On Monday, Nov. 18, Israeli and Palestinian peace activists, Rotem Levin and Osama Lliwat, also known as the ‘Salt of the Earth’ duo, came to the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse to speak on collective liberation and share their personal stories of transformation.
“We’re not here to convince you who’s right and who’s wrong,” said Lliwat. “Please stay if you like our speech, please stay if you don’t like [it]. We’re not here to win conversations with anyone, we’re here to try and find a way in the middle.”
Lliwat started by sharing his story. Born in Jerusalem, his grandmother would often tell him stories of her life in their village in Lifta before Jewish people kicked them out, leading to their move to East Jerusalem.
He said these events instilled his first feelings of fear toward Jewish people. Over the years this fear would grow due to the presence of Jewish military occupation. He mentioned often seeing fully armed soldiers around his school who neither looked nor spoke like him.
The breaking point for him was when the soldiers took his father out of their house and abused him in front of 13-year-old Lliwat.
“That night was a big shift in my life. That night, the Jewish people abused the security of my life, the strongest person who I used to feel secure when he was around, and all the fears shifted to hate,” said Lliwat.
After this occurred, Lliwat engaged in a variety of protests, including joining resistances. In 2010, he was invited by a friend to a peace conference. Lliwat at the time had never met peace activists before and was shocked to find Jewish people at the conference. Not believing that Jewish people could be peace activists, Lliwat initially left the conference angry with his friend.
What changed his mind he said, was hearing the Jewish people at the conference advocate for peace for Palestinians and believe in his rights and his story.
The experience also made him realize the danger of thinking that you’re the only right narrative and that you cannot be wrong. So, he began to seek out more Jewish people who shared a similar perspective. In the process, he met Israeli youths who refused to serve in the army as their form of protest.
Lliwat said, “Since then I decided with my Israeli friends to break the system. The system wanted us to be enemies, we decided to be friends, the system wanted us to be separated, we decided to be united, they wanted us to fight each other…we decided to fight together.”
Levin then told his own story. Born in a small village, Levin didn’t know any Palestinians as a child due to only growing up around Jewish people. Starting from the age of 10 he would hear about violent attacks such as bus explosions and more. He said the radio stated that the Palestinians were behind them. Similar to Lliwat’s story this instilled a fear of Palestinians in him at an early age.
He added that because the Israeli school system didn’t teach them Arabic, he would begin to build a fear of the language whenever he heard it spoken. The official language in Palestine is Palestinian Arabic.
Levin explained that in Israel, they were raised on a victim narrative due to the Holocaust, and visiting death camps on school strips intensified these feelings. He further explained that because the society was so militaristic and everybody served in the army he was raised to believe that the army was his protector.
“I remember that the message was that, the only way to protect the Jews from European antisemitism was Jewish nationality and we cannot trust anyone to protect us, we have to do it ourselves,” said Levin.
This fear led many to join the army, including 18-year-old Levin, who believed it was his turn to protect his people.
Levin described his service time as not intensive. He did not have to fight or shoot anyone but one night when his team was taken to the West Bank, he was asked to throw a non-lethal grenade. He stated that he did it because he was trained to be the best soldier he could be.
Later on, he had a conversation with another soldier that led to him questioning everything. “I realized that there is something here that I’m not aligned with,” said Levin.
Just before he went to university to start medical school, he and a friend went to Germany to meet Palestinians from the West Bank, something he thought he would never be able to do.
Most of the Palestinians he met there were born and raised in refugee camps around the West Bank. For 10 days, Levin listened to them speak and witnessed them crying while sharing not just their stories but their grandparents’ stories of living under military occupation.
“The gap between the narratives is so big…what allowed me to accept it and transform and take responsibility is the relationship,” said Levin. “I started to care for them and once you care for someone you cannot go back into indifference.”
Upon coming back from Germany, Levin moved to the West Bank with his friends. He added that he learned to speak Arabic while living there.
“This is an apartheid system, some people receive rights because they are from the right race, right ethnicity and some people don’t receive rights because they are from the wrong ethnicity,” said Levin.
After they shared their story, the audience proceeded to ask questions, a member of the audience asked what they wanted America to do.
Lliwat answered, “Change this system here…start telling your senators to stop sending weapons to us.”
Another audience member asked who were Hamas and how they got involved.
“When you have occupation and people don’t receive rights that creates resistance movements,” said Lliwat.
He explained that the first resistance movement created was called the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), a movement that many Palestinians were behind, and one he was a part of. Lliwat further explained that both Hamas and PLO fought together initially.
“Then Hamas started to grow bigger in Gaza, and they controlled Gaza…we became separated. Two governments, two people, two systems and that’s exactly what happened,” said Lliwat.
Lliwat said that he didn’t support what Hamas did on Oct. 7 and there’s no way to justify killing and kidnapping kids even if it’s resistance.
“Even resistance has morals,” said Lliwat. “So Hamas…Hezbollah and Fatah and all these groups I don’t want to make them holy, but they are a result of occupation and not the other way around.”
A Jewish student in the audience asked how they could open these kinds of discussions to their parents.
Levin answered that he could relate to this and that it was important to not judge people, establish a connection and show them that you are moved by love.
He also added that the focus should not be on changing others but on being the change you want to see in yourself.
Lliwat followed up with a quote by Mahatma Gandhi, “Gandhi said, ‘Yesterday I was smart and I wanted to change the world, today I became wise and I decided to change myself’ and that’s where the change is done, it’s not your responsibility to change everyone.”
Another audience member asked about the role of initiatives that brought and taught children from both sides together.
Levin said that there were only seven such schools in Israel and that only Palestinian citizens who constitute about 20% of the population could go to them.
“Of course, the government doesn’t want to support these schools because the children that go to these schools later on refuse to serve in the army because they have Palestinian friends…they don’t want to be part of oppressing their friends,” said Levin.
Lliwat and Levin encouraged the audience to listen to alternative media and avoid government-backed media. They recommended the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, +972 Magazine, Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem, media from Israel Human Rights Organizations and the podcast Disillusioned hosted by a friend of Levin.
“The hope is in us the people. We shouldn’t wait to feel hope from the government because it will never come. It’s our responsibility to choose our every day and to choose action because action is hope,” said Levin.
Lliwat said, “You can’t keep sitting on your comfortable sofa writing comments on Facebook and you think you’re going to change the system. You can’t keep being afraid of losing your job…your career and losing your money and…your salary and losing everything that changes a system.”
He continued, “You need to take risks. We have too many kinds of fishes in the sea, there is one kind swimming against the stream, the salmon. So, we’re inviting you to be salmons.”
You can learn more about the Salt of the Earth duo on their website, Instagram, Facebook and Linktr.ee.
