Shalom Belfast?

If you're going to film in here, just film from inside the car.

It's not an area that you should be out walking about, here.

This would still be an area that would have a lot of tension in it.

In front of you is another peace wall.

On the other side of that peace wall are the Catholics.

And these houses here have been damaged by those Catholics,

sort of driving the people out of this area.

And why don't they knock these horrible houses down?

They will be knocked down.

If you look down this street here,

-you'll see people are living in the middle of that.

-Wow.

And still, the flag's flying.

Again, it's the stubbornness. The act of defiance.

That we don't give in.

They don't like strangers.

They don't like change. They feel that it's a threat.

Even you, yourself,

if somebody was talking to you and you're a Jew,

They be very inclined to ask you, "Are you a Protestant Jew?"

You know? And that's just the mentality that, you know?

Listen, a guy came up to me and he said, "You're Israeli?"

"You are Arabic Israeli, or Jewish Israeli?"

And a guy said, "No, no, he's OK. He's a Protestant Israeli!"

THEY LAUGH

I grew up wanting to live in the UK, and always dreamt of Ireland.

In the summer of 2009, my wife Julia, who I met in Tel Aviv

when she was the British cultural attache in Israel,

got a new posting in Northern Ireland.

Initially, I thought this was a dream come true.

The perfect combination of my British-Irish childhood fantasy.

Moving to Belfast, as far away as you can get

from the Israeli heat and the Jewish-Arabic conflict

in the land of Israel.

But, to my dismay, I was unable to escape this conflict.

Like in Israel, the scars of division are all around me.

A huge peace wall divides the city.

If that was not enough,

I suddenly noticed that Catholics and Protestants

seem to have embraced a new conflict,

a conflict that I wanted to escape.

Throughout 2,000 years of Jewish Diaspora,

the Jews dreamt of returning to their homeland in Zion.

The first Zionists started to arrive in Israel

at the end of the 19th century,

and were promised a national home by the British government.

The arrival of Jewish Zionists led to violence clashes

with the Arabic Muslim communities within the region.

In November 1947, the United Nations had given approval

for the Jews to establish a Jewish state.

The Arab nations rejected this proposal

and declared war on the new Israeli state.

Jewish forces won this war,

and some 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled from the country.

This was the catalyst for over 60 years of violent conflict

between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs.

EXPLOSION

The kind of person I am, I'm a sensitive guy.

When I get into a certain place,

I always try to understand the local psychology,

the local way of thinking.

And...

..in Northern Ireland, I think it was far more interesting

than other places, because I felt, and I feel,

that it's got something to do with me personally,

being an Israeli who ended up here in Northern Ireland.

THEY SHOUT

Nowhere is the Protestant support for Israel more evident

than on Belfast's Sandy Row, that hosts two notorious bars -

The Royal and the Rangers Supporters Club,

that carried their politics into football.

I was shot three times and blew up twice.

-Wow.

-They blew up my car.

-I lost a child of five years of age.

-Really?

Aye. They blew my car up,

they killed my child, and it turned me nasty.

What you mean by, "turned you nasty?"

Then I went for, ah...

-Revenge?

-Mmm-hmm.

Protestant loyalists, or Unionists,

is one of the few communities in the Western world at the moment

that sees the Israeli point of view.

Well, I can't speak for the Protestant community,

I can't speak for the Loyalist community.

-I'm speaking from a personal point of view.

-Sure.

I am a Loyalist, and I am a Protestant,

and I can only speak from that point of view,

and you're right in what you say.

That the vast majority...

..of that community can sympathise with Israel,

and Israel is an example to the rest of the world.

And I think all Israelis are brilliant people.

And I love what they're doing.

I love their stance.

I'm a British citizen. My father fought to free...

not only the Jews, to free everybody from the Nazis.

FOOTBALL PLAYS ON TV

THEY CHEER AND SHOUT

THEY CELEBRATE GOAL

You told me, "Listen, I would die for Israel."

-I would die for Israel if it was needed.

-Yeah?

Yeah, I would die for Israel. Yeah. Not a problem.

I would die for Ulster.

But the only place I can put close to my heart would be Israel.

You're an oppressed country.

Nobody likes them, and nobody likes us.

