KOMMENTAR: Israel kan kritiseres for meget. Med god ret. Der er meget, der kan og bør forbedres. Men når regnestykket gøres op, så er Israel stadigvæk det mest liberale, tolerante, frie, demokratiske og tiltrækkende samfund at bo i i Mellemøsten.

 

JERUSALEM (13.12.2015): Jeg har lige været med i et indslag på TV2/NEWS om det fantastiske i, at kvinder nu har fået lov til at stemme ved og stille op til et kommunalvalg i Saudi Arabien. 
 
En enkelt håndfuld kvinder er måske blevet valgt. Måske. Og det er alt i alt kun det tredje valg i Saudi Arabien overhovedet. Et land hvor man kunne skrive en hel bog om alle de frihedsrettigheder, der bliver trampet under fode, brudt og overtrådt. Valget i går er et fremskridt. Et tabu der er brudt. Men der er meeeget lang vej endnu. Meget lang.
 
I Syrien er over en kvart million mennesker blevet dræbt under en borgerkrig, der er noget af det mest bestialske og blodige, man har set, i en i forvejen ret så brutal region. Dertil er 10-11 millioner flygtet og blevet drevet på flugt, og der er ingen løsning i udsigt.
 
Det såkaldte ”Arabiske Forår” er gået direkte fra de lysegrønne forårsforhåbninger om noget bedre og friere til en isnende kold, håbløs ”Arabisk Istid”, der mest af alt ligner en blindgyde. 
 
Overalt i den arabiske verden, hvor der både er sunni- og shi’a-muslimer, kæmper Saudi Arabien og Iran hensynsløst med hinanden om magt og indflydelse uden at skæve til de umenneskelige ofre de påfører den uskyldige civilbefolkning.
 
Og så – midt i al den mismod og sørgelige beretninger – et par dejlige historier fra de seneste dages aviser om det land, det ellers oftest hænges ud i medierne for sine problemer og menneskerettigheder, der lader noget tilbage at ønske: Israel.
 
Den israelske araber Oudeh Tarabin er netop vendt tilbage til Israel efter at have siddet 15 år i fængsel i Egypten, som mente at han havde spioneret for Israel. Om han virkelig var spion, ved jeg ikke. Det finder vi sikkert heller ikke ud af. At han er blevet udvekslet med et antal egyptere, som har siddet i israelske fængsler tyder på, at han måske har været involveret i et eller andet.

Men da Oudeh Tarabin kom hjem sagde han, at Israel er det bedste land at bo i i Mellemøsten.
 
Det passer ganske godt med lignende udtalelser jeg ofte hører fra en række af mine egne arabiske venner og bekendte rundt om i landet. 
 
Selvom de klart nok er kritiske overfor mange af de problemer de har, ved at være arabiske borgere i et land der definerer sig selv som en ”jødisk nation”, så er de samtidig enige om, at det er langt bedre at være B-borger i ”den jødiske nation”, end det er at være almindelig arabisk borger i snart sagt enhver arabisk stat i området.
 
Dette ikke sagt for at påstå, at der ikke er diskrimination, undertrykkelse og anden dårligdom i Israel, for det er der. Alt for meget. Det er veldokumenteret. Det er uværdigt for et land, der gerne vil sammenlignes med andre vesteuropæiske parlamentariske demokratier. Og det er sørgeligt. Men når man som ”uskyldigt forbipasserende dansker” skal vurdere situationen i Mellemøsten alene baseret på mange mediers dækning af regionen, så kunne man forledes til at tro, at Israel er det allerværste steder at bo.
 
Det er langtfra sandt.

Heller ikke for landets arabiske borgere, som på trods af alt kan leve friere i Israel, end de kan i de flrste arabiske lande.
 
Især arabiske kvinder (som uden problemer kan stemme og blive opstillet og valgt ind… ikke bare i kommunalrådet men også i parlamentet.) Endnu mere for arabiske kristne. Endnu, endnu mere for kristne arabiske kvinder. For kunstnere. Oppositionelle. Politiske systemkritikere.
 
Og så har jeg slet ikke talt om bøsser og lesbiske.
 
Det fører mig videre til en anden artikel i de seneste dages lokale aviser, som du også kan læse herunder: Historien om den iranske digter Payam Feili, der også er homoseksuel. 
 
Den 30-årige Payam Feili er lige sluppet ud af sit fædreland, som jævnligt henretter homoseksuelle ved offentlige hængninger, og nu netop ankommet til… ja, tro det eller lad være: Til Israel! Et land som han er helt forelsket i og gerne vil have opholds- og arbejdstilladelse i, så han kan blive her.
 
Det er ”en drøm der er gået i opfyldelse”, siger han selv.
 
Indtil videre har han kun fået et tre måneders turistvisum, men mange hernede er gået i aktion for at hjælpe ham til at få permanent opholdstilladelse. For absurd som det er, så er han nu, efter at han har offentliggjort, at han er i Israel, blevet endnu mere udsat. 
 
Payam Feili er både kunstner, systemkritiker, bøsse og han holder af Israel. Hvor forfærdeligt kan det overhovedet blive?
 
Eller… man skulle jo snarere spørge: Hvorfor er det overhovedet forfærdeligt?
 
Link til artiklen om Payam Feili i avisen Haaretz, som i vid udstrækning læner sig op af et nyhedstelegram fra det amerikanske nyhedsbureau AP.

