By Justine Hemmestad
I begin this week’s Israel at War with a focus on Iowa’s involvement with Sister Cities, via Fort Dodge’s arrangement with its sister city of Gjakova, Kosovo. Fort Dodge has been Gja- kova’s sister city since 2016. A recent trip for high school students to Kosovo was funded by fundraising and local civic organizations, such as the Smeltzer Foundation, Webster County 4-H, the Noon Kiwanis, CJ Bio America, and the NEW Cooperative Foundation. The students were able to learn about another country’s culture and gain new under- standing. Additionally, the Iowa City City Council discussed the possibility of becoming an international Sister City earlier this year, highlighting the prospect’s benefits (including financially for businesses, expanding connections, as well as working together toward common goals). All in all, it amounts to citizen diplomacy. Sister Cities International assists, and the cost for a city, as Iowa City has determined, would likely be less than $1,000. I asked the Nameless One what he thinks of Dayton having a sister city agreement with an Israeli city, and he shared that his own experience when in high school was “very positive.” The town in which he was raised, Kfar Saba, had a twin city agreement with Frankfurt, Germany, and through the program, the Nameless One, “paid a visit to Frankfurt to meet young Germans, stay at their homes and tour together.” However, the Nameless One says that the young Germans were not able to visit Israel the next year, “because the second intifada started.” This is where my article diverges. For more about the Second Intifada, of course I turn to the Nameless One - but since he may be busy with new duties, I refer to a past recording from 2022, just after Russia invaded Ukraine. The more I listened and the more research I did, the more I saw the link with Israel’s current war, stemming from October 7. He began describing the Second Intifada (which took place from 2000-2005) by saying, “It’s really hard to understand how terrible this was.” It must have been, to disrupt the twin cities program he was involved in. In fact, the first intifada saw widespread Palestinian protests and acts of violence and terrorism against Israelis. The violence of the 2nd intifada had erupted in 2000, just as peace was being negotiat
ed. He relates a story from 2001, when he was 16 and he and his friends took a bus to Tel Aviv at a time when people were afraid to go on busses at the risk of suicide bombers (which had become a daily fear in Israel). He and his friends were alert for strange behavior, noticing someone’s bag, ringing sweat, or twitching leg. Any of these may indicate a suicide bomber. The Nameless One sat beside an Arab man in the back row of the bus, who seemed nervous and happened to carry a bag. He admits that he and his friends “knew nothing” at the time, but he struck up a conversation with the man and learned that he was merely in the process of getting his laundry done. There’s a lot to be said for reaching out. Since then, the Nameless One’s passion has been studying the conflict with the Palestinians (as well as guiding), and prior to October 7 he was working on ways to reduce, or shrink, the conflict. He was, in fact, looking for ways to help the Palestinians prosper by taking the vision of peace and implementing it into the bureaucracy. He felt then that it wasn’t about political views, but about the things that can actu- ally be done to help. To encapsulate the shifting Israeli perspective: there was hope after the 1st Intifada in the 90s, to the clash of the early 2000s, to a complete freeze where nothing was moving. Israeli society as a whole moved to the right politically, and elected a government which has persisted until today. This brings us to October 7 - even before the terror attack, Israelis thought peace was a naive idea. “Globalize the Intifada” became a call for people to rise up against Israel, and has continued to be used to incite violence and targeting of institutions and individuals around the world who show support for Israel (I could find evidence of the term used post October 7 as well). How could having a sister city actively support Israel? By learning from Israelis and sharing knowledge of our own town. And though there is no city-wide violence like during the 2nd Intifada, there is the hatred of Israelis by neighboring lands. On a personal level, my friendship with the Nameless One has been one of the things I’ve been most grateful for; I’ve been given the gift of learning about the person who was not afraid to sit with his enemies when he was a kid and learn how that temperament allows him to see the world around him today as he teaches others. And through our connection I’ve learned the truth, beyond what is presented by a biased media, and I’ve been able to share the truth with my neighbors. To me, that’s the very essence of the understanding that could be achieved through having a sister city
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