At a Ramadan meal, Palestinian Bedouin invite Jewish Israelis to the table
THE NEGEV DESERT, Israel — As the sun set Sunday, a handful of people filed into a dining hall in a quiet village in the Negev desert for a shared iftar, the sunset meal that breaks the Ramadan fast, that hosts hoped would offer a small ray of intercommunal light at a time of intense divisions stoked by the deadly Israel-Hamas war.
THE NEGEV DESERT, Israel — As the sun set Sunday, a handful of people filed into a dining hall in a quiet village in the Negev desert for a shared iftar, the sunset meal that breaks the Ramadan fast, that hosts hoped would offer a small ray of intercommunal light at a time of intense divisions stoked by the deadly Israel-Hamas war.
Plates were piled high with dates, rice, chicken and lentils, as guests chatted in a mix of Arabic, Hebrew and English. One Bedouin man wore a keffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian checkered cloth, and another man from Germany of Jewish Israeli descent arrived carrying a bright yellow takeaway bag from Delicatessen, a popular deli in Tel Aviv.
Huda Abu Obaid, a member of the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality, center, and other guests during the iftar.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for NBC NewsA plate piled high with dates alongside other dishes.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for NBC NewsDuring the holy month of Ramadan, Muslims around the world sit down each evening for iftar. But on this particular night, the Abu Qwaiders, a Negev Bedouin family, invited Israeli Jews to take part in the meal. They hoped that sharing the moment might help promote dialogue at a time when relations between Palestinians and Israeli Jews have rarely been more contentious: High-level talks have so far failed; grief, anger and vengeance remain inflamed in Israel over Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks; and roughly 20 miles away in the Gaza Strip, Palestinians are spending Ramadan on the brink of famine with more than 32,000 people killed.
Muhammad Abu Qwaider, who hosted the event at his home in coordination with the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality, an organization founded by left-leaning Arabs and Jews, acknowledged it was a difficult time to promote any notion of “coexistence” between their wider communities as a deadly war in a decadeslong conflict rages.
“We see how the Israeli army kills our Palestinian people — and we are part of the Palestinian people,” Abu Qwaider, 40, said. But “despite all of these circumstances, we must face the challenges.”
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