The Palestinian Lewis Hamilton: Interview with Rasheed Nashasheebi, Palestinian karter

Aric Lapter on left, and Rasheed on right shake hands at Silverstone

The political magazines are talking about the bloodshed in Gaza one year on and how peace remains as elusive as ever for Israelis and Palestinians. Their governments remain divided. Yet over the last decade, Israelis and Palestinians have cooperated together in several fields: academia, the environment, medicine, music and sport. The latest initiative that has sought to build a bridge and achieve what the politicians constantly fail to achieve is Racing 4 Peace.

The Palestinian co-founder of this team is 25 year old Rasheed Nashashibi. He has British citizenship through his mother, who was born in Cyprus. He was raised in both the Muslim and Christian religions by his family and they live in Israel. Karting, which is now the essential route for an aspiring racer to take, inspired Rasheed at an early age. He got to fulfil this inspiration whilst studying Computer Sciences at Kingston University, London; he got to race for the university karting team “Yeah, yeah we did really good,” he says. In the British Universities Karting Championship, Rasheed achieved a 5th place in the driver’s championship in 2005 and a 4th place in 2006.

Returning home, Rasheed now works as an IT analyst for the Golden Walls hotel in Jerusalem. In recent years, motor racing has made inroads in the Middle East. Bahrain hosted its first grand prix in 2004 and this year, Abu Dhabi was the finale for the 2009 F1 world championship. In 2005, the BBC screened a documentary about Iran’s “female Michael Schumacher”, Laleh Seddigh and her success in Iran’s racing series.

The Palestinians have the unenviable situation of the Israeli checkpoints and the Palestinian average income being 25 times lower than that of the Israeli. Despite this, Rasheed established the Pal Racing club which organises karting events in the Palestinian territories. “Back here, we don’t have racing or anything professional. I had a Subaru STI and I wanted to race that so I gathered some of my friends and started doing some races around this empty land strip in the desert,” Rasheed explains. It’s an endeavour that is attracting numbers. Last year 4 racing events were held and the club has 1500 members on facebook.

In Israel, motor racing remains illegal due to the state owning 95% of the land and religious objections from the influential Orthodox establishment. Regarding Palestine, there has been greater progress in motor racing becoming another popular sport. In Ramallah last year, there was a Classic Car Show that displayed over 100 historic cars. “There’s actually a Palestine Motor Federation. Surprisingly, they have FIA (the governing body responsible for the regulation of motor racing) approval and they joined the FIA before Israel. They can issue licenses before Israel; Israel doesn’t have any agreements with the FIA. Palestine does and they do a lot of autocross (racing on grass) and we do all the racing for Palestine. We race in Egypt and in Jordan and we get inspections from the FIA. It’s really nice,” he exclaims.

2006 would be a significant year. At the Latrun go-karting track near Jerusalem, he met Aric Lapter, an Israeli engineer who built the first Israeli single seater car with his friends from Tel Aviv University. Rasheed recalls: “I was racing and wearing my racing suit. I had a Palestinian flag on it and I noticed he was wearing a similar T-shirt. I got a call from the track saying he wanted my number; that’s how he got my number and he called me. He came over to my place and said. ‘I have an idea about racing, do you want to meet up and talk about it?’ That’s all it all started.”

When Lapter informed him that he’d built a car, Rasheed was excited. “I was like, show me the pictures! I was really impressed that someone had done the whole thing and according to the British regulations.” At the Silverstone circuit in Northamptonshire, Rasheed gained a racing licence by passing the Association of Racing Driving Schools test and that enabled him to test Lapter’s car.

In the presence of the Israeli media, the car was tested on an air-strip in Arad in the Negev desert. “It has at the end, a circle where we do a big turn at the end and we do some cones,” Rasheed continues. “We do left hand and right hand turns. It’s all slower than a proper track, but it’s all we’ve got you know.”

A GPS device was fitted onto the car and during the test, the lateral G force was measured at 1.6; which is considered impressive. Six tests have taken place. “It was really good considering the car has old tyres. The last time we drove it we pushed it really hard. The handling is very neutral. It’s a lot of fun, you should try it!” he laughs.

The Racing 4 Peace team could have real fun racing in Britain. The plan is that Rasheed and Lapter will race in the British Formula Vee series as team-mates. At the moment, they’re looking for $100,000 to cover the cost of transporting the car and racing. So far, due to the economic depression, they’ve only got $2000. Fortunately, publicity has been helped by a documentary being made by renowned Israeli director, Omer Reiss. The BBC has sponsored the film and may pay for two weekends of racing.

Whatever happens, Rasheed has made a mark on Palestinian culture. The Palestinian motorsport federation is planning to build a permanent karting track near Jericho and the mobile phone company Wataniya sponsors several karting events. “It’s expensive, but everyone enjoys it,” Rasheed says. He has taught Palestinian karters and they’re racing and beating their wealthier counterparts in the Middle East. “My students, after having some training for two and a half months, they beat everyone who have been training for three or four years. I’m training people to race and drive here which is a really nice feeling.”

In a conflict that appears as intractable as ever, this is a brave venture that deserves every chance of success.