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P.S.: Der er helt sikkert nogle personer, der vil blive ultra-provokeret af ovenstående kommentar/oplæg til Haaretz-artiklen herunder, for man må efterhånden ikke skrive noget som helst, der er bare den mindste smule positiv om Israel, men det er der ikke noget at gøre ved. Disse personer skal jo også have noget til at sætte gang i blodomløbet, så de kan holde varmen i en kold, våd og blæsende vintertid.

 

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Iranian Gay Poet Visits Israel
- a 'Dream Come True' 

 

 

After months of bureaucracy, Payam Feili, 30, was granted a three-month visa to Israel; he hopes to stay in the country permanently on humanitarian grounds.

 






 
By Isaac Scarf
Haaretz/Associated Press
December 11, 2015
 
Payam Feili fled his native Iran last year because of the persecution he faced over his sexuality. Now, the gay poet has made a years-long dream come true — he is visiting Israel, Iran's archenemy and a country known for its tolerance toward gays. 
 
But the 30-year-old Feili stands out not only because of his arrival in a country so at odds with his own, but because of his professed adoration for the state some Iranian leaders have dubbed a cancer and have called to be wiped off the map. 

"I still can't believe I am here," the soft-spoken Feili said in Farsi, speaking through his translator and the friend who brought him to Israel, Adi Liberman. 
 
"All the stupid and ridiculous threats the regime issues against Israel have never influenced me and will never influence me," he said. 
 
Feili, who has written nine books, many of them openly discussing homosexuality, escaped to Turkey last year when the Iranian government's threats against him and his family became unbearable. 
 
He is in Israel to see his latest novella, "I Will Grow, I Will Bear Fruit... Figs," staged as a play in Hebrew in a Tel Aviv theater. While his always supportive family remains in Iran, he said he hopes to stay in Israel permanently. 
 
Feili has nurtured a fascination with Israel since he was a youngster, when he began watching films about the Holocaust and started learning about the Torah. He has a coin-sized Star of David tattoo on his neck. 
 
"I grew closer and closer to Israel and I fell in love with it,” he said.
 
While Israel and Iran once had close economic and cultural ties, those links crumbled after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and relations since then have grown increasingly hostile. The two countries have no diplomatic ties and it is illegal for citizens of each country to visit the other, although Israel makes exceptions under certain circumstances. 
 
Standing on the roof of Tel Aviv's city hall with gleaming skyscrapers and the city's signature Bauhaus buildings behind him, Feili brandished his Iranian passport, which declares "the holder of this passport is not entitled to travel to the occupied Palestine." 
 
Bringing him to Israel involved four months of jumping through bureaucratic hoops, dealing with various government ministries and security issues, Liberman explained. 
 
She said he was finally granted a three-month visa, but that he has begun a process to remain in Israel permanently on humanitarian grounds. 

Feili's novella, which is being produced in Israel by Ido Dagan, portrays the unrequited love of two Iranian soldiers fighting in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Dagan said Feili is the first Iranian he has ever met. 
 
"There are differences, big differences in terms of worldview, values, language and our background, but we connected because of his desire to taste freedom," Dagan said. He said Feili's Israeli friends have already come up with a nickname for him: Queen of Israel, a character from his latest book. 
 
Feili said he was surprised by how boisterous Israelis can be and how much they honk their car horns, which reminded him of his Iranians. 
 
Sporting dark shades, a white scarf and a large indigo ring, he appeared to feel at home in Tel Aviv as he confidently walked through the city center, greeting passers-by. 
 
Israel's economic and cultural hub, Tel Aviv is a popular gay-friendly destination. Israel accepts gays serving openly in its military, but homosexuality is shunned among the country's conservative ultra-Orthodox community. This year, an extremist ultra-Orthodox Jew stabbed a 15-year-old girl to death at a Jerusalem Pride parade. 
 
Homosexuality is a taboo topic in Iran, where gays and lesbians can face lashings or death sentences if convicted. Human rights groups estimate that over 4,000 gays have been executed since the Islamic Revolution. Famously, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a crowd at New York's Columbia University in 2007 that "in Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country." 
 
Feili was reluctant to talk about the threats against him back home, but said they began after the publication in Iran of a heavily censored version of his first book, a collection of poetry titled "The Sun's Platform," in 2005. Feili was blacklisted and has been banned from publishing in Iran since. 

According to the PEN American Center, a writers' group advocating for freedom of expression, Feili's email account was hacked and he was locked out of his online blog.
 
He was arrested three times over four years, most recently in February 2014 after he agreed to have his work published in Hebrew in Israel, according to PEN. The group said he was held blindfolded in a shipping container at an unknown location for 44 days, without being charged. 
 
Feili declined to discuss the details of the arrests but said his family, in the Iranian city of Karaj, is still being harassed. 
 
Suzanne Nossel, the executive director of PEN, called Feili a "very courageous individual being hounded by his government because of his identity." She said Iran's treatment toward the poet was "a core crime against expression." 
 
But Feili refuses to be cowed. 
 
"I am not going to stop living my life or changing something about my life because the regime threatens me or my family," he said. "Even when I lived in Iran under an execution order, I continued living my life as I wanted to and nothing will affect that."
 
 
Source: Haaretz