Peace in Israel/Palestine

Minute on Israel Palestine

2011-09-17T08:55:00.000-04:00

The Ann Arbor Friends Meeting wishes to share with you its position on handling the present conditions between Israel and its Arab brothers and sisters. This issue has been a difficult one for us to consider for many years. The fact that we were able to come to unity in this statement is something we are proud of. Please join with us in finding a way to peace in this crucial area of the world.

Bill Riccobono, Clerk, Ann Arbor Friends Meeting
Helen Fox, Convener, Palestine Israel Action Group, Ann Arbor Friends Meeting

Minute on Israel Palestine
Adopted by the Ann Arbor Friends Meeting (Quakers) July 17, 2011

The Ann Arbor Friends Meeting recognizes the complex international dynamics that feed the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, creating fear on both sides and putting both Palestinians and Israelis at risk. We are concerned about the safety and well-being of all affected by this conflict. We wish to ally ourselves with those in Israel and Palestine working to bring peace.

We believe that one key step towards stability and safety for both Israelis and Palestinians depends on a just agreement regarding the Palestinian lands that Israel has occupied, illegally, according to international law, since 1967. Successive U.S. governments have generously supported Israeli military occupation of these lands, and have turned a blind eye to illegal tax exemptions for U.S. charitable organizations that support Israeli settlements.

We urge our government to exhibit equal concern for the well-being of both Palestinian and Israeli people by:

¨ Supporting a United Nations resolution recognizing a Palestinian state

¨ Withholding U.S. tax dollars that support the Israeli military

¨ Enforcing U.S. tax law regarding charitable organizations that support Israeli settlements

We also urge Friends worldwide to unite with Britain Yearly Meeting in its call to boycott products made in Israeli settlements, “not as punishment or revenge, but as an external pressure to achieve change.”

With Britain Yearly Meeting, Ann Arbor Friends Meeting considers that “we should now act publicly, and, well-informed, be able to explain our action to others,” in order to “give hope to Palestinians and support to those in Israel who are working for peace.” We agree with Britain Yearly Meeting that “in the face of the armed oppression of poor people and the increasing encroachment of the illegal settlements in the West Bank, we cannot do nothing.” We too are clear that it would be wrong to support the Israeli settlements by purchasing their goods.

In order to exert more than symbolic pressure on the Israeli government to negotiate a just peace at this critical time, Ann Arbor Friends Meeting joins with religious and civil society organizations throughout the world in a boycott of corporations that support the Israeli military.

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Supporting Documentation

Illegal U.S. Tax Exemptions
For more information about the U.S. tax law regarding charitable organizations that aid Israeli settlements, please see:
Tax Exempt Funds Aid Settlements in West Bank. New York Times, 2010, July 5
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/world/middleeast/06settle.html

Israeli settlement products
AHAVA beauty products are produced using salt, minerals, and mud from the Dead Sea – natural resources that are excavated from the occupied West Bank. The products themselves are manufactured in the illegal West Bank settlement Mitzpe Shalem. Please see CODEPINK’s “Stolen Beauty” campaign for action steps. http://www.stolenbeauty.org/

Other settlement products sold in the U.S. can be found here: http://www.meretzusa.org/boycott-these-settlement-products-sold-us

Some corporations that support the Israeli Military
Please join the American Friends Service Committee in divesting personal and institutional funds from these and other U.S. corporations that support Israel’s Occupation. http://afsc.org/resource/afscs-israel-palestine-investment-screen-and-tiaa-cref-divestment-campaign

Motorola
Intel
Caterpillar Corporation
Boeing
General Electric Corporation
Lockheed Martin
ITT Corporation
Volvo
Silicon Graphics
Blockbuster

The full, annotated list of corporations boycotted by AFSC and the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church can be found here: http://www.neumc.org/pages/detail/375

Visions of the Future

2011-09-03T15:35:00.002-04:00

As the Palestinian Authority prepares to ask the United Nations for recognition of an independent Palestinian state this month, most of the UN member countries (with the notable exception of the U.S. and Israel) are ready to endorse the bid as a largely symbolic, yet positive step on the road to Palestinian independence.
http://www.france24.com/en/20110813-palestinians-set-strategic-date-statehood-bid-UN-diplomacy

Even within Israel, some applaud this initiative on the part of Palestinian (or West Bank) President Mahmoud Abbas. Gush Shalom, the Israeli Peace Bloc, says in an advertisement in Ha'aretz (9-2-2011):

INSTEAD OF PANICKING...

The great majority
Of the world's nations
Are about to
Vote for recognizing
The State of Palestine

If you can't beat them,
Why not join them?
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/weekly_ad/1314967339/

But the Netanyahu government seems to be trying its best to spread fear and panic. Israeli columnist Uri Avnery says that in the minds of the government coalition, dominated as it is by settlers and their allies:

"September is not just the name of a month, the seventh in the old Roman calendar. It is the symbol of a terrible danger, an unspeakable existential menace. In the next few weeks, the Palestinians will ask the UN to recognize the State of Palestine. They have already mustered a large majority in the General Assembly. After that, according to the official assessment of our army, all hell will break loose. Multitudes of Palestinians will rise, attack the “Separation” Wall, storm the settlements, confront the army, create chaos."

To combat the "barbarians at the gates," the Israeli army is training settlers in violent self-defense, which can easily spill over into aggressive offense against peaceful protesters. And since Palestinians will surely continue their nonviolent protests, more tragedy is sure to result. http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1314963921/

Avnery suggests that the government's fear-mongering serves not only to block the formation of an independent Palestinian state, but to divert the public from the huge social protests against Israeli living conditions that have taken place over the past few months. The Israeli education system, the health system, and the social services are all in dire need of reform. The billions of dollars that would fund such efforts can only come from the military budget and from the massive economic support the government provides the settlements. Israel cannot build a humane social welfare system for its own people and block a Palestinian state at the same time. How better to resolve this paradox than whipping up fear and paranoia?

Meanwhile, in Gaza, there is widespread skepticism that the PA's bid for independence will bring positive change. Mohammed Rabah Suliman, a 21 year old Palestinian student and blogger, writes eloquently from Gaza that his generation, especially, "does not seek more UN resolutions and international declarations. Not even a declaration of a state. A state itself is rather what we desire. A state that we can touch, see and live in. We long for the reunification of the more than 11 million Palestinians living in the world. We want to see facts on the ground and tangible results. We crave for the land which has been relentlessly ripped apart in flagrant violation of dozens of resolutions already passed — and then promptly ignored — by the very same UN to which the PA now turns." http://electronicintifada.net/content/palestinian-youth-gaza-skeptical-about-pas-un-bid/10284

Palestinian Americans, too, have called on their allies everywhere to reject the PA's plan. "In recent months, a consensus has emerged among Palestinian experts and organizations that the UN statehood bid is useless at best, and highly damaging to Palestinian rights at worst":
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah/palestinian-americans-unequivocally-reject-pas-un-statehood-bid

Controversy and dissent are to be expected around such a central issue of peace and human rights. But when both supporters and deniers of justice for Palestinians agree for opposite reasons, how should Friends respond?

Certainly we must speak out. But rather than responding with exasperation, confusion, worry, or worst-case scenarios, what if we focused solely on the positive? If you're in favor of UN recognition of a Palestinian state, what good things might come from that -- for both sides? Are you passionate about a one-state solution? What could that look like for all its new citizens? What positive changes in the larger, global order would address the suffering of Palestinians as well as the concerns of Israelis whose social system is collapsing around them? What could the region look like in ten or fifteen years if the peace you envision were achieved?

Focus on the light,

Helen Fox
Convener, Palestine Israel Action Group
Ann Arbor Friends Meeting

LETTER OF SOLIDARITY

2011-07-29T07:28:00.003-04:00

Dear Friends,

PIAG's Dispatch for August is devoted to a message that was
meticulously stenciled in large letters on three kilometers of the
"separation wall" between Israel and the West Bank. The "open
letter," written and read aloud on YouTube by South African
theologian Farid Esack, is a beautiful statement of solidarity
between South Africans who lived through apartheid and the
Palestinian people today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1skU_nVaMl8

Esack speaks of the similarities between Palestinians and black South Africans during the South African struggle for independence, but points out that the oppression of Palestinians is worse:

White South Africa did of course seek to control Blacks. However it never tried to deny Black people their very existences or to wish them away completely as we see here. We have not experienced military occupation without any rights for the occupied. We were spared the barbaric and diverse forms of collective punishment in the forms of house demolitions, the destruction of orchards belonging to relatives of suspected freedom fighters, or the physical transfer of these relatives themselves. South Africa's apartheid courts never legitimized torture. White South Africans were never given a carte blanche to humiliate Black South Africans as the Settlers here seem to have. The craziest Apartheid zealots would never have dreamt of something as macabre as this Wall. The Apartheid police never used kids as shields in any of their operations. Nor did the apartheid army ever use gunships and bombs against largely civilian targets. In South Africa the Whites were a stable community and after centuries simply had to come to terms with Black people. (Even if it were only because of their economic dependence on Black people.) The Zionist idea of Israel as the place for the ingathering for all the Jews – old and new, converts, reverts and reborn is a deeply problematic one. In such a case there is no sense of compulsion to reach out to your neighbour. The idea seems to be to get rid of the old neighbours – ethnic cleansing - and to bring in new ones all the time.

Esack's letter also touches on profound general questions such as
the nature of morality, the limits to objectivity in situations of
oppression, the irony of resisting evil when it is considered
unfashionable, and why Palestinian liberation represents the
"unfinished business" of South Africa's struggle for a moral society.

If you would like to read or keep the text, it can be found here, on
the site of Jewish Peace News:
http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com/2009/04/farid-esacks-open-letter-is-inscribed.html

Speak out,
Helen Fox
Convener, Palestine Israel Action Group (PIAG)
Ann Arbor Friends Meeting
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Flotilla II

2011-07-05T09:38:00.002-04:00

PIAG’s dispatch for July follows the fate of the second Freedom Flotilla to Gaza that is (today, July 5) languishing in the port of Athens, prohibited from sailing out of the harbor by Greek authorities on the dubious premise that the eight ships carrying humanitarian cargo and well-wishes from friends around the world, are “not seaworthy.”

One of the 320 activists from 22 countries who have booked passage on the flotilla is the novelist and poet, Alice Walker. She writes: “Our boat, The Audacity of Hope, will be carrying letters to the people of Gaza. Letters expressing solidarity and love. That is all its cargo will consist of.

If the Israeli military attacks us, it will be as if they attacked the mailman. This should go down hilariously in the annals of history. But if they insist on attacking us, wounding us, even murdering us, as they did some of the activists in the last flotilla, Freedom Flotilla I, what is to be done?” http://alicewalkersgarden.com/blog/

Alice Walker’s solidarity with the Palestinian people arises from her conviction that Palestinians are facing the same kinds of racist violence that her grandparents suffered in the U.S South two generations ago. In sailing on the Audacity of Hope, she is “paying off a debt to the Jewish civil rights activists who faced death to come to the side of black people in the South in our time of need.”

Israel's right wing government has gone to great lengths to stop the flotilla and to convince ordinary Israelis that the ships pose a grave danger to the state. Israeli news has been filled with fear mongering and lies: that the flotilla is a serious threat to Israel’s security; that the ships are full of terrorists; that the Palestinians are doing splendidly without humanitarian assistance, and so on. Writing in Ha’aretz, columnist Gideon Levy – one of the few voices of calm – reflects that Israel has become “a society of force and violence,” both in its actions and its rhetoric. Simply describing the flotilla passengers as “social activists and fighters for peace and justice” is difficult, Levy writes, “since they have already been described as thugs.” The media and government have employed “all the buzzwords: danger, chemical substances, hand-to-hand combat, Muslims, Turks, Arabs, terrorists and maybe some suicide bombers.” This is a recurring pattern, Levy says, “first demonization, then legitimization (to act violently).” http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-has-become-a-society-of-force-and-violence-1.370407

In addition to its disinformation campaign, Israel seems to have sabotaged at least one of the ships in the flotilla. Apparently, divers cut a piece out of the propeller shaft of the Irish vessel, an act that would have caused the ship to sink, had it not been discovered in time. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0630/1224299796875.html

In a message sent to news editors around the world, Israel’s Government Press Office warned international journalists to stay away from the flotilla, lest they be banned from entering Israel for up to ten years, a threat that even Israel’s Foreign Press Association called “a chilling message to the international media,” that raises “serious questions about Israel’s commitment to freedom of the press.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/world/middleeast/27israel.html?scp=1&sq=journalists%20gaza%20flotilla&st=cse

The U.S. government, too, has spoken out against the flotilla, calling the nonviolent action “unhelpful,” “unnecessary,” and a “provocation” to the Israeli military, despite the fact that Israel’s blockade of Gaza is illegal according to international law. http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/06/166868.htm

Most recently, the Greek government, which is in no position to defy powerful countries that might help save its floundering economy, has refused to let any of the ships docked at the port of Athens to leave the harbor.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/07/201172143643709749.html

Why does such an innocuous mission so disturb the Israeli government and its allies in the Obama administration? Is nonviolent resistance so powerful that it can strike fear into two nuclear armed nations? Apparently so.

In “Waiting for Godot on the Gaza Flotilla,” Mark Levine writes that the political and strategic implications of the unarmed flotilla are quite real. “They symbolize that Palestinians and their international supporters are refusing to play by Israel's rules, and are forcing the Israeli state to reveal the basic, ugly immorality of an occupation that has always presented itself as a necessary if unfortunate act of self-defense. In short, the flotilla constitutes a provocation, a declaration to Israel that it does not own every aspect of Palestinian existence and that Palestinians too have their international supporters who, if not as militarily and financially powerful as the U.S. government and the various arms of the Israel lobby, are coming into their own as a force to be reckoned with. . . And for Israel, losing power over Palestinians would mean not merely the end of the occupation, but the end of Israel as an ethnocentric Jewish state . . .” http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/06/201163012414324986.html

All this drama reminds me of the outrage that George Fox incurred with his simple act of refusal to take off his hat in the 17th century courtroom to the judge -- or in fact, “to any, high or low.” “Oh, the rage and scorn, the heat and fury that arose!” he writes. “Oh the blows, punchings, beatings, and imprisonments that we underwent for not putting off our hats to men!” Jessamyn West explains in her preface to The Quaker Reader: “The dangerous principle [a judge] sees – and fears – is . . . that of the individual who dares question the authority of the state over the person.”

As Alice Walker waits in Athens for the outcome of this small, yet weighty challenge to the violence of the state, she writes to the people of Gaza – and to us:

The whole world
is watching
Gaza
& it is
wondering how
things
will
turn out.

They are making
it hard
for us to move
Gaza
& sometimes
we are
in despair
but I remind
us
that you
of all people
understand
obstruction.

They know this place
we are in, I say,

of not
being able to move.
They know it
intimately.
This place of stalemate
& stagnation, so unbearable
to any heart
that’s free
is where they
hourly
live.

They will forgive
us
if we do not
arrive
on time.

© Alice Walker, from “Sailing the Hot Streets of Athens, Greece.”
http://alicewalkersgarden.com/blog/

PIAG'S DISPATCH FOR JUNE

2011-06-21T20:12:00.000-04:00

PIAG's Dispatch for June comments on the recent speeches by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama on current prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Much has been made of their differences: Obama believes that Israeli withdrawl to the "green line" with mutually agreed-upon land swaps is fair, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/144336 while Netanyahu insists that "Israel will not return to the indefensible lines of 1967." http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/05/24/full-text-of-netanyahu-speech-to-congress/ Obama's speech was a bit more inclusive, acknowledging, at least, that both sides have greviences, and that each will have to make compromises.

However, as Uri Avnery, former member of Israel's Knesset remarks, "Netanyahu's message could be summed up in one word: NO. NO return to the 1967 borders. NO Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. NO to even a symbolic return of some refugees. NO military withdrawal from the Jordan River - meaning that the future Palestinian state would be completely surrounded by the Israeli armed forces. NO negotiation with a Palestinian government "supported" by Hamas, even if there are no Hamas members in the government itself. And so on – NO. NO. NO." http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1306359471/

For Quakers, perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Netanyahu's words is the premise of Israeli exceptionalism that underlies his demands. In his speech to AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) Netanyahu reminded his admiring audience that "Israeli innovators help power computers, fight disease, conserve water, and clean the planet." Democracy was a Jewish invention, he told them. Israel has made paraplegics walk and is working on a cure for cancer. Israel has invested more than $50 billion in the US, bringing business, jobs, medicine, food -- even Hummus -- to the American people.

On the other hand (according to Netanyahu), Israel's neighbors have nothing to recommend them except perhaps their longing for Israeli-style freedom and democracy. They do not allow women to drive. They imprison journalists. They bomb churches. They contain a young Israeli soldier in a dark dungeon without even a visit from the Red Cross. They refuse to accept the Jewish state.

In short, "Israel is not what's wrong with the Middle East. Israel is what's right about the Middle East." Since Israel always does exceptional good in the world, and since it can always be trusted to be on the side of the righteous, Israel deserves our exceptional support.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/05/24/full-text-of-netanyahu-speech-to-aipac/

But Quakerism -- and indeed, the U.S. itself -- was founded on a different premise: that all people, not just the "exceptional" people, deserve the blessings of justice, compassion, understanding, and equality. Everyone deserves a fair hearing. Everyone's security is vital to peace. Since there is "that of God" in everyone, claims of inherent superiority cannot be assumed in settling disagreements - or at any other time.

Fortunately, Netanyahu does not speak for all Israelis, much less all Jews. According to Juan Cole, a slight majority of Israelis preferred Obama's speech to Nethanyahu's. http://www.juancole.com/2011/05/israelis-support-obama-over-bibi.html

And Jewish Voice for Peace called for grassroots action to counter the "shocking" 29 standing ovations that the U.S. Congress gave to Netanyahu's address. http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/blog/take-action-no-applause-for-netanyahu

Add your voice. Work for peace with justice.

A New Political Landscape

2011-05-05T15:54:00.001-04:00

PIAG's Dispatch for May celebrates the easing of Gaza's long isolation, and the empowerment of the people in the region to not only bring greater equality and justice to their own countries, but to their neighbors as well.

Last week the rival factions of Fatah (in the West Bank) and Hamas (in Gaza) reached an agreement to share power -- a deal sponsored by the new, interim Egyptian government that took power after the country's (mostly) nonviolent revolution. Kieron Monks writes in Al Jazeera, "Riding the crest of its own wave, Egypt is a good ally [for Palestinians] to have at the moment. [Egypt's] status is restored as the Arab world's most powerful voice, and the Palestinian issue has assumed priority status surprisingly quickly after the revolution. A new attitude to the conflict is developing, exemplified by new foreign minister Nabil el-Arabi's recent statement: "It is time to stop managing the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, it's time to end it."

What's especially interesting about the shifting balance of power is that Egypt no longer feels any obligation to provide preferential trade agreements with Israel, including "gas deals worth US$700 million more than the current contract. Egyptian politicians have been publicly asserting that they are under no obligation to maintain this disadvantageous agreement, and with the urgent need to introduce a minimum wage, welfare and greater social equality, the country cannot afford it. Should Israel's most essential imports be threatened, that vulnerability will strengthen the Palestinians' hand."
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/201154141251179755.html

As if to celebrate the new political landscape, the New York Times reports, "Daniel Barenboim, the Israeli conductor, led an orchestra of two dozen elite musicians - volunteers from the Berlin Philharmonic, the Berlin Staatskapelle, the Orchestra of La Scala in Milan, the Vienna Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris - into Gaza on Tuesday. They played, on a makeshift stage, with obvious emotion and exceptionally well, before an invited audience of several hundred that rose to cheer not just afterward but also from the moment the players walked into the hall. Organized under the auspices of the United Nations, the free concert . . . demonstrated the volcanic changes overtaking this region. Just weeks ago such an enterprise would have been unthinkable. Gaza's borders with Egypt and Israel were shut tight. But the concert came amid talk by the new authorities in Egypt about permanently reopening the border crossing at Rafah; and at the same time as an Egyptian-brokered pact between Hamas and Fatah - the Palestinian faction heading the West Bank - which promises further easing of Gaza's longtime isolation. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/arts/music/daniel-barenboim-the-israeli-conductor-in-gaza.html?_r=1

All power to the people.
Helen Fox
Convener, Palestine Israel Action Group
Ann Arbor Friends Meeting

GOLDSTONE'S REPORT AND "RETRACTION"

2011-04-03T15:34:00.001-04:00

PIAG's Dispatch for April discusses the confusing and contradictory comments made by Judge Richard Goldstone about his own 2009 report to the UN Human Rights Council on abuses by Israel and Hamas during Israel's siege on Gaza.

In 2009, the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict headed by Judge Goldstone http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf reported, among other findings, that Israel had committed human rights abuses and possible war crimes during "Operation Cast Lead," including indiscriminate and/or deliberate attacks on the civilian population, purposeful destruction of infrastructure, and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields. The report was condemned by Israel as "biased," and discussion of its findings was largely suppressed in the US media.

Now, Judge Goldstone has entered a retraction of sorts, saying in a Washington Post op-ed that his report would have looked different if Israel had been cooperative and allowed his committee access to information during its fact-finding mission. Now that Israel has conducted its own investigation, he says, it appears that what looked like war crimes were simply unintended consequences. And Hamas has not conducted any investigation of its own behavior at all.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/reconsidering-the-goldstone-report-on-israel-and-war-crimes/2011/04/01/AFg111JC_story.html

Former AFSC Program Director in Israel/Palestine, Adam Horowitz, finds Goldstone's remarks "confusing" at best. While it is true that Hamas has not conducted a credible investigation by independent experts as the Goldstone Report recommends, neither has Israel. How credible is a country's investigation of its own military's behavior, he wonders. In an incident where IDF soldiers used a Palestinian child as a human shield, Israel's report explained that the soldiers involved were probably fatigued, and that "they had done nothing to degrade or humiliate the boy." The soldiers involved in the crime were sentenced to the minimum -- three months and a demotion. Part of the problem, Horowitz says, is that the Israeli investigators were part of the same office that would be responsible for providing legal counsel to the IDF's Chief of Staff and other top military brass. Judge Goldstone had pointed out this uncomfortable conflict of interest in his report, yet he ignored the issue in his recent retraction. Why?
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/04/goldstone-op-ed-praises-israeli-investigation-of-gaza-war-crimes-but-un-committee-paints-a-different-picture.html

Meanwhile, amid this flurry of reports and counter-reports, the IDF's recruitment to racist violence continues. Ha'arez reports that Israeli twelfth-grade students took part in a simulated shooting attack in which the targets were figures decked out with the Arab keffiyeh headdress. The incident took place at a military base last week during the annual senior class trip. The students were being escorted to a commanders' base in the Negev as part of an "IDF preparation" project, which is sanctioned by the Education Ministry. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/students-on-trip-to-idf-base-simulated-shooting-targets-with-arab-headdress-1.353728

Work for a saner world,
Helen Fox
Convener, Palestine Israel Action Group
Ann Arbor Friends Meeting
---------------------------------------------------------------

QUAKER WEBSITES AND BLOGS on Palestine/Israel:

1. QUAKERPI www.quakerpi.org is the national website for Quakers interested in PI issues. It is maintained by Anne and Fred Remley in Ann Arbor, Donna Schumann in Olympia, WA, and Roger Conant in Mt. Toby, MA. It is the most comprehensive of these sites.

2. PIAG'S BLOG www.quakerpiag.blogspot.com/ is a site where I post these dispatches and PI articles from time to time. This site allows responses from the public. Please comment!

3. PIAG's own web page www.quaker.org/piag/ represents much of the work PIAG has done over the past three or four years.

4. In addition, PIAG maintains a presence on the Michigan Peace Network site http://www.michiganpeacenetwork.org/ Many of our educational materials appear in their "Resources" section.

More reactions from Israel and Palestine on the Middle East Uprisings

2011-03-04T07:06:00.000-05:00

PIAG's Dispatch for March continues our report on the reactions of Israelis and Palestinians to the uprisings for democracy in the Middle East.

Israeli columnist and former Knesset member Uri Avnery writes, “among ordinary Israelis, there was quite a lot of spontaneous sympathy for the Egyptians confronting their tormentors in Tahrir Square . . .” Yet “even in the few halfway intelligent talk shows, there was much hilarity about the idea that ‘Arabs’ could establish democracies. Learned professors and media commentators 'proved' that such a thing just could not happen – Islam was ‘by nature’ anti-democratic and backward, Arab societies lacked the Protestant Christian ethic necessary for democracy, or the capitalist foundations for a sound middle class, etc. At best, one kind of despotism would be replaced by another.”

The most common conclusion among Israeli pundits, Avnery continues, “was that democratic elections would inevitably lead to the victory of ‘Islamist’ fanatics, who would set up brutal Taliban-style theocracies, or worse. Part of this, of course, is deliberate propaganda designed to convince the naïve Americans and Europeans that they must shore up the Mubaraks of the region or alternative military strongmen. But most of it was quite sincere: most Israelis really believe that the Arabs, left to their own devices, will set up murderous ‘Islamist’ regimes, whose main aim would be to wipe Israel off the map.”

Yet within all this fear and uncertainty, Avnery sees political and moral opportunity: “When entire peoples rise up and revolution upsets all entrenched attitudes, there is the possibility of changing old ideas. If Israeli political and intellectual leaders were to stand up today and openly declare their solidarity with the Arab masses in their struggle for freedom, justice and dignity, they could plant a seed that would bear fruit in coming years.” http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/20110218154413928

Palestinian reaction to the events in the Arab world is a mixture of frustration, concern, hope, and pride. In a fascinating article, Hossam el-Hamalawy, an Egyptian journalist, writes that Palestine’s Second Intifada was the inspiration for the uprising in Egypt:

“The Egyptian revolution, rather than coming out of the blue on 25 January 2011, is a result of a process that has been brewing over the previous decade -- a chain reaction to the autumn 2000 protests in solidarity with the Palestinian intifada. . . Mubarak's iron-fist rule and the outbreak of the dirty war between the regime and Islamist militants in the 1990s meant the death of street dissent. Public gatherings and street protests were banned and if they did take place, confronted by force. Live ammunition was used on strikers. Trade unions were put under government control. Only after the Palestinian intifada broke out in September 2000 did tens of thousands of Egyptians take to the streets in protest -- probably for the first time since 1977. Although those demonstrations were in solidarity with the Palestinians, they soon gained an anti-regime dimension . . .” http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11838.shtml

The obvious, if often unspoken question on everyone’s mind is whether the popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Morocco, and other countries in the region will embolden the Palestinians to rise up again. Reserve Brigadier General Michael Herzog warns in Ha’aretz of a “tremendous earthquake shaking our region. . . Where will the popular revolutionary energy released in our region lead? Israel should take into account that this energy, now directed inward, will at some point be directed at it as well. In the Arab street, there is deep empathy for the Palestinians. . . This is especially true during a protracted diplomatic stalemate. Moreover, because of the stalemate, with the banner of liberty raised in our region, the Palestinian public could embark on a popular anti-Israeli uprising. Israel would then face a difficult test, against the background of serious diplomatic isolation and the wave of international recognition of Palestinian aspirations for statehood.” http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-must-bear-in-mind-that-the-revolutionary-energy-will-hit-it-as-well-1.346132

Egypt, Israel and Palestine

2011-02-06T19:43:00.002-05:00

PIAG's Dispatch for February reports on Israeli reaction to the pro-democracy uprising in Egypt, and on concerns from Palestinians and US liberals about the new government that might come to power.

ISRAELIS
Israelis are concerned that in calling for Mubarak to preside over an orderly transition, the US has abandoned its staunch ally in the Middle East. An opinion piece by Aviad Pohoryles entitled "A Bullet in the Back from Uncle Sam" accused Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of pursuing "a naive, smug, and insular diplomacy heedless of the risks." Who is advising them, he asked, "to fuel the mob raging in the streets of Egypt and to demand the head of the person who five minutes ago was the bold ally of the president ... an almost lone voice of sanity in the Middle East? The politically correct diplomacy of American presidents throughout the generations ... is painfully naive."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/31/us-egypt-israel-usa-idUSTRE70U53720110131

PALESTINIANS
While the small and tentative concessions offered by the Mubarak regime might signal progress to some, Palestinians and their allies have serious concerns that the new Vice President, Omar Suleiman, has been a willing accomplice in the repression of the Palestinians. According to secret documents leaked to Al Jazeera -- the Palestine Papers http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/palestine-papers -- the Mubarak regime, with Suleiman as its point person, has played a key role in dividing Palestinian factions, pressing the Palestinians for unprecedented concessions during the recent peace process, and sealing the Egyptian border during the Gaza War, trapping 450,000 Palestinians and resulting in the death of 1500, most of them civilians. http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/20112512042978473.html

US LIBERALS
As the Muslim Brotherhood emerges as one of the leaders working to resolve the standoff in Tahrir Square, some Americans who support the Egyptian people's uprising have expressed concern that free and fair elections could result in a fundamentalist religious state, much like Iran after the uprising against the Shah in 1979. Juan Cole, a Middle East historian at the University of Michigan, explains why this analogy is incorrect. Although the Muslim Brotherhood developed a terrorist wing in the 1940s, that faction was quashed by both the government and the Muslim Brotherhood itself. In addition, secular opposition groups in Egypt are strong, and all favor human rights and parliamentary democracy.
http://www.juancole.com/2011/02/why-egypt-2011-is-not-iran-1979.html

PIAG urges readers to take *one* action this week to support the courageous demonstrators in Tahrir Square or to advise the Obama administration to take a stronger stance against the dictatorship. A talking point: Every day the U.S. buys nearly $3 million worth of armaments from U.S. companies to aid Mubarak's police state. Tear gas canisters thrown at Egyptian demonstrators last week read, "Made the U.S.A." Is this the way to "keep the peace" in the Middle East?

Conflict Transformation in Israel Palestine

2011-01-03T12:02:00.002-05:00

The New Year suggests the need for new thinking. The Israeli Palestinian conflict seems so entrenched, so hopeless, that it might be well to step back and consider what peace-builders with experience in other “intractable” conflicts can teach us.

John Paul Lederach, a professor in the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University and a trainer and consultant for peace-builders in many conflict-ridden countries, tells us that the most significant challenges in peace-building are the result of three critical factors: first, who talks to whom in behind-the-scenes dialogue; second, how deeply the issues of structural injustice are considered in the peace negotiations; and third, how long the process of conflict transformation is carried on after “peace accords” are finally set in place. Each of these factors is important to consider as we search for ways for Quakers to get involved in a lasting peace-building process.

1. Who talks to whom? Most conflict resolution work involves bringing people together across enemy lines for negotiation, dialogue and/or mediation. But most of the time, people meet others of relatively equal status: top-level politicians and military leaders meet their counterparts; mid-level religious leaders, academics, and heads of NGOs meet others like themselves; and community people meet other community folks as they hear each each other's concerns and hopes, enjoy meals together, and “refuse to be enemies.” The trouble is that political leaders don’t have the benefit of personal dialogue with ordinary people; NGO heads don’t get to discuss their concerns with the military; community people aren’t invited to academic conferences, and so on. Building these kinds of vertical relationships of respect and understanding are critical, especially in efforts to end protracted, violent conflict. Dialogue must go on at all levels, both within equal status groups and between them. Peace-building is an organic system that requires attention to all its channels of communication, not just among people whose interests and points of view are similar. In Northern Ireland, Quakers conducted dialogues with and between politicians in confidential settings that were critical to the emerging peace process.

2. How to address the “justice gap”? Lederach points out that people take up direct, physical violence when they are trying to address perceived injustice at economic, social, cultural, and/or political levels. As the conflict escalates, the direct violence eventually reaches a saturation point. People get fed up with killing each other when they realize that the physical violence has made them worse off than they were before. At this point, peace negotiations begin. However, these talks, and the “peace accords” that eventually follow, rarely address the structural issues that started the conflict in the first place. In the case of the Palestinians, the obvious structural injustice is land, or the right of return, but it also includes the economic gap between Palestinians and Israelis, and the discriminatory attitudes of many Israelis toward their Palestinian neighbors. Even if land claims are one day settled, the income disparities and the racism that so often justifies them must be squarely addressed.

3. How can relationships be transformed after “peace breaks out”? Former combatants too often see peace accords as an “end-game,” without paying sufficient attention to long-term community building and reconciliation. The term, “conflict transformation” suggests that the relationships between groups must be fundamentally reconfigured for peace to be lasting. Relationship-building means that people on both sides must be adaptable, vigilant, and willing to change. Conflict transformation requires support infrastructure that enhances people’s capacity to respond to relational needs, rather than being limited by static events and legal agreements. Regardless of whether the Israelis and the Palestinians settle for a two-state or a one-state solution, they will need to develop relationships that respect and value each other as neighbors and/or fellow citizens. It can’t be done? Just look at Europe -- at each other's throats in two world wars, and before that, centuries of violent conflict. Now we have the European Union.

What roles do Lederach’s insights suggest for Quakers? In our efforts to help resolve the IP conflict, we should not dwell solely on ending the Occupation, pressing for an end to settlement construction, or using the power of nonviolence to force both sides to the bargaining table. While these efforts are important and necessary, they leave out the three crucial areas of conflict resolution and transformation described above. Can Quakers find ways to address the relationship-building necessary in the region, and the political and economic power imbalance at the global level that so often leaves “free” people struggling with poverty, despair, and interpersonal violence?

Work for peace -- with justice, dialogue, and respect,
Helen Fox
Convener, Palestine Israel Action Group
Ann Arbor Friends Meeting

The "peace process"

2010-12-03T09:16:00.000-05:00

PIAG's dispatch for December reports on the status of the Israeli Palestinian peace process, and comments on some suggested solutions to the current impasse.

A bit of background: The Obama administration has been trying all year to bring both sides to the negotiating table, but Palestinians have refused to talk as long as Israel allows the construction of illegal, "Jewish-only" settlements to continue unabated. To understand why the settlement issue is so critical to Palestinians, see PIAG's map cards http://www.fosna.org/content/mapcards which detail the loss of Palestinian lands to Israel since 1948.

To encourage Israel to agree to at least a three-month settlement freeze, the Obama administration recently came up with a bright idea: the US would sell Israel $3 billion worth of fighter jets and veto any anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/15/AR2010111506596.html

PIAG wonders why the Obama administration believes that weapons of war will promote the atmosphere of trust that is so necessary for peace talks to succeed. Is this a blatant "bribe," as some columnists claim? Or does the US really think that a conflict of this magnitude and depth can be solved by threat and intimidation?

Neve Gordon, professor of political science at Israel’s Ben Gurion University bluntly comments on Obama's offer: "Imagine a sheriff offering the head of a criminal gang the following deal: ‘If you agree to stop stealing from your neighbours for three months, I’ll give you cutting edge weaponry and block any efforts by other law enforcement authorities to restrain your criminal activities.’ http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2010/11/15/neve-gordon/one-sided-deal/

If this is the best that the U.S. can come up with, we might think what’s needed are some new ideas. But so many good ones have already have been proposed. The Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA) has published a collection of a dozen proposed solutions by Palestinian and Israeli authors: http://www.passia.org/ The U.S.-based J Street has come up with a “borders and security first” approach: http://www.jstreet.org/ And Yuval Rabin, son of assassinated Israeli prime minister Itzak Rabin, crafted a peace plan that he believes will "minimize the impact of the spoilers." http://bitterlemons-api.org/inside.php?id=5

But Jeff Halper, who has studied the conflict for decades, says it is relatively easy to come up with proposals that incorporate all seven elements that are critical for a just and lasting peace: the terms must be inclusive of both peoples, allow each their national expression, provide economic viability to all parties, be based on human rights, international law and UN declarations, squarely address the right of return, be regional in scope (rather than limited to Palestine and Israel), and address the security concerns of both sides. Any number of solutions that include these elements would be viable. The problem, Halper says, is that Israel will never agree to end its Occupation: “There will be no negotiated settlement, period.” While PIAG is not quite that pessimistic, we note that signs do point in that direction.

So how will the conflict be resolved? The Palestinians, fragmented and suffering from weak leadership, are unlikely to organize strong, non-violent tactics that could break the deadlock. Nor can the international community force Israel’s right wing government to bargain in good faith, given the unshakable, "pro-Israel" position of the U.S. Congress. Yet Halper believes that as early as next year, something will happen to break the impasse, creating a context in which a just peace is possible.

This "game-changing break" could come in the form of a unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinian Authority along the 1949 armistice lines – unlikely, Halper thinks, because of the leadership vacuum. The other possibility Halper sees is the resignation or complete collapse of the Palestinian Authority. If that happens, Israel, not wanting Hamas to gain control over the West Bank, would use its military might to re-take all of the Territories, and then be obliged under international law “to economically support four million impoverished Palestinians with no economic infrastructure whatsoever,” an impossible burden. Strangely enough, this nightmare scenario would put Palestinians and their supporters into the driver's seat, especially if the international community intentionally refrains from providing humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, who would inevitably suffer in the violence and chaos of the re-Occupation. http://www.middleastpost.com/2523/palestine-2011-jeff-halper/

As Quakers, we view this scenario with alarm. While a game-changer is surely necessary to break the stalemate, urging an even greater disaster onto the Palestinian people is neither moral nor pragmatic. Even if Israel were forced to negotiate on Palestinian terms to avoid its own economic collapse, we do not see how the resulting "peace agreement" would promote justice, security, or economic cooperation, not to mention reconciliation.

PIAG urges you to speak out before the situation degenerates further. Visiting members of Congress, appealing to FCNL to lobby on Capitol Hill, writing letters to the editor, joining the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, vigiling, educating, all are principled ways to insist that peace is possible.

