God Went Surfing… 06.0120
10

…With the devil

Since the year 2000, over 4,300 Palestinian and 1,000 Israeli lives have been claimed by the escalating conflict in the region. The situation grew markedly worse in 2006, when Israel responded to the election of Hamas by sealing off the borders, ending the free-flow of people and goods. Palestinian militants reacted to the siege by targeting Israel’s civilian population with deadly rocket strikes; the Israeli Army countered with air strikes, targeting militants but often claiming the lives of innocent residents.

In 2007 it emerged that a small group of young men were surfing in Gaza, sharing battered surfboards they had attained prior to the siege. Word traveled north to Israel, and that same year, a mixed group of Israelis and Americans delivered a dozen boards to their Palestinian counterparts.

In the spring of 2008, they would attempt to deliver another 23 surfboards into Gaza. By this time the situation in Gaza had deteriorated further, the border still sealed, with military activity a near daily occurrence.

U.S. filmmaker Alexander Klein managed to get in to Gaza to film the documentary God Went Surfing with the Devil, which charts the difficulties and dangers encountered by surfers in the region. Along the way it speaks to Israelis, Arab-Israelis, and Palestinians affected by the violence, charting their daily struggle to supersede the conflict through the joys of surfing.

“It seemed like an important story to tell… So much of the Middle East narrative is a conflict narrative,” said the former pro-skateboarder who first visited Israel in 2004. “Here was a story about young guys who could have been coming together to shoot at each other, but instead all they want to do is surf together.”

Matt Olsen, of Explore Corps, believes small acts of friendship, like this, can help the peace process from the bottom up.

For more information, visit www.godwentsurfing.com

For more information on how to support surfing in Israel and Gaza, please contact:

www.GazaSurfRelief.com
www.GazaSurfClub.com
www.Surfing4Peace.org
www.ExploreCorps.org