of an attack from the north had to be on people's minds, and they, other Iranian proxies, or Iran itself can also act as spoilers.  So just engaging the Palestinians doesn't seem to be enough, as tall an order as that is.

I am wondering whether you would be willing to write something about this report and your own take on it and the current situation for our newsletter.  We will certainly add the report to our recommended links good section [we did that in Newsletter 284 , but I'd like to give it much more play than that.  I might write a post on it myself if you can't, but it would be so much better coming from you!

I'd also be interested, either on or off the record, whether you agree with our past posts on Israel, which I gather you have read. We obviously are much less optimistic about a peacebuilding solution.  But we'd love to be proven wrong!

Thanks for sharing this!

Gail's answer, dated September 30, 2024

In regards to the numbers of people who reported relatives killed, displaced, or staff called up, honestly I was surprised too! Just about every Israeli and Palestinian knows someone who was killed — it may just not be a relative. Personally, I had several friends who were killed on October 7th, but in terms of the data for this report, they wouldn't count because they are friends and not relatives. In terms of comparison between Israelis and Palestinians, I believe this is because the vast majority of Palestinians working in the peacebuilding field are either citizens of Israel, permanent residents of Jerusalem, or are from the West Bank. The number of Gazans who work in peacebuilding is very, very low.... understandably. If there were more Gazans in the field, then I do think the data would be flipped.

 As for the numbers of staff who were called up for reserve duty, I think these low numbers come from a couple of factors. 1) There is a much larger percentage of women working in the peacebuilding field than there are men. Most women are not required to serve as reservists. (I however, have been in and out of reserve duty. I have personally accumulated more than 5 months of reserve duty from October 7th until now — but this is because I serve in a combat role). 2) A large number of the Jewish Israelis working in peacebuilding are Olim Chadashim (immigrants), who moved to Israel at an older age and were never required to draft to the army. They, therefore, do not have reserve duty requirements. 3) Many people who work in the peacebuilding field are "sarbanim" or "refuseniks" who refused to ever serve in the army when they were called up for mandatory service at the age of 18, or who did serve, but now refuse to serve in reserve duty.

When it comes to the low number of staff who were displaced, I believe this is because most of these organizations sit in cities such as Jerusalem, Haifa, and Tel Aviv. The vast majority of Israeli areas which have faced serious displacement are periphery areas — the Gaza envelope area and the far north. These areas are more agricultural communities and have less people working in the peacebuilding field. As for Palestinian displacement, again I think the low numbers relate back to the relatively low number of Gazans working in the peacebuilding field. Displacement in Gaza has been massive, but this cannot be reflected in the data regarding the organizations' staff due to the lack of Gazan staff.

Absolutely peacebuilding organizations are still running programs despite the ongoing war. You are not the only one I have heard be surprised by this, however. I think it is surprising for many who are abroad to hear that actually despite the situation, organizations have been capable of continuing efforts and programs. In regards to the types of programs — it definitely depends on the organization and what type of programs they were running before the war.

Many organizations, even prior to October 7th, had participants engage in uni-national [just Jews or just Palestinian] programming as a precursor to participation in binational programming. There are however, some organizations - like Roots, for example, who after October 7th, have turned more towards uni-national efforts on both sides, such as instilling nonviolent education practices and values through uni-national programming. Sometimes these organizations have turned uni-national in order to continue making an impact, despite increased fears and skepticism, and others have turned uni-national merely because of the limitations and restrictions the war has had on movement and the ability to carry out cross-border programming.

For example, EcoPeace, an organization which brings together Palestinians, Israelis, and Jordanians on climate issues in the region has had to carry out more uni-national programming instead of international programming, because it is unsafe for Israelis to enter Jordan at this time. I was a participant in this program several years ago and went to Jordan several times, but this year they could not go to Jordan. Other organizations used to obtain permits for Palestinians from the West Bank to meet with Israelis in Israel, but the Israeli government is not issuing permits at this time. This hampers the ability to meet in person for binational programming. Some organizations such as Tech2Peace, which brings together Palestinians and Israelis for programming which combines hi-tech training and dialogue, had found a way around these difficulties, by flying their participants to Cyprus and carrying out the programming in Cyprus.

