A Conversation with Gadi Algazi

By profession, Professor Algazi is a historian at Tel Aviv University. By calling, he is a humanist and a passionate human rights advocate. At the age of 12, when his friends would have been engrossed in comic books, he had already decided that he would not do his compulsory military service in the Occupied Territories – Palestinian land seized by Israel in the 1967 war. At the age of 18 he became the first Israeli to publicly refuse to comply with military orders to serve there. He continues to suffer the wrath of the establishment he has taken on: he has been court-martialled, and over the years, has served seven prison sentences. In 2000, after the 2nd Palestinian uprising began, Professor Algazi witnessed a crumbling of the anti-war and anti-occupation movement in Israel. In response, he and a small band of dedicated activists formed the grassroots movement Living Together. One of their tasks is to try to counter what he calls the “creeping silent transfer” – that is, the government’s attempt to expel the Palestinians without overt force. Villages simply become “unrecognized” by the government. They have full property rights, but no water, schooling, electricity and so forth. Eventually a village that is not recognized as existing, in fact ceases to exist. Professor Algazi discusses the implications of Israel's security barrier. According to him, the Wall will not only encircle Palestinian communities, it will also separate them from their land, water resources and each other. Even if the government tries at some future stage to change its current policy, he says, some effects may be irreversible. He in no way condones the horrifying trend of suicide bombers but he understands the despair that drives them to such acts. His final words may well turn out to be the calling of Cassandra: “desperate people don’t become nicer. If you rob people of a political future, what remains is very little.”