-He's a Muslim!

-THEY SHOUT AND LAUGH

-You hate Hamas?

-I hate Hamas.

Blowing people up. Women, children. No good.

And why do you hate them?

Because they're blowing up bars, pubs, restaurants.

They're no good. No good.

Sending missiles over to Israel for nothing.

Fuck them.

# That I might see before I die

# The Antrim glens

# And the hills of County Down... #

'The strange thing is,

'that despite their great love for Israel,

'that somehow comes from their far right tendencies,

'their identification with British culture is something I admire,

'because, as a teenager,

'I was immersed in the '60s British subculture, the mods.'

Most of the Western world is very critical about Israel at the moment.

We understand the criticism you have received.

You have received criticism you don't deserve,

the same as the Protestant people of Northern Ireland.

We receive criticism from all round the world not deserved to us.

The world do not hear your point of view.

The world hears Palestinians.

-The Palestinian propaganda is better than yours.

-Much better.

Just as the Republican propaganda is better in Ireland.

But that's the only thing that is better than us.

# And come tell me, Sean O'Farrell

# Tell my why you hurry so

# Hush a bhuachaill, hush and listen

# And his cheeks are all aglow

# I bear orders from the captain

# Get you ready quick and soon

# For the pikes must be together

# At the rising of the moon

# At the rising of the moon

# At the rising of the moon

# Their pikes must be together

# At the rising of the moon... #

'Republican legends and the Irish struggle for independence

'were also part of my life, because, as a youth,

'I fell in love with The Pogues, the Dubliners,

'Irish rebel music, and Irish culture in general.'

# ..flew their own beloved green

# Death to every foe and traitor

# Whistle out the marching tune

# And hoorah, me boys for freedom

# 'Tis the rising of the moon. #

THEY CHEER AND APPLAUD

-Well done!

-Thank you!

-L'chaim!

-L'chaim!

L'chaim! Slainte!

-Slainte!

-Slainte!

History is full of little ironies.

You know, traditionally in Israel,

especially in the Likud, and the right wing movement,

there is a big total support towards Irish Republicanism.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Yitzhak Shamir, who was later Prime Minister,

his nickname as the head of the Irgun

was Michael, after Michael Collins.

And all the Loyalists that I've met

who wave Israeli flags in the neighbourhoods

forget that in the '40s, the Israelis quite severely fought

against the British occupation in Israel.

HE PLAYS TRADITIONAL SONG

How did you sought out to join the struggle, to join the..?

It's not that I sought out to join. The conditions are there.

We grew up with a sense from a very young age

that there's something wrong with society.

We were second-class citizens.

You knew you weren't going to get a job in the shipyards.

That the City Hall wasn't our City Hall.

You hear, 4am, people's doors getting kicked down,

your father's friends and neighbours being dragged from their homes,

going to internment ships and internment camps.

At a young age, it's very natural for us to say,

"We've got to do something."

We grew up in Christian families, good values, fine, normal young boys.

And all of a sudden, within those couple of months,

we're sitting in a room learning how to make bombs.

That's not natural for 14- or 15-year-olds.

We didn't fall out of a tree wanting to be urban guerrillas.

Nail-bombing, urban guerrillas.

We were conditioned. It was the conditions.

And when you look at Palestine, you look at the Gaza Strip,

and you look at the West Bank,

the densely populated areas, the sense of occupation...

it's planting seeds all around.

You know, the idea that someone is a second-class citizen

in the land of their birth,

people don't care whether they live or die.

And it creates that whole mentality then

that gives rise to this notion of suicide bombing.

THEY APPLAUD

The 11th of July is the start

of the most important part of Ulster Protestant culture.

Julia and I were invited to come along and witness the celebrations.

It reminded me of the Jewish festival of Lag LaOmer,

when bonfires are lit across the wall

to symbolise the fighting Jewish spirit.

CHEERING

Like the Jewish festival,

this could have been a nice, family night out,

if it wasn't for the burning of Irish tricolours,

Palestinian flags, and sometimes even pictures of the Pope.

CHEERING

WHISTLES AND DRUMS

-MINISTER:

-'We pray it will be a day free from trouble

'and violence of any kind.