On the other hand, organizations whose programming has been more "shared society" as opposed to "cross-border" (meaning, Palestinian citizens of Israel or East Jerusalem Palestinians meeting with Jewish Israelis, have continued their mixed, binational programming. Another organization I have been working with for the last two years in Jerusalem is Yozmot Atid, which brings together Jewish Israeli and Palestinian women from East and West Jerusalem in a micro-business development training program. This program supports the women in establishing their own businesses and has formed a cross-community business network, creating business collaborations. They have been largely successful in continuing to carry out their programming in a mixed, binational setting, despite the ongoing conflict and war. Just during the last year alone, from last October until the end of September 2024, we had 119 participants (approx. 50% Jewish and 50% Palestinian) graduate from the program.

As for what you said about the belief that is is a duty to destroy Israel and the Jews, I think this is largely a misconception and is based on interpretation of Koran passages. Yes, Hamas and Hezbollah have outright declared these things as their goal and use certain interpretations of Koran passages to back it up. However, in my experience both working in peacebuilding with Palestinians as well as just having Palestinian acquaintances and friends who are not at all involved in peacebuilding efforts, this is not their belief. The vast majority of civilians on the ground have no interest in destroying the Jewish people and also say that this Islamic declaration by groups like Hamas and Hezbollah is largely out of particular interpretations of religious text. 

With that in mind, I don't have an answer, and neither does Amal Tikva, for how to involve the "real" spoilers - the spoilers who are the decision makers or holders of power and influence. However, on the ground level, the civilian level, I think the spoilers really just refers to the skeptics, or those who believe that violence is the only way because they feel powerless. In that case, I do think it is possible to engage them, and the growing trend in uni-national programming is one way to enable this.

Uni-national programming draws people from communities who are generally opposed to peacebuilding work to participate and engage and aids in strengthening values of nonviolent approaches to conflict resolution. A similar thing can be said about binational programming in which the "focus" of the programming is not dialogue per say, but some other shared interest - such as regional climate issues, or micro-business development training. Programs who engage participants based on other interests and needs often succeed in reaching beyond the echo chamber. They are able to bring together people who would otherwise not participate or engage in peacebuilding activities, and therefore have a larger impact in changing community perspectives towards the use of violence or nonviolence.

As for the more top-level and powerful spoilers, I think it will take some real creativity. As the report says, these spoilers may actually support the ultimate goal if it were to be expressed within their value systems. I think a big question though, is how do we do that? How can we translate goals of peace into a language that is culturally-accepted and fits into incredibly conservative and/or religious or what we may consider extreme value systems? How can we get them to understand that nonviolent constructs are actually going to be the most effective way to achieve their religious and nationalistic aspirations? I am not sure we know how to do that yet. 

Iran and other Iranian proxies certainly can act and do act as a spoiler to peace. However, at least on the grassroots level, our aim is working with the people on the ground and bridging those efforts with mid-level leadership (religious leaders, community leaders, etc.) and growing new leadership within the community. At the end of the day, peacebuilding efforts are between Israelis and Palestinians — not Israelis and Hezbollah, not Israel and Iran or Lebanon. I feel that those efforts are contained to a more political, military, and diplomatic level. Maybe, in some way, this does need to change and somehow peacebuilding efforts should engage with these actors as well...but I don't know how we would do that. 

Heidi's response to Gail:

Gail, this is fascinating and really helpful!  The thing that is jumping out at me, particularly, is how much what you describe as succeeding parallels what is being done here in the U.S. by an organization called Better Together America, on which we are doing a post tomorrow. (See beyondintractability.substack.com/p/newsletter-281).  They bring citizens together to do local bridge-building and more importantly deliberative democracy, to get around the ineffectual decision making structures at the national level.)

Heidi's letter then went on to discuss personal things that don't need to be included here. 

