One of the most incongruous parts of daily life here, in fact, is a local surf scene. Even in a city struggling to recover from a war, Gaza City has a small but growing surf community, which has thrived in the last two years thanks to a grassroots project in Tel Aviv. … Two months after Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, in 2007, an American surfer named Dorian Paskowitz brought about a dozen surfboards to the border as a gesture of friendship. A charity called Surfing 4 Peace grew out of his publicity stunt, headed by an Israeli surfer named Arthur Rashkovan and another American, Matt Olsen. The idea was to make peace with individual Palestinians and start a small surf economy. …
In strict terms of merchandise delivery, the Paskowitz mission was a fiasco. Another group called the Palestine Sailing Federation got involved with the handover at the border that day, and “distributed them to their own friends,” according to Matt. The recipients weren’t surfers and most of the boards were wrecked. “Pretty typical of Palestinian politics,” he added.
Not long after, though, the Gaza Surf Club was established, and Surfing 4 Peace brought 10 more surfboards and a number of wetsuits across the border. Now the club has about 20 regular members and Mohammed Abu Jayyab estimated that a total of “50 or 60” people have learned to surf in the Gaza Strip. Considering the million and a half people who live in the Gaza Strip, it’s not a lot. Surfing has not exactly taken Gaza by storm. But Arthur Rashkovan, who runs Surfing 4 Peace from Tel Aviv, said the new links between Gazans and Israelis were more important than the sport itself. Access the full article>>
