SPECIAL FEATURE: The only place in the world where Palestinians and Jews purposefully live together
Sabrina Miller acknowledges that the conversations she had at Oasis of Peace sometimes made her uncomfortable, as they likely did for the Palestinians she spoke to
From the outside it is indistinguishable from any other small Israeli town.
Children are screaming joyfully in the playground, neighbours are gaily waving at each other in the streets and the unforgiving Middle Eastern sun is beating down.
But Neve-Shalom (in Hebrew), Wahat Al-Salam (in Arabic), and Oasis of Peace (in English) – a small village founded in 1972 and nestled in the Ayalon Valley between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem – is anything but ordinary.
It is the only place in the world where Palestinian and Jewish Israeli families purposefully live and learn together in a ‘shared society’.
This – among other things – means that the ethnic proportion of Jewish and Palestinian residents is balanced and all residents are taught to speak Arabic and Hebrew.
The mayor is Jewish, the headmistress at the local school is Palestinian, and the town’s founder is an Egyptian born Jewish man who later converted to Catholicism.
Controversially residents mark both Yom Haatzmaut – Israel’s national independence day – and the Nakba, known as ‘the catastrophe’ in Arabic which marks the expulsion of Arabs from British mandate Palestine.
To some, this may seem ideologically contradictory. But the residents here would argue this is what ordinary, quiet acts of peace and shared existence looks like.
During my two-day visit to this strange, idyllic place I encounter perspectives about the war I have never heard before. Amongst the Jewish residents, conscientious objection is common, for instance. “I would actively try and prevent my grandkids from serving”, Eldad Joffee, the 70-year-old Jewish mayor admits to me.
Some of the Palestinian residents meanwhile are ostracised for ‘normalising’ relations with Israelis.
Normalisation refers to the process of improving diplomatic, economic, cultural, and social ties with Israel – something rejected by some extremist pro-Palestinian campaigners who refuse to acknowledge the existence of a Jewish state in the region.
The apparent beating heart of the village is a small cafe, with blue-painted walls, owned by Rayek – a Palestinian Christian whose family has lived in Nazareth for more than 400 years.
There we also meet Mohammed Abunasser, 46, whose wife works as a neurologist in the Hadassah hospital – an example, perhaps, of the opportunities and success many Palestinians can have in Israel.
Mohammed – a Muslim Palestinian who has lived in multiple Israeli cities – is self-conscious about his English (which is honestly excellent). He also speaks Arabic (which I do not) so we chat instead in Hebrew – so much for rejecting normalisation!
“Before October 7 I lived and worked alongside Jews in Israel and it was all normal,” he tells me. “But now, after October 7 it is hard. Arabs, Jews, Palestinians – it’s really not good.
“Because of the situation my wife wants to go back to England. She used to work in the NHS so there is a route for her. But I don’t want to. My family and home is here, in Israel. It’s tough.”
Our visit coincides with the collapse of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal. The mood amongst the peaceniks is solemn. The Palestinian residents feel this acutely. It is their people dying en masse just a few hundred kilometres away.
Especially forthright in her views is Samah Salamine, 49, a human rights activist and Palestinian resident of the village. “When my 17-year-old son is sitting on a bus in Jerusalem and he calls me, I tell him to speak to me in Hebrew. I don’t want him to speak in Arabic in public in case some soldier thinks he is doing something suspicious and shoots him.
“My other son (a student at Haifa University) is surrounded by students carrying M16s around campus speaking openly about what they did to Palestinians in Gaza.
“I hate that Jewish people outside of Israel are being forced to hide their identity by tucking away their Magen David necklaces. But this is what we have to do in Israel – hide ourselves. It’s oppression.” It’s hard to disagree. But listening to her scathing criticisms of the Jewish state is difficult.
Sadly my visit to the ‘Oasis of Peace’ made me understand why peace so often fails.
Frankly, the honest conversations I had with the residents did not feel good or comfortable.
In fact, at times, it felt like betrayal of the memory of those that have been murdered or died in this war and previous wars.
Of those mercilessly massacred at Nova, shot dead in kibbutzim or executed in tunnels.
I have no doubt the Palestinians felt the same when talking to me.
But that does not mean we were wrong to force these frank discussions. Openness and honesty are fundamental pillars of the village, I am told.
As we leave Neve Shalom/ Wahat al Salam I see dozens of children performing cartwheels in the park and kicking footballs in the playground while shouting the name of their favourite footballers (British born Jude Bellingham proves popular).
Watching them with a sad smile on my face, it was impossible to distinguish between the Israeli children and the Palestinian children. It is a stark reminder of why the activists I meet relentlessly, doggedly beat the drum of peace. All of them call the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River their home. And none of them have anywhere else to go.
This Oasis of Peace they have built may not be perfect. But for the Israelis and Palestinians living here there is no better alternative.
- Sabrina Miller is a journalist at the Daily Mail.
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