Gail's Follow Up, Dated October 8, 2024

I read the newsletter you wrote about Better Together America. I can definitely see the parallels between what they are aiming to do and what many organizations, including Amal Tikva, are aiming to do here on the ground in terms of local work and breaking efforts down into manageable parts. 

Something that super stuck out to me was when you discussed the pitfall of classic dialogues. This is also an issue in Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding, and what many people have come to critique, and why many are doubtful about the ability of peacebuilding to work — up until recently, most programs in the peacebuilding field in Israel/Palestine has been largely centered around "co-existence" and "getting to know the other" through either contact programs which bring participants together and help them get to know each other and build relationships through a non-conflict related dynamic i.e., PeacePlayers Middle East (basketball), Budo for Peace (martial arts), Freddie Kirvine Tennis Initiative; or, through dialogue programs intended to help the "other" to learn the other side's narrative and get to know each other and change perspectives.

In more recent years, there has been a bit of a paradigm shift. While these programs still do exist, many in the field are realizing that it isn't good enough, exactly for the reasons you mentioned - "participants tend to go home to their "same old toxic culture," and their transformed attitudes don't tend to last very long." Dialogue programs and contact programs don't make any "practical" difference on the ground. It may change perspectives temporarily, but when people go back into the same social systems, faced with inequality, racism, violence, and whatever else — these changed views don't last.

So the idea is that in addition to these efforts to change perspectives, an emphasis has to also be put on changing the social structures on the ground which are forming the reality that exists. It moves into activism and policy work and education for social change.

The paradigm shift has gone from a desire to "coexist", in which each community theoretically lives separately at peace, to understanding that our communities, whether we like it or not, are interconnected and dependent on each other. Therefore, what is actually needed is to work towards a more "shared society" which involves real change and not only perspective change.

While I was in my master's degree at the Hebrew University, we had a guest lecturer from Haifa University named Ran Kuttner who spoke a lot about this and has carried out a lot of research on this as well. He worked in program development for Givat Haviva and on advisory boards for various initiatives.

I also read your newsletter comparing 9/11 and 10/7 and wanted to respond to a few things. In one section, you talk about how the world's response, including the White House, is that Israel is killing far too many Palestinians. This response is indicative of looking purely at "numbers" on both sides. The death and injury toll would surely be much higher on the Israeli side than it is now if we didn't have defense systems such as the iron dome and arrow to shoot down rockets and missiles coming into our airspace. I wonder if this were the case, and then the numbers were drastically different, whether this would actually cause a different outlook by the international community on what is happening, or whether they would continue to perceive it in the same light as they do now. Also related to this response, is the issue of Hamas's output of statistics regarding casualties and injured people. As has been criticized and has come to light, much of the data is made up and also there is no differentiation in the statistics regarding civilians versus combatants. But - people are quick to believe the numbers and don't engage in critical thinking. 

In another section, you talk about the unilateral withdrawal of Israel from Gaza and how the following experience causes Israel to refrain from giving up the West Bank. While this is definitely a large part of the refusal to withdraw... it certainly isn't the whole story and is much more complicated than that. Regardless, the questions you raised reminded me of a book I read in one of my classes in my master's degree - Chances for Peace: Missed Opportunities in the Arab-Israeli Conflict written by a professor of mine, Eli Podeh. In it, he essentially analyzes and measures the potentiality of various attempted negotiations over the years - why they failed, who was at fault for it failing, and whether there even was potential for it to succeed. I am not sure if you know the book or not, but if not, I highly recommend it. It is very interesting and a lot can be learned from it towards future negotiations. 