The arts, religion, and culture

2010-10-31T15:27:00.002-04:00

As the stalemate in the peace talks continues, with the Israelis refusing to stop settlement construction, the Palestinians refusing to talk until the theft of land and resources is halted, and the Americans preoccupied with November elections, PIAG’S dispatch for November reports on issues in the arts, religion, and culture.

CULTURAL PRESERVATION
In Gaza, concern is mounting over the difficulty in preserving important archeological sites and artifacts, as Israel continues to ban materials that Palestinian curators need to pursue their scientific work. Indiscriminate bombing during the seige of Gaza has also threatened sites important to Palestinian history and the world storehouse of cultures: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11588.shtml

CULTURAL CONFUSION
Journalist Ali Abunimah expresses his frustration with Barack Obama, who had no qualms about wearing the religiously mandated head convering when visiting Israel's Wailing Wall, but has turned down an invitation to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, a site sacred to Sikhs, on the grounds that the required head covering would make him look like a Muslim. Of course, Sikhs are not Muslims, but Americans have been known to confuse the two, perhaps because Sikh turbans remind them of Hollywood depictions of Arabs in film: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-223210418534585840# While Abunimah's anger at Obama over this issue may seem petty, it reminds us of the danger, both physical and political, of U.S. Islamophobia, and the willingness of many Americans to downplay or excuse our own or our allies' aggression against Muslims.
http://aliabunimah.posterous.com/obama-expands-his-islamophobia-to-include-sik#more

CULTURAL BOYCOTT AS NONVIOLENT TECHNIQUE
Palestinians have called on the international community to engage in a cultural and academic boycott of Israeli artists and intellectuals whenever and wherever they appear abroad: http://usacbi.wordpress.com/ In Ann Arbor last month, a group of activists joined this international effort by protesting the Jeruselem Quartet at Rackham Auditorium: http://www.annarbor.com/community/neighborhoods/um_campus/two_groups_merge_to_protest_jersusalem_quartet/
While it may seem unfair to target a small group of Israeli musicians who themselves may have qualms about their government's actions, boycotts of academic and cultural institutions are time-tested nonviolent techniques that exert political pressure on oppressive regimes, and are especially effective against countries that attempt to project a benevolent, cultured image, in contrast to their targets, who, they claim, are unworthy or of no consequence.

The settlement freeze and its aftermath

2010-10-01T09:08:00.000-04:00

PIAG’S dispatch for October reports on the latest developments in the struggle for peace with some kind of justice in Palestine. Political analysts, diplomats, and activists “on the ground” give their perspectives on the settlement freeze, which expired on September 27th:

THE POLITICAL ANALYST:
U-M Professor Juan Cole is alarmed that Israeli PM Netanyahu could so blithely “blow off” President Obama’s plea to extend the settlement freeze. This “bespeaks diplomatic amateurism on Obama’s part,” says Cole. “Obama should not have put himself in a position where he had to plead with Netanyahu! Now that the United States has been arrogantly blown off by Tel Aviv, it just looks weak and pathetic, a helpless giant — a posture that could well encourage its enemies to attempt to inflict their own humiliations on it.” http://www.juancole.com/2010/09/netanyahu-blows-off-us-mahmoud-abbas-pleads-for-settleme-freeze.html

THE DIPLOMATS:
“Adding to the pressure,” says the New York Times, "is a meeting in Cairo next week of the Arab League, at which the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmood Abbas has promised to deliver a speech in which he will 'declare historical decisions.' That sparked rumors that he might threaten to resign, something he has done before."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/world/middleeast/01mideast.html?th&emc=th

Rumor also has it that the Arab League may bring the settlement freeze issue to the United Nations, reports the Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/arab-league-may-bring-settlement-freeze-debate-to-un-1.316513

THE ACTIVISTS:
While politicians wrangle, David Shulman of Jewish Voice for Peace reports from the West Bank village of An-Nabi Salih, where he is participating in a demonstration on International Peace Day. “Take a helmet,” his friends had advised. The Jewish settlers, the IDF, the Palestinians -- they’re all violent there. Yet despite the passions on all sides, Shulman hears “tough words of peace and hope” from Palestian leader Ali Abu Awad of the Palestinian Movement for Non-Violent Resistance at “the bravest and most dignified demonstration” he has ever seen. “I bow my head to all the volunteers who came to An-Nabi Salih today, who struggled past the soldiers and the roadblocks and didn’t turn back,” Awad tells the crowd. “Our struggle is complicated and hard, a struggle that we all share—local leaders of the villages, women, children, families—the first large-scale Palestinian non-violent movement on the ground, aimed at building a just peace with Israel. When I see Israeli activists coming here to the village, my heart cries with happiness; I am honored to have these people with us. To all the Jews I say: you are not my enemy. The occupation is your enemy, as it is ours. . .” http://networkedblogs.com/8nQH4

Red and Green

2010-09-23T08:48:00.001-04:00

Uri Avnery's Column
Ha'aretz, August, 2010

Channel 10, one of Israel’s three TV channels, aired a report this week that surely frightened a lot of viewers. Its title was “Who is Organizing the World-wide Hatred of Israel Movement?”, and its subject: the dozens of groups in various countries which are conducting a vigorous propaganda campaign for the Palestinians and against Israel.

The activists interviewed, both male and female, young and old - quite a number of them Jews - demonstrate at supermarkets against the products of the settlements and/or of Israel in general, organize mass meetings, make speeches, mobilize trade unions, file lawsuits against Israeli politicians and generals.

According to the report, the various groups use similar methods, but there is no central leadership. It even quotes (without attribution, of course) the title of one of my recent articles, “The Protocols of the Elders of Anti-Zion” and it, too, asserts that there is no such thing. Indeed, there is no need for a world-wide organization, it says, because all over the place there is a spontaneous surge of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli feeling. Recently, following the ”Cast Lead” operation and the flotilla affair, this process has gathered momentum.

In many places, the report discloses, there are now red-green coalitions: cooperation between leftist human-rights bodies and local groups of Muslim immigrants.

The conclusion of the story: this is a great danger to Israel and we must mobilize against it before it is too late.

THE FIRST question that arose in my mind was: what impact is this report going to have on the average Israeli?

I wish I could be sure that it will cause him or her to think again about the viability of the occupation. As one of the activists interviewed said: the Israelis must be brought to understand that the occupation has a price tag.

I wish I believed that this would be the reaction of most Israelis. However, I am afraid that the effect could be very different.

As the jolly song of the 70s goes: “The whole world is against us / That’s not so terrible, we shall overcome. / For we, too, don’t give a damn / For them. // … We have learned this song / From our forefathers / And we shall also sing it / To our sons. / And the grandchildren of our grandchildren will sing it / Here, in the Land of Israel, / And everybody who is against us / Can go to hell.”

The writer of this song, Yoram Taharlev (“pure of heart”) has succeeded in expressing a basic Jewish belief, crystallized during the centuries of persecution in Christian Europe which reached its climax in the Holocaust. Every Jewish child learns in school that when six million Jews were murdered, the entire world looked on and didn’t lift a finger to save them.

This is not quite true. Many tens of thousands of non-Jews risked their lives and the lives of their families in order to save Jews – in Poland, Denmark, France, Holland and other countries, even in Germany itself. We all know about people who were saved this way - like former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, who as a child was smuggled out of the ghetto by a Polish farmer, and Minister Yossi Peled, who was hidden for years by a Catholic Belgian family. Only a few of these largely unsung heroes were cited as “Righteous among the Nations” by Yad Vashem. (Between us, how many Israelis in a similar situation would risk their lives and the lives of their children in order to save a foreigner?)

But the belief that “the whole world is against us” is rooted deep in our national psyche. It enables us to ignore the world reaction to our behavior. It is very convenient. If the entire world hates us anyhow, the nature of our deeds, good or bad, doesn’t really matter. They would hate Israel even if we were angels. The Goyim are just anti-Semitic.

It is easy to show that this is also untrue. The world loved us when we founded the State of Israel and defended it with our blood. A day after the Six-day War, the whole world applauded us. They loved us when we were David, they hate us when we are Goliath.

This does not convince the world-against-us people. Why is there no world-wide movement against the atrocities of the Russians in Chechnya or the Chinese in Tibet? Why only against us? Why do the Palestinians deserve more sympathy than the Kurds in Turkey?

One could answer that since Israel demands special treatment in all other matters, we are measured by special standards when it comes to the occupation and the settlements. But logic doesn’t matter. It’s the national myths that count.

Yesterday, Israel’s third largest newspaper, Ma’ariv, published a story about our ambassador to the United Nations under the revealing headline: “Behind enemy lines”.

I REMEMBER one of the clashes I had with Golda Meir in the Knesset, after the beginning of the settlement enterprise and the angry reactions throughout the world. As now, people put all the blame on our faulty “explaining”. The Knesset held a general debate.

Speaker after speaker declaimed the usual clichés: the Arab propaganda is brilliant, our “explaining” is beneath contempt. When my turn came, I said: It’s not the fault of the “explaining”. The best “explaining” in the world cannot “explain” the occupation and the settlements. If we want to gain the sympathy of the world, it’s not our words that must change, but our actions.

Throughout the debate, Golda Meir – as was her wont – stood at the door of the plenum hall, chain-smoking. Summing up, she answered every speaker in turn, ignoring my speech. I thought that she had decided to boycott me, when – after a dramatic pause – she turned in my direction. “Deputy Avnery thinks that they hate us because of what we do. He does not know the Goyim. The Goyim love the Jews when they are beaten and miserable. They hate the Jews when they are victorious and successful.” If clapping were allowed in the Knesset, the whole House would have burst into thunderous applause.

There is a danger that the current worldwide protest will meet the same reaction: that the Israeli public will unite against the evil Goyim, instead of uniting against the settlers.

SOME OF the protest groups could not care less. Their actions are not addressed to the Israeli public, but to international opinion.

I don’t mean the anti-Semites, who are trying to hitch a ride on this movement. They are a negligible force. Neither do I mean those who believe that the creation of the State of Israel was a historical mistake to start with, and that it should be dismantled.

I mean all the idealists who wish to put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people and the stealing of their land by the settlers, and to help them to found the free State of Palestine.

These aims can be achieved only through peace between Palestine and Israel. And such a peace can come about only if the majority of Palestinians and the majority of Israelis support it. Outside pressure will not suffice.

Anyone who understands this must be interested in a world-wide protest that does not push the Israeli population into the arms of the settlers, but, on the contrary, isolates the settlers and turns the general public against them.

How can this be achieved?

THE FIRST thing is to clearly differentiate between the boycott of the settlements and a general boycott of Israel. The TV report suggested that many of the protesters do not see the border between the two. It showed a middle-aged British woman in a supermarket, waving some fruit over her head and shouting: “these come from a settlement!” Then it showed a demonstration against the Ahava cosmetic products that are extracted from the Palestinian part of the Dead Sea. But immediately after, there came a call for a boycott of all Israeli products. Perhaps many of the protesters – or the editors of the film - are not clear about the difference.

The Israeli right also blurs this distinction. For example: a recent bill in the Knesset wants to punish those who support a boycott on the products of Israel, including – as it states explicitly - the products of the settlements.

If the world protest is clearly focused on the settlements, it will indeed cause many Israelis to realize that there is a clear line between the legitimate State of Israel and the illegitimate occupation.

That is also true for other parts of the story. For example: the initiative to boycott the Caterpillar company, whose monstrous bulldozers are a major weapon of the occupation. When the heroic peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death under one of them, the company should have stopped all further supplies unless assured that they would not be used for repression.

As long as suspected war criminals are not brought to justice in Israel itself, one cannot object to the initiatives to prosecute them abroad.

After this week’s decision by the main Israeli theaters to perform in the settlements, it will be logical to boycott them abroad. If they are so keen to make money in Ariel, they can’t complain about losing money in Paris and London.

THE SECOND thing is the connection between these groups and the Israeli public.

Today a large majority of Israelis say that they want peace and are ready to pay the price, but that, unfortunately, the Arabs don’t want peace. The mainstream peace camp, which could once bring hundreds of thousands onto the street, is in a state of depression. It feels isolated. Among other things, its once close connection with the Palestinians, which was established at the time of Yasser Arafat after Oslo, has become very loose. So have relations with the protest forces abroad.

If people of goodwill want to speed up the end of the occupation, they must support the peace activists in Israel. They should build a close connection with them, break the conspiracy of silence against them in the world media and publicize their courageous actions, organize more and more international events in which Palestinian and Israeli peace activists will be present side by side. It would also be nice if for every ten billionaires who finance the extreme Right in Israel, there were at least one millionaire supporting action in pursuit of peace.

All this becomes impossible if there is a call for a boycott on all Israelis, irrespective of their views and actions, and Israel is presented as a monolithic monster. This picture is not only false, it is extremely harmful.

Many of the activists who appear in this report arouse respect and admiration. So much good will! So much courage! If they point their activities in the right direction, they can do a lot of good - good for the Palestinians, and good for us Israelis, too.

50 Ways to Act for Peace With Justice

2010-09-04T12:07:00.007-04:00

List initiated by Mazin Qumsiyeh, George Rishmawi and others at
The Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People

1) Educate yourself via reliable books. For example books by Ilan Pappe
(Ethnic Ceansing of Palestine), Edward Said (The Question of Palestine).

2) Educate yourself and track current information and key historical data
via websites (and disseminate it). For example look into
http://www.imemc.org/, http://electronicintifada.net/,
http://english.aljazeera.net/, Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem,
Palestine Remembered, and similar websites.

3) Educate yourself by visiting Palestine and writing about it. There are
many organizations doing tours that inspire. Examples Siraj Center, Alternative Tourism Group, Holy Land Trust, Global Exchange, Birthright Unplugged, International Solidarity Movement, etc

4) Practice using clear and unambiguous vocabulary including language to
protest apartheid and colonization. See for example developing an anti-apartheid framework for the struggle (PDF File):
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/downloads/AAF%20curriculum%20training%20.pdf

5) Challenge media bias by first educating yourself and others about its
existence and the extent of the bias. See for example
http://ifamericansknew.org/

6) Write to the mainstream media. You can write letters to the editor (usually
200 words) and/or opinion pieces (700-900 words).

7) Start your own group or join an existing organization that works for
justice. Simply search/google your city with the word Palestine to identify
candidates.

8) Join the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)

9) Develop close working relationship with progressive parties and groups in your country.

10) Network and enhance groups working on sanctions and suspension of US aid to Israel. e.g. Suspend US Aid to Israel Now

11) Lobby. This is done individually or by supporting/joining one or more of the many groups doing it, e.g. Council for the National Interest, Citizens For Fair Legislation, American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine, and American Association for Palestinian Equal Rights (http://www.aaper.org/).

12) Hold a teach-in, seminar, or public dialogue. This is straightforward:you need to decide on a venue, speakers, and publicity. This can be facilitated through such groups as Palestine Media Watch which have speakers bureaus.

13) Send direct aid and support for people on the ground through transparent and trustworthy groups.

14) Use youtube and googlevideo to disseminate information

15) Challenge Israel in local and International courts.If you are a lawyer, donate your time and start networking and initiating cases (e.g. US Congress is violating US laws by sending money to Israel, US Citizens can bring cases against foreign governments that harmed them). Groups with great interest and activism on behalf of Palestinians includes Lawyers Without Borders, National Lawyers Guild, Al-Haq, Yesh Din, and Adalah - Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

16) Help coalitions work for Palestine and insist they do not leave this issue; example is http://CTUnitedforPeace.org.

17) If you work in a group, suggest formation of local or national coalitions to increase the power by association.

18) Join the campaigns for economic boycotts. See successful examples here: http://www.qumsiyeh.org/boycottsanddivestment/

19) Join or initiate a campaign for cultural and academic boycott; see also
http://pacbi.org/.

20) Host an art exhibit or other art performance (music, dabka etc) that highlight the rich Palestinian culture.

21) Engage in civil disobedience actions to draw attention and change policies.

22) Develop campaigns to support the right to enter: see www.righttoenter.ps
Israel Takes Aim At Palestinian Families By Ida Audeh
http://www.countercurrents.org/audeh110907.htm

23) Facilitate a visit by the Wheels of Justice bus tour to your area (in the US) or create a similar bus (e.g. in Europe). See justicewheels.org

24) Donate to aid Palestinian Children. For example, Palestine Children Relief Fund, and Playgrounds for Palestine

25) Develop campaigns to ban Political Junkets to Israel.Here is an example "In a challenge to one of the most powerful lobbying tactics used by the Jewish community, a county in Maryland decided last week that local legislators could no longer go on sponsored trips to Israel. http://www.forward.com/articles/11553/

26) Support the campaigns to end the siege on Gaza. See http://www.freegaza.org/

27) Work in your country against discrimination: Arabs Against Discrimination: http://www.aad-online.org/

28) Support Human Rights: Human Rights Watch: http://hrw.org/doc/?t=mideast&c=isrlpa
B'Tselem:The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories http://www.btselem.org

29) Support the Right to Education Campaign: http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/

30) Donate to United Nations Relief and Works Agency: http://www.un.org/unrwa/

31) Work against home demolistions: Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions: http://www.icahd.org/eng

32) Support empowering Youth from Palestine e.g. see http://www.yfppal.com/
and http://www.alrowwad-acts.ps

33) Write to and work with alternative mass media (like DemocracyNow, Public Access TV).

34) Create your own content and post it to the web

35) Utilize social networking sites to reach a mass audience (e.g. Facebook)

36) Go into chat rooms, email discussions, etc. and spread the word.

37) Buy Palestinian Products, for example from www.palestineonlinestore.com,
www.canaanfairtrade.com, www.palestinefairtrade.org.

38) Pray for Peace and Justice or if you are not religious, take time out to
think and meditate on what can be done to achieve Peace with Justice

39) Make a podcast or public service announcement and spread it

40) Drop a banner from a traffic bridge or any other publicly visible location

41) Put out an information table in a university student center, public gathering, festivals, or other places where people congregate.

42) Host a fundraising party or dinner at your home.

43) Show a documentary in a public setting and then have a discussion about it.

44) Organize a public debate between those who support Zionism and those who support equality and justice

45) Learn Arabic or if you are an Arab learn another language (including Hebrew) so that you can communicate better

46) Do street theater

45) Engage in Civil disobedience acts (this may entail getting arrested).

46) Reach out to Christian religious leaders and ask them to act based on the Kairos Palestine document www.kairospalestine.ps

47) Challenge the Zionist attempts to doctor Wikipedia (ie. imposing a Zionist distorted version on this free web encyclopedia).

48) Start a genuine interfaith dialogue based on acting for justice rather than chatting to hide injustice.

49) Find a way not to pay taxes to governments that violate human rights and use your taxes for war and oppression.

50) Host a dinner with Arabic food and show people the rich cultural traditions like embroidered dresses that go back to Canaanitic times.

Write to us to remind us of other ways to act.

Resumption of Peace Talks

2010-08-27T20:31:00.002-04:00

PIAG is cautiously optimistic about the announcement of the resumption of direct talks between Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The Palestinian Authority broke off direct talks with Israel in December 2008, when Israel launched its three-week assault on Gaza. President Obama has spent the last 18 months trying to persuade both sides to restart the dialogue. You can read about the resumption of negotiations in both the New York Times and Aljazeera, each of which presents a slightly different perspective:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/21/world/middleeast/21diplo.html?_r=1&hp
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/08/201082012452252467.html

One of the difficulties with restarting face to face negotiations has been the issue of Jewish-only settlements that Israelis continue to build with impunity on Palestinian land. A self-imposed settlement freeze has been in place since November 2009, yet the freeze did not include East Jerusalem and has been routinely violated in the West Bank. Although the result has clearly been better than no freeze at all, 492 violations have been reported by the liberal Israeli group Peace Now: http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=61&docid=4747&pos=0

Mr. Netanyahu has refused to extend the settlement freeze past September 26, its expiration date, claiming that doing so would cause his right-wing government to collapse. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/netanyahu-extending-settlement-freeze-will-cause-government-to-collapse-1.304671 Such is politics!

In the past, Mr. Abbas has insisted that all Israeli settlement construction be stopped before peace talks resume. Yet it appears that Abbas has conceded this point under intense pressure from the U.S. and the European Union. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/21/world/middleeast/21diplo.html?hp

Of course, all these decisions have ignored the people of Gaza entirely. Hamas, the duly elected ruling party, has never recognized Abbas’s government in the West Bank, and predictably has criticized the decision of the Palestinian Authority to return to the negotiating table. According to Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, “nothing has been achieved” to warrant the resumption of talks. There have been no gestures of good faith, no thawing of relations, no assurances that a new Palestinian state will be based on the 1967 borders, no guarantee that Palestinian lands will not continue to be expropriated while talks drag on over the next year.

We agree. Yet Quakers put their faith in dialogue, and believe that discussion in hopeless circumstances can sometimes yield surprising results.

So it is with hope mixed with a certain degree of skepticism that we report this very small step toward a just peace. Despite the difficulties, most close observers of the conflict agree that these talks may be the last chance for a two state solution.

A Time for Quakers (and everyone) to Act

2010-05-31T09:40:00.001-04:00

Dear All,
Last night, the Israeli army attacked the humanitarian flotilla to Gaza in international waters, killing between 10 and 20 peace activists on board. The international community is in an uproar. Please read the New York Times and/or Aljazeera accounts below. And please, now is the time to act. Letters to the editor, op-eds, talking to friends, sending mail to your Senators and Representatives as well as the President, all can help.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/world/middleeast/01flotilla.html?ref=world
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/05/201053133047995359.html

While individual actions are essential, it is time for Quaker Meetings to take a more visible stand on the difficult, controversial, yet crystal clear issue of Palestine. A recent story in Friends Journal on another controversial issue, slavery, makes a similar point. Here is the jist of it.

322 years ago, four Quakers living in Germantown PA, wrote a Minute decrying the Quaker practice of slavery (see attached for the full text).

The signers made several arguments, the first and most prominent being the Golden Rule: "There is a saying that we shall doe to all men like as we will be done ourselves; making no difference of what generation, descent or colour they are." The authors ask, in a tone of anguish, if their fellow Quakers would like to be treated as they treat their slaves, for "Quakers doe here handel men as they handel there ye cattle."

The four Dutch Quakers who wrote the Minute presented it to their monthly Meeting in 1688. It was judged too controversial, and sent to the Quarterly Meeting, where it was judged too weighty. It was then sent to the Yearly Meeting, where "it was adjusted not to be so proper for this Meeting to give a Positive Judgment in the case, It having so General a Relation to many other Parts, and therefore at present they forbear It."

Why was this Minute so controversial? Slavery, by 1688, had become quite profitable, and profit, as well as freedom from oppression, was a draw for new immigrants. And although various forms of slavery were quite widespread at the time (in Russia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe), slavery in the "New World" had become color-coded (slave=black), which made it easier for the people who saw themselves as "white" to consider blacks as less than human. There are always "reasons" to ignore the Golden Rule.

The proposed Minute, never passed, was filed away in the archives of the Philadelphia Meeting House until it was "rediscovered" by Quaker abolitionists 156 years later, and used to promote the national anti-slavery cause. Pennsylvania abolished slavery 92 years after the Minute in Germantown pointed out its inconsistency with the Golden Rule.
http://www.friendsjournal.org/here-slaverys-death-began

Dear Friends, let us not be like the early Pennsylvania Quaker Meetings, that were unable to take a principled collective stand on the Golden Rule. If Palestinians are human beings like ourselves, and if our own government supports their oppression through monetary and military support of Israel, we cannot in good conscience stand by silently.

In peace with justice
Helen Fox
for the Palestine Israel Action Group
of Ann Arbor Friends Meeting

Please support International Flotilla to Gaza

2010-05-28T16:25:00.001-04:00

PIAG’s monthly dispatch for June, 2010 focuses on ten humanitarian ships with 700 peace activists on board bringing 5000 tons of aid to Gaza this Memorial Day Weekend, with all the celebration and trepidation that nonviolent action entails. This video clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkNmwohwSeE shows the joyful send off of The Rachael Corrie, one of the ships in the "Freedom Flotilla" which will converge in the Meditarranean and set sail toward Gaza, where the Israeli military is determined to stop them.

Described as "a force more powerful" by Ewa Jasiewicz in the Electronic Intifada, "this flotilla represents radical solidarity and a force that can be realized when people from all over the world act on their conscience. It's a force made real through stepping out onto the streets or into occupation-supporting businesses, through speaking out, through fundraising in mosques, churches, synagogues, schools; through writing, singing, sharing, relaying and promoting, and packing and driving boxes of materials and cement, and cheering on and praying for and protesting any attack."
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11266.shtml

We conclude with an appeal from the Shalom Center: A Prophetic Voice in Jewish, Multireligious, and American Life: Support Humanitarian "Ship-In" to Gaza: Urge Israeli Government to Let Ships Land:

From the Shalom Center:

"According to Israeli news reports, half the Israeli Navy has been deployed to intercept these ships instead of letting them proceed to deliver food, medical supplies such as wheelchairs, and materials for reconstructing homes that were destroyed during the Israeli government's attack on Gaza a year ago.

The ships are being sent because the Israeli government has imposed a blockade on many civilian goods from entering Gaza. The ships are intended as a nonviolent way of breaking through the blockade.

In Israel, Rabbis for Human Rights has urged the government to allow the ships to pass and to end its blockade of civilian goods from entering Gaza. The Shalom Center joins in this plea and invites our readers and members to join in it as well by writing or calling Secretary of State Clinton, the Israeli Embassy to the United States, and the Israeli consulates near where they live.

This nonviolent approach to achieving political change is both profoundly ethical and profoundly practical. It echoes, for example, the work of the civil rights movement in the United States in the early 1960s. Sit-ins, freedom rides, freedom schools, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party all operated on the principle of carrying into practice in the present the vision that its activists had for the future.

Their vision was that restaurants, buses, and schools should be open to all, and that the Democratic Party in Mississippi should reflect the voting rights of all citizens of Mississippi, black and white.

What civil rights activists faced was racially segregated society and culture. They did not begin by petitioning Congress for new laws; they did not attack segregationists or segregated institutions. Instead, they embodied the future that they hoped for -- in the present when they were living.

Since they hoped to achieve integrated restaurants, they went in integrated groups to the restaurants. That left the burden of response on the owners and officials. They could arrest sit-in activists; they could even kill them; or they could let the restaurants become integrated.

Over time, so many Americans were moved and drawn by these nonviolent protests that they joined the demonstrations, and insisted that Congress change the laws.

These ten ships approaching the coast of Gaza are doing the same thing. They want the blockade of civilian goods to end; so they are ending it by bringing humanitarian supplies. They are putting the burden on the Israeli government of choosing to attack them or choosing to let the supplies through.

For years, many of us have urged Palestinians to turn to nonviolent action. Now they and their supporters are doing this. And they are doing it not by boycotting or divesting from Israel but by a positive rather than a negative action -- affirming the simple justice of allowing Palestinians in Gaza to receive what human beings need. I hope that many Americans, many Jews among them, will respond as Northern whites responded to the sit-in movement 50 years ago.

Below you can find three items: the English translation of the letter sent today by Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel to Defense Minister Ehud Barak; a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and to the Israeli Embassy; and the telephone, fax, and e-mail addresses of Secretary Clinton, the Israeli embassy to the United States, and consulates around the country.

Supporters are encouraged to draw on these letters as they like, to phone, e-mail, or fax their own comments to Secretary Clinton and the Israeli government -- -- urging them to welcome, rather than attack, these ships bearing humanitarian supplies.

Below is the English translation of the letter sent today by Rabbis For Human Rights to Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

To Defense Minister Ehud Barak,

Rabbis For Human Rights believes that, instead of viewing humanitarian aid as a provocation, Israel ought to let the Gaza flotilla reach the Gaza port, along with the cargo and those on board, after a thorough but quick inspection.

Rabbis For Human Rights supports the people of conscience from around the world who have sent humanitarian aid to Gaza. We also welcome Israeli government's announcement that it will allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. We are hopeful that, after years of the blockade that has caused great suffering to the Gaza's civilian population, violated international law and prevented Gazans from rebuilding their lives after the Gaza War, Israel will carry out the Jewish tradition's demand that, even when a town is under siege, a side must be left open. (Mishna Tora; Hilchot Malakhi 6:7)

However, Israeli statements hedging on what will be allowed in and denying that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, along with the list of goods denied in recent years, whose only connection with security is that they allow the civilian population to exist, causes doubt as to Israel's true intentions.

RHR also calls on those responsible for the flotilla to change their decision, and to agree to the request of Gilad Shalit's father to take a package and letter to his son.

B'Vrakha (In Blessing),
Rabbi Arik Ascherman
Executive Director
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Dear Ambassador/ Dear Secretary,

As a rabbi, I am deeply committed to the physical safety and the moral and ethical legitimacy of Israel. Both would be enhanced by welcoming, rather than halting and arresting, the ships bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza -- and by ending the Israeli government's blockade of civilian goods.

Ten ships, over 700 international passengers, and some 5,000 tons of reconstruction materials, representingover 50 countries, are represented on this Flotilla, including parliamentarians, medical professionals, and peace activists. These individuals have every right - indeed,. Obligation -- to sail into Gaza's sea port and deliver the much needed humanitarian, medical, and construction materials necessary for Palestinians in Gaza to rebuild their lives.

Media sources report that Israeli naval forces are allegedly in training to prepare to interdict the Flotilla and prevent the arrival of the ships at "any price". According to news reports, about half of the Israeli naval forces will participate in an operation to prepare to seize the boats in the flotilla and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak will supervise the operation.

Israel has stopped at least three Free Gaza sailings since January 2009, including one ship which almost sunk after being deliberately rammed by an Israeli vessel and another ship which Israel intercepted in international waters and arrested all of its passengers. Another ship was forced to turn back after the Israeli Navy threatened to shoot the civilian passengers on board.

I am writing to ask you to do everything possible to prevent Israel from using military force to launch an attack or naval blockade on the Flotilla and it's peaceful, unarmed, international citizens. Please do the right thing and stand with the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza by calling on Israel to ensure that all threats to attack the Freedom Flotilla are withdrawn and its safe passage is guaranteed. I remain hopeful that you will take to heart your role in this and will do everything in your power to ensure their safety.

Signed,
Rabbi Arthur Waskow
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Phone (Office of Public Affairs): 202/647-5171.

Embassy of Israel to US
Phone: (202) 364-5500
Fax: (202)364-5429
Email: info@israelemb.org

Consulate General of Israel in Atlanta
1100 Spring St. N.W. Suite
440 Atlanta, Georgia 30309
Phone: (404) 487-6500
Fax: (404) 487-6555
Email: information@atlanta.mfa.gov.il

Consulate General of Israel in Boston
Phone: (617) 535-0200
Fax: (617) 535-0255
Email: cultural@boston.mfa.gov.il

Consulate General of Israel in Chicago
Phone: 312-297-4800
Fax: 312-297-4855
Email: contactus@chicago.mfa.gov.il

Consulate of Israel to the Southwest
Phone: (713) 627-3780; (713) 622 4924
Fax: (713) 627-0149
Email: consular.dep@houston.mfa.gov.il

Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles
Phone: (323)852-5500
Fax: (323)852-5555
Email: info@losangeles.mfa.gov.il

Consulate General of Israel in Miami
Phone: 305-925-9400
Fax: 305-925-9455
Email: info@miami.mfa.gov.il

Consulate General of Israel in New York
Phone: (212) 499-5400; (212) 499-5000
Email: consular@newyork.mfa.gov.il

Consulate General of Israel in San Francisco
Phone: 415 - 844-7500; (415) 844-7510
Fax: 415-844-7555
Email: consulardep@sanfrancisco.mfa.gov.il

Consulate General of Israel in Philadelphia
Phone: 215-977-7600
Fax: 215-977-7611
Email: info@philadelphia.mfa.gov.il

The Settlement Issue

2010-04-02T07:58:00.001-04:00

Dear All,
PIAG’s monthly dispatch for April, 2010 reports on the current impasse in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and suggests how nonviolent direct action can address the deadlock.

The U.S. insists that Israel must halt the expansion of Jewish-only settlements on disputed lands in order for negotiations to begin. Here is a cool, interactive map that shows how settlements have expanded in and around Jerusalem:
http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/display/ContentDetails/i/9823/pid/3584

Israel refused to stop expanding its settlements, and in fact, announced the building of even more at the very moment Vice President Joe Biden paid Israel a diplomatic visit. Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu then visited Washington and was deliberately snubbed by the White House.

Meanwhile, Meron Benvenisti, a “dovish” Israeli historian known for his study of Israeli building on land it captured in the 1967 war, made the startling pronouncement that Israeli settlements have “buried the two-state solution.” He is now advocating a bi-national state, an idea that Israel is very unlikely to accept. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62M3FY20100323

In the US, a new Zogby poll has found that the majority of the public agrees that the settlements are wrong and should be stopped, and are “deeply concerned that the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict puts US interests at risk across the Middle East.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-zogby/new-poll-on-american-atti_b_515835.html

What to do? Economic actions have a long, respected history of moving powerful governments from intransigence to productive negotiation. For many years, PIAG has been compiling a list of bold initiatives around the world to end the Israeli occupation. The report, entitled “Global Actions to End Israel's Occupation of Palestinian Land,” contains hundreds of actions taken by governments, businesses, labor unions, NGO's, academic and religious organizations, and other groups, and is now disseminated and updated regularly by the Interfaith Peace Initiative. www.interfaithpeaceinitiative.com/globalactions.pdf

Israeli Military Rule and Incarceration Procedures in the West Bank

2010-01-18T02:53:00.007-05:00

by Alice Rothchild
January 17, 2010

Dr. Rothchild, author of "Broken Promises Broken Dreams," reports from Ramallah, where she was visiting as part of a health and human rights delegation.

Ala Joradat, the program manager of Adameer, a Palestinian human rights organization that focuses primarily on prisoners, legal aid, and monitoring, meets with our delegation and tries to unravel the complex civil and human rights issues that face Palestinians, particularly those who choose to protest the conditions of the Israeli occupation.

He explains that the prisoners are both a product of the conflict and a cause for the conflict. Since 1967, 800,000 Palestinians have experienced detention, representing more than 53% of the population over 18. Because mostly Palestinian males are targeted for arrest, 60-70% of adult males have been to prison. To me this feels somewhat parallel to the disproportionately large number of African-American males currently incarcerated in the US. I wonder if this reflects a huge number of militants and fighters in the OPT, or are there more subtle political forces at work.

Ala explains that arrest and detention are based on military orders that have been in effect since 1967. The military commander issues and cancels orders, heads the civil administration, and assigns the prosecutors, judges, translators, etc, so the entire "justice system" is collegial and the military court is a division of the Israeli Defense Force. Ala emphasizes that military orders are designed to control the population, ranging from what road a Palestinian can use to whether he can dig a well for water. I am stunned at the list of mind boggling potential security offenses which include:

1. Reading the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian national poet who gave voice to the anguish of dispossession and exile

2. Reading "The Collection of UN Resolutions on the Question of Palestine 1948-1982"

3. Associations of parties, factions, charitable societies, NGOs, unions, and student associations. (After Oslo, defacto the PLO and Fatah were legitimized, but in Israeli law they are still listed as "illegal terrorist organizations.")

4. Wearing political symbols, including the cartoon character "Handala"

5. Carrying a Palestinian flag (which is the flag of the PLO which is technically still an illegal organization)

6. Protesting the seizing of your land

7. Throwing stones at the separation wall (destruction of state property)

8. Throwing stones at a soldier (attempted murder)

9. Assisting an injured person at a demonstration, including medical workers, (assisting a terrorist) and the list goes on.

Functionally what this means is that the IDF can control the lives of people and organizations and use the thousands of potential security offenses in an unpredictable and arbitrary manner.

According to Ala, an Israeli soldier, policeman, or even civilian can detain a Palestinian for 8 days without a specific reason, no legal review, and and at the end of this initial period, Palestinians appear before a military judge where they can be released, prosecuted and charged, placed in administrative detention, or most likely sent for interrogation for up to 180 days, with no access to a lawyer for up to 90 days. Ala notes that the interrogation centers are located in police stations or prisons, are controlled by the Shin Bet, and report to the prime minister without external monitoring.

Most of the torture that has been well documented by a variety of Israeli and Palestinian organizations occurs in these settings. The methods have changed over the years, but any statements obtained under torture are admissible in court, even if torture is proven.

The prisons are also rife with collaborators; if a prisoner denies he has committed any crimes, then other prisoners suspect he is a collaborator. If the prisoner boasts of criminal activities true or false, to prove himself to the other prisoners, this is all reported back to the Israeli authorities and held as evidence without any external investigation.These are the kinds of cases Adameer has represented for years.

Ala further explains that charges are also often so vague, without clear times and places, they are difficult to disprove. He cites an example of a case where three men were accused of shooting an Israeli vehicle north of Ramallah. Two confessed and one did not and Adameer took the case. During the trial, it was revealed that the event occurred in July, 2004. The prisoner stated he was in Jordan for the month of July. This information was brought to the attention of the military judge. Because the Israelis control all the borders, the judge could have easily accessed the security computer systems and determined if this man had left the country in July. Instead, the judge asked the Adameer lawyer to prove that the prisoner was in Jordan. The lawyers then brought evidence of stamps and papers that revealed that the prisoner was telling the truth. The military judge then demanded that the lawyers prove that the stamps were not fake. The man was subsequently found guilty in what sounds to me to be a kangaroo court.

Another dark side to this military justice system is the well documented use of collective punishment, demolition of the homes of prisoners, prohibition of family visitation, isolation of prisoners, and neglecting to provide adequate health care to prisoners. Ala also urgently wants us to understand administrative detention, an unlimited detention that can be renewed for months at the judgement of the military commander. If a military judge deems that a prisoner is a potential threat, his source of information is a secret file that neither the prisoner or the prisoner's lawyer has access to, and there is no limit to how often the administrative detention can be renewed.

