Rawan Osman is building bridges

When Rawan Osman was a teenager in Lebanon, she was a fan of Hezbollah. Today, she is converting to Judaism and planning to make Aliyah.

Osman spoke to The AJN ahead of her visit to Melbourne for WIZO Victoria’s Gala “Beyond Brave” on August 18.

Born in Syria to Sunni and Shi’ite parents, raised in Lebanon where she attended a Catholic school, Osman said she was exposed to Islamist, Christian and secular antisemitism. After living in France and Germany she met Jewish people, and now describes herself as a “reformed antisemite”, and uses social media to dismantle barriers between Arabs and Jews, counter misinformation, and challenge conspiracy theories.

“I do identify as a recovered antisemite, because I want, especially Jews, to understand that there is hope,” she told The AJN.

“The situation is terrible, everybody knows that since October 7, antisemitism is on the rise everywhere you look. However, by identifying as a recovered antisemite, I remind people that transformation is possible, that indoctrination is what leads to this obsessive hatred, and this is not the end of the story. We need to have faith, roll our sleeves up and do something about it.”

Osman noted that most people in the region have not met a Jewish person, because around 850,000 Jews were uprooted from the Middle East.

“We have never spoken to a Jew. We are not allowed to speak to Israelis by law. We have, in most of the Arab world, anti-normalisation laws and policies forbidding people to people contact between the citizens of those countries and Israelis, even abroad,” she said.

She said her support for Hezbollah was due to omissions. “Nobody told us that before we were born, for more than a decade, armed Palestinian factions abused Lebanese territory, Lebanese hospitality, and trained together with Islamists, but also with radical leftists… they would send groups to infiltrate Israeli borders by land or sea to commit terror acts, and at a certain point Israel was fed up, gave up on diplomacy, and decided to create a buffer zone in South Lebanon.”

On the war between Israel and Lebanon, Osman blames Hezbollah. She noted that from October 8, 2023, Israel was attacked by Hezbollah on a daily basis for eleven months before retaliating militarily, by which point more than 200,000 Israelis had been displaced.

“I watched sensible Lebanese voices, politicians, and journalists, activists begging Hezbollah to stop, because, of course, Israel was going to retaliate, they do have that obligation for their citizens.”

To reach Arab audiences, Osman set up an Instagram account called ‘AskArab’, now titled ‘From Israel’ which was in Arabic. Within two months she had 60,000 followers.

“I was positively surprised, because many understand that it’s Hezbollah. Hezbollah provoked Israel, and Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into this war to relieve Hamas in Gaza.”

She has also found a receptive audience in Syria, where the memory of Hezbollah’s support for the Assad regime remains raw.

“Hezbollah decided to send their fighters to slaughter Syrians who were demanding reforms, who wanted a better life, who wanted justice. Hezbollah turned their guns against the Syrian people, and helped Assad kill tens of thousands of Syrians.”

She is critical of western activists who support Hamas, the Iranian regime and Hezbollah – feeling they take their liberal freedoms for granted. She recounted witnessing an Iranian activist – blinded in one eye by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp – being harassed on a German street by two Germans who told her, “She should have been blinded in both eyes for betraying her country.” Osman said, “Those people do not want anybody dictating how they live, but when it comes to us, we have to shut up and accept everything that comes to us.”

Osman herself has been in Israel during the war with Iran, running to bomb shelters. She is unrattled. “I’m happy, I’m safe. I don’t mind my sleep being interrupted by missiles, by sirens. I wanted to be here.”

She is currently working as a researcher at the Jerusalem Centre for Security and Foreign Affairs.

Her conversion to Judaism began as an intellectual inquiry. “I wanted to understand from an academic perspective, what do Muslims want and what do the Jews want, because I wanted to solve the Middle East problem.”

When she learnt about Judaism she said “the stars aligned”, and was moved by the concept that “human life is sacred in Judaism.”

Discussing her visit to Australia in August, Osman says she admires WIZO because of their phenomenal work for Israel, “helping this country stay on its feet”.

Osman said she stands for Israel not because she’s converting to Judaism but because Israelis “are brave, and they are fighting on the front lines on behalf of all of us.”

To book: wizovic.org.au/gala