Direct Action in Israel and Iran

The images of people in the streets of Tehran protesting the latest election has led to a strange feeling. I see images of Bilin or Nalin or Safa. Images of Israelis standing up for rights and the rule of law in the face of an oppressive regime (oppressive in different ways but oppressive none the less). I have been reading the stories all week of media and government failing the population in Iran. I see students in Tehran, of the same age as myself, using twitter and blogs to communicate information from the ground. I have been watching the you tube videos from the front line and it conjures up the same feelings as the videos that Israelis are making in the West Bank. It is a different situation in Tehran but I cannot help but feel a strong similarity between the two situations when reading and watching the reports from the ground.

Why are we not talking about the fact that Mir Hussein Moussavi is a reformer in Israel? Based on his ideas, he wants to bring Iran into the international community and change the course of dangerous rhetoric that has been the norm over the past years. I wish that we had front page articles in Israeli dailies arguing that there are elements in Iranian society that we can talk with about the issues facing our nations based on the mass riots in support of Moussavi.

Protests in Iran after the Election

I see these images and wonder to myself, what if this is a place to start a conversation between parts of the civilian population in Israel and Iran. A track two conversation, if you will, played out in blogs and other forms of the internet. We have similar feelings about the nature of our respective governments and we share the desire to let the world know about it. Israel and Iran are different countries. But maybe there is a way to bridge the gap through the direct action left and the internet.

Israeli Activists Documenting an IDF raid in the West Bank Village of Safa