'So we would ask of the brethren and the bandsmen

'not to do anything that will bring discredit

'on the colours we wear or what we represent.

'And so we pray the Lord that we will have a good day.'

Let's just bow our heads in prayer now.

We leave ourselves in your loving care.

At the end of it all, Lord,

we pray you will bring us back in safely. Amen.

WHISTLES AND DRUMS

'A friend of mine invited me to walk with them

'on the 12th of July parade.

'Given the fact that I loved the costumes, I said, "Why not?"

'I would never get the chance to do it back at home.'

So, if I wanted to join a lodge, how can I do that?

You would have to, like,

say, me and Sandy would have to say

that we have known you for a couple of years

and that you're a good guy.

You're not...well, basically, you're not a Catholic.

This colourful festival

continues to cause tension amongst communities here

and leads to serious fighting every year.

To be honest, I cannot see what the fuss is all about.

Perhaps my friend, Lolor,

who is not a Protestant, would think differently.

So, what you feel in a day like today?

Do you oppose those parades?

You think they don't have the right to parade? The Orangemen?

Well, you see, they would say that it's part of their culture,

and I would be the first person to say,

if it's a respectful part of your culture,

you're totally entitled to it.

-OK.

-You know?

But there is an association with it.

It's political?

It has been that it was a symbol

and a festival of oppression.

You know, from my point of view,

it was always an anti-Catholic festival.

Funnily enough, I found quite a lot of my Catholic friends

are quite interested in Jewish culture and Jewish history.

-Very much.

-Though, politically, they are anti-Israeli.

-Or in some cases.

-Erm...anti-Israeli?

-Yeah.

-The Catholic population at large?

In Northern Ireland.

I think they have difficulty

with the sense of oppression of a minority,

because that's what they are themselves.

-If that's what you mean.

-Yeah.

But it's too bold a statement

to say that they're anti-Israeli, in my opinion.

Well, they are pro-Palestinian.

-And therefore...

-Yeah, that's too generalised too.

They are against the oppression of the Palestinian state, I think.

Because they identify themselves

with the notion of an oppressed people.

Even in south Belfast, there is an area called the Holy Land.

I seem to be constantly reminded I am never too far away from home.

In fact, every month, local Palestinian activists

hold a vigil of support outside Belfast City Hall.

I'm very proud to be here today,

and while we always talk about

the Israeli atrocities towards the Palestinians,

I also would like to take this moment

to single out the individuals and the various groups in Israel

that have stood tall for the Palestinians.

They're a very, very loud voice in a big sea,

and it's through them coming forward as well

and them saying, "Enough is enough."

I spoke to John Hurson, the founder of Gaza TV News, to find out more.

The Jewish state is a racist state,

because it's only designed and governed for Jews only.

Judaism as a nation.

To be a Jew, for me, is to be part of the Jewish nation.

No, being Jewish is a religion. It's not a state.

No, you can't tell me what I am!

That's the biggest misconception out there.

I mean, Judaism is not a state. It's a religion.

-No, it's the only religion...

-A religion can't be a state.

Judaism is the only religion that is both national and religious.

-But how is it a nation?

-What do you mean?

It's never been a nation.

So you believe that the idea

of having a Zionist, Jewish state is a false idea?

Totally. Because it's so prejudiced and so apartheid.

I mean, we were all repulsed at apartheid South Africa,

and the way that the blacks had to carry round little ID papers

and what they had to go through.

Well, the Palestinians are worse off than that.

One has to look at Gaza alone,

with 1,400 people murdered in three weeks.

That's state murder.

So here you have these people that were under ferocious attack

and they couldn't escape.

There was nowhere to go.

In Northern Ireland, there's a little area here called the Ards Peninsula,

and it's around the same size as Gaza,

so if you imagine all of the Northern Ireland population

in that little area under attack,

and they're locked up, and they can't get out,

the siege, the naval blockade and round the borders...

that was the one thing that got me.

Like, why can aid not get in to these people?

Why can these people not get out?

And that was the inhumane aspect of it.

# Holy

# Ho-ly

# Holy

# Is the Lord, our God

# Oh, holy

I received an e-mail in Hebrew from a man named Jim Clint,

inviting me to a Friday night Shabbat service.