Ala describes cases where the detention was renewed just as the prisoner was leaving the prison, or even once he got home. What this means is that all people "of suspicion" can be imprisoned without evidence indefinitely. In the past 21 years, one Palestinian man has spent 17 years on and off, in administrative detention, effectively destroying him as well as his family.The most significant point for me in this legally and ethically disturbing discussion is that the vast majority of people in administrative detention are nonviolent civil society activists. Additionally the IDF has a history of assassinating or imprisoning the more moderate Palestinian leadership.

So what are the implications of this system? Clearly the Israeli authorities are very threatened by nonviolent resistance and a powerfully organized civil society movement. This concept challenges the very idea of the unrelenting Arab threat that is the foundation of the Israeli security industry and foreign policy. Judging from the legal system in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, a tortured and unjust legal system is strangling the leadership as well as the foot soldiers in the nonviolent movements that continue to persevere and sometimes flourish under the most difficult of circumstances.

I can only wonder how many Gandhis and Martin Luther Kings, and Mandelas are rotting in Israeli jails today.

Two states, one state, or "condominial" arrangement?

2009-07-03T10:01:00.007-04:00

This Quaker Monthly dispatch (from PIAG, Ann Arbor Friends Meeting) focuses on various ideas for the resolution of the Israel Palestine conflict. Joe Volk, of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, reported in a recent conference call that President Obama is convinced not only that a resolution of the conflict is long overdue, but that U.S. security depends on it.

Obama and many others, including Israelis, Palestinians, U.S. Jews, and leaders of Arab countries in the region, believe that a two-state solution is the most realistic and desireable. The "One Voice Movement," with "over 650,000 signatories in roughly equal numbers both in Israel and in Palestine, and 2,000 highly-trained youth leaders" advocates this approach.

Yet many are convinced that time is running out for a two-state solution. 60 Minutes (Jan. 25, 2009) explains this view in text and video.

Others believe that a one-state solution is more in accord with recognized human rights standards. The reasons this approach is more reasonable and just are laid out by Palestinian-American activist Ali Abunimah in his visionary book, "One Country" and in an op-ed written by an unlikely, but rather eloquent advocate for peace: Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.

But creative, "outside the box" ideas could be even more likely to break the stalemate. One such solution, by political scientist Russell Nieli, advocates a "condominial" arrangement: two ethnically-defined states within one bi-national settlement community. There would be two constitutions, two judicial systems, two sets of laws, two flags, yet anyone, Palestinian or Israeli, would have the right to live anywhere within the territory of either state. Each state would "take care of its own" in terms of their people's econmic, cultural, religious, and welfare needs. Everyone, Israeli and Palestinian, would have a "right of return," including, of course, the Palestinians forced out in al Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. (Pictures show the human face of this 1948 tragedy.) Goods and services would move freely across state boundaries. The sharing of water resources would be regulated by the U.N. Palestinian armed forces would be restricted (though Israeli forces would not -- one of the main problems with this arrangement, as I see it). A complete explanation can be found in Nieli's article, "Finally, a New Idea: The Marriage of a One-State and a Two-State Solution," in Tikkun Magazine (July-August, 2009).

One State?

2009-04-16T07:35:00.002-04:00

ISRAEL-PALESTINE: One-State Supporters Make a Comeback
Analysis by Helena Cobban (2009)

WASHINGTON, Apr 10 (IPS) - President Barack Obama has spoken out forcefully - including this week, in Ankara, Turkey - in favour of building an independent Palestinian state alongside a still robust Israel. However, many Palestinians have noted that President George W. Bush also, in recent years, expressed a commitment to Palestinian statehood. But, they note, Bush never took the actions necessary to achieve such a state - and neither, until now, has Obama.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government continues to give very generous support to Israel - where successive governments have built Jewish-only colonies in the occupied West Bank and taken other actions that make a viable Palestinian state increasingly hard to achieve.

Many Palestinians and some important voices in what remains of Israel's now-battered peace camp have concluded that it is now impossible to win the 'two-state solution' envisaged by Bush and Obama. This has led to the re-emergence in both communities of an old idea: that of a single bi- national state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, in which both Hebrew-speaking Jewish Israelis and Arabic-speaking Palestinians would have equal rights as citizens, and find themselves equally at home.

That goal was advocated most eloquently in the 1930s and early 1940s by Judah Magnes, Martin Buber, and other intellectuals at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. However, most Israelis moved away from it after Israel was established as a specifically Jewish state in 1948.
Later, in 1968, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) articulated a somewhat similar goal: that of building a 'secular democratic state', which comprises both pre-1967 Israel and the West Bank and Gaza - which Israel brought under military occupation in 1967.

However, the PLO leaders could never agree on which of the numerous Jewish immigrants brought into Israel before and after 1948 to include in their project. A few years later, in 1974, most PLO supporters - but not all - moved decisively away from the 'one-state' model. They started working instead for the two-state model: an independent Palestinian state in just the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza, alongside the Israel state.

For 26 years after 1974, Israel's governments remained deeply opposed to an independent Palestinian state. All those governments made lavish investments in the project - illegal under international law - of implanting their own citizens as settlers in the occupied West Bank. They annexed East Jerusalem. When pressed on the Palestinians' future, they said they hoped Palestinians could exercise their rights in Egypt or Jordan - just not inside historic Palestine.

This idea has been making a comeback recently - including among advisers to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.In 1993, Israel finally recognized the PLO, and concluded the Oslo Accord with it. Under Oslo, the two sides created a new body called the Palestinian Authority (PA), designed to administer some aspects of daily life in parts of the occupied territories - though not, crucially, in occupied East Jerusalem.

Even after Oslo, Israeli officials made clear that they had not promised the PLO a full Palestinian state. They also said, correctly, that their rights and responsibilities as a military occupying power would remain in place. The final disposition of the occupied areas would await conclusion of a final peace agreement.Oslo specified that that agreement should be completed by 1999.

Ten years later, that deadline has still not been met - a final peace treaty still seems fairly distant. Meanwhile, Israel has used the 16 years since Oslo to increase both the number of settlers it has in the West Bank and the degree of control it exercises over the economies of both Gaza and the West Bank.Palestinian-American political scientist Leila Farsakh describes Israel's policies toward the economies of both areas as "the engineering of pauperisation." She notes that despite the large amounts of international aid poured into the West Bank, poverty rates there have risen. Most West Bank areas outside the territory's glitzy 'capital', Ramallah, are poor and increasingly aid-dependent. Lavish new settlements housing 480,000 settlers crowd much of the West Bank's best land, and guzzle its water, Farsakh explains.

In an Israeli population of just 7.2 million, those settlers now form a formidable voting bloc. Attempts to move them out look almost impossible. In the latest round of peace negotiations that Israel and the PA/PLO pursued from 2000 until recently, participants discussed ways to reduce the number of settlers required to move by annexing the big settlement areas to Israel in return for a land exchange. But those boundary modifications look complex, and quite possibly unworkable.

Meanwhile, the negotiation over a small Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza has sidelined the concerns and rights of three important Palestinian constituencies. The 1.2 million Palestinians who are citizens of Israel would remain as an embattled minority within an Israeli state still ideologically committed to the immigration of additional Jews. The 270,000 Palestinians of Jerusalem might also still be surrounded and vulnerable. And the five million Palestinians who still - 61 years after they and their forbearers fled homes in what became Israel in 1948 - would have their long-pursued right to return laid down forever.

From 1982 - the year the PLO's leaders and guerrilla forces were expelled from Lebanon - until recently, the main dynamo of Palestinian nationalism has been located in the Palestinian communities of the occupied West Bank and Gaza. But in recent years, those communities have been severely weakened. They are administratively atomised, politically divided, and live under a palpable sense of physical threat.

Many 'occupied' Palestinians are returning to the key defensive ideas of steadfastness and "just hanging on" to their land. But new energy for leadership is now emerging between two other key groups of Palestinians: those in the diaspora, and those who are citizens of Israel. The contribution those groups can make to nationwide organising has been considerably strengthened by new technologies - and crucially, neither of them has much interest in a two-state outcome. Not surprisingly, therefore, discussions about the nature of a one-state outcome - and how to achieve it - have become more frequent, and much richer in intellectual content, in recent years.

Palestinian-Israeli professor Nadim Rouhanna, now teaching at Tufts University in Massachusetts, is a leader in the new thinking. "The challenge is how to achieve the liberation of both societies from being oppressed and being oppressors," he told a recent conference in Washington, DC. "Palestinians have toŠ reassure the Israeli Jews that their culture and vitality will remain. We need to go further than seeing them only as 'Jews-by- religion' in a future Palestinian society."Like many advocates of the one-state outcome, Rouhanna referred enthusiastically to the exuberant multiculturalism and full political equality that have been embraced by post-apartheid South Africa.Progressive Jewish Israelis like Ben Gurion

University geographer Oren Yiftachel are also part of the new movement. Yiftachel's most recent work has examined at the Israeli authorities' decades-long campaign to expropriate the lands of the ethnically Palestinian Bedouin who live in southern Israel - and are citizens of Israel. "The expropriation continues - there and inside the West Bank, and in East Jerusalem," Yiftachel said, explaining that he did not see the existence of "the Green Line" that supposedly separates Israel from the occupied territory as an analytically or politically relevant concept.

Israel's Trauma Psychology and the Attack on Gaza

2009-03-01T09:59:00.002-05:00

By Avigail Abarbanel
http://www.avigailabarbanel.me.uk/gaza-2009-01-04.html
Sunday 4th January 2009

One of the things that is not being discussed much in the media is how much talk there is in Israel about attacking Iran. Word on the (Israeli) street is that an air attack on Iran's nuclear reactors is imminent.Israel has been itching for a 'good war' for a while now. The botched attack on Lebanon in 2006 was a psychological disappointment that did not fulfil its purpose, and only led to a deepening chasm between the political and military arms in Israel. An Israeli friend told me in disgust the other day, that there is an atmosphere of 'national orgasm' in Israel about the prospect of attacking Iran. While people are being bombed in Gaza, all Israelis can talk about is the coming attack on Iran.

But there is a link between the two.Israel's social problems have grown exponentially over the past 15 years. It's a very different Israel now than the one I grew up in. There is more violent and organised crime than ever before, and more domestic violence and abuse of children than ever. There are more drugs and drug use, and they have drink-driving, something I have never encountered while I was still living there. This is reflected in official reports as well as in the daily newspapers. My brother who lives in Israel described to me how soldiers who spend their military service in the Occupied Palestinian territories implementing Israel's brutal occupation, come home on weekends only to get involved in drunken armed brawls and murders. This was unheard of in my time.

Israelis have never been particularly kind to each other. It's one of the reasons I left actually. In my late twenties I started to grow weary of the unkind, harsh and unforgiving atmosphere around me. It was a tough place to live in not because of our 'enemies' but because of how people treated one another. You would believe that we were all enemies rather than people who have some kind of a shared heritage. The only thing that could unite people and temporarily brought out more kindness and a sense of cooperation was a feeling of being under collective threat, and in particular a 'good wholesome war'. I lived through the war of 1967 and the national euphoria it generated, and the 1973 'Yom Kippur' war and the attrition war that followed. During the time of the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 I was a soldier myself. My last war in Israel was the 1991 Gulf war, when an Iraqi Scud missile landed only a few metres from my apartment building in Ramat-Gan near Tel-Aviv.

I remember well the atmosphere before, during and after wars. These were the best times. You could feel a change in the air. People seemed to have a renewed sense of purpose. Even long-standing family or neighbourly feuds were put aside, and everyone helped everyone. There was more patience and we children were picked on a lot less. Although I was scared of wars I remember also feeling excited. It helped that we all believed the myth that all of our wars were of the 'milchemet ein breira' type - 'no choice wars'. The kind that was imposed on us and that we 'reluctantly' had to get involved in, and only in self defence. We also believed in 'tohar ha'neshek' - 'purity of arms', that is the myth that our soldiers always act honourably and only kill when they have no choice and never unarmed civilians. We were always the 'good guys' in all our collective stories, which of course added to the general fuzzy patriotic feeling.

Israel and perhaps the rest of the world too, refuse to see that Israel's problems are a direct result of deep-seated Jewish trauma and its consequences. Israel's response to trauma was to arm itself to the teeth, and to become an incredibly aggressive country while perpetuating inside and out the myth of victimhood and goodness. As a psychotherapist I recognise this reaction to trauma. Some people who have been traumatised respond to it by becoming very powerful and very frightening. This is a reaction to having been hurt, and a response to the desire to never be hurt again.

Unfortunately this isn't a good or wholesome way to live. This is a way of life that perpetuates inner conflicts, leads to isolation and invites animosity from others. It's hard to spread good will and kindness in the world when one's inner world is based on an adversarial foundation. What is true for individuals can also be true for whole societies. Israel had a chance to heal its traumatised Jewish past but instead chose to perpetuate the trauma and pass it on to subsequent generations. The very creation of the state of Israel is a reaction to trauma. If you understand the dynamic of trauma and the solutions people try to find to it you can understand why Israel's existence has always been fraught with trouble. The fact that Israel has never used its education system and national institutions to facilitate healing from trauma is sad but not unusual. Trauma becomes so much a part of the sufferer's identity, that to heal means to change the very foundation of who you are, something most people, let alone entire cultures are rarely prepared to do.

Many Israelis who have left, have done so for the same reason I did. We were all searching for a calmer, kinder way of life, where people could be friendly and helpful to one another rather than nasty and suspicious. It's hard to leave one's home but if home is so harmful you just have to do it because the personal cost of staying is higher than the cost of the grief over losing your home.

This latest vicious war crime that is unfolding in Gaza and the increasing talk about attacking Iran are a response to yet another turn in the cycle of Israel's collective trauma. Trauma always follows a cyclical dynamic. It's hard to live with it, with the constant fear and mistrust. It's exhausting and demoralising and it can take up every bit of energy you have to just get up in the morning and get on with your daily tasks. People can go on for a while like this, somehow coping from day to day. But things inevitably come to a head and life becomes unmanageable. This is usually a familiar enough point in the cycle and the sufferer would often think 'Oh, no, not again!'

At those times people desperately search for something, some kind of temporary solution to relieve the suffering, a new diet perhaps, a new job, renovations, or a war. This is often accompanied by a desperate belief that this time they will find the ultimate solution to everything, and all will be well after that. I think Israelis really believe that if they can crush Hamas in Gaza, all their problems will be solved and they will live happily ever after free from Qassam rockets or any kind of Palestinian resistance. The question of the future of the Palestinians doesn't even come into it. When one suffers trauma, one's thinking is always short-term and self-centred. The focus is always on one's own short-term survival.

Trauma is often accompanied by denial and people spend their lives looking for solutions outside themselves. In aggressive and violent responses to trauma people will believe that it is 'that person' or 'that group' that is causing their problem, and will try to do something to hurt or eliminate them. People eventually come to therapy when they have tried everything and realise that outside measures cannot solve their problem, that there may be something about themselves that they have to fix. Unfortunately not many of the aggressive types come to therapy. Many of them end up in jail instead. People with unhealed trauma can be destructive to others but ultimately they are living an unsustainable life and are self-destructive. Many of the measures that they will adopt throughout their lifetime will be counter-productive and will end up hurting them just as much as they hurt others.

Israel has kept the Palestinians as an ongoing 'problem' so that they have someone to blame each time their trauma reaches its cyclical unmanageable point. If Israel wanted to solve its problem with the Palestinians it could have done so a long time ago. It could start by acknowledging the ethnic cleansing of 1948, then offering a right of return and compensation to the refugees in compliance with UN resolution 194 from December 1948, and that would be it. But to do that Israel would have to compromise its racist and undemocratic dream of being an exclusively Jewish state. And being an exclusively Jewish state is in itself a reaction to Jewish trauma. It is based on the simple idea that Jews are not safe with non-Jews and therefore need a state of their own where they can live separately and therefore safely. But to give up on this dream would require a complete re-evaluation of Jewish and Israeli identity and belief system. People would have to stop believing that the world is bad for Jews and Jews are only safe with one another. This means questioning some of the most fundamental principles of Jewish faith and culture. Such a process of questioning will inevitably start Israel on a path of healing and will also mean that Israel will have to find another way of being that does not involve an adversarial view of the world and perpetual war. I don't think Israel is ready for that. Healing is something that sadly, few people are prepared to do and I guess the same goes for entire societies.

But fighting the Palestinians has become very ugly over the years. The world is making a fuss about it, the Palestinians are fighting back and this ongoing war against civilians is demoralising and breaking the spirit of Israeli soldiers and having a negative effect on their entire society. This 'solution' or way of coping with the trauma (i.e. keeping the Palestinians as an enemy) is backfiring. So instead of solving the problem, Israel is looking for another bigger and more 'legitimate' war that is far less complicated. A war that all Israelis can agree on and be excited about, and that will once again unite the people and offer an uplifting relief from the daily effort of Israeli existence.

From a military perspective Israeli leaders always follow the principle of trying to 'kill two birds with one stone'. I believe that the attack on Gaza is serving two purposes. It is trying to break Palestinian resistance but it is also an attempt to provoke Iran into doing something, anything that can be used as a pretext for attacking the nuclear plants there, and who knows what else. Israel cannot afford to just go to Iran and attack with no real 'excuse', and Bush's tired rhetoric about Iran's nuclear capabilities and potential threat is wearing thin as Bush is on his way out. Obama is yet an unknown quality to Israel so they think they have to find a way to do it themselves with or without the US. That's why Israel has refused the call for a ceasefire in Gaza. They have a clear plan that they are intent on following no matter what the human cost is, and this is just as much about psychological warfare as it is about guns and bombs. It is a horrible thought but the Palestinians are and always have been just pawns in the vicious dynamic of Israeli/Jewish trauma. They don't otherwise really matter to Israelis. Most Israelis have always had trouble seeing the Palestinians as human beings like them and I believe that they do not care about the suffering they are causing them. If they did they would behave differently.

The longer they drag the air attacks on Gaza, the more furious the world and the Arab world in particular is going to be, and this is exactly what Israel is trying to achieve. Drag it on until everyone is completely exasperated and then start a ground attack that might just be the tipping point for Iran. Then Israel could attack Iran, something it has been planning to do for years, and say that it is exercising its 'right for self-defence'. The world can't stand up to that argument even when we are dealing with a few rockets from Gaza that hardly dent Israel, let alone when it comes to a properly organised country with its own armed forces like Iran. Israel's claim for self-defence will appear completely plausible.

The psychology of trauma is treacherous and filled with inner contradictions. It is precisely why the world must intervene decisively in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict: to save the Palestinians from Israel and the Israelis from themselves, and possibly spare us all a much bigger war. Without mature, assertive and clear-thinking intervention this cycle of trauma and the violence it breeds will continue until one day it will exhaust itself because enough people will have died, or a final blow will have been cast somewhere by someone, from which there will be no return

An Open Letter from Daniel Bar-Tal

2009-02-16T19:21:00.003-05:00

from the Occupation Magazine
http://kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=31924
Daniel Bar-Tal
Open Letter
January 31, 2009

Dear Friends
This is probably one of the most difficult periods in my political life as a Jew living in the State of Israel. The events of the war in Gaza hit hard my foundations of hope that a peaceful conflict resolution between Israelis and Palestinians can be achieved in the near future. Moreover, my trust in humanity has been weakened seeing the ease with which human beings rally for a war, exercise blind patriotism, express desire for vengeance, delegitimize the opponent, and develop insensitivity to human life, denial of responsibility, self-righteousness and moral entitlement.

This is in contrast to the great difficulty that human beings have in mobilization for peace. We see over and over again that it takes many years and many efforts to persuade people in the importance of peace, but it takes an extremely short time to convince people in the need of war. It is even more difficult to establish moral considerations.

I have been agonizing for weeks whether to write an open letter. I could not bring myself to the paper and pencil or to the keyboard, feeling despair and helplessness. But only a responsibility to voice another opinion as an alternative to the officially presented views that are supported by the great majority of the Israeli Jews brought me to write this letter.

It is important that you will know that there is a minority of us, Jews in Israel, who care about moral considerations and opposed this war. What can I say when I know that about 1300 Palestinians killed, at least half of them innocent civilians, including children, women, and old people, over 4000 were injured, thousands of homes were destroyed and dozens of thousands became homeless. Also on the Israeli side 13 Israelis were killed, including 3 civilians, hundreds were wounded, and thousands had to escape from the hundreds of rockets that were fired on Israel.

I could repeat the arguments of the Israeli government that through the years many hundreds of rockets were fired on the Israeli land west of Gaza, including populated settlements; that no government would allow that their citizens will be hurt; that after eight years of restraint, Israel has decided to act against the terror attacks coming from the Gaza Strip.

Israeli restraint, [they say], was misinterpreted as weakness by Hamas and members of the vertical axis of extremism led by Iran; that Israel had given a mutual agreement to preserve peace its final chance when it agreed to the Egyptian brokered Period of Calm agreement in June 2008, whose terms were repeatedly transgressed by Hamas.

It is just natural that those who sent the soldiers to the war have to defend it and rationalize it. This is a human principle. But these arguments do not tell the whole story. Even if we take the Israeli arguments without the background and complexity, they cannot account for the scope of civilian losses and the destruction on the Palestinian side. The brutality and scope of the Israeli actions testify to deeper roots that are founded in the darker side of human beings.

They express the wish to erase the feeling of failure in the Second Lebanese War during the summer of 2006; they reflect a deep sense of collective victimhood because of the continuous firing of rockets on civilian settlements in the south by the Hamas military organ-- this sense of victimhood led to the urge to revenge in order to punish for the harm done and prevent further firing. In addition, they are derived from the continuous dehumanization of the Hamas organization. Finally, they are based on the conviction that Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, allowing Palestinians to live their lives and they instead engage in terror.

But, the reality is much more complex than the narrative perpetuated by the Israeli political and military establishments, which successfully constructed the beliefs of the Jewish public in Israel. This is a kind of irony because one of the objectives of the war was to carve the consciousness of the Palestinians so they will recognize the harm that Hamas is causing to the Palestinian cause and Palestinian life. This objective was not achieved and instead the war strengthened the hatred and mistrust of both sides towards each other, reinforced the support of hawkish opinions on both sides, and as a result, the peaceful process is further greatly damaged.

Moreover, it is hard to detect any meaningful political gains of Israel in the balance of this war. We are back to the same lines that were before the war ---with terrible losses and destruction. The psychological analysis of the situation illustrates the selective, biasing and distorting transmission and dissemination of information by the Israeli channels of communication. It does not mean that the alternative information does not exist in Israel but very few are interested in knowing what is really happening.

Thus, most of the Israeli Jews do not know what Israel perpetrated through the decades of occupying Gaza;

most of the Israeli Jews do not know that originally Hamas was founded by the Israeli authorities to provide an alternative to the national movement of PLO;

most of the Israeli Jews do not know that Hamas is a religious–fundamental movement that also provides welfare, health and educational services to the Palestinian people;

most of the Israeli Jews do not know that Hamas was elected democratically (with the insistence of USA) to lead the government of the Palestinian authority because of Fatah corruption, and mostly because of the fruitless negotiations with Israel which did not provide any political solution of the conflict;

most of the Israeli Jews do not know that the policy of the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon about ‘No Palestinian Partner’ led to unilateral disengagement from Gaza without negotiation with the Palestinian Authority. This act was done in order to delegitimize Palestinian Authority and in attempt to keep control over the West Bank.

Moreover, the disengagement did not free Gaza but turned it into one big prison. Israel controls the entrances to Gaza and controls every aspect of human life in Gaza. It decided to change the support of Gazans in Hamas by carrying out a siege that allowed minimal living and brought Gaza to economic disaster.

Israeli Jews know that even after disengagement, Hamas continues to fire rockets on the Israeli civil settlements but few know that during 2005– 2008, hundreds of Palestinians were killed by the Israeli forces.

Few know that the tunnels were built mainly to smuggle civil goods that could not be brought to Gaza and not only weapons as the great majority believe.

Few know that there is a relationship between Israeli violence and Palestinian violence, preferring to see the latter as irrational, fanatic, and immoral while the former as defensive, moral and well justified.

Few of the Israeli Jews recognize that Israel during two years had at least two alternative strategies to prevent further escalation: either to talk with Hamas which is possible and negotiate long-term cease-fire, or take decisive actions of peace (for example, to ease conditions of life of the Palestinians by removing many of the checkpoints and to remove illegal settlements as required by the Israeli promise to U.S.) vis a vis President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority to show the Palestinians that process yields tangible fruits that lead to prosperity and security.

Even when we shift to the period before the war, most of the Israeli Jews do not know that it was possible to negotiate continuation of the cease fire with Hamas and do not remember that it was Israel who broke the ceasefire of November 4, 2008, killing 6 Palestinians.

Hamas is not my cup of tea as it is a fundamentalist religious organization that practices also terrorism, but it is a social movement with wide support in the Palestinian society because it provides an alternative to humiliated Palestinian national identity. This movement is not homogenous and it is possible to hear in it different voices including ones that support negotiation with Israel and acceptance of the two state solution.

All these omissions are not surprising in view of the fact that the involved sides in conflict have been deeply embedded in the culture of conflict. They systematically try to construct the views of society members in a direction of presenting own society as being moral, just, peace loving, or moderate and the rival as being immoral, intransigent, violent, irrational, or extreme.

In addition each side views itself as the victim of this conflict. This process goes on for decades. Only during few years during Rabin time it looked as the peace process is gaining momentum. But since the year 2000, when the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak decided on the policy of `no partner`, the peace process is dying.

It is true that Palestinians have their share in the failure of the Oslo process. But the tremendous asymmetry of power puts the responsibility for the continuation of the conflict mostly on the Israeli side. It is Israel that has almost all the cards to solve the conflict; it occupies the land, holds Eastern Jerusalem, controls the life of the Palestinians, controls the resources of the West Bank, expands constantly the Jewish settlements on the West Bank, exercises preventive and punishing violent acts according to own will and has (at least had until now) almost unconditional backing of the superpower.

The contours of the potential settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are more or less clear: If it will happen, it will be in accordance to Clinton proposal, Taba understandings, Geneva agreement, and Arab league proposal: Israel will have to return to 1967 borders with some swaps of land in order to hold the most populated clusters of Jewish settlements just beyond the green line of 1967, Jerusalem will be divided, most of the Jewish settlements inside the territories will be dismantled, and the refuges problem will have to be solved via common agreement with their compensation and settlement mostly in the future Palestinian state.

The present Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert outlined openly these principles to the Israeli public but did not take any concrete steps to implement them.

Israeli public, while recognizing the need in two state solution (because of the demographic fear), objects to the outlined principles. The majority of the Israeli Jews object to divide Jerusalem, to withdraw to 1967 borders and to dismantle most of the Jewish settlements the West Bank. In fact I must admit that I do not see any Israeli government evacuating about 60,000 Jewish settlers from the West Bank.

Israeli Jewish public after the destruction of the peace camp in 2000 is moving steadily towards hawkish-nationalistic views. The present war provided additional blow to the peace camp. It is almost certainly that the next Israeli government will be very hawkish after the February 10 elections. The rest will be written in the history books.

The war did not erupt spontaneously but was well prepared, including its scope, the type of weapons to be used, and so on. Also it was consciously decided to use a disproportional might in order to save lives of Israeli soldiers and to teach the Palestinians a lesson.

The results of the war are tragic for both nations. It provided unequivocal evidence to each side that the other side is evil and immoral. Now few of us here and there can only evaluate the tragedy, explain the events and pray for a miracle from outside forces that will come and save us from the worst human instincts.

Sincerely Daniel Bar-Tal

Ideas for the New Administration

2009-01-24T10:12:00.000-05:00

A New Mideast Approach
By Yousef Munayyer
Washington Post
Saturday, January 24, 2009; A13

The Obama administration appointed former senator George Mitchell as its special envoy to the Middle East this week in a positive step toward resolving the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While a fragile cease-fire has brought a temporary halt to the recent bloodshed in Gaza, the outburst of violence at the end of the Bush administration was the culmination of eight more years of failed U.S. policy. The new administration will need to break with that policy if it is to make progress toward ending the conflict.

The Bush policy can be divided into two periods. Initially, the administration sought to marginalize Yasser Arafat and pushed for the democratization of the Palestinian Authority. President Bush supported the Palestinian presidential election of 2005 and supported the Palestinian parliamentary elections early the next year -- until he saw the outcome of the vote.

The election of Hamas in January 2006, and the faltering of the longest-ruling party in Palestinian politics, was a wake-up call. The administration, understanding the pressure that Islamic movements were putting on regimes in the Middle East, shifted to "bolstering the moderates." The goal became marginalizing Hamas through economic sanctions and siege, while funding and supporting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

But this tactic of backing "our guy in the fight" achieved results much like those of the Cold War-era tactics it resembled. Ideology-driven civil conflict has raged on. Neither side has moved toward peace or security.

To make real progress toward a lasting peace, a fundamental shift in U.S. policy is needed. Simply put, a divided Palestinian partner can never make serious concessions to arrive at a lasting agreement when it is viewed as legitimate by only half of its population.

The United States must work to forge a unified Palestinian partner and must be wary of the dynamics of legitimacy in domestic Palestinian politics. Attempts to continue aligning Mahmoud Abbas with Israel against Hamas only serve to erode Abbas's legitimacy among his people. And Abbas's Fatah party members will continue to be targeted by domestic opposition as "sellouts." This appearance of submission contributed to their defeat in the 2006 parliamentary elections.

Rather than seeking to bolster the moderates in this conflict, the Obama administration should focus on moderating the extremists. The idea of eliminating Hamas could not be seriously proposed by anyone with any knowledge of domestic Palestinian politics. The notion that Hamas is a primarily militant organization based in Gaza ignores the movement's vast support in the West Bank and elsewhere.

Dealing with Hamas and groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Islamic Jihad in arenas of legitimacy, such as elections, negates the possibility that outside parties will spoil peace negotiations.

Those who would resolve the conflict must understand that such parties and groups, often labeled rejectionist, are not primarily ideologically based and are not monolithic. They, like most political parties, are beholden to a constituency.
Yet while their politics are not always the same, the political alliances between them are far stronger than any ideological divisions. For example, consider the image of the Islamist Khaled Meshal of Hamas seated next to communist George Habash at rejectionist party conferences.

Yes, Hamas and other groups must stop the violence. But the process cannot begin by demanding that they recognize Israel.

The support for rejectionist parties in Palestinian politics, Islamist or otherwise, comes straight out of the refugee camps. Gaza has the highest concentration of refugees; nearly half of the population shares in the personal experience of dispossession.

Asking rejectionist parties to recognize Israel's right to exist, thereby justifying the displacement of the majority of their constituents, is not something that could be agreed to under today's circumstances. Most Palestinians owe their tragedies to the very genesis of Israel.

The key to real progress in resolving the conflict is, and has always been, providing a just resolution to the refugee issue. While a resolution will not be easy or immediate, a significant step in the right direction would be an acknowledgment from the state of Israel of at least partial responsibility for creating the refugee problem.

Such a statement, made in a serious and genuine tone and supported by American mediation, would destroy the perception held among many in the Middle East that Israel does not want peace. This, in turn, would begin to moderate the extremists.

The territorial outline for a two-state solution is largely agreed upon, even by some rejectionists. What remains outstanding is a just resolution for the refugee issue. The Obama administration should begin by tackling this necessary step toward comprehensive and lasting Arab-Israeli peace.

The writer is a policy analyst with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

An Open Letter from UK Attorneys and Academics

2009-01-12T13:26:00.002-05:00

From The Sunday Times of London
January 11, 2009

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence – it’s a war crime

ISRAEL has sought to justify its military attacks on Gaza by stating that it amounts to an act of “self-defence” as recognised by Article 51, United Nations Charter. We categorically reject this contention.

The rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas deplorable as they are, do not, in terms of scale and effect amount to an armed attack entitling Israel to rely on self-defence. Under international law self-defence is an act of last resort and is subject to the customary rules of proportionality and necessity.

The killing of almost 800 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and more than 3,000 injuries, accompanied by the destruction of schools, mosques, houses, UN compounds and government buildings, which Israel has a responsibility to protect under the Fourth Geneva Convention, is not commensurate to the deaths caused by Hamas rocket fire.

For 18 months Israel had imposed an unlawful blockade on the coastal strip that brought Gazan society to the brink of collapse. In the three years after Israel’s redeployment from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. And yet in 2005-8, according to the UN, the Israeli army killed about 1,250 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children. Throughout this time the Gaza Strip remained occupied territory under international law because Israel maintained effective control over it.

Israel’s actions amount to aggression, not self-defence, not least because its assault on Gaza was unnecessary. Israel could have agreed to renew the truce with Hamas. Instead it killed 225 Palestinians on the first day of its attack. As things stand, its invasion and bombardment of Gaza amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s 1.5m inhabitants contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law. In addition, the blockade of humanitarian relief, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and preventing access to basic necessities such as food and fuel, are prima facie war crimes.

We condemn the firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel and suicide bombings which are also contrary to international humanitarian law and are war crimes. Israel has a right to take reasonable and proportionate means to protect its civilian population from such attacks. However, the manner and scale of its operations in Gaza amount to an act of aggression and is contrary to international law, notwithstanding the rocket attacks by Hamas.

Ian Brownlie QC, Blackstone Chambers
Mark Muller QC, Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales
Michael Mansfield QC and Joel Bennathan QC, Tooks Chambers
Sir Geoffrey Bindman, University College, London
Professor Richard Falk, Princeton University
Professor M Cherif Bassiouni, DePaul University, Chicago
Professor Christine Chinkin, LSE
Professor John B Quigley, Ohio State University
Professor Iain Scobbie and Victor Kattan, School of Oriental and African Studies
Professor Vera Gowlland-Debbas, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
Professor Said Mahmoudi, Stockholm University
Professor Max du Plessis, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck College
Professor Joshua Castellino, Middlesex University
Professor Thomas Skouteris and Professor Michael Kagan, American University of Cairo
Professor Javaid Rehman, Brunel University
Daniel Machover, Chairman, Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights
Dr Phoebe Okawa, Queen Mary University
John Strawson, University of East London
Dr Nisrine Abiad, British Institute of International and Comparative Law
Dr Michael Kearney, University of York
Dr Shane Darcy, National University of Ireland, Galway
Dr Michelle Burgis, University of St Andrews
Dr Niaz Shah, University of Hull
Liz Davies, Chair, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyer
Prof Michael Lynk, The University of Western Ontario
Steve Kamlish QC and Michael Topolski QC, Tooks Chambers

10 Ideas for Taking Action

2009-01-08T06:36:00.002-05:00

Ideas and thoughtful analysis from Anna Baltzer, young Jewish American, Fullbright scholar writer and lecturer [www.annainthemiddleeast.com]

What Most US Media Isn't Telling You

Four days ago, Israel invaded Gaza on the ground to compliment its aerial bombardment. The Palestinian death toll has reached 660. The official Israeli death toll is up to 5, of whom 4 were civilians. Attacks on civilians, no matter who they are, is criminal. Yet the US government, public relations officials, and mainstream media—unlike those of almost every other country in the world—continue to criminalize Palestinian violence while absolving Israel (the undisputed party in power) of almost any responsibility of its own.

The official position seems clear: Israel can do as it likes until Hamas stops all violence. The underlying assumption here is that Palestinians' human rights depend on the actions of their leaders. This is false. Palestinians do not have to earn the human rights inalienable to every person on Earth. Human rights are non-negotiable. Likewise, Israelis do not have to earn their human rights. Israeli state terror not withstanding, it would be criminal to bombard the entire population of Israel (in which, as in Gaza, fighters live alongside their families in civilian areas) for the crimes of its government. But this is exactly what Israel is doing in Gaza with US weapons before a seemingly impotent international community.

Every day the carnage unfolds on CNN-International (different from CNN-US—the United States is the only country in the world with domestically customized international news coverage): a mother and her 4 kids killed instantly; a 7-year-old shot twice in the chest (I'm not sure how that happens accidentally, but does that even matter?); more than 40 policemen in training obliterated (even Israel does not claim the Palestinian police orchestrates rocket attacks); TV stations and places of worship successfully destroyed; a mortuary out of room for bodies.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, "sewage water is pouring into the streets in Beit Hanoun, following damage to the main pipeline between Beit Hanoun and the Beit Lahiya wastewater treatment plant." Save The Children reports that newborn baby Gazans are battling hypothermia due to power cuts and freezing winter winds. Some of the worst news comes from the doctors. Can you imagine a hospital functioning without electricity? According to the mainstream British newspaper The Guardian, medics are working around the clock and running out of anesthesia. There is no more gauze so doctors are using cotton, which sticks to wounds. Nurses are forced to draw blood with the wrong sized syringes and without alcohol. The Guardian article was entitled, "The injured were lying there asking God to let them die." Many have gotten their last wish, dying as they wait in the emergency rooms.Medical workers themselves have also been under fire, with at least 4 killed as they tried to reach victims.

Ambulances are not safe, nor are the schools: When I woke up yesterday a UN school had just been bombed, killing 3 of the civilians who had come to the school seeking shelter. Watching the news later in the evening, I learned the same UN school had beenbombed again (twice in one day), killing 40 more. The British director of the school, having lost his usual calm, was irate and imploring the world to understand that nowhere in Gaza is safe anymore—there is nowhere left to go. Yet reading the Washington Post and watching the nightly news you might believe that Israel's is in fact the most virtuous army in the world, going as far as sending text messages to and dropping leaflets in Palestinian areas explaining that unless civilians leave, they will be attacked. Reported alone, this might sound reasonable, but quickly becomes absurd if you know that Gazans have no place to go to! Nowhere inside the strip of land is safe and there is no way to leave it, since the borders are sealed.