Later on, you also mention something about Israel's incorporation of Palestinians and other Arabs (Druze and Bedouin) into society as demonstrating that a better approach is possible. While you do say that the way it has been done has been imperfect... I feel that it is glossing over actually severe inequality and structural racism which has long been inherent in Israel society. I would not say that Israel has actually successfully incorporated Palestinians and other Arabs into Israeli society. The only community which can be looked at as a successful incorporation is the Druze community - and only the Druze community in the Carmel area, not the community in the Golan Heights. This successful incorporation is also not, in my opinion, a success of Israeli efforts, rather stems entirely from the Druze community of the Carmel area itself. In Druze culture, they are largely loyal to the country in which they live. As such, when they became Israelis, Druze from Carmel essentially pledged loyalty to Israel. The Druze in the Golan Heights however, which was occupied through war, see the Golan Heights as part of Syria still, and therefore are not loyal to Israel, but to Syria. In fact, Israel had offered citizenship to the Druze community of the Golan Heights, and many of them refused the citizenship. Additionally, the Israeli attempt at integrating Bedouins into Israeli society through the creation of the Bedouin city of Rahat in the south was largely a failure. Culturally, Bedouins are a nomadic people, and Israel has forced them to settle in one place, without providing them means to adapt to a new way of life, and without being culturally competent of their needs and interests. As such, we have two problems: 1) Rahat has become a city filled with gang violence and crime, where the Israeli police essentially refuse to operate and get involved. 2) There are many bedouin villages who are "illegal" and "unrecognized". These people end up facing housing demolitions and destruction of their communities and lack of rights. Furthermore, other Arab communities and villages continue to face structural racism, such as unequal distribution of resources towards them from the government, and also here to, an issue of Israeli police refusing to get involved in the crime and violence happening in the communities. I think we can also see from 2021 outbreak of violence in the streets in mixed cities in Israel — lynchings, vandalism, fights etc, that Israel is not doing a very good job at "keeping the peace" or incorporating Palestinians and Arabs into Israeli society. Incredibly rifts exist instead. Rifts that peacebuilding organizations are trying to mend.

Lastly, your comparison of the reactions to 9/11 to the reactions to 10/7 compare the reactions from each time period. While this is also important, as we can see the trend and change in public opinion towards such events, I think it is also important to compare modern day to modern day. If 9/11 were to happen today, how would today's society react to it? What would the expected response be from civilians in the US today? Would their response be similar to what it was in the past to the war in Afghanistan and Iraq? Or, if these wars were to happen today, would they (which they did not then) actually call US actions a genocide? What does the younger generation of today - Gen Z, particularly the extreme left, who we see are vocally supporting violent resistance of Palestinians towards Israel as freedom fighting, and who see Israel's actions as genocide and occupation and settler colonialism - what do they think of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars looking back on American history? How do they define American actions? Maybe they do call what the US did a genocide now, even if at the time of it, the public did not. Many of your articles and newsletters have been about the red/blue divide in the US, and how public opinion has shifted towards each extreme over time... I think your comparison of 9/11 to 10/7 has to fit somewhere within this understanding that discourse and public opinion has changed, and we cannot just compare public opinion during 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq to 10/7 and the ensuing war, rather we also must compare current opinions and perspectives on 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq to the reactions to 10/7 to gain a better understanding as to what transformations in public opinion have occurred and whether 9/11 and 10/7 are similar or not within the American mindset.

In general, I want to commend your and Guy's ability to carry out this ongoing discussion regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. As you said in the beginning of this newsletter, you do have a very different image of the situation than most of the international community, including academics and practitioners, do. I am sure engaging in this discussion with those who see things vastly different than you has been incredibly challenging. For me, it has become incredibly difficult to hold these conversations, as it is incredibly personal and emotional. Growing up in Colorado, I grew up in a very left and liberal surrounding, and always considered myself to also be as such. Not once did I ever feel that my Jewish identity was threatened or have anyone around me who was inherently against Israel and Zionism - not even during college. Somehow, I escaped BDS on the CU campus during the time I was there. In 2021, after the Israeli operation Guardian of the Walls and the civil unrest within Israel's borders in mixed cities, suddenly many of my childhood and college friends flipped a switch. Those who had previous supported me in moving to Israel and joining the army, even those who knew I was studying conflict resolution and working in peacebuilding, suddenly decided "I" was the enemy, and unless I could tell them that I believe that Israel is a colonial state which has no right to exist and that we need to get rid of it and give it back to the Palestinians, then they had zero interest in continuing talking with me anymore. That was the first time I lost friends over this, and it was incredibly painful. It didn't matter to them that I was trying to work towards bettering the situation. To them everything is simple, black and white - and don't I dare come forth and say it could possibly be complex. It didn't matter to them that I had been studying and researching this conflict for years. Suddenly they were the experts and what I had to say meant nothing. For those who I didn't lose in 2021, this ongoing war was the tip of the iceberg for their change of heart as well. I lost pretty much all of my friends from my childhood and from college over this, and not because any of us argued about it, but simply because they no longer had any interest in keeping in contact with me due to their newfound perspectives on what's going on, and therefore, also about me, because I moved to Israel and because I served in the IDF. I don't know if this "jumping on the bandwagon" is a new social phenomenon which needs to be studied, or whether it has happened consistently through different periods of time, but it certainly says a lot about the shift in public opinion over the years.