The fact that someone from Northern Ireland

wrote to me in Hebrew frightened me.

Perhaps as a result of my inbuilt Jewish paranoia.

Despite this, I travelled to

the beautiful seaside town of Donaghadee.

You guys come from a Protestant background. Most of you are?

Most often, but we wouldn't class ourselves...

like, as I am now, I wouldn't class myself even Christian.

Even Protestant, Catholic.

I'm just a believer.

Ani maamin beemuna shlemah. That's all I say.

# Shabbat, shalom

# Shabbat, shabbat, shabbat, shabbat, shalom... #

We pray that...because we're commanded in the Tanakh,

we're commanded to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

We pray for the protection of the borders of Israel,

the protection of the soldiers,

the police, you know, the authorities.

# Od avinu chai

# Od avinu, od avinu, od avinu chai

# Shabbat Shalom

# Shabbat Shalom

# Shabbat, shabbat, shabbat, shabbat, shalom. #

-Your biggest dream is to live in Israel.

-Yeah.

-And to be an Israeli citizen.

Now, we are sitting in this most beautiful place in the world

and I really can't understand who would like to leave that thing

for the heat of the Israeli desert.

I don't know, Northern Ireland is nice

and sometimes maybe I can't see the beauty.

But for me, my heart is Jewish. I'm not Jewish.

In my heart is Jewish.

Because of what I believe, you know this issue has done for me.

SINGING IN YIDDISH

I wonder how Rabbi Menachem Brackman, Rabbi of Belfast,

feels about Northern Ireland's obsession with the Holy Land.

In Belfast, the Palestinian flag is

-because all the Catholics are the underdogs.

-Yeah.

-And the Israeli's flag is because they are the superior and able to control them.

-Yes.

Therefore it's not necessarily a love to Israel,

it's just that they have sided with Israel, they've found

another fight in another part of the world and have decided

that in Israel... they are like the Israelis

and they are like the Palestinians.

Do they really like Israel? I don't know.

What do you feel when you see the Israeli flag flying next to

the Union Jack and the Ulster flag?

If they are safe neighbourhoods, they are safe neighbourhoods whatever they are flying.

If they are not safe neighbourhoods...

-..then they're not safe neighbourhoods even if the Israeli flags are flying.

-Yes.

We met a lot of people from different Protestant sects

and they love Judaism out of this radical Protestant belief.

And you can find it here...

As I said before, I'm very wary of that, very...

..a bit scared and a bit admire it.

I'm scared that their motives are not the right motives.

There is a small but vibrant Jewish community here in Belfast.

Gordon McKnight a Protestant from Bangor,

is just about to head to Miami to complete his conversion to Judaism.

What do you feel when you see the Israeli flag

being hoisted in different loyalist areas here in Northern Ireland?

Do you share this kind of Protestant support of Israel?

-Cos you do have a badge...

-Yeah, I'd like to point to this badge.

that you can get in some Union Jack shops.

-I think that says it all, really.

-OK.

Whenever I see the Israeli flag being hoisted, anywhere really,

I tend to feel an immense amount of pride.

It's strange, I'm not an Israeli,

but I actually feel more Israeli than anything.

I feel more Israeli than British. It's a strange thing.

And what you feel when you see the Palestinian flag being raised

in nationalist and republican areas?

Do you find it offensive?

It does not conjure up feelings of warmth and affection.

But offensive? Um...

I don't know, I guess it makes me angry, but offended, I wouldn't...

Why does it make you angry?

It makes me angry in the sense that it is

a way of denying Israel's right to exist.

This is my take on it.

-Would you go and live in Judaea and Samaria, for example?

-Er, yeah.

In a settlement?

Yes, I would call it a town, but you can call it a settlement.

It's what most people call it.

I was in Israel for Shavuot two years ago and we visited a town near Ariel.

And I thought it was a shame that the Jewish people had to live surrounded

by fences and protected by the Army, I thought it was very unfortunate.

-SAT NAV:

-'Turn right, then take the second right.

'Keep left.'

I am on the road to visit my favourite Hebrew students,

the Bingham sisters who have become sort of surrogate aunts to me

here in Northern Ireland.

So, what's written here?

-BOTH: Shalom.

-And today is?

Shabbat. Shalom.