The bombing and invasion have clearly heightened the threat against Gazans' lives, but they did not start it. For the 18 months preceding the invasion, the average Gazan could not reliably go to school, make a living, contact the outside world, divert their sewage, heat their homes, drink clean water, or eat. This was due to the enclosure summed up in the words of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights: "Gaza is a prison and Israel seems to have thrown away the key." This was the reality of Israel's "ceasefire. "The closure pushed Gaza's humanitarian crisis to a new low, with poverty reaching 80%. Any attempt to counter poverty was thwarted. Gaza students dependent on transportation could not reach their schools, and those accepted at foreign universities in America, Europe, and the West Bank were denied permits to leave. Without enough fuel, industrial businesses were either shut down or running below 20% capacity, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs. Contrary to Israeli court order, the Israeli army allowed just 15% of fuel needed for generators, wells, and transportation, resulting in garbage piled high in the streets while up to 15,000,000 gallons of raw or partially-treated sewage flowed into the sea every day. This was the reality of Israel's "ceasefire."

On November 4th and 5th, Israel broke the "ceasefire" by killing at least 6 Palestinians in Gaza, reported on CNN-International but unlikely by CNN-US. Of course, there was no ceasefire to begin with, since the main requirement on Israel was to sufficiently unseal Gaza's borders, a requirement that was consistently ignored. By the end of the "ceasefire," 262 had Gazans died due to lack of access to proper medical care during the blockade. Hamas should be condemned for its attacks on civilians, but it is naïve to expect that they would renew a truce that Israel had never adhered to. Whether or not it would cease cross-border attacks in exchange for Israeli reciprocity—as Hamas continues to offer—is something we cannot know, since Israel has never given the offer a chance.

Analysis and sympathy have no value if they do not result in any action. There are enough action ideas below that every single person has the power to do at least one, ideally many more.
1. Monitor and contact local media to inform others and counter misinformation. Write letters to the editor (usually 100-150 words) or op-eds (usually 600-800 words) for local newspapers. Also contact radio talk shows and television news departments, especially in response to biased coverage. You can find all local media at: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/media/ The US Campaign to End the Occupation compiled a fact sheet about US direct contributions to the war on Gaza, which you can use for facts: http://www.endtheoccupation.org/downloads/gaza_us_weapons.pdf
2. Organize and join demonstrations in front of Israeli embassies or (if that's not doable) in front of the offices of elected officials or other visible place. Inform the media beforehand. Here is a list of the many demonstrations happening around the country (For example, St. Louis, where I live, usually has one a month, but this month there are demonstrations every day): http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1773
3. Join local activist groups organizing local actions. If there aren't any, start your own. Now is an excellent time to rally support.
4. Initiate boycotts, divestments and sanctions to nonviolently pressure Israeli compliance with international law, as was effective in the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa. Now is an excellent time to rally support and begin a campaign. More info and resources athttp://www.bdsmovement.net/
5. Send direct aid to Gaza through one of the following organizations:- United Nations Relief and Works Agency: www.un.org/unrwa/- United Palestinian Appeal: www.helpupa.com- Islamic Relief: www.irw.org- Canadian Red Cross: www.redcross.ca- American Near East Refugee Aid: www.anera.org- Physicians for Human Rights: www.phr.org.il/phr- Other groups: http://gazasiege.org/support_gaza.html You can also support solidarity activists on the ground at www.palsolidarity.org/main/6 Contact elected and other political leaders in your country to urge them to apply pressure to end the attacks. Find your representatives and their contact info at http://www.congress.org/congressorg/officials/congress Call the Obama/Biden Transition Office at 202-540-3000, press 2 to speak to a staff member. Tell them the U.S. needs a new Middle East policy, which holds Israel accountable to international law and UN resolutions and human rights. Tell them the U.S. should not support Israel with billions of dollars every year and should not be arming Israel with U.S. made weapons. Add your own suggestions. The time is right for President-elect Obama to hear from the peace community.
7. Sign petitions for Gaza, for example: http://www.avaaz.org/en/gaza_time_for_peace/98.php?cl_tf_sign=1 http://capwiz.com/arab/utr/2/?a=12364076&i=90758629&c https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?s_oo=d13BldH27ypl2jxg-1cOFA..&id=233
8. Put a Palestinian flag at your window. Wear a Palestinian headscarf (keffiya). Wear black arm bands (this helps start conversations with people).
9. Do a group fast for peace one day and hold it in a public place.
10. Inform others in your community with flyers, vigils, and conversations. At the very least, forward this on.
This list was based on a call from the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People and Friends of Sabeel.

There is no military solution

2009-01-03T07:03:00.003-05:00

Israeli action against Gaza will make matters worse
By Yousef Munayyer
January 2, 2009

There is great grief around the globe for the people in Gaza but there should also be a genuine fear for the safety of Israeli citizens as well. As a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship I have many friends and family members who are in range of Hamas rockets in the south and of Hezbollah rockets in the north.

While at first glance the Israeli actions against Hamas in Gaza may seem like a legitimate response to rocket fire, in the long run, the actions of the Israeli government have put more Israeli and Palestinian lives in jeopardy and may possibly have ruined the hopes of ever reaching a two-state solution.

Some may find it difficult to believe but it's important to think about the events of last week not only in the present but also in the context of the past and future. A poll from Israel last week indicated only 39 percent of respondents thought that the massive attacks against Hamas in Gaza would lead to an end of rocket fire. Perhaps this is because the Israeli government had already found a way to practically end rocket fire before abandoning it for belligerency.

During the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire, Hamas rocket fire from Gaza dropped dramatically. However, instead of nurturing what could have been the beginning of a much longer cease-fire, the Israeli government took a calculated step on Nov. 4 by killing four Hamas members they accused of smuggling weapons. Immediately afterwards Hamas responded by sending rockets, and Israel tightened its siege on Gaza.

Every step taken by the Israeli Cabinet is thought about carefully. They hope now, with this war that they brought on, to "change the equation" and break the stalemate in the peace process that has existed since Hamas was elected in 2006.

But does this really change the equation?

Even if the entire leadership of Hamas, a designated terror organization, is wiped out by Israeli raids, does that in anyway change the rejectionist sentiment among the population that elected it? Of course not. In fact, it will probably make the situation worse.

At the foundation of Hamas is the principle of rejecting negotiations with Israel because Israel cannot be viewed as a negotiating partner in good faith. Though Hamas' methods, like attacks on civilians, can never be morally justified, its opposition to Israel is based on legitimate grievances like illegal occupation, political imprisonment and siege. How are these brutal attacks on Gaza, following its slow and steady starvation, supposed to win the hearts and minds of Palestinians who previously supported Hamas?

The problem with dealing with Hamas the way Israel has is that Hamas is not merely an organization, it is a movement, and it is a movement that more and more people in the Arab and Muslim world grow sympathetic to each time it is attacked. With looped images of mangled bodies strewn across burnt pavement pervading the Arab news networks, there is outrage from Morocco to Manila.

In 2006, Israel used the same logic to deal with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah, another designated terror organization, is today more popular than it was before the war both among the Shiites in Lebanon and the Arab and Muslim world in general.

Throughout the first and second Palestinian uprising, Israel targeted Hamas' leadership time after time. After nearly two decades of this policy, Hamas was able to win the first national Palestinian election it participated in, even taking a number of Palestinian Christian votes.

Each and every time Israel strikes Hamas the organization, Hamas the movement grows. Why then did Israel choose to employ failed tactics once again despite the success of the recent cease-fire?

The Israeli government owes answers to the international community, to Palestinians, and most of all to its own public.

Yousef Munayyer, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Washington.

Talking Points: Israeli Airstrikes in Gaza

2008-12-28T21:13:00.003-05:00

Talking Points #63
The Gaza Crisis: December 2008

By Phyllis Bennis
Institute for Policy Studies
28 December 2008

The death toll in Gaza continues to rise. The carnage is everywhere - city streets, a mosque, hospitals, police stations, a jail, a university bus stop, a plastics factory, a television station. It seems impossible, unacceptable, to step back to analyze the situation while bodies remain buried under the rubble, while parents continue to search for their missing children, while doctors continue to labor to stitch burned and broken bodies back together without sufficient
medicine or equipment. The hospitals are running short even of electricity-the Israeli blockade has denied them fuel to run the generators. It is an ironic twist on the legacy of Israel's involvement in an earlier massacre - in the Sabra and Shatila camps, in Lebanon back in 1982, it was the Israeli soldiers who lit the
flairs, lighting the night sky so their Lebanese allies could continue to kill.

But if we are serious about ending this carnage, this time, we have no choice but to try to analyze, try to figure out what caused this most recent massacre, how to stop it, and then how to continue our work to end the occupation, end Israel's apartheid policies, and change U.S. policy to one of justice and equality for all.

*****
- The Israeli airstrikes represent serious violations of international law -including the Geneva Conventions and a range of international humanitarian law.

- The U.S. is complicit in the Israeli violations - directly and indirectly.

- The timing of the air strikes has far more to do with U.S. and Israeli politics than with protecting Israeli civilians.

- This serious escalation will push back any chance of serious negotiations between the parties that might have been part of the Obama administration's plans.

- There is much work to be done.

*****
Violations of International Law
The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip violate important tenants of international humanitarian law, including violations of the Geneva Conventions. The violations include both obligations of an Occupying Power to protect an Occupied Population, and the broader requirements of the laws of war that prohibit specific acts. The violations start with collective punishment - the entire 1.5 million people who live in the Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants.

Israel's claim that it is "responding to" or "retaliating for" Palestinian rocket attacks is spurious. The rocket fire as currently used is indeed illegal -Palestinians, like any people living under a hostile military occupation, have the right to resist, including the use of military force against the occupation. But that right does not include targeting civilians. The rockets used so far are unable to be aimed with any specificity, so they are in fact aimed at the civilians who live in the Israeli cities and towns, and so are illegal. The rocket fire against civilians should be ended - as many Palestinians believe, because it does not help end the occupation, but also because it is illegal under international law. However, that rocket fire, illegal or not, does not give Israel the right to punish the entire population for those actions. Such vengeance is the very essence of
"collective punishment" and is therefore unequivocally prohibited by the Geneva conventions.

Another Israeli violation involves targeting civilians. This violation involves three aspects. First, Israel claims the airstrikes were targeted directly at "Hamas-controlled" security-related institutions. Since the majority Hamas party controls the government in Gaza, virtually all the police departments and other security-related sites were hit. Those police and security agencies are civilian targets - not military. They are run by the Hamas-led government in Gaza, an institution completely separate from Gaza's military wing that has carried out some (though by no means the majority) of the rocket attacks. Second, some of the attacks directly struck incontestably civilian targets: a plastics factory, a local television broadcasting center. And third, the incredibly crowded conditions in Gaza, one of the most densely populated sites in the
world, mean that civilian casualties on a huge scale were an inevitable and predictable result. Such targeting of civilian areas is illegal.

The U.S. is also directly complicit in the violations of the Geneva Convention inherent in Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. Israel's actions - keeping Gazans locked in the Strip; closing the border crossings to almost all fuel, food, equipment and other basic humanitarian goods; preventing UN and other international human rights monitors and journalists from entering, and more - have all been backed and supported by the U.S. and others in the international
community. The resulting humanitarian crisis - reaching catastrophic
proportions even before the current air attacks - is partly the responsibility of the United States.

Still another violation involves the disproportionate nature of the military attack. The airstrikes have killed at least 270 people so far, injured more than 1,000, many of them seriously, and many remain buried under the rubble so the death toll will likely rise. This catastrophic impact was known and inevitable, and far outweighs any claim of self-defense or protection of Israeli civilians. (It should be noted that this escalation has not made Israelis safer; to the
contrary, the one Israeli killed by a Palestinian rocket attack on Saturday after the Israeli assault began, was the first such casualty in more than a year.)

Key human rights officials, particular the UN's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Professor Richard Falk, as well as Father Miguel d'Escoto, President of the General Assembly, have issued powerful statements identifying Israeli violations of international law as well as the UN's obligations to protect the Palestinian population. Falk statement:
https://exchange.umich.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=b2fdf54f080c4a0fb67231969b60c10f&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.unhchr.ch%2fhuricane%2fhuricane.nsf%2fview01%2fF1EC67EF7A498A30C125752D005D17F7%3fopendocument

But so far there has been no operative response from the UN Security Council. The Council statement, issued 28 December, was completely insufficient, essentially equating the culpability of the Occupying Power and of the occupied population for the violence that has so devastated Gaza. And the statement makes no reference to violations of international law inherent in the Israeli assaults, or in the siege of Gaza that has so drastically punished the entire
population. There is a clear need for the General Assembly to step in to reclaim the UN's role of protecting the world's people, certainly including the Palestinians, and not just responding to the demands of the world's powerful.

U.S. Complicity
The United States remains directly complicit in Israeli violations of
both U.S. domestic and international law through its continual provision of military aid. The current round of airstrikes have been carried out largely with F-16 bombers and Apache attack helicopters, both provided to Israel through U.S. military aid grants of about $3 billion in U.S. taxpayer money sent to Israel every year. Between 2001 and 2006, Washington transferred to Israel more than $200 million worth of spare parts for its fleet of F-16's. Just last year, the
U.S. signed a $1.3 billion contract with the Raytheon corporation to provide Israel with thousands of TOW, Hellfire, and "bunker buster" missiles. In short, Israel's lethal attack today on the Gaza Strip could not have happened without the active military support of the United States.

Israel's attack violated U.S. law - specifically the Arms Export Control Act, which prohibits U.S. arms from being used for any purpose beyond a very narrowly-defined set of circumstances: use inside a country's borders for self-defense purposes. The Gaza assault did not meet those criteria. Certainly targeting police stations (even Israel did not claim Gazan police forces were responsible for the rockets) and television broadcast centers do not qualify as self-defense. And because the U.S. government has confirmed it was fully aware of Israeli plans for the attack before it occurred, the U.S. remains complicit in the violations. Further, the well-known history of Israeli violations of international law (detailed above) means U.S. government officials were aware of those violations, provided the arms to Israel anyway, and therefore remain complicit in the Israeli crimes.

The U.S. is also indirectly complicit through its protection of Israel in the United Nations. Its actions, including the use and threat of use of the U.S. veto in the Security Council and the reliance on raw power to pressure diplomats and governments to soften their criticism of Israel, all serve to protect Israel and keep it from being held accountable by the international community.

Timing of Israel's Attack on Gaza
The Israeli decision to launch the attacks on Gaza was a political, not security, decision. Just a day or two before the airstrikes, it was Israel that rejected Hamas's diplomatic initiative aimed at extending the six-month-long ceasefire that had frayed but largely stayed together since June, and that expired 26 December. Hamas officials, working through Egyptian mediators, had urged Israel to lift the siege of Gaza as the basis for continuing an extended ceasefire. Israel, including Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni, of the "centrist" (in the Israeli context) Kadima Party, rejected the proposal. Livni, who went to Egypt but refused to seriously consider the Hamas offer, is running in a tight race for prime minister; her top opponent is the further-right Benyamin Netanyahu of the officially hawkish Likud party, who has campaigned against Livni and the Kadima government for their alleged "soft" approach to the Palestinians.
With elections looming in February, no candidate can afford to appear
anything but super-militaristic.

Further, it is certain that the Israeli government was eager to move militarily while Bush was still in office. The Washington Post quoted a Bush administration official saying that Israel struck in Gaza "because they want it to be over before the next administration comes in. They can't predict how the next administration will handle it. And this is not the way they want to start with the new administration." The Israeli officials may or may not be right about President Obama's likelihood of responding differently than Bush on this issue - but it does point to a clear obligation on those of us in this country who
voted for Obama with hope, to do all that's necessary to press him to make good on the "change" he promised that gave rise to that hope.

Obama and Future Options
The escalation in Gaza will make it virtually impossible for any serious Israeli-Palestinian negotiations aimed at ending the occupation. It remains uncertain whether sponsorship of an immediate new round of bilateral negotiations was in fact on Barack Obama's initial post-inauguration agenda anyway. But the current crisis means that any negotiations, whether ostensibly Israeli Palestinian alone or officially involving the U.S.-controlled so-called "Quartet," will be able to go beyond a return to the pre-airstrike crisis period. That
earlier political crisis, still far from solved, was characterized by expanding settlements, the apartheid Wall and checkpoints crippling movement, commerce, and ordinary life across the West Bank, and a virtually impenetrable siege of Gaza that even before the current military assault, had created a humanitarian catastrophe.

So What do We Do?
The immediate answer is everything: write letters to Congress members and the State Department, demonstrate at the White House and the Israeli Embassy, write letters to the editor and op-eds for every news outlet we can find, call radio talk shows, protest the U.S. representatives at the UN and their protection of Israeli crimes. We need to engage with the Obama transition process and plan now for how we will keep the pressure on to really change U.S. policy in the Middle East. We should all join the global movement of outrage and solidarity with Gaza. There are a host of on-line petitions already - we should sign them all. The U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation is compiling action calls on our website - https://exchange.umich.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=b2fdf54f080c4a0fb67231969b60c10f&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.endtheoccupation.org

We have to do all of that.

But then. We can't stop with emergency mobilizations. We still have to build our movement for BDS - boycott, divestment and sanctions, to build a global campaign of non-violent economic pressure to force Israel to comply with international law. We have to challenge U.S. military aid that scaffolds Israel's military aggression, and U.S. political and diplomatic support that prevents the UN and the international community from holding Israel accountable for its
violations. We have to do serious education and advocacy work, learning from other movements that have come before about being brave enough to call something what it is: Israeli policies are apartheid policies, and must be challenged on that basis.

We have a lot of work to do.

____________________________________

Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. Her books include Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer in FAQ format
which many will find useful for education work in this urgent period.
https://exchange.umich.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=b2fdf54f080c4a0fb67231969b60c10f&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.interlinkbooks.com

Thanks to Josh Ruebner of the U.S. Campaign for some of the background
on U.S. military aid.

Israeli Conscientious Objector Jailed

2008-08-22T12:28:00.005-04:00

From the Israeli peace group, NEW PROFILE

CO Avichai Vaknin, 18, a pacifist conscientious objector from the town of Yehud, near Tel-Aviv, has been sentenced on 20 Aug. to 21 days in military prison.Avichai was not in contact with any organisation supporting objectors.

Having developed a pacifist outlook, he tried to appeal to the military authorities. Eventually, he was instructed by people in the Conscription Bureau to prepare a declaration of refusal, but this declaration was ignored by the authorities; he has not even appeared before the military so-called "Conscience Committee".

Avichai Vaknin's enlistment date was set to 14 Aug. Having received no response to his declaration of refusal, he did not report, writing to the military authorities that he still awaits a decision on his request for exemption. He was then summoned to a talk with a military officer, who made it clear that the army is not taking any steps on the matter, and that Avichai is considered officially to be AWOL.

Avichai then decided to report at the Induction Base and refuse orders to enlist, for which he was sentenced to 21 days in prison.Fortunately, while in detention and awaiting trial Avichai met CO Udi Nir, on whose case we have reported yesterday, and through Udi we were able to establish contact with Avichai himself and his family.

In his declaration of refusal, Avichai Vaknin wrote:
"Armies present themselves as providing the solution to civilians' security problems, but in fact armies are the ones that bear the responsibility for imperiling civilians' lives. Armies form the greatest threat to our lives. The violent and militant nature of these organisations is what threatens the security of civilians [...] Armies bear the responsibility for the invention of even newer and more effective ways of killing, for the fact that every day we see newer and more lethal weapons. Armies are responsible for the daily killing of children, women and men. As a pacifist, my worldview, my principles, and above all - my conscience - will not allow me to serve in such an organisation."

Avichai is due to be released from prison on 7 Sept. but may well be imprisoned again after his release. His prison address is:

Avichai Vaknin, ID number 030146277
Military Prison No. 6
Military Postal Code 01860,
IDFIsrael
Fax: ++972-4-9540580

Since the prison authorities often block mail from reaching imprisoned objectors, we also recommend you to send your letters of support and encouragement to Avichai via e-mail to shministim@gmail.com, and they will be printed out and delivered to him during visits.

In addition, you may want to follow some of our recommendations for action below.

Recommended Action
First of all, please circulate this message and the information contained in it as widely as possible, not only through e-mail, but also on websites, conventional media, by word of mouth, etc.

Other recommendations for action:
1. Sending Letters of SupportPlease send Avichai letters of support (preferably postcards or by fax) to the prison address above.
2. Letters to AuthoritiesIt is recommended to send letters of protest on Avichai's behalf, preferably by fax, to:
Mr. Ehud Barak, Minister of Defence
Ministry of Defence
37 Kaplan St.
Tel-Aviv 61909, Israel

E-mail: sar@mod.gov.il or pniot@mod.gov.il
Fax: ++972-3-696-27-57 / ++972-3-691-69-40 / ++972-3-691-79-15

Copies of your letters can also be sent to the commander of the military prison at:
Commander of Military Prison No. 6
Military Prison No. 6
Military postal number 01860
IDF Israel
Fax: ++972-4-9540580

Another useful address for sending copies would be the Military Attorney General:
Avichai Mandelblit, Chief Military Attorney
Military postal code 9605
IDFIsraelFax: ++972-3-569-43-70

It would be especially useful to send your appeals to the Commander of the Induction Base in Tel-HaShomer. It is this officer that ultimately decides whether an objector is to be exempted from military service or sent to another round in prison, and it is the same officer who is ultimately in charge of the military Conscience Committee:
Gadi Agmon, Commander of Induction Base, Meitav, Tel-HaShomer
Military Postal Code 02718
IDF Israel
Fax: ++972-3-737-60-52

For those of you who live outside Israel, it would be very effective to send protests to your local Israeli embassy. You can find the address of your local embassy on the web.

Here is a sample letter, which you can use, or better adapt, in sending appeals to authorities on the prisoners' behalf:

Dear Sir/Madam,
It has come to my attention that Avichai Vaknin, ID num. 030146277, a conscientious objector, has been imprisoned for his refusal to perform military service, and is held in Military Prison No. 6. The imprisonment of conscientious objectors such as Avichai Vaknin is a violation of international law, of basic human rights and of plain morals. I therefore call for the immediate and unconditional release from prison of Avichai Vaknin, without threat of further imprisonment in the future, and urge you and the system you are heading to respect the dignity and person of conscientious objectors, indeed of all human beings, in the future.

Sincerely,

3. Letters to media in Israel and in other countries
Writing op-ed pieces and letters to editors of media in Israel and other countries could also be quite useful in indirectly but powerfully pressuring the military authorities to let go of the objectors and in bringing their plight and their cause to public attention.

Here are some contact details for the main media outlets in Israel:
Ma'ariv
2 Karlibach St.
Tel-Aviv 67132Israel
Fax: +972-3-561-06-14
e-mail: editor@maariv.co.il

Yedioth Aharonoth
2 Moses St.
Tel-Aviv
Israel
Fax: +972-3-608-25-46

Ha'aretz (Hebrew)
21 Schocken St.
Tel-Aviv, 61001 Israel
Fax: +972-3-681-00-12

Ha'aretz (English edition)
21 Schocken St.
Tel-Aviv, 61001 Israel
Fax: +972-3-512-11-56
e-mail: letters@haaretz.co.il

Israel Hayom
2 Hashlosha St. The B1 Building
Tel-Aviv
Israel
e-mail: hayom@israelhayom.co.il

Jerusalem Post
P.O. Box 81
Jerusalem 91000
Israel
Fax: +972-2-538-95-27
e-mail: news@jpost.co.il or letters@jpost.co.il

Radio (fax numbers):Kol-Israel +972-2-531-33-15 and +972-3-694-47-09
Galei Zahal +972-3-512-67-20

Television (fax numbers):
Channel 1 +972-2-530-15-36
Channel 2 +972-2-533-98-09
Channel 10 +972-3-733-16-66

Methodists and Quakers

2008-07-31T17:23:00.004-04:00

Significant actions have been taken by the United Methodist Church in their strong, principled responses to human rights abuses of Palestinians and other oppressed groups. PIAG's Anne Remley has put together a comprehensive (and continually updated) list of Methodist actions supporting Palestinian human rights, several of which are described below.

The Methodists' vigorous discussions around human rights in Palestine/Israel and the actions they have agreed to take bring up a central set of questions that Quakers have wrestled with throughout their history:

Does Quaker faith and practice require us to be a-political, that is, to concentrate on relieving immediate suffering rather than "taking sides" in a conflict?

If we are not to take sides, what does it mean to "speak truth to power"?

Shall we hold that "truth" is always partial and relative, and that each person, group, or nation, has one version of the truth, that all versions should be respected and taken into account?

Or should we align ourselves with human rights advocates who insist there is a bottom line of fair, humane treatment that every human being deserves, and that those who violate human rights should be called out and, through nonviolent action, restrained from violence and oppression?

Or shall we imagine a third way, one that persuades aggressors to change by addressing fundamental needs and grievances and fears that they themselves have, while at the same time seeking to say, "We will not cooperate with your actions in any way, and we will speak up about the wrongness of those actions"?

We encourage readers, Quakers and otherwise, to give their own views on these questions using the comment function below.

The United Methodist Church General Conference has established a "socially responsible investment task force" focusing on Sudan, China, and the Middle East to examine how church investments may avoid linkage with companies involved in human rights abuses in all of these lands.

Some regional conferences now expect to continue their own ethical investment action to end corporate support for the Occupation under long-standing guidelines in the Methodist Book of Discipline that ask churches, regions, and agencies to avoid "investments that appear likely, directly or indirectly, to support violation(s) of human rights."

For example, in June, 2007 the Baltimore-Washington Conference "join[ed] a significant number of regional Methodist bodies in calling for a vigorous response to the occupation. Their declaration states that "our General Rules hold us first accountable to 'Doing no harm.'" But "financing the oppression and violence caused by the military occupation . . . with our investments harms every Israeli and Palestinian, including Christian, child, woman and man." The Conference joined "a proven means of non-violent protest to actively promote a peaceful resolution to the political violence [that is] harming, maiming and killing Israelis and Palestinians" -- violence that in fact "violates Christian principles, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and international law." The Conference called upon Methodist boards of pensions and health benefits, administrators, and financial councilors to determine which corporations supported by Methodist investments profit from the Occupation, as by demolishing homes, constructing the wall, or supporting violence against Israelis or Palestinians. They are to engage such corporations to end such practices and, if they fail, they are to sell the investments and notify all member churches. The Conference concluded with the prayer that these actions "will give hope to Palestinians and Israelis . . . including our Christian brothers and sisters in the region who have not been forgotten."

A Psychiatrist in Gaza

2008-07-10T04:00:00.003-04:00

This piece is an excerpt from "The Grief Counselor of Gaza" written by Palestinian psychiatrist Eyad Sarraj for the July - August 2008 edition of The Link (Volume 41, Issue 3), published by Americans for Middle East Understanding. A link to the full article can be found at the end.

The Martyr as Suicide Bomber

One day, in my clinic, a boy of 16 came to see me. He said: I am not a patient. I need your help.

I said: What is it you need?

He said: I need a bomb.

I said: What do you need a bomb for?

He said: I lived all my life in Gaza. I’ve read all the books on Palestine that I can get my hands on. And I’ve figured out a solution. And the solution is this: each one of us should kill a Jew and kill himself. And this is why I want a bomb.

I don’t know what happened to this boy. I didn’t give him his bomb. But it is a graphic example of how a Palestinian youth can feel after a long history of traumatization, victimization, and humiliation.

For a long time I, too, dreamed. I imagined myself attacking the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, rounding up its members and pinning them with my arrows to the ceiling.

A journalist once asked me to introduce him to a potential martyr.

“Why would you blow yourself up?” he asked the young man.

The young man replied: “Would you fight for your country or not? Of course you would. And you would be respected in your country as a brave man. So will I be remembered as a martyr.”

In the Koran, the most influential book in Arabia for the past 14 centuries, God promises Muslims who sacrifice themselves for the sake of Islam that they will not die. They will live on in paradise. Muslims, men and women, even secularists, hold to that promise. Heaven is the ultimate reward of the devout who have the courage to take the ultimate test of faith.

What the potential martyr did not say was that he was burning with a desire for revenge. What he did not say was that, at the age of six, he had witnessed his father being beaten by Israeli soldiers. The sight of his father being dragged away, blood running from his nose, never left him.

A 16-year-old boy in Gaza today is somebody who thinks of life as a prison. He’s not allowed to leave Gaza. He has seen bombings, and killings, and murders, and blood, and humiliation. He doesn’t think he has a future as a scientist, a doctor, an engineer. Sadly and tragically, many of them think that the best thing to do is to become a martyr.

As a psychologist, I look at this as a product of our environment. People are not born to become martyrs. People are not born to become heroes. If you have an environment of hope and joy, people will do everything to deter death, and killing, and murder. If you have an environment of hopelessness and despair, you have a martyr, someone who thinks death is the beginning of life.

There is a moment for any potential martyr when he or she decides to be one. But there is a process that takes them through this path, a process of a kind of internal transformation. Then the moment comes when the would-be martyr meets somebody—in a mosque, or on a street, or in a school, wherever—and that person introduces him to others who are prepared to help him attain heaven.

I have been asked over the years to explain to Western audiences why anyone in their right mind would want to kill themselves along with innocent people. Six years ago Paula Zahn of CNN asked me that question. I responded that today’s suicide bomber—or martyr, as we call them—are the children of the first intifada, many of whom, at the age of 6 or 7, witnessed soldiers beating their fathers or spitting at them in contempt. So much revenge has been bottled up within them. Now teenagers, their identity has become molded with the identity of their people who have been suffering for over a half century, since the uprooting from their homes in Palestine.

Zahn then played a video clip of United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claiming that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was giving thousands of dollars to the families of Palestinian martyrs.

Our interview continued:
Zahn: So Dr. Sarraj, how much of a motivating factor is this big money? We all know the economy in the Occupied Territories is in shambles.

Sarraj: Yeah. Well, in fact, from all the cases I have observed myself, in the clinic and outside the community, money or financial situation has never been a motive for anybody to kill himself really in such a way at all. The economy factor, or the education factor even, was not a significant one. What was very significant, in our research, was the personal history of trauma. The culture in which the people are brought up in and the type of—or the degree of faith these people have and their own interpretation of themselves, the nation, the conflict and Islam itself. That is the most—these are the most important factors.

With that, our interview came to an end.

I have said that the struggle of Palestinians today is how not to become a bomb and that the amazing thing is not the occurrence of suicide bombings, rather the rarity of them.

The outside world still finds it hard to grasp why this is so. It’s so much easier to say they do it for the money. They do it because for them martyrdom is a form of power, the power over death and life. In an environment of absolute despair, the model of the martyr tells you exactly what you feel, that life and death are equal. So the bomber becomes the model. And, yes, this is very sad.

Beyond Martyrdom
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter recently visited Gaza. In an article for The Guardian (May 8, 2008) he wrote: “The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world. An entire population is being brutally punished.”

In his article, President Carter makes reference to a report by B’Tselem, a leading Israeli human rights group, which says that 106 Palestinians were killed between February 27 and March 3 of this year. Fifty-four of them were civilians, and 25 were under the age of 18.

The president could have also cited an earlier report from B’Tselem showing that, after the Israeli disengagement on September 12, 2005, through July 25, 2007, 668 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip by Israeli security forces. Over half were non-combatants and 126 were children. During this same period, Qassam rockets and mortar shells fired by Palestinian militants killed eight Israelis, half of them civilians.

As Professor Sara Roy and I concluded in our Boston Globe article (Jan. 30, 2008), Gaza is no longer approaching economic collapse. It has collapsed. Given the intensity of repression it is facing, can the collapse of its society—family, neighborhood, and community structure—be far behind? If that happens, we shall all suffer the consequences for generations to come.

I have listened to so many stories of children who have been traumatized by what they have seen and heard, who suffer from loss of appetite, insomnia and fear of going out of their homes. For years parents have had to give their children sleeping pills at night because otherwise they cannot sleep. Now, we are running out of sleeping pills. And the question is: Are we running out of hope?

I agree with President Carter’s condemnation of Hamas’s rocket attacks on the Israeli town of Sderot. I concur with his urging Hamas to declare a unilateral ceasefire or to orchestrate with Israel a mutual agreement to terminate all military action in and around Gaza for an extended period.

Hamas leaders told the president they have made such overtures in the past that Israel has rejected, but that they were prepared to support a mutual ceasefire restricted to Gaza. This offer, too, Israel has rejected.
I have spent many years observing Hamas at close range and debating politics with its leaders. I believe it has an incentive to halt its terrorist activity. Following its astounding victory in Gaza’s municipal elections in May 2005, it now has a guaranteed political future when and if it chooses to abandon the armed struggle.

I believe, with President Carter, that the time has come “for strong voices in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere to speak out and condemn the human rights tragedy that has befallen the Palestinian people.”

My hope is that the new American administration will seek the path of diplomacy, not confrontation, in the Middle East. I believe that if you sit with Hamas and recognize that it is a major player, the question of the rockets can be resolved. If you don’t, and you continue to isolate the movement, the rockets will continue. There is no popular movement against the firing of rockets. How can people oppose this kind of resistance, if there is no hope of ending the occupation? People cheer rockets against Israel and will continue to do so until there is hope that Israel will end the occupation and give Palestinians back their land, their rights and their freedom.

To be sure, the chances of some kind of Palestinian-Israeli reconciliation are remote. Even if Palestinians want reconciliation, I think there is strong American resistance to the idea of any dialogue with Hamas.

The real player in the game today is the fundamentalist regime in America, and I doubt it is ready to talk to Hamas. Washington will simply collude with Israel to continue the siege. Our hope is that the next American administration will see things differently. Reconciliation is possible only if there are leaders of courage and wisdom on both sides.

I do see some hope on the Israeli side. Three years ago, I was stopped at a Gaza border crossing along with some colleagues. Inside the fortified post was an Israeli soldier, his face appearing every few minutes through a small opening in the concrete. To my surprise he called me over to ask, “Your friend says you are a psychiatrist. Can I ask you something?” “Yes,” I replied warily. The soldier said, “I have a problem, doctor. I live in a settlement in Hebron, and I want to leave.”

I hid my surprise and played the psychiatrist, listening calmly as this young man with his baby face and thin beard continued: “My parents want me to stay, but I know it will only lead to more killing. I don’t like it there, but I don’t want to anger my father and mother who have devoted their lives for me.”

After a moment, I said, “I think it is best if you talk about your feelings with your mother and your father. It will be best if you convince them of your decision. But I want to tell you something else, my friend. The soldier smiled in anticipation as I continued: “By choosing to talk to me about yourself, you made me feel proud of humanity and sure of its future.”

He stretched his arm through the hole to shake my hand, saying, “I trust you."

http://www.ameu.org/page.asp?iid=281&aid=597&pg=2

Letter to Barack Obama and John McCain

2008-06-19T10:26:00.002-04:00

This letter to presidential candidates was approved by Lake Erie Yearly Meeting last weekend, June 14-15. The sample is addressed to Barack Obama, but it will also be sent to John McCain, and local Quaker Meetings are asked to distribute it to state legislators and to the media.

June 17, 2008

The Honorable Barack Obama

Obama for America
P.O. Box 8102
Chicago, IL 60680

RE: Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process

As part of your campaign for President, you have recently pledged support for Israel, and for an Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Lake Erie Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) shares your desire for a resolution to the conflict so that both Israelis and Palestinians can live together in peace.

Friends and Friends organizations have a long history of involvement in this region of the world and have worked with both Palestinians and Jews. We encourage you to carefully consider the actual situation on the ground and the necessary preconditions to achieve such a just and lasting peace.

At the heart of much of the discussion of conditions for a peaceful resolution of the conflict is the idea of a “two-state” solution, an Israeli state and a Palestinian state side by side on the territory of historic Palestine. There are a number of obstacles, however, that together make such a solution well-nigh impossible. The central impediment is the massive settlement process, whereby in contravention of international law Israel has built settlements exclusively for Israeli Jewish citizens throughout the territories occupied in the 1967 war, on land expropriated from Palestinian inhabitants. These settlements together with the network of “bypass roads” which connect the settlements with each other and with Israel proper and are off-limits to most Palestinian traffic make up what one Israeli analyst refers to as “the matrix of control.” As long as this matrix of control is in place, cemented by a military occupation with its checkpoints and a myriad of other regulations that govern every aspect of the Palestinians’ lives, there can be no viable Palestinian state. What is more, Israel has declared that East Jerusalem and the rings of settlements surrounding Jerusalem constitute part of a Greater Jerusalem, and are thus part of Israel, and not part of the West Bank.

Another impediment to any lasting solution to the conflict is the Wall/ Separation Barrier currently being built — both along the 1967 de-facto borders [Green Line] and deep inside the occupied territories. This wall/barrier effectively makes the territories encompassed by it — primarily the large settlement blocs -- a part of Israel by creating “facts on the ground” prior to any negotiations as part of a comprehensive peace agreement. In addition, in large part the effect of this barrier is to cut off Palestinian farmers from their land either by denying them access altogether, or by making it extremely difficult for them to get to a crossing point that is anywhere near and where any permit they might have will be honored (even if the gate is open when they need to get to and from their land). The net effect of the barrier along with the numerous Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints throughout the occupied territories is that the Palestinian economic infrastructure is undermined, further increasing the Palestinians’ economic dependence on Israel and reducing any prospect of a viable Palestinian state.

Tied in with this issue is another central dilemma. If a two-state solution is no longer possible, in what way can Israel preserve its character as a Jewish nation-state? Israel already has a sizable Palestinian Arab minority living as Israeli citizens inside the boundaries of pre-1967 Israel, and many more Palestinians live in the occupied territories.

