I met Tidhar in New Haven, CT in August 2023, and just saw him again, November 2024 in Jaffa, a neighborhood outside of Tel Aviv. I had a tea and we went for a long walk.
Tidhar’s 19 years old now. When I first met him, he shared a less than optimistic view of the future for Israel and Palestine. His predictions before October 7th were proven correct.
Upon graduating high school last year, Tidhar received a medial diagnosis that determined he was exempt from joining the Israeli army. In lieu of joining the army, he was required to find another type of occupation, so he has been volunteering for the past year with the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation where he works 5 days a week coordinating events between young Arabs and Jews, like soccer games, etc. It’s more of a challenge to bring these groups together lately for the obvious reasons, but he believes in the mission of the center. He also is required to send a certain amount of money to the Israeli health department each month as part of this agreement.
The traditional trajectory of an 18 year old Jewish Israeli is that once they graduate high school, they enlist in the army. Some go to University before joining the army, but that is mostly the exception, like Tevel, who plans to join the army afterwards. If a Jewish Israeli citizen is deemed physically and mentally fit and has no questionable history, then they are required to serve. If you decide not to serve, you can be confronted with one year of jail time in Israel. This does happen. Another exception is that the Orthodox Jews are not required to serve in the army, which is a point of contention and protest within the country. Druze and Circassians males are also required to join, but not the females. As you see, there are rules for some groups but not others in the sate of Israel.
Growing up with 2 siblings and parents in marketing and education, Tidhar lives in a supportive home. He's authentic as they come, says what he feels, kind but critical where he needs to be, and without any degree of arrogance or self-righteousness. He reminds me of Holden Caulfield, slightly disaffected, but still believes in ideals larger than himself.
We start our conversation about the war(s) in and outside Israel. He first offers to me bluntly that he does not want to contribute to an apartheid state. But he’s not talking about apartheid within the Israeli borders, he’s specifically talking about what’s happening in the West Bank where they have Jewish settlements and Palestinian neighborhoods separated by walls and barriers. Two communities that live right next to each other, but cannot interact or see one another. From the West Bank, a Jewish settler could take 20 minutes to drive to Jerusalem, where it could take a Palestinian resident two hours to travel the same distance because of all the checkpoints they would have to go through.
Tidhar educates me about a law in the West Bank that allows arrests with no warrant and no cause to combat terror in the West Bank. And up until two days ago, he said, the law applied to Arabic and Jewish people. Now the law no longer applies to the Jewish people in the West Bank. This means, only Arabic people in the West Bank can be arrested without a warrant or cause in the efforts to combat terror.
On a side note, the West Bank is divided into three zones, Area A, B and C. Each Zone has a different level of Israeli involvement and Palestinian sovereignty.
Area A: Palestinian administrative and police control. 18% of the West Bank.
Area B: Palestinian Authority has administrative control, but shares security control with Israeli authorities. 22% of West Bank
Area C: The most complicated and hotly contested area of them all. Israel administers Area C. 300,000 Palestinians live here along with 400,000 Israeli settlers residing in approximately 230 settlements. 30% of Area C is a designated “firing zone” for military training. It is nearly impossible for Palestinian residents to obtain land permits for housing and farming in Area C. 60% of the West Bank.
These areas aren’t divided up like Neapolitan ice Cream in 3 separate sections partitioned off, it’s more divided up like rocky road, where you are see a random settlements of Area A and B in the swath of Area C.
Tidhar further continues explaining that Jewish settlers from the West Bank can travel into Israel, but a Palestinian in the West Bank cannot see the sea and cannot walk into the Israel.
“You can argue if it’s for defense, but you cannot argue that it’s not apartheid. We are settling there and kicking them out. We burned their olive trees. There are no repercussions. They will dislike the word but they don’t have a problem with the idea of apartheid.”
Aside from the West Bank, I ask him if he thinks there is apartheid within Israel, and he responds that he does not think so.
Tidhar does in fact believe in a Palestinian sate with Gaza and West Bank as one state connected by a road or train so there is freedom of movement between. But, he lamented that he does not think this is plausible in the next 50 years.
“The problem right now is that no one is trying to stop it, we keep killing Palestinians There is a war. A solution takes a lot of fucking time.”
Resolute with his deep-seated belief in peace, he recites, “The hardship of peace is better than the suffering of war.”
We go on for a while digging deeper into Israeli policy in the West Bank with “what ifs” and “if only” scenarios. We discuss the plausibility and implausibility of a one-state solution. When discussing Israel's need for defense, he tells me that “No one thinks about other people when their life is on the line.”
I directed the conversation towards Gaza as that is the topic that is front page in the United states from students protesting at universities, citizens marching in streets, and disruptions in American governmental activities. So, I ask him, “Do you think there is a genocide in Gaza”.
He replies, “We are very close to it. Most of the illegal war crimes happen because of rogue soldiers. They don’t get prosecuted. They don’t get a direct order. There are a lot of Israelis searching for revenge. It’s not black and white.”
As Tidhar opened up to me about his feelings and reflections on the current state of affairs in Israel and Palestine, we walked over from Jaffa to Tel Aviv along a pathway situated next to unused railroad tracks. The area felt like parts of West Village or Brooklyn, people were going about their lives, going out to dinner. And, just the day before, I was hearing sirens and going to the safe room because of a Hezbollah attack on Tel Aviv.
The threat of war and attack is a daily concern in Israel, as I’m sure it Is an hourly concern in Gaza, too. People are under constant threat and the emblems of a country at war exist everywhere.
Knowing that he told me a year ago that the country of can be toxic, I ask him again, "Do you like living here?"
With a slight pause, “It’s unbearable, but I like it.”
I am glad to have the opportunity to speak with Tidhar, because as a Jewish person living in Israel, he presented a different perspective than that of Tevel and Nikol.
We boarded onto the same subway, getting off at different stops.
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