Heidi's Response to Gail:

Thanks for clarifying our too-simplistic image of the Druze and the Bedouin. As for your question of comparing now to now, I have no doubt that the progressives would likely paint any US attack on anyone as genocide.  But that doesn't make them right.  I think one problem today is the cheapening of the use of the term "genocide." When everything is genocide, nothing is genocide.  It becomes a meaningless N-word.  Just as anyone we don't like is a fascist or a communist or a socialist.  People would do well to learn what those terms mean and use them properly.

Gail's Response from October 9, 2024

Even what I touched on is only the surface. You could dig much further into understanding the situations of various Arab communities in Israeli society. I think the only places you could actually say that Israel has to some extent incorporated Arabs into Israeli society is in mixed cities, such as Haifa, Ramle, Lod, and Jaffa. But even in these cities, while Jews and Arabs live in the same cities and may buy groceries in the same super markets, they don't really "mix". Even the schooling systems are generally separated in mixed cities — Israeli Jews go to regular public schools and Arab kids go to Arab-run schools. It's kind of a "together but separate" situation. ... I also very much so agree with you regarding the use of the term genocide today. 

Additional Material Gail sent on October 14, 2024

To touch on some of the other questions you asked in a previous email — the vast majority of Israelis want the war to end. They see both Hamas and Netanyahu as equally responsible for the failure to come to an agreement which would end the war and release the hostages. The majority feeling is that Netanyahu has no real interest in getting the hostages released, but rather continues to use war as a political pawn to keep him in power. Whether this is truly the case or not, I cannot say... but this is one of the major perspectives held in Israeli society right now.

As I am sure you know, the political environment in Israel has been in a state of upheaval, long before Oct. 7th. In 2020 and 2021, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in protest of Netanyahu, wanting to oust him from government. These protests went on for over a year. In 2023, civilians again took to the streets in mass protest, including national strikes against the proposed judicial reform. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took part in these protests. The 2022 election was the 5th election in over 4 years, due to the government collapsing time after time. Following, Oct. 7th, civilians have again been taking to the streets every single week in protest of the government and Netanyahu, blaming them for the failure to release the hostages, and demanding that the government comes to an agreement which will release them.

With that said, following Oct 7th, almost every reservist was called up, and those who are not active reservists fought to gain some assignment as reservists — to aid the cause in some way. Everyone wanted to draft and felt the need to be an active part of defending the country.

This comes in stark contrast to the threats made and positions taken during the protests against the judicial reform, in which many many bodies of reservists refused to show up for their reserve duty as a form of protest against the reform. The dominant perspective then was "why should we risk our lives for a country who doesn't care about us?"

And yet, as could be expected of Israeli society, the second that the call to reserve duty was not just for yearly exercises or regular temporary stations on borders etc, and actually became a serious need to defend the country, everyone, including those who refused to serve as protest against judicial reform, immediately showed up to reserve duty, and many people who don't actively serve in the reserves found ways to get drafted. There are those who are far beyond the required age for reserve duty who chose to volunteer and continue serving, and there are those who, for other reasons, have exemptions from reserve duty and fought to cancel their exemptions so that they could volunteer in various roles. In my eyes, and in many others, this is because the need to defend the country was no longer seen as a duty to the country as in "government" and was now a necessity to protect civilians on the ground — because everyone knows someone or knows someone who knows someone who was either murdered or taken hostage. 