If all of these inhabitants of the land become part of a bi-national state, then Israel’s definition as Jewish national state is called into question. Alternatively, if Israel is defined as a Jewish national state encompassing formally or de-facto all of the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River then Palestinians there (inside pre-1967 Israel and outside) have an ambiguous future. Already there have been calls for Israeli Arab citizens to be deported to a Palestinian state (possibly even to Jordan) and if as a result of the “matrix of control” there is no such state in any meaningful sense of the word, then Israel would continue to rule over a mass of Palestinians, among whom would be those stripped of what status they now have as Israeli citizens.

There is one other issue that impacts on the possibility of a just and lasting peace. All groups representative of the Palestinian interests must be included in the negotiating process, not just the Palestinian Authority. In addition, ALL sides to the conflict must renounce the use of violence, thereby cutting through the recurring cycle of violence and justifications for the use of force.

It is our belief that unless the above issues are comprehensively addressed there can be no peace in this conflict, nor in the region as a whole. Also, unless the United States facilitates this process it will lose any semblance of its claim to be an honest broker in ending the conflict. We hope that you will keep these considerations in mind, both as a candidate and as the one who ultimately is elected President.

Sincerely,

Shirley Bechill

Presiding Clerk

Lake Erie Yearly Meeting, Religious Society of Friends (Quaker)

(LEYM includes Monthly Meetings and Worship Groups in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia)

An experiment in building a better world

2008-06-06T10:05:00.003-04:00

Natasha Tsangarides, The Electronic Intifada, 4 June 2008

Freedom Clothing Project Ltd is a UK not-for-profit cooperative founded in 2005, comprising a small handful of friends and relations. The Electronic Intifada contributor Natasha Tsangarides spoke to project director Joe Turner about his work and the current trading obstacles:

Natasha Tsangarides: Could you tell me a little bit about Freedom Clothing and what it seeks to achieve?

Joe Turner: Freedom Clothing Project is an experiment in building a better world -- I know that sounds a bit grand, but we wanted to try to make a clothing company unlike any other. It is a cooperative, so there are no shareholders, and [we are] a non-profit so we're not primarily motivated by making money and the dream is of products that benefit those people that others ignore. It has been a long and bumpy road, but basically we went to Palestine and got a factory there to make organic cotton clothing. Later, we took another brand there, and they're now also exporting from Palestine. It is quite a small success in the scheme of things, but we're still dreaming and still struggling to make our dreams come about.

NT: From your experience, what are the sorts of obstacles facing suppliers when it comes to trade, exports and access to markets?

JT: Well, we all know about the checkpoints, travel restrictions and so on. These all make trade extremely difficult. But I'd say the primary barrier is emotional fatigue. For example, in the clothing sector, there used to be hundreds of small factories in the Bethlehem area alone. Of those, there are now less than a couple of dozen that survive, and a handful that are profitable. In total, there are very few sectors of the Palestinian economy that are operating as they should, and the result is high unemployment and lack of opportunity. Few now have the strength of imagination or finances to think of ways to keep going.And the fact is that all of us who claim to be supporters of [the] Palestinians share some responsibility in that -- Palestinian products should be like gold-dust around the world, we should make it a priority to support their economic intifada in any way we can. Most working businesses in Palestine are dependent directly or indirectly on Israeli trade because they have no other options to trade with. Two examples: I once went to a factory which was making dark green uniforms. In talking to the owner, he said he thought it was eventually going to the IDF (he was subcontracting the work from an Israeli clothing company). I asked why he was doing it if that was true, and he shrugged and said he needed work to pay his employees.[The second example, are] Jerusalem gold tiles [which] are well known in the international market. They are almost all marketed by Israeli wholesalers. Yet all the quarries are in Hebron and are Palestinian owned. This has meant that the businesses are insulated from the international market and find it extremely difficult to work directly with customers. Most do not understand the quality and customer service expected by international customers. To be fair, this is changing.

NT: On a wider scale, how has the building of the wall in the West Bank affected trade and private employment opportunities?

JT: The wall has cut off many people from their jobs in Israel. In terms of trade, it has often meant long delays in the transportation of products and the loss of customers, particularly in Israel. Given that so much of the Palestinian economy is in agriculture delays have been catastrophic. In Gaza, whilst there is a large strawberry crop, it is impossible to sell it to anyone other than the Israeli-owned monopoly Agrexco, who have special security arrangements to allow export of their products. In the West Bank, difficulties of movement mean that it is conveniently easier for shops to [stock] Israeli or foreign products than to attempt to stock products produced in other West Bank towns.

NT: Inflation is the latest problem to afflict Palestinians, with food prices rising by around five percent. How is this going to affect the private sector?

JT: Palestinian products are already very expensive on the world market due to relatively high [labor] costs. Extra costs are going to make them even less competitive. Given the stranglehold that Israel has on trade going in and out of Palestine and the extra costs of raw materials and travel, I'd say the future is bleak.

NT: Douglas Alexander, British Member of Parliament, sees the recent Bethlehem Investment Conference as a "key milestone," arguing that "aid and development bolster the peace process." Do you see this conference as a progressive step?

JT: It is fair to say that there are mixed feelings about the investment conference. On a very basic level, investors are going to try to limit their risk by putting money into sound businesses. Given that there are so few profitable businesses, this is likely to just make the richest men in Palestine even richer. I am not convinced that it will really help those at the bottom -- who is going to invest in Palestinian handicrafts or olive oil? I guess we will have to wait to see the long term outcomes, but -- along with many Palestinians -- I'm not really holding out much hope. NT: Means of resisting economic colonization are extremely difficult. How is Freedom Clothing affecting change and what responsibilities should purchasers overseas have?

JT: This is an important question and I'm not sure I can really answer adequately. Our attitude has been that it is important to bring ongoing work to Palestinian businesses and that we will try to do that in a way that helps not hurts those at the bottom of the economic pile. But the reality is that those things can be in conflict -- and in an uncertain market with so few people actively attempting to buy Palestinian [products], there is little leverage to apply to affect change. I'd like to force increases in pay in the places we work, but recognize that without ongoing orders, that is unlikely to happen.I think the main responsibility of overseas purchasers is to hold on to the hope of a better life for the Palestinians, particularly those forgotten at the bottom -- which so many seem to have given up believing in -- and to generate creative ideas about how to produce and sell things from Palestine that have a competitive edge. There must be many people around the world with expertise and knowledge of various markets which Palestinians could work in if they knew about it, but need help to change and help to gain knowledge of them. I often lie in bed at night and dream of a magic idea which would suddenly give Palestinians a competitive edge and [revitalize] the economy. But it hasn't come yet.

Natasha Tsangarides is a freelance journalist based in London.

On Dialogue

2008-02-12T10:27:00.000-05:00

This piece is excerpted from an op-ed by Stephen Mutoro, in the Kenyan newspaper, "The Standard" (2/11/08). Although it was written to address the international attempts to calm the post-election violence in Kenya, the piece has implications for the Israel Palestine impasse as well. Everyone talks about dialogue, says Mutoro, but few stop to think what useful dialogue should be about.

"A dialogue to write home about is one in which parties to a given dispute do not aim at merely winning their respective goals. It is about achieving a "common ground" through careful understanding of both positions. It is also about accommodating the other party without overly compromising one's strongest principles.

Common ground is a position at which warring parties derive genuinely shared values, beliefs, concerns and interests. Debates are neither about empathy nor connective listening to the other party. They are about detecting and zeroing in on the purported weaknesses and errors on the opposing side.

When protagonists accuse and counter-accuse each other, point fingers and appear to intimidate their opponents under the guise of winning favour, they are simply debating.

But what exactly are weaknesses of dialogue as a process? The first pitfall of dialogue is that it assumes that both parties are actually wrong or right on a matter under dispute. That assumption is largely deceptive.

According to Jonathan Kuttab, an experienced dialogue expert on the Israel-Palestine conflict, individuals engaged in dialogue tend to gloss over basic conflict issues. They appear rather "prone to be very reasonable, sensitive, wonderful people, and they feel a desperate urgency to have everybody agree with everyone else".

What is more? They have a natural tendency to avoid "tough and rough" issues. Most commonly, they would appear to worry more about the less pertinent issues.

Another dark side of those who switch into a dialogue mode is that they appear to succumb to pressure to compromise on issues of principle for which both sides passionately hold dear. To have to come together, such dialoguers must accept some necessary "moral evil".

Some people take dialogue for a substitute of action. To them a dialogue is too important that it is deemed an end in itself. As such, there is often too much unrealistic expectation pegged on dialogue. Even the media often moves its spotlight from the oppressed, victims and those vulnerable. The danger with such a development is that should the said dialogue collapse, all hell would break loose -with fewer available options.

Dialogue often calls for an unjust co-option. In political scenarios, it is called 'power-sharing'. In the example of the biblical case of King Solomon resolving the case of the two women laying a spirited claim to one child - "power-sharing" can be akin to literally splitting the proverbial child into two to be unduly 'shared' by the two when it actually belongs to one of them.

For these reasons, a proper model of dialogue is often elusive and the most difficult to call. But what exactly are the ingredients of a proper dialogue?

Firstly, genuine dialogue is premised on the need to seek nothing but the truth. Falsifying issues for the sake of a temporary accommodation often has severe reprisals.

In seeking the truth, it is better going for the real protagonists and not necessarily settle for 'moderates' or 'like-minded' negotiators for a quick fix. It never works that way. If it works, it won't last.

Secondly, a good dialogue process is one that is devoid of panaceas. It does not attempt to find a "magic" formula as a way out of the impasse. The need to have negotiators agree across the board -and have them consult their principals at every stage -cements the possibility of possible cracks in future.

Thirdly, one party should not manipulate the other for personal or short-term benefits.

Finally, having the 'bigger picture' in mind as either side engages in dialogue has the potential to shift hardliners from narrow selfish and partisan position to a society's or a country's national interest."

The writer is the chief executive officer, the Kenya Alliance of Resident Associations

Let's get the candidates talking about Israel-Palestine

2008-01-20T15:48:00.000-05:00

5 Questions On Israel For The Next Debate
01/18/08 2:06 PM

From Mother Jones.com:

As I've said before, there's been a vacuum surrounding Israel and Palestine this campaign season. Moderators have broached the issue only twice in the last 13 debates. And the most recent question, posed by Wendell Goler last week at the Fox News debate in South Carolina, was pretty weak. As Goler wound up—"Mayor Giuliani, President Bush is in the Middle East ... laying the groundwork for a Palestinian state"—there was, briefly, a glimmer of hope. Then he tossed this doozy of a softball: "I wonder, sir, how you would keep a Palestinian state from becoming a breeding ground for anti-American terrorism." One of several surreal assumptions behind the question seemed to be, "The Palestinians are prostrate, mightn't it be better if they're kept that way?" And that to the candidate with the Likudnik A-team advising him. Oh, well.

Since the debates have been so deficient in this area, I asked five well-informed Middle East observers what they would ask the candidates on the issue, if they could ask anything. The only ground rule was to keep it brief; no other boundaries. Here are their responses:

From Juan Cole of Informed Comment: Has Israeli colonization of the West Bank proceeded to the point where a two-state solution has become impractical? And, if so, isn't there now a choice between an Apartheid state or a one-state solution?

From Matthew Duss of TAPPED: Recognizing that Israel's settlements in the occupied territories are considered illegal under international law, and recognizing that their relentless expansion, which has continued over the last decade despite repeated Israeli assurances to the contrary, is both a source of Palestinian suffering and a major instigator of extremism and violence, as well as being deeply prejudicial to final status negotiations, are you prepared to take a firm stand against the settlements, and to carry through with real consequences if Israel does not cease settlement expansion?

From Trita Parsi, author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States: Since 1993, the United States has pursued a policy of seeking peace between Israel and Palestine by isolating Iran. As former Assistant Secretary of State Martin Indyk said, the two were symbiotic. Peace was necessary to isolate Iran, isolating Iran was necessary for peace. Fifteen years later, we can conclude that this strategy was an utter failure. Yet, the Bush Administration is following a similar path, seeking to create an alliance of Israel and Sunni Arab dictatorships to isolate Iran under the guise of peacemaking. In your administration, how would you approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? By repeating the Bush/Clinton policy or by pursuing a holistic approach aimed at giving all regional actors a stake in the outcome and process of peacemaking?

From Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss: Why is it that our last two presidents only made a major push on Israel/Palestine at the end of their 8-year terms, when they had nothing politically to lose? Doesn't this show that this is the big enchilada in foreign affairs and that our politics around this issue are unhealthy? What will you do differently, before your 8 years are up?

From Stephen Zunes of Foreign Policy in Focus: For Senator Clinton. During the 2006 war in Lebanon, you co-sponsored a resolution condemning Hezbollah for its alleged use of "human shields." Since then, detailed on-the-ground studies by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, while highly critical of Hezbollah's responsibility for civilian deaths in Israel, have challenged the claims by the Bush administration that Hezbollah's alleged use of "human shields" contributed to the high numbers of civilian deaths from Israeli bombardment in Lebanon. Similarly, the reports of these credible human rights organizations have placed responsibility for the vast majority of the 800 Lebanese civilian deaths on the government of Israel. Are you willing to acknowledge that Israel was culpable for most of the Lebanese civilian deaths? And, as president, would you belittle the findings of human rights groups in order to support violations of international humanitarian law by U.S. allies?

—Justin Elliott
- Mother Jones

Have a good question for the candidates on Israel? Put proposals on PIAG's comments.

"We are blessed -- or cursed -- to live with each other. I prefer the first."

2008-01-16T19:11:00.000-05:00

Israeli pianist Daniel Barenboim takes Palestinian citizenship
By News Agencies Haaretz - 13 January 2008
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/944235.html

Daniel Barenboim, the world renowned Israeli pianist and conductor, has taken Palestinian citizenship and said he believed his rare new status could serve as a model for peace between the two peoples.

"It is a great honor to be offered a passport," he said late on Saturday after a Beethoven piano recital in Ramallah, the West Bank city where he has been active for some years in promoting contact between young Arab and Israeli musicians. "I have also accepted it because I believe that the destinies of ... the Israeli people and the Palestinian people are inextricably linked," Barenboim said. "We are blessed - or cursed - to live with each other. And I prefer the first."

"The fact that an Israeli citizen can be awarded a Palestinian passport can be a sign that it is actually possible," he continued. Former Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouthi, who helped organize Saturday's concert, said the passport had been approved by the previous government of which he was a member and which was replaced in June. The passport had actually been issued about six weeks ago, he added.

Argentine-born Barenboim, 65, is a controversial figure in his adoptive homeland, both for his promotion of 19th-century composer Richard Wagner - whose music and anti-Semitic writings influenced Adolf Hitler - and vocal opposition to Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories.

Asked about U.S. President George W. Bush's remarks last week on a visit to the region that a peace could be signed this year, Barenboim warned of the danger of raising hopes too high. "It would be absolutely horrible if now, with good intentions, expectations are raised which will not be able to be fulfilled," Barenboim said. "Then we will sink into an even greater depression."

Though he dismissed any wish to play a political role, the former music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra took a dig at Bush's strikingly forceful call in Jerusalem last week for Israel to end, in the president's own words, "the occupation."

"Now even not very intelligent people are saying that the occupation has to be stopped," Barenboim said. Along with the late Palestinian academic Edward Said, he co-founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, made up of young musicians from Israel, the Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab countries.

2007-12-19T11:35:00.000-05:00

A November 2007 report by The International Committee of the Red Cross details the denial of dignity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in words and pictures: http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/palestine-report-131207
One particularly tragic story tells of a Palestinian family who had to watch a wildfire destroy their farmlands and orchards because a gate separating them from their property was "not scheduled to open." We were woken up by the light of the flames. We ran out and saw that our olive trees were burning. The fire birgade could not reach the fields because the gate was closed. Our fields are behind the West Bank Barrier and we cannot access them every day, so we could not clean the land properly. That evening we could do nothing but watch our trees burn, because the gate was closed."
Indignities such as this one do not create an atmosphere for a just and lasting peace.

Annapolis

2007-11-29T06:57:00.000-05:00

Gene Stolzfus is the former director of Christian Peacemaker Teams, now retired.
Tue 2007-11-27
This week negotiations are to take place in Annapolis, MD to once again set in motion a final settlement for Israel and Palestine. Annapolis, just outside of Washington DC is the home of the United States College that trains professional Naval officers. In keeping with a long tradition of high profile mediation/negotiation events, this one is named for the place it occurs. Sixty years ago this week the newly formed United Nations voted to establish a divided land of Israel and Palestine on what was formerly the Palestinian outpost of the Ottoman and later British Empires.

I am not overwhelmed with hope that this will achieve more than Oslo, Camp David and other grand handshakes and shadowy attempts to end the conflict.Secretary of State Rice has scurried about trying to collect co-participants who can sign on to the conference and its scripted outcome. No one is using the term peace very often because of the constellation of seemingly intractable issues - Jerusalem, a 700 metre wall (twice as high as the Berlin wall) built largely in what Palestinians believe to be their territory, more than five hundred Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank, millions of Palestinian refugees resulting from the UN decision 60 years ago, Israeli settlements distributed strategically to aid its continuing military presence, conflicting understandings about water rights. These are generally the same issues that were in play at the end of the unsuccessful Clinton Administration's efforts seven years ago. The Palestinians were blamed for that failure. In the real world neither Israel nor Palestine can compromise significantly over any of these without risking a political firestorm from their own constituents.

On my first trip to Hebron 17 years ago I walked among Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the region where King David, my childhood hero, launched his insurgency against King Saul. The energy of hatred was in the air. My guide Zoughbi Zoughbi, then of the Middle East Council of Churches, wanted us to talk to the people. We couldn't find anyone in the newly formed Jewish settlement in the heart of Hebron to talk to us. As I left Hebron, from the window of the van I admired grape vineyards dating back centuries, many now destroyed by West Bank occupiers. I remembered David, the state he built and I reflected on the temptations and contradictions of centralized authority.

I wasn't introduced to the lessons and troubles of statehood in the Sunday School class where I learned to revere David.Unlike the strong man David, the three key political leaders at Annapolis are weak, probably nearing the end of their reigns. Bush, the partial mediator (as a opposed to an impartial and neutral mediator) has just over a year left in his Presidential term. The Israeli government of Ehud Olmert is holding on in the wake of the disappointing outcome of its most recent war in Lebanon. The democratically elected, Saudi supported Hamas in Gaza is cut off from the Fatah ruled West Bank and Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas who leads Palestine to the negotiations.

In Israel, people hold tightly to the vision for and gains of a secure homeland as the answer to persecution and holocaust. The split in Palestinian politics is welcomed by Israel. With limited trust in the non impartial mediator, and a Middle East now skewed by disaster in Iraq, people in the region and the international community do not expect a great break through. Both principal players, Israel and Palestine, rely on the energy of victim hood that runs deep.

Sometimes people just get exhausted from war. Soldiers tire of insulting and victimizing innocent people. People get tired of being insulted. Anger gets frozen into a permanent state of hatred. People even get tired of hating. Tactics that once brought temporary relief or the thrill of victory no longer work. Strategists run out of new strategies. Whole populations or significant parts thereof turn silent, depressed. Social sickness takes a toll on generations who have burrowed themselves into narrow rigid strategies.

The West including Christians once turned its back on the reality of persecution of Jews in Europe and now is often blind to the suffering its ways have brought to Arab and Muslim lands. The interplay of western guilt and regional victim hood alone cannot provide the basic energy to sustain life or war.Wars sometimes end because people get tired of fighting. Exhaustion from generations of roadblocks creates anger that is turned on their families, communities, principalities or national leaders.

Big powers grow tired of paying for the war or using their inherent limits of political capital to make things come out in their interest. Negotiations for autonomy, two state or one state solutions come and go, but the conditions that challenge the balance of justice persist. But tired, weakened actors sometimes do things that strong confident or revolutionary personalities would not imagine possible. Let us remember that Sadat's breakthrough visit to Jerusalem thirty years ago or Ghandhi's triumphs over Empire were based on the collective strength of tired and weakened populations.

"Peace is the collective responsibility of all of us" said my long time Palestinian friend Zoughbi Zoughbi, activist, mediator, and now Bethlehem based politician who recently spoke in Winnipeg, Canada. I know that there are people world wide who are praying for a noble surprise. But in case there is no surprise, let us watch this moment for the inward awakenings that may be coaxed to consciousness within each of us who are skeptics, and doubt the word, the conditions, and the intentions of those who are persuaded to come to Annapolis.

Collective responsibility means that we are all players.As players we have earned the right to understand that wholeness in life need not be curtailed nor subverted permanently by the language of guilt, holocaust and the legacy of two thousand years of separation from Jewish cousins. As players who are susceptible to popularized notions of terrorism we can acknowledge that minority fundamentalist militant Islam received crucial support from the US in the 1980s for its start among the Taliban when it became a frontline member of the crusade to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. And, we can honestly acknowledge that the Israeli Labour government`s support for Hamas in order to weaken Arafat's PLO in the same time period, gave a crucial boost to radical Islam, expressed in Hamas.

Collective responsibility means that those of us in the private world seize every opportunity to honestly observe and demythologize the political and religious superstitions like "Muslims are terrorists" or "Jews will never be satisfied or feel secure". These ideas run rampant in the larger culture and even may be reflected this holiday season of peace when families gather for food and conversation unless we challenge them.

This is a call to action, but a call must recognize our own tiredness with the thought that fairness continues to be swallowed up in the geography of apartheid. As we learn to function out of the better angels within us and allow our anger to be dissolved into thoughtful strategies that overcome the stalemate, we may find a way together. Some of us will use words. Some of us will use the artistry of the streets. Some of us will listen with the strength of imagination. Some of us will organize across the boundaries so evident among the representatives in Annapolis.

We will not be misled by unrealistic expectations of Annapolis. But we will be open to the surprises that the Spirit who also is resident in our world wants to show us. We will be ready to join with the Spirit.
- Gene Stolzfus

How to Get Out?

2007-11-19T12:33:00.000-05:00

by Uri Avnery
17/11/07

THE ANNAPOLIS conference is a joke. Though not in the least funny.

Like quite a lot of political initiatives, this one too, according to all the indications, started more or less by accident. George Bush was due to make a speech. He was looking for a theme that would give it some substance. Something that would divert attention away from his fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan. Something simple, optimistic, easy to swallow.

Somehow, the idea of a "meeting" of leaders to promote the Israeli-Palestinian "process" came up. An international meeting is always nice - it looks good on television, it provides plenty of photo-opportunities, it radiates optimism. We meet, ergo we exist.

So Bush voiced the idea: a "meeting" for the promotion of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Without any preceding strategic planning, any careful preparations, anything much at all.

That's why Bush did not go into any details: no clear aim, no agenda, no location, no date, no list of invitees. Just an ethereal meeting. This fact by itself testifies to the lack of seriousness of the entire enterprise.

This may shock people who have never seen close up how politics are actually conducted. It is hard to accept the intolerable lightness with which decisions are often made, the irresponsibility of leaders and the arbitrary way important processes are set in motion.

FROM THE MOMENT this idea was launched, it could not be called back. The President has spoken, the initiative starts on its way. As the saying goes: One fool throws a stone into the water, a dozen wise men cannot retrieve it.

Once the "meeting" had been announced, it became an important enterprise. The experts of all parties started to work frantically on the undefined event, each trying to steer it in the direction which would benefit them the most.

Bush and Condoleezza Rice want an impressive event, to prove that the United States is vigorously promoting peace and democracy, and that they can succeed where the great Henry Kissinger failed. Jimmy Carter failed to turn the Israeli-Egyptian peace into an Israeli-Palestinian peace. Bill Clinton failed at Camp David. If Bush succeeds where all his illustrious predecessors have failed, won't that show who is the greatest of them all?

Ehud Olmert urgently needs a resounding political achievement in order to blur the memory of his dismal failure in the Second Lebanon War and to extricate himself from the dozen or so criminal investigations for corruption that are pursuing him. His ambition knows no bounds: he wants to be photographed shaking the hand of the King of Saudi Arabia. A feat no Israeli prime minister before him has achieved.

Mahmoud Abbas wants to show Hamas and the rebellious factions in his own Fatah movement that he can succeed where the great Yasser Arafat failed - to be accepted among the world's leaders as an equal partner.

This could, therefore, become a great, almost historic conference, if …

IF ALL these hopes were something more than pipedreams. None of them has any substance. For one simple reason: no one of the three partners has any capital at his disposal.

Bush is bankrupt. In order to succeed at Annapolis, he would have to exert intense pressure on Israel, to compel it to take the necessary steps: agree to the establishment of a real Palestinian state, give up East Jerusalem, restore the Green Line border (with some small swaps of territory), find an agreed-upon compromise formula for the refugee issue.

But Bush is quite unable to exert the slightest pressure on Israel, even if he wanted to. In the US, the election season has already begun, and the two big parties are bulwarks standing in the way of any pressure on Israel. The Jewish and Evangelistic lobbies, together with the neo-cons, will not allow one critical word about Israel to be uttered unpunished.

Olmert is in an even weaker position. His coalition still survives only because there is no alternative in the present Knesset. It includes elements that in any other country would be called fascist (For historical reasons, Israelis don't like to use this term). He is prevented by his partners from making any compromise, however tiny - even if he wanted to reach an agreement.

This week, the Knesset adopted a bill that requires a two-thirds majority for any change of the borders of Greater Jerusalem. This means that Olmert cannot even give up one of the outlying Palestinian villages that were annexed to Jerusalem in 1967. He is also prevented from even approaching the 'core issues" of the conflict.

Mahmoud Abbas cannot move away from the conditions laid down by Yasser Arafat (the 3rd anniversary of whose death was commemorated this week). If he strays from the straight and narrow, he will fall. He has already lost the Gaza Strip, and can lose the West Bank, too. On the other side, if he threatens violence, he will lose all he has got: the favor of Bush and the cooperation of the Israeli security forces.

The three poker players are going to sit down together, pretending to start the game, while none of them has a cent to put on the table.

THE MAJESTIC mountain seems to be getting smaller and smaller by the minute. It's against the laws of nature: the closer we get to it, the smaller it seems. What looked to many like a veritable Mt. Everest first turned into an ordinary mountain, then into a hill, and now it hardly looks like an anthill. And even that is shrinking, too.

First the participants were to deal with the "core issues". Then it was announced that a weighty declaration of intentions was to be adopted. Then a mere collection of empty phrases was proposed. Now even that is in doubt.

Not one of the three leaders is still dreaming of an achievement. All they hope for now is to minimize the damage - but how to get out of a situation like this?

As usual, our side is the most creative at this task. After all, we are experts in building roadblocks, walls and fences. This week, an obstacle larger then the Great Wall of China appeared.

Ehud Olmert demanded that, before any negotiations, the Palestinians "recognize Israel as a Jewish state". He was followed by his coalition partner, the ultra-right Avigdor Liberman, who proposed staying away from Annapolis altogether if the Palestinians do not fulfill this demand in advance.

Let's examine this condition for a moment:
The Palestinians are not required to recognize the state of Israel. After all, they have already done so in the Oslo agreement - in spite of the fact that Israel has yet to recognize the right of the Palestinians to a state of their own based on the Green Line borders.

No, the government of Israel demands much more: the Palestinians must now recognize Israel as a "Jewish state".

Does the USA demand to be recognized as a "Christian" or "Anglo-Saxon state"? Did Stalin demand that the US recognize the Soviet Union as a "Communist state"? Does Poland demand to be recognized as a "Catholic state", or Pakistan as an "Islamic state"? Is there any precedent at all for a state to demand the recognition of its domestic regime?

The demand is ridiculous per se. But this can easily be shown by analysis ad absurdum.

What is a "Jewish state"? That has never been spelled out. Is it a state with a majority of Jewish citizens? Is it "the state of the Jewish people" - meaning the Jews from Brooklyn, Paris and Moscow? Is it "a state belonging to the Jewish religion" - and if so, does it belong to secular Jews as well? Or perhaps it belongs only to Jews under the Law of Return - i.e. those with a Jewish mother who have not converted to another religion?

These questions have not been decided. Are the Palestinians required to recognize something that is the subject of debate in Israel itself?

According to the official doctrine, Israel is a "Jewish and democratic state". What should the Palestinians do if, according to democratic principles, some day my opinion prevails and Israel becomes an "Israeli state" that belongs to all its citizens - and to them alone? (After all, the US belongs to all its citizens, including Hispanic-Americans, African-Americans, not to mention "Native-Americans".)

The sting is, of course, that this formula is quite unacceptable to Palestinians because it would hurt the million and a half Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. The definition "Jewish state" turns them automatically into - at best - second class citizens. If Mahmoud Abbas and his colleagues were to accede to this demand, they would be sticking a knife in the backs of their own relatives.

Olmert & Co. know this, of course. They are not posing this demand in order to get it accepted. They pose it in order that it not be accepted. By this ploy they hope to avoid any obligation to start meaningful negotiations.

Moreover, according to the deceased Road Map, which all parties pretend to accept, Israel must dismantle all settlements set up after March, 2000, and freeze all the others. Olmert is quite unable to do that. At the same time, Mahmoud Abbas must destroy the "terror infrastructure". Abbas can't do that either - as long as there is no independent Palestinian state with an elected government.

I imagine Bush tossing and turning in his bed at night, cursing the speechwriter who put this miserable sentence into his mouth. On their way to heaven, his curses must be mingling with those of Olmert and Abbas.

WHEN THE leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine were about to sign the Declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, the document was not ready. Sitting in front of the cameras and history, they had to sign on an empty page. I am afraid that something like that will happen in Annapolis.

And then all of them will head back to their respective homes, heaving a heartfelt sigh of relief.

International Survey of Boycotts, Divestment Actions, and Sanctions

2007-11-04T09:14:00.000-05:00

The Palestine Israel Action Group of Ann Arbor Friends Meeting has developed an extensive Survey of Approaches to Ethical Economic Engagement taken by religious and secular organizations worldwide on behalf of Palestinian human rights. This on-going review covers churches and church councils, Israeli and Palestinian peace organizations, labor unions, NGOs, associations of doctors, lawyers, journalists, colleges and universities, governmental and political organizations, and actions of individuals. Approaches range from gentle persuasion through discussion, education, letter writing, and informational meetings, to active opposition and refusal to cooperate with violence and oppression.

Time for Real Peace Negotiations

2007-11-03T17:07:00.000-04:00

Facing Hamas and Hezbollah
by HELENA COBBAN
from the November 19, 2007 issue of The Nation

One sunny morning in September 1993 I sat on the White House lawn, watching bemused as American political notables lined up for a "grip and grin" photo with Yasir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin. For twenty-five years previously--and until just days before that morning's signing of the Oslo Accord--Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization had been judged by the US government to bea "foreign terrorist organization." On Capitol Hill and in most of the mainstream media, the excoriation of Arafat and the PLO had beenlong-lasting and virulent. But now, here were scores of Congressional leaders and media bigwigs lining up to be part of the new pro-Oslozeitgeist.What made the difference was that the Israeli government had shifted its stance. When that shift was made public, virtually the entire US political class turned on a dime. Today two very significant forces in the MiddleEast--Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon--are in nearly the same position the PLO was locked into before the early 1990s. Indeed, this time the United States is more directly participating in hostile actions against the current "untouchables" than it ever was against the pre-Oslo PLO. AfterHamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006, the BushAdministration orchestrated a harsh boycott of the new Hamas-led government,which left Washington's "pro-democracy" stance in the Middle East in tatters. Then in summer 2006, when Israeli airplanes and artillery were trying to wipe Hezbollah--and much of Lebanon's national infrastructure--off the map, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice worked overtime to prevent the Security Council from calling a cease-fire.Our country's diplomacy has been held hostage to Israel's preference to fight rather than engage with these two significant movements. But the United States has its own extremely pressing interests in the Middle East. Key among these are the need to find a way to withdraw from Iraq and radically de-escalate tensions with Iran in order to minimize US losses and lethal disorder in the region. There are many close links between thePersian Gulf and the Arab-Israeli theater. As the Baker-Hamilton report of last year rightly noted, if Washington wants to avoid catastrophe in Iraq, it must be prepared to undertake a vigorous and effective push for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Recently, the Bush Administration has attempted to look as if it is doing something on this issue. Bush and Rice are trying to organize a November summit in Annapolis to be attended by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The Administration is also hoping for high-level representation from theArab states, especially Saudi Arabia. But Washington has deliberately excluded Hamas. Indeed, the current moves are intended to weaken Hamas,which is often portrayed as merely a tool of an irredeemably hostile Iran. Hamas and Hezbollah have both been on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations for many years. After 9/11, that designation became even more constricting as the Administration threw huge new resources into attacking the financing and propaganda/information mechanisms of a range of Islamist groups it had designated as targets in the "war on terror." The launching of this new concept completely blurred the distinction between those groups that, like Al Qaeda, aptly fit the description of "rootless cosmopolitans" and those that, like Hamas and Hezbollah, are deeply rooted within stable national communities to which they provide real services and to which they hold themselves accountable. During the wave of decolonizations that occurred in the three decades after 1945, nearly all the decolonizing governments ended up negotiating the transition with leaders of movements that for years had been excluded from political participation (and usually also ruthlessly repressed and attacked)on the grounds that they were "terrorists." In the more recent past, the successful peace processes in South Africa and Northern Ireland started in earnest only when the ruling governments agreed to talk with opposition groups previously designated as terrorists. In both cases, the only criteria for inclusion were that participants agree to a cease-fire and participate in elections. The movements concerned--the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies in South Africa, and Sinn Fein and the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland--were notably not required, as a prerequisite for the inclusion of the political wing in negotiations, either to disarm or tochange their founding platforms in any way. South Africa's Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) took part in the talks without being required to change their simple platform of "One [white] settler, one bullet."In Palestine, Hamas participated peacefully, in good faith and with notable success, in the 2006 elections. From early 2005 onward it had, along with the other big Palestinian organization, Fatah, adhered to a unilateral cessation of attacks against Israel--which was not, alas, reciprocated by Israel. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has participated peacefully and skillfully in every national election since 1992, most recently winning fourteen seats out of 128 in summer 2005. (The party's support in the country is greater than those numbers suggest. The numbers of seats available to the Lebanese Shiites who form its main base is artificially small.) Hezbollah members have been ministers in Lebanese governments. Regarding its readiness and ability to observe a cease-fire, more than fifteen years have passed since Hezbollah used its weapons against any other authentically Lebanese movement. In addition, from 1996 to July 2006 it maintained its side of cease-fires negotiated indirectly with Israel. Hezbollah contravened the cease-fire regime by infiltrating Israel and capturing two Israeli soldiers in the summer of 2006 (Israel had also contravened it, numerous times). In response, Israel launched a massive retaliation, attacking not only Hezbollah-related targets but major elements of the country's civilian infrastructure. At the time, as in the similar assault Israel undertook in 1996, Israeli leaders said publicly that their goal was to turn the people and government of Lebanon against Hezbollah. As in 1996, the attempt backfired, and Israel ended up having to negotiate an end to hostilities on terms that fell far short of its original goals.Indeed, Hezbollah possibly emerged from the war stronger than it had been before the hostilities. The organization and its charismatic leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, gained prestige all over the Arab world, including among many Sunni Arabs. The August 2006 cease-fire has remained remarkably durable ever since. At this point, both Hamas and Hezbollah have shown by their actions that (1)they are capable of winning and holding the allegiance of a substantial portion of their national communities, as demonstrated in free and fair elections; and (2) they are willing to enter into cease-fires with Israel and are capable of exerting the internal discipline required to abide by them. If the Middle East were South Africa or Northern Ireland, we would conclude that they have more than met the conditions for inclusion in peace talks. But when Israel is involved, the US political class continues to make the extraordinary and unrealistic demands that before these organizations can be included in any political process they must completely disarm, both physically and ideologically--just like the PLO before them. (No parallel demand is placed on Israel.) Meanwhile, pending these organizations' complete compliance with the demands, nearly all US politicians hew to the position that it is quite all right to join with Israel in inflicting harsh,in many cases lethal, collective punishment on the 1.5 million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, and in using covert intervention in Lebanon to whittle away at Hezbollah's power there.What actions have either of these organizations ever taken against the United States and its interests? In the case of Hamas, none. Yes, it is true that US citizens visiting or living in Israel were killed or maimed during the suicide-bombing campaigns Hamas launched against Israel in the 1990s.But those Americans were not targeted because of their US citizenship, any more than Palestinian-Americans harmed by Israel's actions in the West Bankor Gaza were targeted because of their US citizenship. At the rhetorical level, meanwhile, Hamas's leaders--like their confreres, the leaders of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood--are at pains to point out that they have no grievance against the American people. They firmly dissociated themselves from the 9/11 attacks--both at the time and since. But the Hamas leaders do ask why so many US politicians of both parties continue to be so one-sided in their support of Israel and so strongly biased against the Palestinians. One Hamas parliamentarian I interviewed in Ramallah last yearargued that Americans should be glad to deal with Hamas, because "we are the moderates in the Islamist movement." Hezbollah's case is a little more complex. The party was created in 1985 through the amalgamation of a number of armed resistance networks that grew up in opposition to the Israeli occupation of their country. (If there hadbeen no 1982 Israeli invasion, there would be no Hezbollah today.) Before 1985 some of the pre-Hezbollah networks included people who, judging that the United States had supported Israel's invasions of Lebanon in 1978 and1982 and Israel's proxy forces within Lebanon--and determined to end what they considered a hostile US military presence in their country--chose to punish the United States. In 1983-84 those networks used car and truck bombs in lethal attacks against the US Embassy (twice), against the barracks housing US Marines serving in a US-led peacekeeping force and against other US targets in Lebanon. When Hezbollah was formed, it focused its armed operations much more tightly on opposing Israeli occupation forces rather than against US or other Western targets there. At the rhetorical level, Hezbollah to this day holds to a clearly recognizable anti-imperialist position that sees the United States as "the heir to the Old Imperialism"and sees Israel as part of what it considers a US imperial plan in the Middle East. But it has not done anything to operationalize that analysis by attacking US targets either inside or outside Lebanon. There have been some allegations that Hezbollah has sent military advisers to train anti-US militias in Iraq, but these reports have never been confirmed (and given that Hezbollah's closest links in Iraq are with organizations affiliated with the government installed by the United States, they have a general implausibility). Like the leaders of Hamas, the leaders of Hezbollah also sharply dissociated themselves from the 9/11 attacks.No aspect of Hamas's or Hezbollah's current policies should prevent Washington from dealing with either organization. Remember that when South Africa's apartheid government agreed to talk with the ANC, the PAC and other armed anti-apartheid groups, these groups were still--up to the time the negotiation-related cease-fire went into effect--actively targeting government installations and, in the case of the PAC, white citizens throughout the country. The same was true in the Northern Ireland talks and in all the negotiations over preceding decades that led to the freeing of scores of Third World countries from the shackles of colonialism. Contrary to what many American commentators seem to believe, sitting down to negotiate with another party does not indicate agreement with it but merely a pragmatic recognition that it is a force that must be engaged in the search for a solution. It should be noted that in Iraq the United States has now started to deal directly with tribal and political groups that were until recently involved in the guerrilla resistance against the US occupation.American negotiators should seek forums within which they can engagere presentatives of Hamas and Hezbollah--along with other relevant parties such as Syria--so that all these players can energetically probe exactly how to resolve the remaining strands of the Arab-Israeli conflict in a way that is fair to everyone and gives all sides a path to a peaceful future. This is not a pipe dream. As long as Washington refuses to do this, the search for peace in the Middle East will be fruitless, because no sustainable peace can be built in defiance of the millions of Palestinians and Lebanese who support these two movements.The strong bias that Washington has shown toward Israel for some four decades has served our country poorly. It continues to weaken US interests in the Middle East and far, far beyond. There are no signs that the Bush Administration's current round of coercive Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy will lead to an agreement more sturdy or sustainable than previous partial and unsuccessful agreements. If the United States is incapable of maintaining a fair-minded position in Israeli-Arab diplomacy, it should give up its dominant role. The United Nations could then take over, instead of acting as a junior partner in a US-led "Quartet" of powers, as at present.But whoever leads the peace-brokering will have to realize there can be no peace in the Middle East without somehow including Hezbollah and Hamas in the process.

