We are not waiting

Guest writer: Jessica Nevo

In January 2024, about three months after the massacre in Israeli cities and villages on 10/7/23, Defense Minister Yoav Galant visits Nir Oz, the kibbutz where one in four of its 400 inhabitants were killed or taken to Gaza as prisoners, and where the army did not arrive at all during more than twelve hours of the Hamas attack.

Nir Oz was supposed to be all empty. The residents who remained alive, were evacuated or ran away from their homes already on the evening of October 7th. Galant did not coordinate the meeting with the members of the kibbutz. The purpose of the visit was not to console, hug or ask about their well-being. Expressing an apology to the members of Nir Oz for the abandonment and the tragedy, was not in the plan either.

But the reality surprised the defense minister, who met there Rauma Kedem, mother of Tamar Kedem Siman-Tov, on the kibbutz paths. Tamar was murdered in Nir Oz, along with her entire family: her partner Jonathan, five-year-old twins Shahar and Arbel, and two-year-old Omar, and Caril' Jonathan's mother. An entire family wiped out at once. Rauma and her partner Gadi appeared in front of the Minister of Defense, surrounded by cameras and many witnesses.

In many places in the world, "circle of witnesses" has a significant role as a community that supports such charged meetings between abusers – or in this case neglectors – and victims.

"Where have you been?" Rauma Kedem asks him. "One phone call could have alerted us to the danger that was about to occur! Where were you? In Eilat?" . Kedem screams-whispers without a sound, from a throat hoarse from pain and trauma. Three months after her daughter and her entire family were wiped out, she arrived with Gadi, in order to save some mementos from Tamar's burnt destroyed house.

During the first weeks after the October 7th, we were all in shock. We were amazed by the – apparently – complete surprise that landed on us that Saturday, at 6:29 in the morning. But in January 2024 we already knew a little more details about the neglect that preceded the massacre. About the "warning signs", about warning alerts, about the female intelligence officer who warned a few months earlier and was ignored. We already knew that on October 6th at night, the eve of the massacre, alerts were activated following the opening of hundreds of Israeli SIM cards in Gaza.

That night, there were consultations between senior security personnel. Male soldiers and female soldiers were called to the army main headquarters Kiriya and special teams went down to the south. At the same time, the head of the intelligence division was on holidays with his family in Eilat. After a first update with him on the alerts in Gaza, he went back to sleep. They didn't call him back for that night's following consultations.

This is the context from which Rauma's words were said to Galant. " Were you in Eilat ?", she asks him.

In January 2024, Kedem, like us, already knows that despite the warnings described above, none of this data , that something is going on in Gaza and the border , has reached the military base by the border. All the more so to the residents of the area themselves, to the soldiers who patrolled the area, to the participants of the nature festivals, to the residents of the two cities in the area, Sderot and Ofakim, to the kibbutzim and moshavim. "One phone. Where have you been?" she asks pleadingly.

Galant is frozen. He doesn't answer. I feel he looks like the marble statues that commemorate the fighters of Israel's first wars at the Jezreel Valley in Northern Israel.

" Why are you looking at me in wonder ? Think that these were your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren, " Kedem continues.

"I'm listening ," Gallant murmurs.

The scene is hard to watch. Kedem's body, like her voice, trembles. She strings the words together, upset. Gallant, in front of her, stands firm while his discomfort is evident. His hands move from side to side, go into his pocket, go up towards his eyes, return to the sides of his body. His legs stand firm. At that moment, I hoped he would express anything, a hint of empathy and maybe compassion. If not to get down on his knees or hold Rauma and Gadi's hands, then at least bow his head and whisper "I'm ashamed. I apologize. " Maybe express any emotion with her, like: "I think every day what would have happened if these were my children" . Maybe his voice will crack.

As a general description, we can say that people, communities and democratic states that arise after the end of a totalitarian regime or civil war, do more or less the same things to – at least – demand recognition, resist the silencing erasure and denial of crimes. The main needs that put in motion this search to get answers is to know what happened, how it happened, what made it possible, who knew, who kept silent, who closed their eyes, who stood by – bystanders – how can justice be done to the survivors and how to assure that these crimes and others would not be repeated. The actions implemented to provide these answers, is what is called "Transitional Justice".

For more than twenty-five years, I have been researching and implementing in the field this model of knowledge – transitional justice. Over the years, I have watched countless videos and stills documenting "public apology" ceremonies: "speech-acts" that take place at a critical point in transition times, in which officials and authorities apologize before harmed communities they feel responsible for.

In general, transitional justice refers to the study of the practices through which communities and countries around the world deal with ongoing injustices and their consequences for the victimized public. It is a practice of taking responsibility and attempts to compensate and heal the fractures, in situations after war, or harms. The goal of transitional justice is to allow all circles of survivors and families of those killed/disappeared to demand perpetrators take responsibility, acknowledge the harm, compensate the victims materially and symbolically, and, whenever is possible, face criminal charges.