And I think we can also do with some more everyday life

for the next time you are in Israel.

HE SPEAKS IN HEBREW

Where do you live?

SHE REPLIES IN HEBREW

HE REPLIES IN HEBREW

..You say?

REPLIES IN HEBREW

-Yes.

-OK.

You were telling us how you met Protestant and Catholics

and prayed together for peace in Northern Ireland.

-True.

-Don't you want to choose an Arab spring together for peace in Israel?

Israel is different from Northern Ireland.

And it's the only verse in the Bible that says,

"He that keepeth Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps."

It doesn't say that about Northern Ireland,

doesn't say it about any other country.

So that is why I have such...

I have such love for Israel, I have such love for the Jewish people.

Because God keeps his eye on them.

-So you feel Jewish?

-I do, I do, I really do.

Unfortunately, one little bit of me is gentile, unfortunately.

This is what God said to Abraham.

"Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house

"to a land that I will show you,

"and I will bless those who bless you."

So I knew that those who bless Israel will be blessed.

Nearly all my money from about the middle of 20s -

and I'm going on to 62 -

has been given to Israel and no other people.

And the lady in the office has been saying that we had just been praying

that people would actually support us

and I rang her up the next day

-and gave him a gift of... I think it was about £400.

-Wow!

You know, it's every so often... All my money's gone to Israel,

to the Jewish people.

I am one of the 320 million people living in the states of Europe,

joined in economic and political union.

I am one of the 60 million people living on the islands

immediately west of the European peninsula.

One of the six million people on the smaller of these islands.

Of the 1.5 million who inhabit the six north-eastern most counties

of the historic nine-county province of Ulster that make up

the administrative region of the United Kingdom known as Northern Ireland.

With all the problems of identity and nationality,

how can they identify so passionately

with the Middle East conflict?

What do you think is the psychology of all that?

I think there are...

First of all, I speak as someone whose member of Parliament

when I was younger was...

was someone who believed

that the Protestants of Ulster were the lost tribe of Israel.

Um, the Reverend Robert Bradford,

and he was murdered, actually, in Finaghy, where I grew up.

He was murdered by the IRA.

And there has always been this need here

for justification that there is such a thing as...

the Irish people or the Northern Irish Protestants who are somehow...

So you look for a lineage.

And I think for the Northern Protestants,

the attraction of the lost tribe identity is that it's a pure lineage.

It's fu... It's mad.

You know, the lost tribe thing, it's...it's mad.

-So you don't feel...

-But it's equally...

I tell you, it's mad and its equally mad to walk into a community centre

where an MP is conducting a surgery

talking to constituents, and shoot him in the head.

Yes.

I am one of the people who voted for the Good Friday Agreement,

aimed at bringing peace and stability to Northern Ireland,

and one of the ones who worry that the agreement has made this

a more divided place than ever to live in.

I am one of the two people who will get out of bed

to feed Marvin and Daisy Blur, the cats, in the morning.

Correction, I am the only person.

I remember when I was having conversations with people

and they would say...

the first thing they would tell you about someone was what their religion was.

And you know, "This guy... nice fellow, Catholic."

That's the way they would speak, you know, "very nice but Catholic."

And I'm a Belfast person first and foremost.

But I will happily say that I am British and that I'm Irish

and I'm European.

So you have all of those identities, then you have the other identities

which are the identities you have chosen,

the community of those whom you relate to,

whether it's in terms of music, sport...

all of these things just make you who you are.

They make you who you are, you know.

Instead of saying, "I hate Catholic" or "I hate Protestant",

"I am a Unionist" or "I am a Republican",

they say, "I support Palestine"

or "I hate Palestine, I support Israel" or "I hate Israel."

And I was trying even to think, could that thing happen in Israel?

Would people in Israel or in Palestine choose

somebody else's conflict in order to continue and hate each other?

I don't know the answer, but I think not.

READS IN HEBREW

-Wow! So it happened. You are a full-on Jew.

-Yes.

So how do feel about it?

Yeah, I'm delighted.

Yeah, it's... Everything feels different.

You said that you would love to move to Israel and live,

not necessarily in Israel, but in what most of the world regards as occupied territories.

And you would be happy to live there as a settler.