This article can be found on the web athttp://www.thenation.com/doc/20071119/cobban

A Voice of Sanity

2007-07-30T10:05:00.000-04:00

Jewish Voice for Peace, July 29, 2007

Congress is once again showing its remarkable ability to misunderstand the Middle East and to be more narrow-minded in its decisions regarding Arab states than even Israeli hawks.At issue now is a Middle East arms package that the Bush Administration plans to put into the next appropriations bill. It involves a 10-year commitment to do the following:

*provide $3 billion per year in military aid to Israel
* provide $1.3 billion per year in military aid to Egypt
* sell some $20 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia and five other Gulf states, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

One should keep in mind that the US and Israel also work together to develop other defense systems, which often amount to additional American support for Israel, though this relationship is much more mutual than is often portrayed.The American strategy of flooding the Middle East with weapons, small and large, has already had the effect of greatly increasing the instability of the region. This new wave of arms supplies, crafted to maintain Israel's military superiority while simultaneously enabling America's Arab allies to strengthen their ability to stand up to increasing Iranian influence in the region, is certain to have similarly destabilizing results. That is not to say that the arms deal won't accomplish the goals outlined above, but that accomplishment will come along with other, unintended results.

Principled, or even thoughtful, opposition to such a strategy would be welcome. A credible alternative that does not endanger Israel or other US interests might mean:

* Israel is held accountable to its past commitments to the US upon which its aid is predicated (that it is to be used only for defense, that American weapons are not to be used against civilians) and that such aid is dependent on Israel's removing settlements and freezing all construction in the West Bank;
* engaging Iran in diplomacy, along with Saudi Arabia;
* that the US adhere to its own regulations that arms supplies be conditioned on adherence to human rights norms;
* that the US commits to supporting the security of all allied states that adhere to such regulations;
* that Iran, the US and the Arab states come together to work for a resolution to the crisis in Iraq;
* and that substantive negotiations begin for the resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, encompassing all areas under conflict, including the Golan heights and the Sheba'a Farms.

These measures could be aimed at allaying the concerns over Saudi and Gulf states' acquisition of arms. Stabilizing the governments through enhanced human rights protections would greatly diminish the threat of those governments falling and the weapons ending up in the hands of parties who might use them against Israel, which is a fear in Congress.

But all of this is beside the point--Israel's own Prime Minister has already accepted the idea of the US selling these arms to the Arab states. One would expect Congress, then, to follow his lead.Instead, what we get is Congressional saber-rattling that is positioned solidly to the right of the majority of Israeli political parties. There is no questioning of Israel's reception of aid, and even of it increasing, despite the fact that the enhancement of aid is specifically meant to offset the arms sales to the Arab states. Instead, there is blind opposition from key Democrats in Congress only to sales to Saudi Arabia, based on objections to the Saudi's stance on Iraq, and their attempt to re-unify the Palestinian factions.

The short-sightedness of this opposition is hard to overstate.Congressional understanding of the Middle East is limited. They hear from "experts" largely supplied by only one side in the discussion, be they from AIPAC or the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). There are always, of course, lobbying efforts supporting failed hard-line policies, but the educational efforts are just as important. The need for an alternative in Washington couldn't be more clear.

"A completely avoidable crisis"

2007-07-12T17:10:00.000-04:00

Oxfam condemns the caging of Gaza
Press Release

25 June 2007

International agency Oxfam today condemned aid blockade of Gaza that is leaving 1.3 million people are on the brink of a humanitarian crisis. Oxfam called on all actors in the conflict to ensure that urgently needed food, medicine and water supplies are allowed in immediately.

The call comes as Israeli and Palestinian leaders meet today in Egypt. Oxfam is demanding that the reopening of Gaza's borders is placed at the top of the agenda so that essential supplies can get through. If not, the region's economy and basic services such as health and water systems will collapse.

Jeremy Hobbs Director of Oxfam International said:
"The international community is closing its eyes to its humanitarian obligations and allowing the suffering to intensify. Aid is being drip-fed across the border. The entrapment of Gaza is completely unacceptable. We urge the key players to resolve what has been a completely avoidable crisis."

According to the UN there are just days until food supplies will run out, fuel is scarce and essential medicines are also critically low. At least 100 trucks a day need to be going into Gaza to meet peoples essential needs, instead just 20 trucks are permitted to go in each day.

Oxfam's partner, the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU) who operate the Beit Lahia Sewage Works fear that the works could burst swamping up to 10,000 in sewage and contaminate the water supplies of 300,000, creating a public health crisis. The CMWU has been waiting for over three months for $500,000 worth of equipment. There are only 10 days of chlorine supplies left and people may soon have to start to drink contaminated water.
Hobbs added:

"Withholding aid as a political weapon is bringing untold suffering to an entire population. This shames the international community. Water equipment has been waiting at Gaza's border for more than three months. These sanctions must cease immediately."

Oxfam is concerned that talks today in Sharm el Sheik will ignore the dire humanitarian needs of people in Gaza. It calls on Prime Minister Olmert to lift the blockade immediately and for Palestinian authorities to ensure that public service workers and humanitarian agencies can distribute urgently needed materials.

Western donors, together with the Palestinian authorities, must ensure that both emergency and development aid are allocated impartially throughout the Occupied Territories, on the basis of need, and are not used as a political tool. To do otherwise will further exacerbate partisan rivalry, to the detriment of the lives of ordinary Palestinians and to Israel's long-term security.

Follow the Money

2007-06-21T07:58:00.000-04:00

In this article, Naomi Klein points out one of the reasons that the Israel Palestine conflict is so intractable: war can be extremely profitable, both for individual enterprises and for countries. Israel is not unique in this of course. Eisenhower famously described in 1960 how the military-industrial complex had begun to exert its "total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual" on every aspect of US society. And a project of the International Peace Academy ("Greed and Grievance" edited by Mats Berdal and David M. Matone) shows how economic agendas on both sides can, at times, perpetuate conflicts in impoverished nations while masquerading as struggles for freedom, dignity, or human rights.

Gaza: Not Just a Prison, a Laboratory
by Naomi Klein
From "The Nation" June 15, 2007
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/15/1901/

Gaza in the hands of Hamas, with masked militants sitting in the president's chair; the West Bank on the edge; Israeli army camps hastily assembled in the Golan Heights; a spy satellite over Iran and Syria; war with Hezbollah a hair trigger away; a scandal-plagued political class facing a total loss of public faith.

At a glance, things aren't going well for Israel. But here's a puzzle: why, in the midst of such chaos and carnage, is the Israeli economy booming like it's 1999, with a roaring stock market and growth rates nearing China's?

Thomas Friedman recently offered his theory in the New York Times. Israel "nurtures and rewards individual imagination," and so its people are constantly spawning ingenious high-tech start-ups - no matter what messes their politicians are making. After perusing class projects by students in engineering and computer science at Ben Gurion University,
Friedman made one of his famous fake-sense pronouncements: Israel "had discovered oil." This oil, apparently, is located in the minds of Israel's "young innovators and venture capitalists," who are too busy making megadeals with Google to be held back by politics.

Here's another theory: Israel's economy isn't booming despite the political chaos that devours the headlines, but because of it. This phase of development dates back to the mid-nineties, when Israel was in the vanguard of the information revolution - the most tech-dependent economy in the world. After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Israel's economy was devastated, facing its worst year since 1953. Then came 9/11, and suddenly new profit vistas opened up for any company that claimed it could spot terrorists in crowds, seal borders from attack
and extract confessions from closed-mouthed prisoners.

Within three years, large parts of Israel's tech economy had been radically repurposed. Put in Friedmanesque terms: Israel went from inventing the networking tools of the "flat world" to selling fences to an apartheid planet. Many of the country's most successful entrepreneurs are using Israel's status as a fortressed state, surrounded by furious enemies, as a kind of twenty-four-hour-a-day showroom-a living example of how to enjoy relative safety amid constant war. And the reason Israel is now enjoying supergrowth is that those
companies are busily exporting that model to the world.

Discussions of Israel's military trade usually focus on the flow of weapons into the country-US-made Caterpillar bulldozers used to destroy homes in the West Bank and British companies supplying parts for F-16s. Overlooked is Israel's huge and expanding export business. Israel now
sends $1.2 billion in "defense" products to the United States-up dramatically from $270 million in 1999. In 2006 Israel exported $3.4 billion in defense products-well over a billion more than it received in US military aid. That makes Israel the fourth-largest arms dealer in the world, overtaking Britain.

Much of this growth has been in the so-called "homeland security" sector. Before 9/11 homeland security barely existed as an industry. By the end of this year, Israeli exports in the sector will reach $1.2 billion-an increase of 20 percent. The key products and services are high-tech fences, unmanned drones, biometric IDs, video and audio surveillance gear, air passenger profiling and prisoner interrogation systems - precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock-in the occupied territories.
And that is why the chaos in Gaza and the rest of the region doesn't threaten the bottom line in Tel Aviv, and may actually boost it. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the "global war on terror."

It's no coincidence that the class projects at Ben Gurion that so impressed Friedman have names like "Innovative Covariance Matrix for Point Target Detection in Hyperspectral Images" and "Algorithms for Obstacle Detection and Avoidance." Thirty homeland security companies were launched in Israel in the past six months alone, thanks in large
part to lavish government subsidies that have transformed the Israeli army and the country's universities into incubators for security and weapons start-ups (something to keep in mind in the debates about the academic boycott).

Next week, the most established of these companies will travel to Europe for the Paris Air Show, the arms industry's equivalent of Fashion Week. One of the Israeli companies exhibiting is Suspect Detection Systems (SDS), which will be showcasing its Cogito1002, a white, sci-fi-looking security kiosk that asks air travelers to answer a series of computer-generated questions, tailored to their country of
origin, while they hold their hand on a "biofeedback" sensor. The device reads the body's reactions to the questions and certain responses flag the passenger as "suspect."
Like hundreds of other Israeli security start-ups, SDS boasts that it was founded by veterans of Israel's secret police and that its products were road-tested on Palestinians. Not only has the company tried out the biofeedback terminals at a West Bank checkpoint, it claims the "concept is supported and enhanced by knowledge acquired and assimilated from the analysis of thousands of case studies related to
suicide bombers in Israel."

Another star of the Paris Air Show will be Israeli defense giant Elbit, which plans to showcase its Hermes 450 and 900 unmanned air vehicles. As recently as May, according to press reports, Israel used the drones on bombing missions in Gaza. Once tested in the territories, they are exported abroad: the Hermes has already been used at the Arizona-Mexico
border; Cogito1002 terminals are being auditioned at an unnamed US airport; and Elbit, one of the companies behind Israel's "security barrier," has partnered with Boeing to construct the Department of Homeland Security's $2.5 billion "virtual" border fence around the United States.

Since Israel began its policy of sealing off the occupied territories with checkpoints and walls, human rights activists have often compared Gaza and the West Bank to open-air prisons. But in researching the explosion of Israel's homeland security sector, a topic I explore in greater detail in a forthcoming book (The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism), it strikes me that they are something else too: laboratories where the terrifying tools of our security states are being field-tested. Palestinians - whether living in the West Bank or what the Israeli politicians are already calling "Hamasistan" -- are no longer just targets. They are guinea pigs.

So in a way Friedman is right: Israel has struck oil. But the oil isn't the imagination of its techie entrepreneurs. The oil is the war on terror, the state of constant fear that creates a bottomless global demand for devices that watch, listen, contain and target "suspects." And fear, it turns out, is the ultimate renewable resource.

Naomi Klein is the author of many books, including her most recent, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, which will be published in September.Visit Naomi's website at nologo.org.
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Disgraceful, but nothing new

2007-01-27T17:52:00.000-05:00

By Danny Rubinstein, Ha'aretz, January, 25, 2007

Last week, Israel's Channel 10 aired a short video clip that had been filmed in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron, in which Jewish settler Yifat Alkobi can be seen roughly pushing and cursing her neighbors, members of the Palestinian Abu Aisha family. A few months ago B'Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, gave the Abu-Aishas a camera in order to document what was happening near their home, and they now have many video clips of a similar nature.

What is interesting about this particular one is that the pushing and cursing took place while a few meters away Israel Defense Forces soldiers observed the incident without lifting a finger.Nobody was particularly exercised by these images, and that included Alkobi herself, who was called in for an interrogation and did not even show up.

There is a group of international observers in the city, called TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron), and they published an announcement to the effect that the film contained nothing new. "For years we have been publishing information about harassment, damage to property, destruction of buildings, stone throwing and the breaking of windows, carried out by the settlers against the Arab residents, and in the past we have often turned to the IDF and to the police, and nothing happened," said the observers. Their reports are sent to the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority and the governments of the six countries that sent the observers (Norway, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and Turkey).

B'Tselem also hastened to warn about turning Alkobi into a scapegoat; the fact is that responsibility for what happens in Hebron belongs to all the Israeli governments that have allowed and continue to allow such disgraceful sights to take place.The statistics are familiar. Of the thousands of Arabs who lived in the part of Hebron under Israeli control (according to the agreement of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu), few remain.

The Abu Aisha family of Tel Rumeida lives in a house that has been dubbed the "cage house" because of the bars surrounding it, which are meant to protect it from harassment by the settlers. The other isolated Arab families who have remained in the area near the settlers tend to hide in a similar manner. In other words, the Hebron settlers have succeeded in getting rid of almost all of their Arab neighbors, something the IDF and the police have done nothing to prevent, which means they are in effect helping the settlers.

The Israeli right, which supports the Hebron settlers, has long since slid down the slippery slope of racism. In a meeting in Jerusalem recently, a senior (Jewish) police officer who has left the service told guests from abroad how he had to deal with settlers in the Arab neighborhoods of the city who refuse to obey Arab policemen. "You are Arabs, and we don't talk to you. Bring a Jewish policeman," they say. The guests from Canada were shocked. One of them, a senior official in the Canadian government, said that anyone daring to make such a remark in Canada would be immediately thrown into prison. Here it passes quietly.

Not all the settlers are like those in Hebron. There are also settlers who are trying to build neighborly relations with the Arabs. Both groups defend themselves against claims of dispossession and racism, saying that this has been the situation in the Land of Israel since the beginning of the Zionist settlement enterprise. Tel Aviv was not built only on sands either, and everywhere in the country, from Dan to Be'er Sheva, Arabs were expelled and dispossessed. So what do people want from them?

It's the little things that make an Occupation

2007-01-20T16:34:00.000-05:00

The Israeli government claims that Israel's security requires the matrix of control shown on this map. But even if that were true, Palestinians who have to put up with the "little things" -- the interminable wait at check points, the random curfews, the targetting of children throwing stones, the armed incursions, the house demolitions -- will not be controlled forever. Israel was meant to be a place of refuge, a safe space for Jews in a hostile world. But imposing military and economic control over a captive population has achieved nothing but the hardening of hearts.

This despicable "looking on from the side"

2007-01-20T09:26:00.001-05:00

Looking on from the side, from Belsen to Gaza
By John Pilger, January 17, 2007

Amira Hass, who has lived in Gaza, describes it as a prison that shames her people. She recalls how her mother, Hannah, was being marched from a cattle-train to the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen on a summer's day in 1944." [She] saw these German women looking at the prisoners, just looking," she wrote. "This image became very formative in my upbringing, this despicable 'looking on from the side'."

A genocide is engulfing the people of Gaza while a silence engulfs its bystanders. "Some 1.4 million people, mostly children, are piled up in one of the most densely populated regions of the world, with no freedom of movement, no place to run and no space to hide," wrote the senior UN relief official, Jan Egeland, and Jan Eliasson, then Swedish foreign minister, in Le Figaro. They described people "living in a cage", cut off by land, sea and air, with no reliable power and little water and tortured by hunger and disease and incessant attacks by Israeli troops and planes.

Egeland and Eliasson wrote this four months ago as an attempt to break the silence in Europe whose obedient alliance with the United States and Israel has sought to reverse the democratic result that brought Hamas to power in last year's Palestinian elections. The horror in Gaza has since been compounded; a family of 18 has died beneath a 500-pound American/Israeli bomb; unarmed women have been mown down at point-blank range.

Dr David Halpin, one of the few Britons to break what he calls "this medieval siege", reported the killing of 57 children by artillery, rockets and small arms and was shown evidence that civilians are Israel's true targets, as in Lebanon last summer. A friend in Gaza, Dr Mona El-Farra, emailed: "I see the effects of the relentless sonic booms [a collective punishment by the Israeli air force] and artillery on my 13-year-old daughter. At night, she shivers with fear. Then both of us end up crouching on the floor. I try to make her feel safe, but when the bombs sound I flinch and scream .

"When I was last in Gaza, Dr Khalid Dahlan, a psychiatrist, showed me the results of a remarkable survey. "The statistic I personally find unbearable," he said, "is that 99.4 per cent of the children we studied suffer trauma. Once you look at the rates of exposure to trauma you see why: 99.2 per cent of their homes were bombarded; 97.5 per cent were exposed to tear gas; 96.6 per cent witnessed shootings; 95.8 per cent witnessed bombardment and funerals; almost a quarter saw family members injured or killed." Dr Dahlan invited me to sit in on one of his clinics. There were 30 children, all of them traumatized. He gave each pencil and paper and asked them to draw. They drew pictures of grotesque acts of terror and of women streaming tears.

The excuse for the latest Israeli terror was the capture last June of an Israeli soldier, a member of an illegal occupation, by the Palestinian resistance. This was news. The kidnapping a few days earlier by Israel of two Palestinians - two of thousands taken over the years - was not news.

An historian and two foreign journalists have reported the truth about Gaza. All three are Israelis. They are frequently called traitors.

The historian Ilan Pappe has documented that "the genocidal policy [in Gaza] is not formulated in a vacuum" but part of Zionism's deliberate, historic ethnic cleansing.

Gideon Levy and Amira Hass are reporters on the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. In November, Levy described how the people of Gaza were beginning to starve to death . "there are thousands of wounded, disabled and shell-shocked people unable to receive any treatment . the shadows of human beings roam the ruins . they only know the [Israeli army] will return and what this will mean for them: more imprisonment in their homes for weeks, more death and destruction in monstrous proportions."

Amira Hass, who has lived in Gaza, describes it as a prison that shames her people. She recalls how her mother, Hannah, was being marched from a cattle-train to the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen on a summer's day in 1944." [She] saw these German women looking at the prisoners, just looking," she wrote. "This image became very formative in my upbringing, this despicable 'looking on from the side'."

"Looking on from the side" is what those of us do who are cowed into silence by the threat of being called anti-Semitic.

Looking from the side is what too many western Jews do, while those Jews who honour the humane traditions of Judaism and say, "Not in our name!" are abused as "self-despising".

Looking on from the side is what almost the entire US Congress does, in thrall to or intimidated by a vicious Zionist "lobby'.

Looking on from the side is what "even-handed" journalists do as they excuse the lawlessness that is the source of Israeli atrocities and suppress the historic shifts in the Palestinian resistance, such as the implicit recognition of Israel by Hamas.

The people of Gaza cry out for better.

www.johnpilger.com

News From Ramallah

2007-01-06T17:26:00.000-05:00

Occupation magazine - Life under occupation

The IDF and my daughter`s hamburger
by Sam Bahour Email Fri, 05 Jan 2007

Dear friends,I wanted to write this last night but was exhausted from playing umpteen hands of the card game UNO with my 6 year old daughter, Nadine. Why this card frenzy, especially given I hate playing cards? Well, we were in the center of Ramallah yesterday afternoon, at 3:40pm when the almighty Israeli military decided, again, that it was time to wreak havoc on our city. I should not really complain since what happened in Ramallah yesterday happens across the West Bank and Gaza regularly. Nevertheless, I will make an issue about it and urge every Palestinian, in every city, to make an issue about every Israeli infraction on our lives.

Yesterday I was extremely busy all day and had a dinner appointment with a serious venture capitalist in Jerusalem in the evening, so I agreed with my wife and girls that since I would not be home all day and night, that I`d pick them up at 3:30 sharp and we would go for a late lunch. We haven`t been out much given all of the infighting lately so my girls were thrilled. I rushed home at 3:30 to pick them up and found my daughters dressed to kill. To them, this was a serious outing after a long holiday break which was spent mostly at home. The restaurant they had as first choice was closed due to the holidays, so they reverted to their favorite popular place, Angelo`s Pizzeria, for those that know it. Angelo`s Pizzeria is on the main street in Ramallah, a few hundred meters from Lion`s Circle, the smack middle of town where you saw on the the news Israeli bulldozers destroying cars last night.

I parked on the Friends Girls School road which is behind the restaurant. As soon as I exited the car I felt something was wrong. As we walked into the restaurant I looked up and could see an Israeli gunship helicopter hoovering overhead firing at some unknown target. We thought it would be safer to enter the restaurant rather than return home. The restaurant was full with most tables nervous at the sound of gunfire from overhead. The waiters, who have been through this dozens of times, visited the tables and played and joked with the kids. They knew that things were not right and went out of their way to make life normal, at least while we were their customers. The restaurant manager, a friend, came to our table and asked me for my car keys. He wanted to move my car because word came that the Israeli jeeps and armored vehicles that were operating in town were crushing cars parked on the side of the road. He found my car already in a safe spot and reassured us that this will pass soon. He knows, he has lived this reality every day for 40 years now!

We ordered a pizza and salad and Nadine insisted that Angelo`s Pizzeria has the best hamburgers in town and wanted one as well so she ordered one herself. As we sat, things outside were clearly deteriorating. I got a call on my cellular hone from my dad back in Youngstown, Ohio. He asked where we are because no one answered at home. He briefed me on the live reports he was watching about what was happening outside the restaurant door. After talking with my father, I made frequent visits to the restaurant door to view people rushing away from the city center. While I was standing at the door, a friend of mine had finished eating with his wife and 4 kids and stood at the door contemplating to leave to cross the street to his car. I kept a lookout and gave him the all clear as he rushed his family across the street to his car and he was off. At this stage, I knew it was not only military activity overhead but something very close by.

The salad showed up in no time and we enjoyed it. Then the famous hamburger followed and then our pizza. All the time my wife was trying to make phone contact with her sister who we invited to join us but never showed up. She wanted to make sure she was ok given all the shooting and commotion outside. My older daughter, Areen, was a bit nervous, wondering how we were going to get back home. We reassured her that all would be fine. In reality, we had no idea. Forty minutes later, my wife, Abeer, Areen and I had finished eating and were ready to go. Nadine, was happily, and very slowly, enjoying her world-class hamburger and fries while every so often reassuring us. ` They come, shoot, arrest, and leave...so what`s the problem? When they leave, we will go home, right dad?` `So what`s the problem?`! The problem is how can a 6 year old calmly sit through a mini-war happening outside the restaurant while enthusiastically devouring a hamburger without the slightest hint of being disturbed?

Nadine finally finished and we headed home. Luckily we were parked in the opposite direction of the shooting, so we drove the wrong way down a one way street and headed home. On the way, taxis were rushing about, driving worse than usual, shuttling people away from the center of Ramallah. When we got near our home we had to cross the Jerusalem-Ramallah road. Looking left about 200 meters away my girls yelled out that the IDF was blocking the street. I glanced and it was a mess. Jeeps all over, rocks filled the street, behind the jeeps I could see the open market was full of soldiers.

We finally got home. Turned on CNN, nothing! Switched to Jazeerah and they had live pictures of what was happening and the extent of it - another Israeli invasion into Ramallah. An undercover Israeli hit team tried to arrest someone and were exposed and came under Palestinian fire. They called in reenforcements and all the lone rangers came running (and shooting and plowing). I was contemplating with my wife if I should risk heading to Jerusalem later in the evening. We agreed to wait and see how it develops given the news reports started to say the IDF was completing their operations and leaving the city center (only to move back to their permanent position of surrounding our city).

I went to check my email and cancel a radio interview appointment with CBC that I missed because of this mess. This is when Nadine came and asked if I could accompany her to the bathroom. She never asks to be accompanied. The bathroom in our small flat is literally 1 meter from my computer and 3 meters from the living room where Abeer was watching the news and Areen was letting Grandma Sarah in Youngstown know we were all home and ok. I immediately understood and gladly accompanied Nadine and even made it a fun trip. Then I cancelled all my appointments that evening and spent the rest of the night doing exactly what Nadine asked for - to play UNO. We played alone, with Areen, as a family, and then alone again, multiple times. When bedtime came she kissed me good night and headed to her room along with her sister as usual - no escort. I felt that UNO therapy had worked. I may even claim for a new deck of UNO on my health insurance policy.

My friends, I write this not to bore you with one family`s experience during 2 hours of occupation, but rather to scream to the world that we need your help! 4 Palestinian civilians were killed last night in this attack, 20 were injured, 5 of them seriously. I have no statistics on the number of children, like Nadine, whose skin become thicker during this latest Israeli adventure. Israel has lost her way and the US is Palestinian-blind. Israel is creating yet another generation of Palestinians that are more numb to their military occupation than any other. Likewise, it is creating a generation of Israeli occupiers that see my city as the wild, wild, west. It is stripping children, Palestinian and Israeli, of their childhood. It must stop and NOW.

We need your active support:
Organize locally, at your church, community center, union, etc.
Support Jimmy Carter`s stance against Israeli Apartheid.
Read his book.
Write letters.
Visit and engage your representatives.
Demand public statements.
Sponsor a Palestinian student.
Invest in Palestine.
Request Angelo`s Pizzeria start exporting hamburgers by express mail. and most importantly, play UNO with your kids.

Braced for the 4 funerals that will start in 3 hours.

Samsbahour@palnet.com

"It's fun to be free"

2007-01-05T16:52:00.000-05:00

Twilight Zone / What are you doing for the holiday?

By Gideon LevyHaaretz 5.1.2007http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/809603.html

"The easing of restrictions of the closure" is already at its height: Hurray, we can travel to Qalqilyah. We can even somehow m ake it to Nablus, whose houses can be seen from every window in the village. Not in our private car, it's true; they won't dream of such luxuries here. But in several taxis and on foot, from checkpoint to checkpoint. A few checkpoints, believe it or not, are even temporarily deserted. Oh, the enlightened occupation.

Incessant rain fell on the occupied West Bank this Sunday, the dark sky and freezing cold a supremely fitting backdrop to these festival days. It was the second day of the holiest of Muslim holidays, the Festival of the Sacrifice, and the last day of the accursed year 2006, during which no fewer than 683 Palestinians lost their lives, far more than the year before, which was also a bloody one. Only the new holiday clothes of the children who splashed in the mud and rain between the checkpoints, skipping from puddle to puddle, from taxi to taxi, carrying holiday gifts on the way to Grandma and Grandpa, lent a bit of joy to the scene.

The boy Akram Arman also set out, accompanied by his two young sisters on the way to their aunt in Nablus, all three dressed in new sweaters and trousers. But the soldier at the Beit Iba checkpoint at the entrance to Nablus was not in a festive mood: ID cards, he demanded. But the girls don't have ID cards yet; they are not yet 16 years old.

"So bring birth certificates," ordered the soldier, and the embarrassed and frightened children went back home to their village to get their birth certificates. Imagine: Your children go to visit their aunt in Kfar Sava on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and they're sent home rudely because they forgot their birth certificates. Happy holiday to the Arman family.

Their village, Jit, is a pretty place, high on a hill west of Nablus. The hills opposite are sown with the houses of Kedumim, a settlement that spreads from hill to hill, ever growing. There a neighborhood of trailer homes, here an antenna rising in the distance, the new Zionism celebrating its small and temporary victories. There are 2,500 residents in Jit, and half of them live by working their land. Their land? Only what is left of it. On the way to a significant portion of the lands to the west, one has to pass several checkpoints. Sometimes it's possible and sometimes it isn't.

Citizen Jemal Bakr, an English teacher in the school in the neighboring village of Sera, has to travel about 40 kilometers each day in order to get to the school, which can be seen from his window - you can stretch out your hand and touch it. Instead of traveling on the direct road to the village on the opposite hill, he has to travel via the Beit Iba checkpoint to Nablus and from there to Sera, sometimes an hour and a half, sometimes a day and a half, depending on the checkpoints. Now he is traveling to Kafr Tal to visit his sister, which is also a complex operation. Since the previous holiday, the teacher has not seen his sister-neighbor. The teacher cannot travel there in his private car, only on foot and by taxi.

The fate of the teacher's father is even worse: He cannot reach his own house. Mahmoud Abu Bakr, an elderly man of 76 with a hearing aid, has not been able to go to his house for about four years. Located on the slope of the hill, an isolated house at the foot of Jit but still in the area of the village, it is on a road where the Israel Defense Forces prohibits any Palestinian traffic. On the black snaking path that descends from the village - the short route to Nablus - there is sometimes a "surprise checkpoint." Sometimes the "surprise" is a jeep that quickly descends from the IDF position on the mountain whenever a resident dares to get on the road - an unruly rebel on foot or by car. Abu Bakr, who was a refugee from Haifa, gave up his home on the slope and rented a room inside Jit. Zakaria Sada, the village human rights activist, has a letter in his pocket written in 2004, from Captain Shiran Asher, the ombudsman in the Central Command, in which the officer writes that "there is nothing to prevent traveling on the road," and "if there is a localized problem the resident should turn to the Nablus Coordination and Liaison Office to solve the problem." But this letter is already creased from having been presented to soldiers so often, and it is still impossible to travel on the road. A half-deaf old man leaning on his stick certainly cannot live in a house where there are almost always "localized problems."

A week ago, Abu Bakr did try to visit his house, but was chased away in disgrace. He is allowed to live in it, but he is not allowed to get to it.The children of the old man are scattered in the surrounding villages; two of them live in Jaffa. His grandson is now coming for a holiday visit straight from his home on Yehuda Hayamit Street, an Israeli teenager, a student in the Neve Shaanan school in the city, coming to see a different way of life. The whole family has not gathered for a holiday meal in years. Samar Sada gave up on the holiday customs and the traditional family visits this year. A pleasant man, 29, the father of three children, he makes a decent living as a warehouse worker in the Barkan industrial zone, but he doesn't have the strength for holiday visits, with the harassment and humiliation at the checkpoints. Samar is staying home this year.

A few weeks ago, the workers who cultivate the family olive grove on the slope asked him to come to the plot to show them its boundary, "to introduce them to the land" as he says in his good Hebrew, prior to the olive harvest. It was a Shabbat afternoon, and Samar drove with his neighbor and his young children to the plot, several hundred meters from the village. The trip to the olive grove passed successfully, as did the briefing of the workers, but the way back was an experience he would like to forget. A Hummer descended the hill.

"Don't you know that you're not allowed to pass here?" asked the soldier.

"Why isn't it allowed?"

"Bring me a permit."

"I went to my land, only 15 minutes. What have I done? What permit?"

"Stand at the side." They stood at the side of the road for 20 minutes.

"You're all saying that you don't know that you need a permit to travel on this road," said the soldier angrily. "

The soldier lost patience," recalls Samar, "began to shout and said to me 'Come down' to the Jit checkpoint." At the checkpoint, the soldier gave the ID cards of Samar and his neighbor to the soldiers at the checkpoint, signaling "four" to him with his fingers. Four fingers mean four hours. Four hours of delay at the checkpoint, a punishment for chutzpah, or for an unapproved trip on an unauthorized road on the way to the family olive grove. Samar, his neighbor and his two young children were thus sentenced, in an accelerated procedure, to a humiliating four hours in the car.

"How we talked, how we pleaded, what we did so he would release us after an hour. An hour is all right, but four hours?" Night began to fall, the cold began to freeze their bones, the children cried, they weren't even allowed to get out of the car. In the house in Jit, Samar's Israeli employer from Raanana, who had come to visit his employee, was waiting, but Samar was delayed. "I'm stuck here with your soldiers," Samar apologized on his cell phone. The human rights activist, Zakaria Sada, also rushed to the site, trying to use his connections, but in vain. After an hour and a half, the soldiers allowed the children go home in the car of a neighbor who had come down to the checkpoint. Even the employer from Raanana, who also came down to the checkpoint, was unable to convince the soldiers to lighten the punishment.

At 8 P.M., not a minute less than the sentence of a four-hour wait, Samar and the neighbor were released. The soldier, says Samar, even asked for a cigarette, but Samar refused.

"Next time, if you travel on the road, we'll delay you for 10 hours."

"Look brother, I don't want you to detain me even for 10 minutes. They said that during the olive harvest traveling is allowed, but with you, even when they say it's allowed, it's forbidden."

Samar lights the kerosene heater that spreads a little heat in the room, and offers sweets for the holiday. "We're imprisoned here. My children haven't left the village for four years. I haven't gone to Nablus for four months. Why should I go there? A soldier will tell me 'Bring a permit.' I have a smart card for Barkan, but if there's a soldier who has it in for Arabs, I don't know for what reason, he'll tell me 'Stop at the side.' So why should I go? I prefer to be at home, not to go out and not to encounter such things." A holiday at home.

On Saturday, Samar went to the mosque, then he visited the old and the sick in the village and returned home. His wife comes from the village of Rujeib, beyond Nablus, and she wanted to go to visit her parents, but Samar refused: "I told her: What do you want? To go out now in this cold with the children, to stop at the checkpoints? There's no chance that you'll get through without stopping. So it's better to stay home. She called them and told them she wasn't coming.

That's how a holiday is an ordinary day for us. No different from any other day. There's nothing to make it different. You want to go on a trip, you want to get to the sea, it's only from heaven that you'll be able to get to the sea. My children don't know what the sea is and what a trip is."

Only once in recent years did Samar see the sea: That was when he went to a trial on work matters in Tel Aviv, and he sneaked off to the beach in Jaffa. "I like trips, trips means being mabsut [content], not mebuas [disgusted].

It's fun to be free. But our life is permits. You go to your land and you need a permit, you go to your job and you need a permit, a life of permits. It's good that there's no checkpoint at the door to my house. My company went on a trip to the North. To the far North. As much as they talked, the boss and his wife, that we would be given a permit to join, it didn't help."

They are five Palestinian workers at a warehouse for building materials in Barkan, including Nasser, Samar's brother, who is sitting in the living room with us. Most of the workers are Israelis from Raanana and Petah Tikva.

"Believe me, we can live together. What do you think, is the soldier enjoying sitting at the checkpoint now? Nobody enjoys standing in the rain and doing something bad. Standing in the rain and asking people for documents, that's not part of life.

"Ask my son, 5 years old, what a bomb is, what soldiers are, what fear is. The child should know only how to play and to like his school. He should forget that there is life after that. Games, toys, and that's it. Let him end up with a mind that's open to life and not a mind that's blocked, blocked from fear. If you frighten a little boy, that stays in his head all his life and that becomes the basis for bad things."

What will happen in the coming year, I ask Samar several hours before our New Year's parties are set to begin.

"It won't be good. They say that in 2007 there will be a big war." Six people from the village are imprisoned in Israel, and they are thinking about them as well on this holiday. Samar and his brother Nasser are trying to name them: Abed and Nabil and Mustafa and Omar and another Abed and Ahmed, who is an illegal resident, and in effect we're all in prison, in a big prison.