So most Israelis want the war to end, but with a hostage deal. The idea of the war ending without getting the hostages back is not accepted. Most believe that the war could have been over much, much sooner and not have been dragged out as much if both Hamas and Netanyahu would have taken negotiations seriously and would have actually been interested in putting the war to an end.

So there is push back to end the war, but the dominant perspective is not against the war outright. Most agree that it was necessary for Israeli forces to enter Gaza to destroy Hamas infrastructure and root out Hamas itself.

In terms of what is going on in Lebanon and now the entrance of Israeli forces into Lebanon, I have not heard much push back against it. There is the fringe left who is against it, but these are people who even before October 7th have been active in anti-occupation and anti-apartheid rhetoric and who are "refuseniks".

The decision to enter Lebanon is largely dependent on the need for Israeli civilians from the north to return home. Most civilians from the north have made it very vocal that they will not return home unless Israel does something very serious about the threat that looms over the north from Hezbollah and Iran. They fear another October 7th, but carried out on them by Hezbollah in the north.

The goal, therefore, of Israeli forces entering Lebanon is to push Hezbollah back to the armistice line so that there is a true security barrier between the two countries. In doing so, Israel has unearthed a lot of Hezbollah infrastructure such as tunnels crossing from Lebanon into Israel — which has only boostered northern Israeli communities' belief that there is a looming threat and that Israel needs to seriously take action in order for them to return to their homes and feel safe.

There are other topics related to the war that are more divided in Israeli society— such as Israel providing humanitarian aid to Gazans. There are those who conflate all Gazans with Hamas, and the fact that many of those who took part in the atrocities on October 7th were not affiliated with Hamas or any other terror group only strengthens this perspective. So some Israelis believe that we should not provide them with aid and they do not deserve our aid. They believe that providing them with aid only emboldens them to continue their actions, and that we should cut them off from all aid in order to force their hand. On the flip side, there are those who understand that not all Gazans are Hamas or terrorists, and many are just innocent civilians who are negatively impacted by the war, and that we have some sort of responsibility to help them. 

For me personally, it's been a particularly challenging time to 'balance' my strong belief in nonviolent conflict resolution and peacebuilding efforts together with my belief that the IDF is necessary and we have a right to defend ourselves, even through military action. It's a thin line to walk and I have been heavily criticized from others on both ends of the spectrum. In fact, there was a dialogue program run by a British Trust which I had been facilitating for a while that ended up firing me after I got called up to reserve duty. They think I should have refused to serve and decided that my serving in the IDF as a reservist goes against their values of nonviolence and they made a new policy that staff members cannot serve in reserve duty. Many of the other staff criticized me saying "it's not possible to serve in an army and also believe in peacebuilding at the same time.. They told me that I am a fake, and a hypocrite, and two-faced and many other things.

Most of the others I serve with in the reserves however, have been rather positive towards my work in peacebuilding. Some of them think I am "naive" to believe in peacebuilding, and they believe we are far past any of these efforts making a difference, but they are not against the attempt per se. But also, in the unit I serve in, most of the people come from rather liberal/moderate left backgrounds. There are other units with people from much more right-winged and conservative backgrounds, who I am sure would hold much stronger opinions.

Both internally, in balancing my values and understanding where I stand regarding everything, and externally in physically going back and forth between reserve duty and work over the last year has been incredibly challenging. Working on a mixed Israeli-Palestinian team in peacebuilding organizations creates an interesting dynamic when the Palestinian staff knows you went and served in reserve duty. I have felt the need to shy away from talking about being in reserves when at work and almost hiding the fact. Not because I feel they are mad at me, but rather because I don't want to make my Palestinian colleagues uncomfortable. There are those who are more understanding and those who are less understanding. But it's unnerving when you don't know where someone stands, and therefore it has felt necessary almost to just keep quiet about it, so that we can continue a functioning work environment in which we promote peace processes through our programs for our participants and partner organizations.