As Tesco say, "Every little helps," every extra person helps,

every extra family helps.

This is how we want to fulfil your Judaism?

Well, the Arabs have only been there a very short period of time.

And that is why I do not recognise the Palestinian people,

nation, nothing.

They are a political invention, invented after the 1967 war.

But you, from Bangor,

or somebody from South Africa or the United States,

has more right on the land than they do?

You don't find it a contradiction?

You know, I can see why they would be upset, but you know...

Upset? That's quite an understatement, upset.

Yes, it's a bit of an understatement, perhaps,

but my advice would be, you had a nice holiday, time to go home.

That would be my advice.

Gordon McKnight, who is now Avram ben Avraham,

you who have just converted to Judaism, coming from Bangor,

is entitled to sit in that land and they were there

even - you claim three generations -

they would claim it a bit more, they should go?

Because they are on vacation. I mean, it actually saddens me

that this is your understanding of Judaism.

And this is your understanding

of how you want to help the Jewish people.

You know, Rabbi Akiva, who was the biggest Rabbi of all time,

yeah, said, Rabbi Akiva said...

SPEAKS HEBREW

There is only one big rule in the Torah - love thy neighbour.

And that said that Rabbi Akiva, the greatest Jewish rabbi of all time.

So how, from "love thy neighbour" -

it doesn't say "love your Jewish neighbour",

just love thy neighbour, the people in Hebron don't love their neighbours,

they oppress their neighbours, the torture their neighbours,

they humiliate their neighbours,

they sometimes kill their neighbours.

How can you justify that?

How can you want to live like that?

It's the Arab side that is causing all the tension.

The Jewish side has done, I believe,

more than it could honestly be asked of to do.

It's removed roadblocks, it's allowed permits to travel

and it allows their banks to function and all of this.

I don't think any more can be asked from Israel.

There are still some things I feel I need to say to John Hurson.

He doesn't seem to understand the ridiculous appropriation

of a conflict that doesn't even belong to him.

I'm trying to think of myself. I live here

as if I will come and say, "Man, IRA, Republicanism!"

I mean, wouldn't it be a bit funny to you that I will do that?

-No.

-You don't think it's...

-No, I wouldn't say it's that funny at all.

Like choosing a side where I am somebody that it's not my story?

I don't put fun into struggles. That's one thing I don't do. Right?

-But...

-But you are choosing sides, so like the bad Israelis,

-the good Palestinians...

-I choose the side of the people that were starving.

I don't care about land, I don't care about nationality,

I don't associate with this whole Irish nationalism or with this British loyalism.

I don't care about those things, to be honest with you.

If you truly ask me, I find it all, A, boring, B, useless.

Why do we need all the time to define ourselves -

"I'm an Irish Catholic."

"I'm a British Protestant." "I'm an Israeli Jewish."

"I'm a Palestinian Muslim, Christian."

Why we can't just live our life?

But I fear sometimes, and I might be wrong,

that your kind of activity, or other activities,

instead of increasing the peace,

are increasing hostility and violence.

And this is where I find it offensive.

So bringing food, blankets and medicine to people is offensive?

-No, not at all. That's very important.

-Yes.

Well, if it was offensive with the flotilla that went last year

because, as you know, nine people were murdered

for bringing food and medicine...

Yes, and I wasn't interviewed here on telly,

which will probably be in the film,

and I said I was ashamed to be called Israeli after that attack.

My wife Julie and I are now moving on again. We are leaving for Paris.

So what have I learnt here during my time in Northern Ireland?

In Belfast, I saw how Catholic and Protestant are all Irish

and they all look the same to me.

And I don't understand why they hated each other for so long

and killed each other for so long.

And I think maybe it reflects on, you know,

on the place where I'm coming from,

where...I guess, when...

..you would look at me and the Palestinian journalist,

you'd think there is not much difference there

and why they can't...

..sit and get along.

And I think Belfast and Northern Ireland is still

a great example of people, the majority of the people...

..moving on.

And if people who are stuck in the past - which a lot of the people

we met are stuck in the past - but I think they are holding

to something because they don't know how to define themselves.

And I think I learnt how to define myself...

regardless to my nationality or my religion.

And that's something, funny enough, that I learnt in Belfast.

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