Ilanit Melchior
Posted on | March 3, 2009 | No Comments
Co-Director of StartUp Jerusalem
When you invest in the economy, you invest in relationships. The market is the creator and founder of relationships. Jerusalem is the poorest city in Israel, young people are leaving. You find a lot of ultra-Orthodox who are not part of the working labor. We want to make sure in years to come that this will not be an empty city. And we want realistic operations between East and West Jerusalem, a reality where people respect each other and work together. The economy is a primary way to do this.
Tell us about yourself and your work.
I am running a nonprofit organization called Start Up Jerusalem, which is geared towards stimulating Jerusalem from an economic point of view. To achieve this goal, we focus on low-tech industries like tourism to the high tech industries. We are looking at how to establish industry so that both sides will profit. We are learning from the industry but also helping them help themselves by bringing innovative, out-of-box thinking to them.
By the end of the day, this city is important to all the three religions. I want Muslims, Jews, and Christians to come and visit the city. I don’t want people to avoid it because they think it is unsafe. I don’t want people to be prevented from using the holiness of the city because of the situation. I want both communities to learn not to be afraid of each other, to look in one another’s eyes and say, “That’s a human being, I can live with him or her.” I see my job as a small step in this direction.
As a woman in the field, did you have to overcome other people’s stereotypes and expectations?
Absolutely. I had to confront a lot of prejudices when I started to work with the tourism industry in East Jerusalem. I am Israeli and a woman; I get a room full of men of around 50 years of age and who have been years in the industry. Their attitude was: “She thinks she can teach us something? Forget it!”
They started to explain to me all their problems with the Israeli government and Tourism Ministry. I said, “Its enough, guys. We need to find a model of economic cooperation to work with or I will leave the room.” They accepted that. You have to be very pragmatic. Maybe emotionally they will not love me, maybe they won’t invite me to their houses, but you have to tell yourself that is fine. They will have the ability to support their families in the same way we want to do it, and that hopefully will create business sharing interactions.
Define courage.
Courage is the ability to say, “I was wrong.” It is when leaders can look in the mirror and say, “This is not what we should have done but from this point on, we can do things differently.”
We don’t need all the mediators, the ceremonies and cameras and other people to help us. We need to get in a room and speak to each other no matter how long it takes. We must speak to each other society to society, intellectual to intellectual, journalist to journalist, man to man, and woman to woman. We must create all these circles. A lot of people come here to try to resolve the situation for us, and it hasn’t worked. We need to get in a room and resolve it ourselves.
Maybe there will be more tears and emotions this way, but the possibility to change ways of thinking will become bigger. Today we sit at home and criticize. We accept a reality to raise our children for 18 years, send them to the army, and encourage them to be good soldiers. They might die. This is not a reality we should accept!
Women, let’s get together, change politics, and make sure we are in a more
powerful position. Maybe women have a different perspective where we can overcome conflict and change reality. We must make our voices heard together.
When you lose a child, it’s not a matter of whether you are from the Palestinian side or the Jewish side. A mother is a mother.
What do Palestinians and Israelis need to understand about each other for peace?
It’s harder for Palestinians because we have a country and feel secure about the goals we want to achieve. On the other hand, it’s difficult for Israeli mothers in a situation where their child is missing or has been killed—for instance, the mother of Gilad Shalit. Can they identify with that, with the pain and misery of the Jewish mother in the same way I would empathize with them? The Israeli society believes in open debate. We are always looking at ourselves each day and asking, did we act morally or not? I don’t hear those voices from the Palestinian society. I would like to hear such voices more clearly.
There is a lot of commonality between the Jewish belief and Islamic belief; it’s a matter of how the belief gets interpreted for political purposes. I would like to find out what is going on with the young Palestinian women my age
What factor does fear play in the Palestinian Israeli conflict?
I think fear is about the unknown. When serving as a soldier, I was deployed in Gaza as a lieutenant. One of my jobs was to go around different units. When we were driving, I would see Palestinian kids and they would throw stones at us. Looking back, I realize that the kids saw me as the Army. I was part of the same Army that was knocking on their doors and taking away their parents in the night. For them, I wasn’t a human because they didn’t know me.
It is the same thing in Israel. When you see a news report that 20 Palestinians were injured, you don’t know the people so it doesn’t make an impact. When one soldier is kidnapped, it makes a big impact and everyone goes to visit the family. It’s the gap in not knowing each other, not sharing your thoughts that leads to fear.
Is love required?
We don’t have to shake hands even, we can just walk next to each other. It’s a cold, very realistic, pragmatic way of looking. But we must have mutual respect, and recognize that each side has its own space. Again and again we, the Israeli people, ask Palestinians to recognize our right to exist. We have this strong fear in our Jewish essence—so many people in history have tried to eliminate us. We must overcome that fear.
At the end of the day, Jerusalem is important to three religions. I don’t want people prevented from the holiness of the city because they think it is unsafe. I want both communities not to be afraid, to look in one another’s eyes and say, “That’s a human being, I can live with him or her.” For the Palestinians, this is part of their struggle for independence. We have to build a healthy society, not based in bloodshed but in morality.
Melchior is Co-Director of StartUp Jerusalem, building financial strength across East and West Jerusalem. As Cluster Manager for Tourism and Culture, Melchior, formerly a consultant with multinational corporations, works with businesses in the tourism industry to find solutions to the depressed economy. StartUp Jerusalem is an inclusive organization working with both Arabs and Jews, secular and religious.