Originally, the term "transition" refers to a defined change and a field of political transition – between dictatorship, for example, to democratic leadership. But what communities can do when the state institutions fail to recognize and take responsibility? How can we demand justices where a civil war or a totalitarian regime is still going on. In such situations, grassroots initiatives are born.

Individuals and groups who feel that they don't have answers nor receive remedies for the injustices experienced, they get organized and give birth to "unofficial" practices, kind of alternative, civil, non-violent tools, designed to transform legal policies and practices, in places where the state preserves unequal relationships of power through the law institutions.

The examples are many and global, starting with the Russell Tribunal (1966) that revealed the crimes of the USA in Vietnam which were denied until then; the International Tribunal for the Crimes of Slavery of Women in the Second World War (2000); initiatives of academic institutions in North America to pay reparations to the descendants of slavery for the use of land or sale of slaves in the past; truth commissions held in Canada, Australia or New Zealand to acknowledge the injustice done to indigenous families whose children were forcibly taken to church institutions for "re-education", and many others.

In Israel's local context, examples of activism for acknowledgment/recognition include re-naming streets in Jaffa with their original name before the Nakba/1948; signaling the 350-400 Palestinian villages that were erased from the maps and from the physical reality; third generation of families who came from Yemen, the East and the Balkans, whose children were kidnapped by the authorities, that was not deciphered until now.

Public Apologies , as a transitional justice practice, results from the basic recognition that the events took place as described by the survivors. An example of such a ceremony is the public apology that took place at the STANDING ROCK site in North Dakota, USA, in 2016. During the ceremony, a group of former soldiers from the Veterans against War organization dressed in military uniforms arrived at a protest compound against the placement of an oil pipeline on the land of the indigenous community in the area. They descended on their knees before the community (tribal?) leaders, bowed their heads and apologized for the destruction and usurpation of the land and water during all the years of colonization.

Another case of an apology during a meeting between the offender and the victim – so different from the one that took place between Rauma Kedem and Galant – is documented in one of the moving scenes in the film "One Day After Peace". The film describes the journey of Ruby Damlin, an Israeli born in South Africa, whose son was murdered as a soldier by a Palestinian. Damelin went to visit her home country to document how South Africa is dealing with the wounds of apartheid and its consequences. The scene shows a former security man visiting the home of the mother of a young man, whose death the officer was responsible for. The security man bends down and washes the mother's feet – a local custom that expresses humility, taking responsibility and apologizing.

Further in the film, Desmond Tutu is seen saying that in order to deal with the past, the people must undergo a change of mind that will allow them to recognize what they did and what happened as a result of their actions, and then take responsibility for it.

Consciousness transformation – transition – is THE condition in order for persons responsible of harms and crimes to face their actions, adopt a compassionate behavior and express a sincere public apology to the people they are responsible for harming directly or indirectly. Another condition is the feeling of shame – only those who feel guilt and responsibility can be ashamed of what they have done. And only those who are ashamed can apologize publicly.

A year has passed since October 7th. The failure  had not been yet investigated, the government didn't take responsibility and certainly did not apologize. No recognition mechanism was established on behalf of the state. Not even on behalf of the army – which only started with spot checks. The army is preventing the State Comptroller's Office from moving forward with investigations into the massacre at the festivals.

As happens around the world, also in Israel, civil society and individuals took responsibility from day one by providing material help. And also moral responsibility by initiating independent investigations, documentation and gathering evidence that was missed and many of it still are missing. Over 160 initiatives established by victims and survivors, activists and independent researchers get together with more experienced NGO projects.

One of the fundamental principles of The Tribunal on Gender Crimes, which I initiated in 2013, is that "we don't wait"; we don't beg for the state institutions to fulfill their role.

In consequence, regarding October 7^th abandonment, we don't wait for the government to set up a state commission of inquiry and we don't wait for them to publicly apologize as an expression of acceptance of responsibility and shame.

In light of the scope and depth of the failure before and after October 7th, another language is required to challenges the paradigm: truth commissions, people's courts; restorative justice and grassroots initiatives. This is where the art-activism "Full Acknowledgment" enters into action. As explained, when the formal institutions ignore their responsibility – "moral communities" react from the ground – from above.

One of the initiatives that was born in the field, from the meeting between art-activism and transitional justice, is the one leaded by "The Refrigerator" Gallery. Fourteen women and men artists from the fields of dance, performance, cinema, theater, video, plastic art, choir, design, curation, research, sound science and geophysics, created during October art-activism interventions in the space – and as a final product of the process an exhibition was born.

This Action-Group together explored concepts and theories of radical hope, civil and moral imagination around the theory and practice of transitional justice and public apologies; storytelling as a tool for change and healing and stories.

Throughout the summer of 2024, the group deepened their understanding of these areas to explore how art can contribute to this important discourse, in complex times like today. "We are here," says Rauma Kedem in the video to Defense Minister Galant. " What are you doing ?"

Will the pain in Reuma Kedem's throat who lost a third of her family find a place to break up, if someone there, from those responsible for the abandonment of her family, says they apologize?

The exhibition showing the products of the process will open on October 9 at 8:00 pm at 90 Hashmonaim St. Tel Aviv-Yafo.

For more details