Interview with Jimmy Carter

2006-12-14T14:08:00.000-05:00

From The Online News Hour November 28, 2006 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec06/carter_11-28.html

JUDY WOODRUFF, NewsHour Special Correspondent: The former president and Nobel Peace Prize-winner has just written his 21st book. It is called "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."
That title has brought some sharp critiques from Americans sympathetic to Israel, and its publications comes amid both renewed tensions and some peaceful gestures between Israelis and Palestinians.
President Carter, it's good to see you. Thanks for being with us.
JIMMY CARTER, Former President of the United States: It's nice to be with you. Thank you, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The title, you chose, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid." Did you mean to be provocative, because this immediately calls to mind South Africa, the repression of blacks by whites?
JIMMY CARTER: Yes. But I don't consider the word "provocative" to be negative. I wanted to provoke...
JUDY WOODRUFF: The word "apartheid."
JIMMY CARTER: The whole title, I wanted to provoke discussion, debate, inquisitive analysis of the situation there, which is almost completely absent throughout the United States, but it's prevalent every day in Israel and in Europe. This is needed, I think, for our country to understand what's going on in the West Bank.
And I chose this title very carefully. It's Palestine, first of all. This is the Palestinians' territory, not Israel.
Secondly, the emphasis is on peace.
And the third thing is not apartheid. I don't want to see apartheid. And since now the entire peace process is completely dormant, there hasn't been one day for good faith substantive negotiations in the last six years to bring peace to Israel, I wanted to rejuvenate this process.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And you say it's dormant, and yet today Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announcing she's going to meet with the leader of the Palestinians, Mr. Abbas, later this week. Isn't that a sign of progress, potential progress?
JIMMY CARTER: Well, a sign of progress -- to talk to one side and then talk to the other is very nice. But I'm talking about there hasn't been a day of negotiation orchestrated or promoted by the United States between Israel and the Palestinians in six years.
And for all practical purposes, it is dormant. I don't mean that the United States has not visited Israel; I don't mean that the secretary of state hasn't talked to the Israelis and the Palestinians.
And let me get to the word "apartheid." Apartheid doesn't apply at all, as I made plain in my book, anything that relates to Israel to the nation. It doesn't imply anything as it relates to racism. This apartheid, which is prevalent throughout the occupied territories, the subjection of the Palestinians to horrible abuse, is caused by a minority of Israelis -- we're not talking about racism, but talking about their desire to acquire, to occupy, to confiscate, and then to colonize Palestinian land.
So the whole system is designed to separate through a ferocious system Israelis who live on Palestine territory and Palestinians who want to live on their own territory.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, again, your book comes out at a moment when, not only you have Dr. Rice saying she's going to meet with the Palestinian leader, you have the Israeli prime minister, Mr. Olmert, announcing just yesterday that he is putting a proposal on the table.
He's saying, "We will give back most of the West Bank. We will get out most of the West Bank." He's saying, "We will release prisoners, if there will be a good-faith effort on the part of the Palestinians." Is this the kind of progress you're looking for?
JIMMY CARTER: I think that's a minor first step, yes, to give back some of their land. The demand is for them to give back all the land.
The United Nations resolutions that apply, the agreements that have been made at Camp David under me and later at Oslo for which the Israeli leaders received the Nobel Peace Prizes, was based on Israel's withdrawal from occupied territories.
And the present only game in town -- that is, the international quartet's road map -- calls for the withdrawal of Israel from occupied territories. That road map, by the way, all of the terms of it have been adopted by the Palestinians. All the major terms of the road map have been rejected officially by the Israeli government.
So this is what's created this quagmire and what I consider to be a total inaction for the first time in the history of Israel. We've been six years now without any negotiations for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But are you dismissing what Mr. Olmert is proposing as of yesterday?
JIMMY CARTER: Well, the New York Times said it was a non-substantive speech that didn't bring anything new to the table. I haven't read the entire speech, so I haven't analyzed it that thoroughly.
But when he says we're going to withdraw from part of the process, part of the land that we're occupying, and keep the rest, we're going to keep our wall there, which surrounds the remnant of the Palestinians' land that they're going to be permitted to live on, where we're going to keep Israeli settlements all over the land even that the Palestinians will retain, and keep the wall around Gaza, all of these things need to be changed and not just a token withdrawal from some of the land that the Israelis have acquired.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So you're saying it's not nearly enough?
JIMMY CARTER: No, it's not nearly enough, and everybody knows that. In fact, the international community, all the policy of the United States' government since Israel was founded as a nation, the agreements that the Israelis have adopted -- a strong majority of the Israeli people all agree that, in order to have peace, Israel has got to withdraw from the occupied territories, not just from token withdrawals from a few settlements leaving about 150 other settlements on Palestinian land.
JUDY WOODRUFF: President Carter, people would listen to what you're saying here, and they would read your book, and they would say, "He's putting the onus here on the Israelis." And many would return that by saying, "But wait a minute. It's the Palestinians who continue to fire rockets into Israeli land. It's the Palestinians who have kidnapped Israeli soldiers. It's the Palestinians that continue to perpetuate terrorist acts against the Israelis."
JIMMY CARTER: Sure, that's what you say, and that's the general consensus in the United States. The fact is that, when the Palestinians dug under the Israeli wall from Gaza and captured the Israeli soldier, one soldier, at that time, Israel was holding 9,200 Palestinians prisoner, including 300 children, almost 300, 293 children, some of them 12 years old, and holding almost 100 women prisoner.
And immediately, the Palestinians who took that soldier said, "We want to swap this soldier for some of our women and children." And the Israelis rejected that proposal and refused to swap at all with the Palestinians in the West Bank. That was the key to the issue.
So it's right that the Palestinians took a soldier, which they should release. But for Israel to keep 9,000 Palestinians and not release any of them is something that you don't mention in the question, and it's generally not even known in this country.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And we want to give you the opportunity to give that side of the story...
JIMMY CARTER: That's why I wrote the book.
JUDY WOODRUFF: ... as well, and that's why we're here talking to you about it.
JIMMY CARTER: I know.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But what would you say, President Carter, to the Israeli public who would, again, listen to what you're saying, and they would say, "Wait a minute. You're asking us to put our faith in a people, in a government that doesn't even recognize our right to exist?" Isn't that the posture of the Hamas government and the Palestinian territories?
JIMMY CARTER: Well, we were there -- the Carter Center was there, and we monitored the election in January when Hamas did win a victory. They won 42 percent of the vote. It was an open, free, fair, safe election, as certified by the Carter Center, and National Democratic Institute, and the European Union observers. Nobody questioned the integrity of it.
That was an expression of will by the Palestinian people on whom they wanted to serve in their parliament. Well, at that time, I thought that this would be a matter of a unity government. But immediately, the United States and Israel said, "We will not accept a government that has Hamas leaders in it."
And so, as a result of that, all financial aid to the entire population of Palestine was cut off just because they expressed their will in a free vote. And as a matter of fact, Hamas, whom everyone criticizes -- the fact is that Hamas, since August of 2004, has not committed a single act of terrorism that cost an Israeli life, not a single one.
JUDY WOODRUFF: I think many Americans would be surprised to hear that.
JIMMY CARTER: I know. They would be surprised, but it's an actual fact. And Hamas...
JUDY WOODRUFF: But what about not recognizing Israel's right to exist?
JIMMY CARTER: The day after the election, I went and met with Mahmoud Abbas, who is the leader of the Palestinians. He's their president. He's the head of the PLO, which is the only organization, by the way, that the United States or Israel recognizes, the PLO, in which there's not a single Hamas member. Hamas has nothing to do with the PLO.
And after I met with Abbas to talk about a unity government, which he rejected, then I met with a Hamas leader. He's a medical doctor who was elected. He's now in prison, by the way. But he said -- when I insisted that they recognize Israel, he said, "Mr. President, which Israel are you talking about? Are you talking about the Israel that's occupying our land? Are you talking about the Israel that has built a wall around our people? Are you talking about an Israel that deprives us of basic human rights to move from one place to another in our own land?" He said, "We can't recognize that Israel."
But later, the prime minister of the Hamas government, Haniyeh, said, "We are strongly in favor of direct talks between Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the PLO and the head of the government, and the prime minister of Israel, Olmert." And he said, "If they reach an agreement in their discussions that's acceptable to the Palestinian people, we will accept it, also. Hamas will."
Those things are not even known in this country; they're a matter of record.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And you're saying that, if the U.S. doesn't get involved, then...
JIMMY CARTER: Then there won't be much progress. You know, it's been proven in the past that some outside group needs to get involved. And in 1978 and '79, I got involved and negotiated a peace treaty between Israel and its only formidable opponent, that is Egypt.
In 2003, the Norwegians concluded an agreement, the Oslo Agreement. In both cases, the Israeli leaders won the Nobel Peace Prize for adopting the principles that Israel would withdraw from the territory in order to get peace. That has been abandoned now under the last three leaders of Israel.
And as I said earlier, a majority of Israelis, in every public opinion poll that's been done since 1967, have favored exchanging the confiscated Palestinian land for peace. But there's a small minority in Israel, a substantial minority, that says we would prefer the land, and we will not relinquish it in order to get peace.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Very quick final question about Iraq. Can you have peace in Iraq without fixing the Israeli-Palestinian problem, or is it vice versa? Do you must -- you first need to fix Iraq?
JIMMY CARTER: There is no way to separate the two. President Bush is over there now trying to harness supporters among the moderate Arabs. He just was in Jordan, and in Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and others that I need not name right now.
To get them to support us enthusiastically in Iraq means that he's going to have to alleviate their deep concern and their animosity -- with less than 5 percent of Jordanians and Egyptians looking with favor on our government -- because the main obstacle for their full support of the United States now in Iraq and other places is because we have not shown any interest for the last six years in alleviating the horrible plight of the Palestinians.
We've made no effort in the last six years to bring peace to Israel or to their adjacent neighbors, the Palestinians.
JUDY WOODRUFF: President Jimmy Carter, with some passionately held views. We thank you very much for being with us on the NewsHour. We appreciate it.
JIMMY CARTER: I always enjoy being with you and on the NewsHour.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Thank you very much.
JIMMY CARTER: It's a pleasure.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Good to see you.
JIMMY CARTER: Thanks, Judy.

Schoolchildren Confront Israeli Soldiers in Hebron

2006-11-03T07:28:00.000-05:00

If it were your city...

2006-10-30T14:03:00.000-05:00

Palestinians in Nablus lament their "dying" city

Yahoo News - By Dean Yates - October 25, 2006

Dying. Dead. A corpse. Isolated from the world.

That is how Palestinians describe the once thriving city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

Surrounded by sand-colored rocky mountains, Nablus is also encircled by Israeli army checkpoints and military bases. For Palestinians, leaving means queuing for hours, unless you are a male aged 16 to 35. Then, exit is prohibited without a permit.

Palestinians brand the Israeli restrictions collective punishment. Israel calls the militant stronghold a "hotbed of terror activity."

A center for trading olives, soap and other goods for thousands of years, Nablus should be the business hub of the West Bank. Instead, many entrepreneurs have left. Other residents say they want to leave. Depression is common.

At night, gunfire echoes from the ancient Old City: Israeli troops on a raid or rival militant factions settling scores.

"This is a story that should be written with tears," said Hasan Abu Libdeh, head of the Palestinian stock market, which was set up here a decade ago amid optimism about peace.

"Nablus, a magnificent city, is a corpse. It just breaks my heart."

Israel clamped tight restrictions on Nablus, north of Jerusalem, during a Palestinian uprising that erupted six years ago after peace talks collapsed.

The army said there were six checkpoints around Nablus and its 200,000 people, noting that curbs were also in place on young men leaving.

"In many cases, the presence of checkpoints in the area of Nablus has prevented terrorists from entering Israel and killing civilians," the army said in response to questions from Reuters.

The army referred to three recent instances where soldiers at checkpoints had arrested militants carrying explosives.

Inside Nablus, militants are not hard to find.

Standing in a shop in a narrow alleyway of the Old City, a young member of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an M-16 assault rifle slung over his shoulder, watches people passing by. He is reluctant to answer questions.

Outside, posters of gunmen killed in clashes with Israeli troops line the stone walls.

One shows Fadi Qafeesheh, 33, shot dead by Israeli soldiers on August 31. In the picture, Qafeesheh strikes various poses, holding a pump-action shotgun, an assault rifle and a pistol. Some residents said he made vests for suicide bombers.

TIDE OF HISTORY

Nablus has a long biblical history and is important to Christians, Muslims and Jews.

Herbalist Abdulrahman Arafat, 49, says his family's store in the Old City dates back to 1773.

He points to a sketch on the wall of his great grandfather wearing a felt hat called a fez, which was popular under the Ottomans, among the many rulers of Nablus.

Employing a mix of science and tradition, Arafat patiently dispenses herbs, seeds, oils, chamomile lotion and ginger to customers seeking help for their ailments.

His ready smile disappears when he speaks about his city.

"Nablus is a dying city. It is a city in a jail," he said.

Conditions have worsened since Hamas Islamists, sworn to destroying Israel, took over the Palestinian government last March, prompting a U.S.-led aid embargo and a power struggle with moderate President Mahmoud Abbas.

Although there are no statistics available, residents and officials say many businessmen have left to live in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Others to go have included intellectuals and skilled workers. The poor, and young men, remain.

Unemployment is high, investment stagnant.

"Who would dare invest in Nablus? You need two hours just to get out," said Shaher Saed, secretary general of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions, speaking on the sidelines of a recent meeting in the city.

Maher Abu Zant, a psychologist and head of the sociology and social work department at the city's An-Najah University, said he was concerned by the number of students suffering depression.

Students often came to him wanting to drop out because they were unhappy and saw no point continuing their studies, he said.

"People in Nablus feel they are isolated from the world," Abu Zant said. "Nablus should be the economic capital of Palestine. But it's a dead city. It's very sad."

The Israeli army says it tries to ease passage through checkpoints for Palestinians, especially during busy periods.

"The (army) makes great efforts to ease the daily lives of the Palestinian population but will take the necessary measures to maintain the safety and security of the citizens of Israel," the army statement said.

DECEPTIVE BEAUTY

From a distance, Nablus looks alluring.

Cream-coloured apartment buildings, eight to 10 storeys high, carpet the sides of the two steep mountains that create a valley where the Old City lies.

At night, the peaks provide a vantage point to soak up the atmosphere. Shimmering green lights in minarets show where each of the city's 41 mosques are located.

Up close, Nablus looks less appealing. Vacant lots are strewn with garbage. Many traffic lights don't work. Drivers usually ignore those that do.

"There is no life here. No money, everybody is depressed. I would like to leave," said Nashaat Humidan, 21, an economics student at An-Najah University.

Community leaders said the Israeli restrictions were having a counterproductive effect, playing into the hands of militant groups and fostering hardened attitudes toward the Jewish state.

"I meet Israelis all the time. I say you have to take the risk. By suffocating this city you are creating more fundamentalists, more terrorists," said

"We know!"

2006-10-30T14:00:00.000-05:00

TO: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
FAX 011-972-2-670 5475

Dear Prime Minister Olmert,

We strongly endorse the petition below. Many persons in our community, both Jews and Gentiles, are appalled at the cruel actions of Israel in the Gaza Strip. We implore you to grant respite to the suffering populace at once.

We know: In recent months the IDF has killed in the Gaza strip alone 245 human beings, 62 of whom were children, and another 25 were women;

We know: Palestinian physicians complain of "Flachette" arrow wounds and other effects of banned ammunition;

We know: That the Gaza Strip is under strict siege;

We know: The sick and wounded are dying in hospitals due to lack of medicines and expert physicians, caused by the closing of the passages to Israel, Egypt and Jordan;

We know: The entire population, children, women, men, elderly and infants, suffer from malnutrition;

We know: Day by day, bombs and bulldozers destroy houses whose dwellers are rendered roofless;

We know: The Gaza Strip is in throes of a humanitarian crisis;

We know: War Crimes are perpetrated at this moment in the Gaza Strip;

We know: The IDF actions in the Gaza-strip risk the life of Gilad Shalit;

We Know!

We protest and demand
From the Israeli government and the IDF:

Stop the carnage! Stop the destruction!

Reporting Disparities

2006-10-10T10:07:00.000-04:00

October 6, 2006

Gunning Down Itemad Ismail Abu Mo'ammar

By ALISON WEIR

Almost no one bothered to report it. A search of the nation's largest newspapers turned up nothing in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Chicago Sun-Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Houston Chronicle, Tampa Tribune, etc.

There was nothing on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, PBS, NPR, Fox News. Nothing.

The LA Times, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Associated Press each had one sentence, at most, telling about her. All three left out the details, the LA Times had her age significantly off, and the Washington Post reported that she had been killed by an Israeli tank shell.

It hadn't been a tank shell that had killer her, according to witnesses. It had been bullets, multiple ones, fired up close.

Neighbors report that Israeli soldiers had been beating her husband because he wasn't answering their questions. Foolishly or valiantly, how is one to say, the 35-year-old woman had interfered. She tried to explain that her husband was deaf, screamed at the soldiers that her husband couldn't hear them and attempted to stop them from hitting him. So they shot her. Several times.

Her name was Itemad Ismail Abu Mo'ammar.

She didn't die, though. That took longer. It required her life to flow out of her in the form of blood for several hours, as Israeli soldiers refused to allow an ambulance to transport her to help. Her husband and children could do nothing to save her.

Finally, after approximately five hours, an ambulance was allowed to take her to a hospital, where physicians were able to render one service: pronounce her dead, a few days before the commencement of Ramadan, a season of family gatherings much like the Christmas season for Americans. She left 11 children. None of this was in the Washington Post story, which had reported her death in one half of one sentence.

Her husband's brother, who lived in the same house, was also killed. He was a 28-year-old farmer.

Why did this all happen? The family lived behind a resistance fighter wanted by Israel. They were simply "collateral damage" in a failed Israeli assassination/kidnapping operation.

All together, five Palestinians were killed that day. The other three were young shepherds killed in another area, two 15 years old and one 14, who seem to have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Gaza.

None of this was reported in most of America's news media, and so the American public never learned about a mother bleeding to death in front of her children, or young shepherds being blown to pieces. Apparently, it just wasn't newsworthy.

A Case Study of "Good" News Coverage

The Washington Post at least mentioned these deaths, so perhaps those who care about journalistic standards should laud the Post for its coverage.

And yet, the Post in its short report got so much so wrong.

In addition to misreporting Itemad's cause of death and omitting critical facts, the Post's story portrayed the entire context incorrectly, telling readers that these five deaths had broken a period of "relative calm."

The fact is that while it was true that in the previous six months not a single Israeli child had been killed by Palestinians, during this period Israelis had killed 75 Palestinian young people, including an 8-month-old and several three-year-olds.

I phoned the Post and spoke to a foreign editor about the need to run a correction, providing information on Itemad's murder. The editor said that she would pass this on to their correspondent (who is based in Israel), but explained that it was "impossible for him to go to Gaza." When I disagreed, she amended the "impossible" to "very difficult." She neglected to mention that the Post has access to stringers in Gaza available to check out any incident the editors deem important.

Next, I wrote a letter to the paper containing the above information. Happily, the Post letters department apparently checked it out and decided it was a good letter. They sent an email informing me that they were considering my letter for publication and needed to confirm that I was the one who had written it, and that I had not sent the information elsewhere.

I replied in the affirmative, we exchanged a few more messages, and everything appeared on target. Normally, when publications contact you in this way, your letter is published shortly thereafter. I waited in anticipation. And waited.

It is now almost two weeks after their report, and I have just been informed that the paper has decided not to print my letter. The Post has apparently determined that there is no need to run a correction.

I think I understand.

Although the Washington Post's statement of principles proclaims, "This newspaper is pledged to minimize the number of errors we make and to correct those that occur... Accuracy is our goal; candor is our defense," the American Society of Newspaper Editors clarifies these ethical requirements: corrections need only be printed when the error of commission or omission is "significant."

And, after all, these were only Palestinians, and it was just another mother dead.

Alison Weir is Executive Editor of If Americans Knew, which has produced in-depth studies and illustrative videos on American news coverage of Israel-Palestine

The Roots of Violence in Gaza

2006-10-07T19:36:00.000-04:00

From Kathy Bergen
Program Coordinator
Friends International Center in Ramallah tel & fax: (02) 297-1314
e-mail: ficr@palnet.com

Lately we have been hearing a lot about intra-communal and inter-factional violence in Palestinian society, especially in Gaza. I hear comments such as "now they are fighting among themselves" or "Palestinians are killing each other". Yes, the violence is horrific, and as far as statements go, these declarations are correct. However, let us look at the roots of the violence before we judge. Below is an article from Ha'aretz by the never-tiring Israeli journalist, Amira
Hass. She tries to put into perspective some of what is happening, especially in the Gaza Strip.

We must continue to remind ourselves that understanding where violence is coming from does not mean that we condone it. We must understand the roots of violence before we can work to change a situation.

******************************

Not an internal Palestinian matter
by Amira Hass
October 4, 2006

The experiment was a success: The Palestinians are killing each other. They are behaving as expected at the end of the extended experiment called "what happens when you imprison 1.3 million human beings in an enclosed space like battery hens."

These are the steps in the experiment: Imprison (since 1991); remove the
prisoners' usual means of livelihood; seal off all outlets to the outside world, nearly hermetically; destroy existing means of livelihood by preventing the entry of raw materials and the marketing of goods and produce; prevent the regular entry of medicines and hospital supplies; do not bring in fresh food for weeks on end; prevent, for years, the entry of relatives, professionals, friends and others, and allow thousands of people - the sick, heads of families, professionals, children - to be stuck for weeks at the locked gates of the Gaza Strip's only entry/exit.

Steal hundreds of millions of dollars (customs and tax revenues collected by Israel that belong to the Palestinian treasury), so as to force the nonpayment of the already low salaries of most government employees for months; present the firing of homemade Qassam rockets as a strategic threat that can only be stopped by harming women, children and the old; fire on crowded residential neighborhoods from the air and the ground; destroy orchards, groves and fields.

Dispatch planes to frighten the population with sonic booms; destroy the new power plant and force the residents of the closed-off Strip to live without electricity for most of the day for a period of four months, which will most likely turn into a full year - in other words, a year without refrigeration, electric fans, television, lights to study and read by; force them to get by without a regular supply of water, which is dependent on the electricity supply.

It is the good old Israeli experiment called "put them into a pressure cooker and see what happens," and this is one of the reasons why this is not an internal Palestinian matter.

The success of the experiment can be seen in the miasma of desperation that hangs over the Gaza Strip, and in the clan feuding that erupts almost daily there, even more than in the battles between Fatah and Hamas militants. One can only wonder that the feuding is not more frequent, and that some bonds of internal solidarity have been maintained, which saves people from hunger.

In contrast to the feuding between clans, Sunday's battles in Gaza and campaigns of destruction and intimidation, mainly in West Bank cities, were not the result of a momentary loss of control. They are generally viewed as battles between two militias, each of which represents one half of the population, but they were initiated by groups within Fatah to put a few more nails into the coffin of the elected leadership.

The security forces of the Palestinian Authority - in other words, of Fatah, or in still other words, the ones that Mahmoud Abbas is in charge of - are hiding behind the genuine distress and protests of public employees who have not been receiving regular salaries. And they are doing so despite the fact that everyone knows that the failure to pay salaries is not a managerial failure, but is above all due to Israeli policy. These forces were dispatched in order to sow organized anarchy,
as taught in the school of Yasser Arafat.

And why is this, too, an Israeli matter? Because those who dispatched these militants have a shared interest with Israel in regressing to a situation in which the Palestinian leadership collaborates with the appearance of holding peace talks, while Israel continues its occupation and the international community sends hush money in the form of salaries for the Palestinian public sector.

And there is another reason why this is also an internal Israeli issue: Whatever the outcome, the Palestinian feuding and the risk of civil war directly affect about 20 percent of Israeli citizens, the Arabs. They affect the Arabs, and also those segments of the Israeli public that have not forgotten that Israel will remain the occupying and ruling force over the Palestinians as long as the goal of establishing a Palestinian state in all of the territories occupied in 1967 is not realized.

Economic Sanctions for an Occupied People: A First

2006-10-05T14:50:00.000-04:00

Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights--Report on violations of international humanitarian law and human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, submitted by John Dugard, Special Rapporteur, pursuant to Human Rights Council decisión-- 05/09/2006

70. "In effect, the Palestinian people have been subjected to economic sanctions - the first time an occupied people have been so treated. This is difficult to understand. Israel is in violation of major Security Council and General Assembly resolutions dealing with unlawful territorial change and the violation of human rights and has failed to implement the 2004 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, yet it escapes the imposition of sanctions. Instead the Palestinian people, rather than the Palestinian Authority, have been subjected to possibly the most rigorous form of international sanctions imposed in modern times. It is interesting to recall that the Western States refused to impose meaningful economic sanctions on South Africa to compel it to abandon apartheid on the grounds that this would harm the black people of South Africa. No such sympathy is extended to the Palestinian people or their human rights."

Two links to the report:

http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?m=91

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=543

Please Take Action

2006-09-25T10:27:00.000-04:00

This call to re-open the offices of the Prisoners' Friends Association is a human rights issue worthy of our attention.

Forwarded by Gush Shalom

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In a pre-dawn raid on Friday, 8 September 2006, Israeli security forces closed down the offices of Ansar al-Sajin (The Prisoners' Friends Association), an NGO registered under Israeli law which offers support to Palestinian political prisoners. Police officers and General Security Services agents confiscated computers and hundreds of documents from the organization's offices in the Galilee town of Majd al-Krum. Raids were conducted also in Ansar al-Sajin offices in the West Bank. The raid followed a formal declaration by the Israeli Minister of Defense that the organization was illegal.

Ansar al-Sajin has been active since 1979, helping prisoners and their families to cope with the difficulties they face during periods of imprisonment. Thus, beyond providing legal aid to prisoners, the organization has also helped Palestinian families to overcome bureaucratic obstacles in organizing family visits and, in cases of difficulties with the postal service, transferring letters from the Occupied Territories to prisons located within the 1967 borders of Israel. It has also cared for the health of prisoners and helped them to receive medical treatment.

Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, has taken on the legal battle on behalf of Ansar al-Sajin and is challenging the Defense Minister's decision. However, the legal battle is not enough. The decision to shut down the organization's offices and the police raid are clear cases of political harassment, consistent with previous attempts to obstruct and hinder the work of any human rights organization dealing with the welfare of Palestinian political prisoners. In this case, the order came in the wake of the launch of a campaign by the organization, in which it called for the inclusion of 1948 Palestinian prisoners (citizens of Israel) in the current talks on the exchange of prisoners.

We call upon the international human rights community to protest against Israel's actions in this matter. Please call or write to the Israeli Embassy in your country or directly to the Israeli Ministry of Defense and the Prime Minister's office expressing your concern about their blatantly anti-democratic behavior.

The Ministry of Defense:
Tel: 972-3-6975423; Fax: 972-3-6976711
Email: pniot@mod.gov.il

The Prime Minister's Office:
Tel. 972-33-6109898, 972-2-6705555; Fax: 972-2-6705475

Email: pmo.heb@it.pmo.gov.il

Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel
Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI)
Hamoked Center for the Defence of the Individual
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)
The Israeli Action Committee for Palestinian Prisoners and Detainees
Women's Organization for Political Prisoners (WOFPP)

Opposites Attract

2006-09-24T10:09:00.000-04:00

The essence of peace is to connect two opposites.

If you see somebody whose opinion is the very opposite of yours, don't believe that it is impossible to be at peace with him.

Also, if you see two people (peoples) that are two opposites - don't say it is impossible to make peace between them.

On the contrary, that is the essence of the completeness of peace - to make peace prevail between two opposites.

- Rabbi Nachman of Bratislav

Rabbi Nachman , 1772-1811, a mystic and ascetic, was one of the most celebrated Ukrainian Hassidic rabbis. He has many followers in Israel and elsewhere

I Never Realized They Had Aspirations Like Ours

2006-09-21T17:52:00.000-04:00

(An Israeli, about the Palestinians)

A poem by Naomi Shihab Nye

Cranes which land in a Texas river
have flown for thousands of miles.
Dipping long beaks into green water,
they pretend not to notice us.
Graceful necks,
a curved, close world.
Still, a feather fluffs
or a wing stays wide
if we pass.

What else by the long stroke of hope?
Some have said it fifty years.
By now the sorrowing people
make secret refuge in the sky.
If the ground satisfied their dreams,
the sky would miss them.

Naomi Shihab Nye received the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award for 2005

Someone had to state the obvious

2006-09-04T08:30:00.000-04:00

And who other than Howard Zinn, former WWII bomber pilot? Zinn became a pacifist after reflecting on his experiences in the "good war," when he had enthusiastically participated in the fight against Hitler.

War is not a solution for terrorism

Howard Zinn
BOSTON GLOBE September 2, 2006

THERE IS SOMETHING important to be learned from the recent experience of the United States and Israel in the Middle East: that massive military attacks, inevitably indiscriminate, are not only morally reprehensible, but useless in achieving the stated aims of those who carry them out.

The United States, in three years of war, which began with shock-and-awe bombardment and goes on with day-to-day violence and chaos, has been an utter failure in its claimed objective of bringing democracy and stability to Iraq. The Israeli invasion and bombing of Lebanon has not brought security to Israel; indeed it has increased the number of its enemies, whether in Hezbollah or Hamas or among Arabs who belong to neither of those groups.

I remember John Hersey's novel, ``The War Lover," in which a macho American pilot, who loves to drop bombs on people and also to boast about his sexual conquests, turns out to be impotent. President Bush, strutting in his flight jacket on an aircraft carrier and announcing victory in Iraq, has turned out to be much like the Hersey character, his words equally boastful, his military machine impotent.

The history of wars fought since the end of World War II reveals the futility of large-scale violence. The United States and the Soviet Union, despite their enormous firepower, were unable to defeat resistance movements in small, weak nations -- the United States in Vietnam, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan -- and were forced to withdraw.

Even the ``victories" of great military powers turn out to be elusive. Presumably, after attacking and invading Afghanistan, the president was able to declare that the Taliban were defeated. But more than four years later, Afghanistan is rife with violence, and the Taliban are active in much of the country.

The two most powerful nations after World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union, with all their military might, have not been able to control events in countries that they considered to be in their sphere of influence -- the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe and the United States in Latin America.

Beyond the futility of armed force, and ultimately more important, is the fact that war in our time inevitably results in the indiscriminate killing of large numbers of people. To put it more bluntly, war is terrorism. That is why a ``war on terrorism" is a contradiction in terms. Wars waged by nations, whether by the United States or Israel, are a hundred times more deadly for innocent people than the attacks by terrorists, vicious as they are.

The repeated excuse, given by both Pentagon spokespersons and Israeli officials, for dropping bombs where ordinary people live is that terrorists hide among civilians. Therefore the killing of innocent people (in Iraq, in Lebanon) is called accidental, whereas the deaths caused by terrorists (on 9/11, by Hezbollah rockets) are deliberate.

This is a false distinction, quickly refuted with a bit of thought. If a bomb is deliberately dropped on a house or a vehicle on the grounds that a ``suspected terrorist" is inside (note the frequent use of the word suspected as evidence of the uncertainty surrounding targets), the resulting deaths of women and children may not be intentional. But neither are they accidental. The proper description is ``inevitable."

So if an action will inevitably kill innocent people, it is as immoral as a deliberate attack on civilians. And when you consider that the number of innocent people dying inevitably in ``accidental" events has been far, far greater than all the deaths deliberately caused by terrorists, one must reject war as a solution for terrorism.

For instance, more than a million civilians in Vietnam were killed by US bombs, presumably by ``accident." Add up all the terrorist attacks throughout the world in the 20th century and they do not equal that awful toll.

If reacting to terrorist attacks by war is inevitably immoral, then we must look for ways other than war to end terrorism, including the terrorism of war. And if military retaliation for terrorism is not only immoral but futile, then political leaders, however cold-blooded their calculations, may have to reconsider their policies.

Howard Zinn is a professor emeritus at Boston University and the author of ``A People's History of the United States."

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/09/02/war_is_not_a_solution_for_terrorism/

© Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

UPDATED Economic Engagement Survey

2006-09-01T18:24:00.000-04:00

APPROACHES TO ECONOMIC ENGAGEMENT
TOWARD A JUST AND VIABLE PEACE IN ISRAEL AND PALESTINE
A Survey of Diverse Approaches of Religious and Secular Groups Worldwide
September 2006

An Ongoing Review by the Palestine-Israel Action Group,
Peace and Social Concerns Committee, Ann Arbor Friends Meeting
Additional information is welcome: agr1@mac.com

RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS

World Council of Churches Central Committee
WCC advocates selective divestment from US companies like Caterpillar that profit from the Occupation, and from Israeli companies that depend on settlements for materials and labor, or that produce military equipment used to violate Palestinian human rights.
Churches with investment funds have an opportunity to use those funds responsibly in support of peaceful solutions to conflict. “Economic pressure, appropriately and openly applied, is one such means of action. “ (Adopted 2/05; reaffirmed 8/06) (media@wcc-coe.org)

Sabeel (a Jerusalem-based international organization representing Palestinian Christians)
“There is a spiritual dimension to all investment.”
1. Earning money through investment in companies whose products and services are used to violate International Law and human rights is equivalent to profiting from unlawful acts and the oppression of others.
2. Continuing such investments, once the facts are brought to our attention, constitutes enabling harm to innocent civilians under Occupation and condoning illegal settlement policies that lead to human rights violations.
Sabeel cites Israeli human rights lawyer Shamai Leibovitz: “If the Jewish people are ever to become ‘a light of all nations’ and return to their core values of justice and human dignity, Israelis and Jews of conscience must call for effective measures to end the occupation of millions of Palestinians. I believe that selective economic pressure is the most effective way to end the brutal occupation.”
“The churches have exhausted all other options,” says Sabeel founder Naim Ateek, a Palestinian-Israeli Anglican priest. (See “Morally Responsible Investment: A Nonviolent Response to the Occupation,” 8/05. (www.fosna.org)

Anglican Church of England. General Synod, 2/06
Supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, the Synod overwhelmingly votes to support “morally responsible investment in the Palestinian occupied territories and, in particular to disinvest from companies profiting from the illegal occupation, such as Caterpillar Inc, until they change their policies.” The Synod asks its Ethical Investment Advisory Group (EIAG) to engage Caterpillar in “intensive discussions . . . with a view to its withdrawing from supplying or maintaining either equipment or parts for use by the State of Israel in demolishing Palestinian homes.” The Synod urges EIAG members 1) to visit Palestinian lands to see recent house demolitions and 2) “to give weight to the illegality under international law of the activities in which Caterpillar Inc’s equipment is involved.” The Episcopal Bishop of Jerusalem urges action, asking the Synod if the church must “wait until there are no homes and no trees for our people to wake up. . . ” (www.anglicancommunion.org/)

Anglican Consultative Council, 5/05
Calls for “active engagement” by Anglican communions worldwide with companies that support the occupation of Palestinian lands or violence against innocent Israelis. It encourages investment that supports the infrastructure of a future Palestinian State. (www.anglicancommunion.org/)

Anglican Church of Kenya, 7/05
Joins in urging movement toward divestment from companies whose activities contribute to the occupation of Palestinian land or to violence against innocent Israelis. “You only have to go there and [you will] sympathize with the Palestinians, especially when it comes to the separation wall. . . and the mistreatment of the women and men at the roadblocks,” said Bishop Gideon Ireri, speaking after the Kenyan synod backed the 5/05 call of the Anglican Consultative Council. (www.episcopalchurch.org)

Anglican Church of Canada, 11/05
The Council of General Synod unanimously passed a resolution asking the eco-justice committee, with the help of Kairos, a Canadian ecumenical justice group, to research the activities of companies believed to be contributing to ongoing violence in Israel and Palestine, as well as those contributing to ongoing peace and economic stability in that region. The committee, along with the Financial Management Development Investment Subcommittee, should “explore a range of socially responsible investment strategies, including corporate engagement and positive investment or divestment.” The sponsoring bishop noted that the resolution was based on a motion from the Anglican Consultative Council recommending “that churches put pressure on firms that contribute to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, including the removal of investment funds in these companies as a last resort.” The resolution, passed unanimously, recommended the same action for companies that support violence against innocent Israelis. (anglicanjournal.com/132/01/canada15.html)

Episcopalian Executive Council (US), 10/05
EEC directs its Committee for Social Responsibility in Investments to undertake the following:
1. Corporate engagement via dialogue and shareholder resolutions, as appropriate, to encourage companies to adopt socially responsible practices that advance positive changes in Israeli government policy and end the Occupation.
2. Urge the Palestinian Authority to oppose violence as a means of resistance.
3. “Positive investment” – encourage companies to invest in the economic infrastructure of the West Bank and Gaza: “A stable Palestinian state will make for a more secure Israel.” Seek opportunities, with others, to make loans to “support economic justice and development in support of a future Palestinian State.” Palestine, like Israel, has a right to an economy that flourishes.
4. Urge members of the Church to visit church partners and others in Israel and the Palestinian Territories in order to understand the complexities of the conflict. (www.episcopalchurch.org/)

Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice
The Ann Arbor, Michigan interfaith group, in 5/03 adopted a resolution that recognizes the US government’s complicity in violations of human rights, and calls for suspending military aid and arms sales to Israel. It asks the University of Michigan, the city of Ann Arbor and members’ religious organizations to exert their influence, and, along with individuals, to divest from companies that sell arms or other military hardware to Israel. The goal is to bring about Israel’s compliance with UN resolutions and the Geneva Convention. (info@icpj.net)

Presbyterian Church, USA, 6/06
The 2006 General Assembly votes to continue its policy of economic engagement in the denomination’s work for peace in Israel-Palestine. The new resolution makes the geographic scope and the substantial reach of the project more explicit, urging that the church’s investments “as they pertain to Israel, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, be invested in only peaceful pursuits.” The resolution, overwhelmingly adopted, states that “the proper vehicle for achieving this goal” is the “customary corporate engagement process of the Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI).” MRTI aims to persuade corporations to change their practices through correspondence, direct talks, proxy voting, shareholder resolutions, and if need-be through a recommendation for divestment. Rev. Gretchen Graf, Moderator of the GA Peacemaking Committee, affirms that MRTI “as a last resort” could recommend divestment to the next General Assembly in 2008 despite the absence of the words “phased selective divestment,” in this year’s resolution. That phrase in the 2004 GA document aroused the ire of organizations that considered it punitive toward Israel. The phrase has, however, drawn praise worldwide from organizations that believe it may more effectively persuade Israel to end its occupation than have decades of urgent requests.
The 2006 resolution asks MRTI to ”identify affirmative investment opportunities as they pertain to Israel, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank.” The Presbyterians also explicitly ask the entire church “to work through peaceful means” to end the occupation, to end violence against civilians, and for the “creation of a socially, economically, geographically, and politically viable and secure Palestinian state, alongside an equally viable and secure Israeli state, both of which have a right to exist.” Finally, the GA supports “fair criticism” of the wall. “To the extent that the security barrier violates Palestinian land . . . the barrier should be dismantled and relocated.” (http://les-pcusa.org/Item.aspx?IID=90&)

Presbyterian Church of Scotland, 5/06.
The General Assembly, meeting in Edinburgh, calls on European authorities and the World Council of Churches to clearly identify products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank “to enable consumers to make informed choices.” The General Assembly took this step after learning from its Church and Society Council that there were no investments in the church’s portfolio relevant to the church’s concerns about Israel and the Palestinians. (ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_060524cofs.s)

Religious Society of Friends (Quakers): Atlanta Meeting, 7/06, and Olympia Meeting, 8/06
“By using US-supplied weapons to attack Gaza and Lebanon, Israel is violating the terms of the US Arms Export Control Act and Foreign Assistance Act. The Arms Export Control Act restricts the use of US weapons to legitimate self-defense and internal policing; US weapons cannot be used to attack civilians in offensive operations. The Foreign Assistance Act prohibits US aid of any kind to a country that routinely kills civilians as a result of its military operations. … We urge the President and Congress to stop all foreign assistance and military equipment exports to Israel until it ceases military attacks outside of its internationally recognized borders.” (atlanta.quaker.org) (olyfriends.homestead.com)

Religious Society of Friends (Quakers): Philadelphia Meeting
Spring 2005: “Threshing” Session topic, “Israel’s Occupation: Is It Time for Divestment?”
1. What are the “facts on the ground”? 2. What are our historic precedents for action?
3. What are the criteria for action? 4. How do we maintain integrity in seeking both justice and compassion? Next: “Threshing” sessions with other Philadelphia Meetings, Fall 2006. (matson@drexel)

Roman Catholic Mercy Investment Program, Sisters of Mercy, Maryknoll Sisters, Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, Sisters of Loretto and Jewish Voice for Peace. 4/05
The Sisters’ Caterpillar shareholder resolution asked Cat to investigate whether its sale of bulldozers to Israel violates the company’s own code of conduct: “It is a matter of public record that since September 2000, the Israeli government has used Caterpillar equipment to destroy more than 3000 homes, hundreds of public buildings and private commercial properties and vast areas of agricultural land,” uprooting “hundreds of thousands of olive trees as well as orchards of dates, prunes, lemons and oranges causing widespread economic hardship and environmental degradation in rural areas of Palestine” The resolution received a 3% vote at the shareholders’ meeting. A JVP member called the event “a remarkable success,” stating, “[O]ur primary goal was to put this issue front and center in the minds of the Caterpillar board.” (sistersofmercy.org) (iccr.org/)

Roman Catholic Sisters of Loretto.
As shareholders in Caterpillar, Inc., the Sisters community filed a resolution in 2004, asking Caterpillar to stop providing arms to Israel. In April, a Sister addressed the annual shareholders meeting, telling the executives, “You understand the implications of improvement in clean emissions, equal employment opportunity, environmental impact of mining and logging. But with sales to the Israeli Army through the Department of Defense, you have stepped up Caterpillar's role in the public arena. Caterpillar bulldozers are tools of war now and Caterpillar is an arms dealer, sharing in responsibility for the horrendous use of those weapons.” The resolution won 4% of the shareholders’ votes, assuring its reconsideration in 2005. (catdestroyshomes.org) (lorettocommunity.org)

The United Church of Canada (Presbyterian, Methodist, United Church of Christ).
The UCC General Council, 8/06, adopts a Pro-Peace Investment Strategy “to invite the membership, congregations, and organizations of The United Church of Canada to invest in companies that contribute to peace and a secure and economically viable Palestinian state alongside a secure and economically viable State of Israel” and to “make financial investments, as they pertain to Israel, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, with . . . companies that are engaged only in peaceful pursuits in the region.” UCC is Canada’s largest Protestant denomination. It rules out investment in companies supporting the occupation and settlements, helping to build the separation barrier, or serving “any government or organization that refuses to recognize the legitimate rights of the State of Israel, including its right to exist as a Jewish state.” The denomination denounces acts of violence perpetrated against persons on all sides of the conflict. It commits to raising one million dollars to support projects of groups working for peace in Palestine and Israel. (www.united-church.ca/news/2006/0818.shtm)

United Church of Christ (UCC), 7/05
Commitment to Israel’s safe and secure existence within internationally recognized borders. Condemns violence on both sides.
1. Urges the US to play the role of honest broker
2. Significant dialogue with Jewish, Christian and Muslim partners
3. Educate congregants about the realities on the ground
4. “Economic leverage” on behalf of oppressed people:
A) Divestment from companies that sell arms or military hardware to Israel.
B) Reallocation of US foreign aid to constrain militarization of the Middle East. (ucc.org)

United Methodist Church: New England Conference
Resolution on “Divesting from Companies that are Supporting, in a Significant Way, the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territories” (6/05): The settlements and Israel’s wall on Palestinian land violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions, UN resolutions, and the 2003 Roadmap. Therefore a committee will determine which investments support the occupation, writing the company to request a change in its relationship to the occupation. If no change is taken or contemplated within 60 days, the company’s name will be placed on a divestment list and shared with Methodist churches and investment managers.
The Church calls on the US government, the government of Israel, and the Palestinian leadership to reject all acts of aggression and violence, to respect the equality and dignity of all the region’s people, and follow principles of international law and human rights. The Church affirms the right of Christians, Jews, and Muslims to freedom of movement in the Holy Land and the maintenance of Jerusalem as an open city for people of all three faiths. (UMC.org)

United Methodist Church: Virginia
6/05 affirms Israel's right to exist within permanent, recognized, and secure borders, and Palestinians' right to self-determination and the formation of a viable state.
The Conference calls upon the United Methodist Board of Pensions to review its investments and undertake a process of phased, selective divestment from any multinational corporations that are profiting from the illegal demolition of Palestinian homes, destruction of the Palestinian economy, and confiscation of Palestinian land. (UMC.org)

York and Hull District Methodist Synod, England, 4/05. Recommend to the UK Methodist

Conference that it follow the lead of the World Council of Churches and Presbyterian Church,
undertaking a review of all investments under its control, with a view to divesting from any corporations or activities that support the illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. “International Law is the basis of the Conference resolution. This fact should be well publicized.”

JEWISH AND PALESTINIAN ORGANIZATIONS

European Jews for a Just Peace (EJJP)
“No Other Way,” adopted at the 2005 annual plenary, calls for economic pressure targeted at the Occupation. The rationale for these measures highlights: 1) Their nonviolent nature, and 2) The fact that the need to resort to these steps is a result of the failure of other means. Opposing the Israeli occupation cannot be construed as anti-Semitic. On the contrary, looking to endow Israel with special rights because it is a Jewish state is an attitude which smacks of anti-Semitism because it sees Jews as being different from the rest of humanity.
Under “Divestment Actions,” EJJP calls for pressure by boycott and information campaigns on companies, institutions, organizations, and individuals that profit from involvement in or contribution to the Occupation, such as Caterpillar, Intel, and Soda Club. It includes Israeli companies that produce military equipment used to violate Palestinian human rights, and also universities, research institutions, and individuals that contribute to the perpetuation of the Occupation.
The purchase of Israeli arms and weapons should be banned, and governments are asked to stop selling Israel arms used to continue the Occupation. Settlement products should be boycotted, based on the Gush Shalom list, as well as products with labels that do not differentiate between settlement products and those made in Israel. (ejjp.org)

Gush Shalom
“Peace Bloc” in Hebrew, Gush is a highly active Israeli peace organization that started an ongoing National Boycott of Settlements’ Products in 1997, providing a list of products produced in settlements’ industrial parks to tens of thousands of Israeli households on request. The list is constantly revised and is used by international groups seeking such information. (gush-shalom.org)

ICAHD (Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions) calls for sanctions, 1/05
1. Selective divestment from companies that profit from the Occupation, e.g., Caterpillar, and from Israeli companies that depend on settlements for materials or labor or that produce military equipment used to violate Palestinian human rights
2. Reminds churches with investment funds that they have an opportunity to use those funds responsibly in support of peaceful solutions to conflict. Economic pressure is one such means of action. Calls for churches to:
A. Exert pressure on companies to discontinue business that supports the occupation.
B. When pressure fails, divest from such companies. (lucia@icahd.org)

Jewish Voice for Peace
The group includes American Jews and Israeli peace activists. It supports the Presbyterian Church’s “selective divestment from companies, including Caterpillar, that profit from Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem and from Israeli companies that use settlements as a source for materials and labor or that produce military equipment used to violate Palestinian human rights. General divestment from Israel itself is not now advised; rather: target the Occupation and the Israeli military complex that sustains it.
JVP counters Caterpillar’s claims that the company is not involved with Israeli violence because it does not sell its house-wrecking equipment directly to the IDF. However, the company’s bulldozers are sold to Israel through the US Foreign Military Sales Program, as Cat CEO Jim Owens wrote JVP in 2003.
JVP notes that US military aid since 1949 “represents the largest transfer of funds from one country to another in history.” However, by law, 75% of US military aid to Israel must go to US corporations, so US companies are major financial beneficiaries of the Occupation. (www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org)

Jews Against The Occupation, New York, NY 11/04.
“We are writing as deeply committed Jews to thank the Presbyterian Church for acting as a true friend to our people. Their decisions to condemn Israel's Wall . . . and to begin selective divestment of holdings in multinational corporations doing business in Israel/Palestine represent an important step forward in the struggle for Palestinian freedom and an end to the conflict . . . (W)e believe that the day will come, be it in five years or fifty, when the Presbyterian Church’s action in this matter will be remembered with love and gratitude by Jews around the world. . . ” (www.jatonyc.org)

Jews for a Just Peace, Vancouver, Canada 8/06.
There is no such thing as a benign occupation. Appeals to the Israeli government to end their harsh treatment of Palestinian have simply not worked. “That’s why stronger measures are called for, measures such as selective divestment . . .”
Israel’s occupation is being institutionalized and made permanent. As Jeff Halper says: “Neither security nor terrorism are really the issue; Israel’s policies of annexation are based on a pro-active claim to the entire country . . . Terrorism on all sides is wrong . . . but to demand that resistance cease while an occupation is being made permanent is unconscionable.”
“In Gaza, the siege continues. Israel has kidnapped elected Palestinian officials, shelled and bombed, conducted military operations resulting in civilian deaths, and destroyed civilian infrastructure -- power grids, bridges, government buildings and more. Still understood as occupation under international law, Israel controls Gazan airspace, borders and ports.
“We support the views of the prominent Israeli writer, the late Yeshayahu Leibovitz, who wrote: ‘We must free ourselves from the curse of dominating another people.’” (www.jewsforajustpeace.com)

New Profile
An Israeli peace group, active with army Refusers, women’s groups, and other peace groups, 2/05, New Profile “opposes the Occupation on three counts: 1. Its destruction of Palestinian life, society, land, and property. 2. Its role in maintaining militarism in Israel. 3. Its erosion of Israel’s socio-economic and moral fabric.”
“We therefore seek non-violent means of ending this catastrophic Occupation. One such means is using economic sanctions to pressure the government to change its policy. To this end New Profile welcomes and supports selective divestment aimed at divesting from companies that contribute to the continuation of the Occupation by supplying arms, other equipment, or staff . . . [E]nding the occupation is not only to the benefit of the Palestinians but also necessary for the welfare of Israel, its youth, and future generations. Over 20,000 Israeli soldiers have died in its wars since 1948. Enough.”(www.newprofile.org)

Not in My Name (NIMN)
NIMN supports Selective Divestment as a Tool to Oppose the Israeli Occupation. This predominantly Jewish US group stated in 1/05) “We continue to add our voices to the growing anti-Occupation movement and make it clear that Israel neither speaks nor acts in the name of all Jews.”
“[T]he Occupation is destroying Israeli society by increasing poverty, violence, and insecurity. Therefore actions that oppose the Occupation are, in fact, pro-Israeli. Furthermore, we believe that such actions are in keeping with our vision of a Judaism that is based on the principle of justice.”
“We believe that the Israelis and Palestinians deserve a chance to live together in peace and we support self-determination for both peoples. We oppose the obstacles that prevent the creation of a just and lasting peace, and believe that the Occupation and the U.S. support for it are primary obstacles. We also oppose such things as the illegal Jewish-only settlements and bypass roads in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, home demolitions, all forms of collective punishments, and extrajudicial assassinations. We also oppose the Wall that imprisons entire Palestinian villages and separates Palestinians from their farmlands, schools, religious and economic centers, and their water. . .
Well-designed divestment campaigns can help focus public discourse on the Occupation. They can also have a positive material impact, as has been shown by such projects as the grape boycott to support the United Farm Workers and the opposition to South African apartheid.”
“Therefore, NIMN urges its members and supporters to investigate and actively support selective divestment and boycott campaigns that target corporations that profit from the Occupation.” (nimn.org)

Palestinian Civil Society (170 organizations) 7/05: “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights”
1. South Africa apartheid is a historical precedent
2. End the occupation and dismantle the wall
3. Recognize the rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel
4. Palestinians’ right of return re: UN resolution 194 (www.badil.org)

Palestinian Filmmakers, Artists and Cultural Workers, 8/06
This call for a cultural boycott asks “artists and filmmakers of good conscience around the world to cancel all exhibitions and other cultural events that are scheduled to occur in Israel” and to “speak out against the current Israeli war crimes and atrocities” as they once did in boycotting South African art institutions. The group asks the international community “to join us in the boycott of Israeli film festivals, Israeli public venues, and Israeli institutions supported by the government, and to end all cooperation with these cultural and artistic institutions that to date have refused to take a stand against the Occupation, the root cause for this colonial conflict.” A goal of the campaign is to “appeal to the Israeli people to give up their silence, to abandon their apathy, and to face up to their responsibility in the destruction and killing their elected government is wreaking.” People can endorse this call by sending an email with name, position and country to

SECULAR AND NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS (NGOS)

Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine, 2/06
The British group calls for an economic boycott of the Israeli construction industry. They protest the building of Israeli settlements and the Wall in the Occupied Territories. Architects and others working on Israeli projects in the occupied territories are “complicit in social, political and economic oppression.” The “construction disciplines are being used to promote an apartheid system of environmental control.” A leader of the group, architectural critic Charles Jenckes, told The Independent, ”I understand fully that security is the problem for Israel and they have the right to protect themselves. But this is not the solution. It is an extremist measure which foments extremism, by incarcerating and intimidating Palestinians.” The group may target Israeli-made construction materials and Israeli architects and construction companies. (news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article344510.ece)

Association of University Teachers (AUT)
In 4/05, the AUT Council, the governing body of Britain’s 40,000-strong academic union, voted to boycott Israeli academia, particularly Haifa and Bar Ilan universities. Haifa -- because of the threatened dismissal of Dr. Ilan Pappe for his defense of graduate student Teddy Katz, whose master’s thesis documented the 1948 massacre of Palestinians at Tantura. Bar-Ilan -- because of its links to the College of Judea and Samaria (elevated to university status in 5/05). Bar-Ilan’s support for the College in the Ariel settlement, was considered as de facto support for the Occupation. The AUT boycott was rescinded in 5/05 by a Special Council meeting, reportedly after intervention by the British Foreign Office. The Council decided instead to provide practical support to Palestinian and Israeli trade unionists and academics. ( www.aut.org.uk/)

Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine
CJPP, based in Quebec, launched a campaign in 12/05 of “boycott, divestment, and sanctions, to force Israel to respect international law.” They state: “We must stop believing in the false pronouncements of peace of the Israeli State and in the roadmap of its US sponsor. Because, in practice, under the cover of the hyper-showcased Gaza 'disengagement,' Israel is moving ahead with a much more significant expansion of its settlements in the West Bank, and continues the illegal construction of its apartheid wall, gradually reducing the occupied Palestinian territories into a disconnected patchwork of mini-bantustans.” The campaign will cover 1) the boycott of Israeli products and products of companies that are contributing to the occupation, 2) the retrieval of investments from these companies, and 3) sanctions against the Israeli State, starting with opposition to the Canada-Israel free trade agreement. The targets initially identified by the CJPP for Phase One are Caterpillar and Israeli wines. (cjpp.org/}

Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)
The Ontario division of Canada’s largest union, representing 200,000 workers, voted in 5/06 to support the international campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions until Israel recognizes “the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination” and “the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.” The group asks the Canadian Labor Congress to “join us in lobbying against the apartheid-like practices of the Israeli state and call for the immediate dismantling of the wall.” CUPE will develop an education campaign about the political and economic support of Canada for these practices. (www.cupe.on.ca/)

Collectif Urgence Palestine (CUP) (Swiss)
CUP protests the “Judization of Jerusalem,” by boycotting Connex, a French company hired to run a light railway system connecting Jewish-only settlements in Jerusalem. In 3/06, CUP protested a contract for Connex to operate public transport services in Geneva, stating: “Switzerland, as depository of the Geneva Conventions, should not deal with companies that violate international law and support Israeli Apartheid in Palestine.” In 2005, CUP petitioned the Swiss parliament to nullfy the purchase of Israeli military equipment worth 150 million Swiss francs. In May 2006, CUP hosted an international conference with ECCP: “For a Just Peace in Palestine and Israel: Enforce International Law!” They called for divestment and boycott. (www.urgencepalestine.ch)

Dance Europe
This London-based dance magazine, with a circulation of 17,500, joins the cultural boycott. “We are opposed to the occupation,” says advertising director Naresh Kaul. Dance Europe screens its ads: “If any company in Israel cooperates with us by adding a disclaimer saying it is opposed to the occupation, settlements and everything else, we will cooperate with them.” The magazine prints Israeli ads if the advertiser includes a statement saying the firm disapproves of the occupation. (www.danceeurope.net)

Edinburgh International Film Festival returned a donation to the Israeli Embassy and cancelled several Israeli films (8/06). The Israeli donation was to underwrite the attendance of Israeli director Yoav Shamir at the showing of his documentary “Five Days,” about the withdrawal of Israel from Gaza. The festival decided to show the film and offer to fund Shamir’s expenses itself. Eighteen Israeli films were originally scheduled for screening. Seven were cancelled. Festival artistic director Christophe Postic explained, “(T)he war in Lebanon changed the picture. We couldn’t present only Israeli films for three days and ignore what is happening.” (www.ynetnews.com/articles)

European Coordinating Committee of NGOs on the Question of Palestine (ECCP), 7/05
Members of the civil society of EU-member states petition their governments, the EU Council, and the UN “to take political and economical measures, including sanctions, to prevent Israel from continuing the construction of the wall and to force it to respect the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion” [which ruled that the Wall on Palestinian soil is unlawful]. NGOs and Palestine solidarity groups in Europe urge their governments to cease all military exchanges and agreements with Israel, to provide no aid in construction of the Wall, to honor their commitment to the Fourth Geneva Convention and UN Resolutions, and to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement. (eccp@skynet.be)

Global Exchange
This international human rights organization working for social, economic, and environmental justice says Palestinians in Israel “live as third class citizens, facing legal, economic, and social discrimination. In the occupied territories, Israel continues to subject the Palestinians there to home demolitions, closures and checkpoints, extrajudicial detentions and assassinations, immobilizing curfews, and countless other daily abuses and forms of oppression. The system of apartheid that Israel has developed closely resembles that which South Africa once had. Apartheid in South Africa was eventually abolished in large part because of an international grassroots movement to stop financial support of the apartheid regime.” They add: “Through divestment (stopping capital investment in companies that do business in Israel) and boycott (not buying Israeli products) we can bring justice to the Israelis and Palestinians as well.” (updated 8/23/05) (www.globalexchange.org)

Human Rights Watch, 12/04
HRW reports that the Israeli military uses the D9 bulldozer as its primary weapon to raze Palestinian homes, destroy agriculture, and shred roads in violation of the laws of war, international human rights laws. The group urges the company to cease D9 sales that go to the Israeli military
Caterpillar’s CEO says the firm lacks “the practical ability or legal right to determine how our products are used after they are sold.” HRW says this stance ignores international standards on corporate social responsibility. Since 2003, the United Nations has been developing standards for corporations. The “UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights” states that companies should not “engage in or benefit from” violations of international human rights or humanitarian law and that companies “shall further seek to ensure that the goods and services they provide will not be used to abuse human rights.” (HRW.org)

The Interfaith Group for Morally Responsible Investment (IMRI-UK)
This consortium sees “no prospect for peace without the intervention of the international community.” They support the decision of the Synod of the Anglican Church of England, 2/06, to commence disinvestment from companies that support the illegal occupation. IMRI asks individual Anglican parishes to shift their investment funds away from Caterpillar. IMRI members include concerned Anglicans, and the Amos Trust, Friends of Al Aqsa, Interpal, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Just Peace UK, the Palestinian Return Centre, and Pax Christi. (stephen.sizer@btinternet.com)

ISM Italy
A huge inflatable snake floated on the River Po during the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy (2/06). It was launched by the Italian branch of ISM (International Solidarity Movement), citing Israel’s refusal to comply with the 2004 International Court of Justice ruling on the illegality of the Wall. The creature, designed by artist Piero Gilardi, bore the slogan “Free Palestine! Boycott Israel!” (info@ism-italia.it)

Labor for Palestine
LFP emerged in the US as a response to Palestinian workers’ exploitative conditions. US labor union pension funds are said to have about 5 billion dollars invested in State of Israel Bonds. Divestment from these bonds is a central platform of Labor for Palestine. (www.laborforpalestine.org)

Lussas Documentary Film Festival, France, 8/06
Lussas cancelled screenings of Israeli documentary films following the outbreak of the massive Israeli attack on Lebanon. Festival directors wrote the Israeli directors that they planned to substitute a program of Lebanese and Palestinian films “that will show our opposition to the war.” (newsbusters.org/node/7136)

National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (UK)
Britain’s largest faculty association voted in 5/06 to urge its 67,000 members to “consider the appropriateness of a boycott” of Israeli faculty who fail to “publicly dissociate themselves” from Israel’s “apartheid policies, including construction of the exclusion wall and discriminatory educational practices.” They ask British college teachers “to consider their own responsibility for ensuring equity and nondiscrimination in contacts with Israeli educational institutions or individuals.” (www.natfhe.org.uk/)

National Lawyers Guild
Resolution To Divest, In Principle And Practice, From Israel ( NLG National Convention, 10/04)
WHEREAS the Israeli government with its illegal occupation and expansionist program in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip is engaged, and has been engaged in grave human rights violations including but not limited to: the use of live ammunition on unarmed civilians (including men, women, and children); massive and disproportionate use of force including the firing of missiles from Apache helicopter gun-ships against defenseless civilian populations; illegal mass arrests and institutionalized torture (including men, women, and children); the willful destruction of agricultural land; the deprivation of water; forced malnutrition with concomitant health consequences including stillborn deaths and irreversible develop-mental damage to children; the mass demolition of homes and confiscation of land; hostage taking and extra-judicial assassinations; denial of medical services to the sick and wounded; the use of human shields (including children); the targeting of schools, and hospitals; the building of illegal fortified "Jewish-only" Israeli colonies/settlements on confiscated land connected by "Jewish-only" bypass roads, and the heavily subsidized transfer of hundreds of thousands of its own civilian population into these colonies/settlements;
WHEREAS the International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel's Apartheid Wall violates international humanitarian law which governs Israel's administration of the Palestinian territories it has occupied since 1967 as well as the fundamental human rights of the Palestinians;
WHEREAS by virtue of, but not limited to, the Principles of the Nuremberg Charter and Judgment; The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights; International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights; The Geneva Conventions, in particular, but not limited to the 4th Geneva Convention, the Convention Against Torture, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Protocol 1, Additional to the Geneva Conventions, as well as other international covenants and the general humanitarian principles of international law, these acts constitute war crimes, and in some cases crimes against humanity.
WHEREAS, the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, 22 USC sec. 2304, provides that "no security assistance may be provided to any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights;"
WHEREAS, the UN General Assembly on October 22, 2003, reaffirming the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force, and . . . reiterating its opposition to settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories almost unanimously, with the exception of the US, Israel
BE IT RESOLVED that the NLG seeks, in principal and practice, to support national and international campaigns to divest from Israel . . . and (a) support divestment campaigns to make full public disclosure of any and all investments it or other institutions have in Israel and of any and all profits earned from companies invested in Israel, and (b) either immediately divest from those companies, or cause such companies to disinvest from Israel until all of the following conditions are met: 1) Withdraw armed forces; 2) Permit interested refugees to return to their homes and compensate the rest; 3) End torture; 4) Vacate all Jewish-only settlement/colonies; 5) Compensate all Palestinian victims. (www.nlg.org)

Palestine Solidarity Campaign-UK
PSM asks consumers to Boycott Israeli Goods via the “BIG” Campaign. “BIG” stages colorful anti-import demonstrations in major British cities, focusing on items like avocadoes or dates. It buys shares in companies like Tesco to pressure corporate boards to eliminate Israeli imports. In 6/06, Tesco agreed to phase out Israeli peppers due to consumer pressure. The BIG campaign boycotts Israeli tourism and Israeli cultural, sporting, and academic institutions and individuals who do not condemn the occupation. It seeks to end trade agreements between the EU, UK, and Israel, and it promotes an end to the arms trade, citing “Israel`s appalling human rights record, grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and its ongoing occupation and settler-colonisation of Palestinian lands” and noting “widespread concerns that British-made equipment is being used against Palestinian civilians, in defiance of UK export criteria.” Finally, BIG seeks to increase trade in Palestinian goods. (www.bigcampaign.org)

Palestine Solidarity Campaign-Scotland
In 7/06 SPSC helped stop the use of Prestwick Airport for transhipment of US weapons to Israel for attacks on Lebanon. It forces changes in venues for cricket games with Israeli teams. It boycotts Disney outlets in Scotland, citing Disney’s plans to add to its sizeable investments in Orad, an Israeli firm that provides electronic monitoring equipment for the Wall. (Disney also holds large investments in Tadiran, an Israeli military equipment firm.) “All of this money will be used to help Israel continue its policies of colonization, land theft and slow ethnic cleansing.” (www.scottishpsc.org.uk)

Palestine Solidarity Movement-US
PSM asks US universities, churches and other institutions to end financial support for companies linked with Israeli injustice. Their campaign is modeled after the successful effort to end apartheid in South Africa. PSM hosted university students and community activists in its 5th annual conference at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, in 2/06. (palestinesolidaritymovement.org)

Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice
RCF held a Peace Works Conference in 4/06 in Olympia, Washington, hometown of murdered activist Rachel Corrie. International speakers championed divestment and activism. One termed the Oslo peace process the “P-I-E-C-E process” since it “designated Palestinian areas for the first time, allowing Israel to create a system of more than 700 military checkpoints surrounding these areas in order to limit movement of Palestinians. Fewer than 30% of Palestinians can apply for a permit to travel to and from Palestinian areas, and only 10% of Palestinians get permits.” (rachelcorriefoundation.org)

Stop Cat Coalition
Stop Cat sponsors an annual Day of Action focused on Caterpillar headquarters in Peoria, Illinois, to demand that Caterpillar “cease all sales to the Israeli military and government” and abide by its own code of conduct which states “as a company, we strive to contribute toward a global environment in which all people can work safely and live healthy, productive lives.” The Coalition says Caterpillar’s D-9 bulldozer ”is directly implicated in grave abuses of human rights by Israeli Defense forces, including the collective punishment of the Palestinian people through house demolitions, clearing a path for and constructing the Apartheid Wall and murder of civilians”-- actions that “are illegal under international law -- specifically violating the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Rome Statute of the International Court and the Hague Conventions.” The sale of the D-9 to the IDF also violates the US Arms Export Control Act. On the annual International Day of Action Against Caterpillar, protests are held in cities worldwide, and are organized in the US by Stop Cat, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. Demonstrations at Caterpillar dealers and headquarters were also held in March 2006. Stop Cat provides informational videos and a PowerPoint presentation on Caterpillar’s involvement. (stopcat.org/catdestroyshomes/org)

United Nations International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Middle East Peace
A Call to Action, 7/05: “ [W]e urge international, national and regional social movements, organizations and coalitions to support the unified call of Palestinian civil society for a global campaign of Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] to pressure Israel to end the occupation and fully comply with international law and all relevant UN resolutions. We have identified the coming year to mobilize for and inaugurate this BDS campaign.” (www.un.org/depts/dpa/qpalnew/dpr.htm)

US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
The US Campaign supports municipal and state divestment initiatives. It provides divestment resources to inform, educate and mobilize the public regarding the US government’s role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the way funds invested by municipalities, state governments, trade unions and other organizations help sustain the occupation. Groups call on municipal, state and federal governing bodies to issue statements opposing that occupation. The US Campaign recognizes that there is no single way to approach divestment. Given the grassroots nature of this effort, it is up to activists on the ground to decide what practices would work best in their localities. (www.endtheoccupation.org/}

Veterans for Peace
VFP, a 20-year-old US veterans’ organization, adopted Economic Support For Justice And Peace In Palestine at its National Conference, 8/05. The resolution states that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a major international flashpoint; people of the region are suffering from militarization; the US is the largest single source of governmental financial aid to Israel; and all forms of intervention have failed to achieve Israeli compliance with international law as embodied in UN resolutions and world court decisions (and supported by peace activists in Israel). Therefore, inspired by the South African struggle and the international solidarity which made it effective, and in support of the call by more than 170 Palestinian political parties, unions, and organizations for such economic actions, “Veterans For Peace calls for boycott, divestment, and other actions against economic activities that support Israel’s continued occupation and colonization of Palestinian lands and the denial of fundamental human rights to Palestinians both in Israel and in the occupied territories until the Government of Israel complies with international law and the universal principles of human rights. VFP urges members and chapters to support such economic actions which seem to them best calculated to bring about a change in Israeli government policy for the benefit of both the Israeli and Palestinian people.” (veteransforpeace.org/)

War on Want
WoW (UK) asks people “to challenge the global structures which sustain poverty across the world.” In Palestine, it says, “Caterpillar’s armoured bulldozers have been responsible for the destruction of thousands of Palestinian homes, schools, wells and olive groves” in a systematic campaign to destroy the Palestinian economy and demoralize residents. Caterpillar bulldozers are currently used in almost every significant operation by Israeli forces, and in fact they are, according to one Israeli military commander, ‘the key weapon.’ WoW reported in 2005 that the Israeli army currently has around 100 D9s in operation. D9s are modified by state-owned Israeli Military Industries and by Ramta, a division of Israel Aircraft Industries. Some bulldozers have customized packages, including machine gun mounts, smoke projectors and grenade launchers. The Israeli military recently ordered 25 D9 armored bulldozers reinforced by Israel Aircraft Industries, while the US Department of Defense acquired 14 armored Caterpillar D9Rs from the Israeli army for use in Iraq. WoW asks people to boycott Caterpillar products—from construction equipment to clothing and footwear—and to buy Zaytoun fair-trade olive oil to help redress the damage caused to Palestinian farmers. (mailroom@waronwant.org)

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), Canadian Section
In 12/05, WILPF-Canada wrote INTEL’s Board Chairman and CEO: “Let INTEL not be wooed by Israel’s $525 million grant incentive to expand INTEL’s existing microprocessing factory in Israel. The site of the proposed expansion is Kiryat Gat, on land expropriated from the Palestinian village of Iraq Al-Manshiya. By further building there, you are denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their land.” (joandgord@shaw.ca)

INDIVIDUALS

Corrie Family Lawsuit vs. Caterpillar, Inc. (3/15/05). A civil action seeks compensatory and punitive damages against Caterpillar for violations of international and state law committed against Rachel Corrie, including war crimes; aiding and abetting her extra-judicial killing; complicity in cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment . . . that resulted in her death; negligence; and wrongful death.
The suit, filed in US District Court in Seattle, Washington, states:
“On March 16, 2003, Rachel Corrie, a peace activist and United States citizen, was killed by a Caterpillar bulldozer while protesting the demolition of a Palestinian home.
“2. This lawsuit alleges that Caterpillar, Inc., has aided and abetted or otherwise been complicit in the Israel Defense Forces (hereinafter “IDF”) in the above-mentioned human rights violations and war crimes by providing the bulldozers used to demolish homes of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in violation of international law when it knew, or should have known, that such bulldozers were being used to commit human rights abuses.
“3. The IDF has destroyed approximately 10,000 Palestinian homes since 1967 leaving approximately 50,000 men, women, and children homeless. Over the last four years, the IDF has destroyed 4,100 homes. Upon information and belief, Caterpillar, Inc. has supplied bulldozers to the IDF that have been used in such demolitions since 1967.” (www.catdestroyshomes.org/downloads/final.corriecomplaint.3.15.pdf)

Ken Loach, British film director who won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2006, announces his support for an Israeli boycott, 8/06: “Palestinians are driven to call for this boycott after forty years of the occupation of their land, destruction of their homes and the kidnapping and murder of their civilians,” Loach said. “They have no immediate hope that this oppression will end. As British citizens we have to acknowledge our own responsibility. We must condemn the British and US governments for supporting and arming Israel.” He added, “I would decline any invitation to the Haifa Film Festival [to which he had been invited] or other such occasions.” (www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/755249.html)

GOVERNMENTAL AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS:

Dublin Tram System, 8/06. Tram drivers refused to allow the Dublin tram system (“Luas”) to be used to train Israeli drivers and engineers for a new light-rail system in East Jerusalem that will serve illegal settlements. In response, the local Irish authority, Veolia, cancelled its training plan with Connex, the French firm that will operate the Israeli system (and that also operates Dublin trams). “When you do business with Israel, you invariably do business with the Occupation.” says a representative of the Irish Palestinian Solidarity Committee, congratulating the tram drivers on their stand. “We must cut ties with Israel in order to force it to end its Occupation.” (www.scottishpsc.org.uk/)

Green Party, US, 11/05, “calls for divestment from and boycott of the State of Israel until such time as the full individual and collective rights of the Palestinian people are realized. The party calls on all civil society institutions and organizations around the world to implement a comprehensive divestment and boycott program. The party calls on all governments to support this program and to implement state-level boycotts.” (intcomm@gp-us.org)

The Norwegian Provincial Parliament of the Soer-Trondeleim district, representing about 7% of the population of Norway, including Trondheim, the third largest city, voted on 12/05 to “completely and totally” prohibit the purchase or sale of Israeli products by all provincial government bodies and to launch an awareness campaign calling on the populace to do the same. Significantly, this Parlia-ment was the first Norwegian government body to boycott South African Apartheid. (fup@palestina.no)

United Kingdom government officials barred US flights from Prestwick Airport in Scotland, 8/06. The planes were carrying bombs to Israel for attacks on Lebanon. Diversion to RAF military bases for refueling followed talks between the Scots Secretary and the UK Defense and Foreign Secretaries. After a meeting with the US Consul, Scottish Parliament Member Patrick Harvie of the Green Party reported: “We tried to convey the extreme concern, indeed disgust, among the Scottish public and politicians that a Scottish airport is being used to ferry arms to Israel.“ (dailyrecord.co.uk/news/)

UNIVERSITIES
Numerous universities and colleges have divestment drives. Here are two approaches:

The University of Wisconsin Divestment from Israel Campaign,
A coalition of groups and individuals in the University and the state, began in 2005 circulating a petition, asking the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents “to divest from any company doing business with or in the State of Israel until . . . Israel accepts and facilitates the full implementation of the individual and collective human rights of the Palestinian people.” The petition cites Israeli “policies of encapsulation, expropriation, and ethnic cleansing against the indigenous Palestinian population,” depriving them of “residency rights, the right to work, and the right to equality before the law.”
In a related action, The Association of University of Wisconsin Professionals (TAUWP), a statewide local of the American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin, representing faculty and academic staff from 25 UW campuses, in 4/05 adopted a divestment resolution, naming companies that “provide material aid to the Israeli Army in the form of weapons, equipment, and supporting systems used to perpetrate human rights abuses against Palestinian civilians” – including Boeing, Caterpillar, General Dynamics, General Electric, Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman, and Raytheon. TAUWP’s resolution notes that the Regents’ policies prohibit such investments. Divestment is a positive step that may lay “the groundwork for a just and enduring peace and is therefore an expression of the hope for a free and secure future for every Israeli and Palestinian currently suffering under the burden of conflict.” Notably, the Faculty Senate of one UW branch (Platteville) was the first such faculty body in the nation to pass a divestment resolution (1/25/05), citing “violations of international law and the human rights of the Palestinian people,” enabled by the named U.S. arms companies. (mkabed@wisc.edu)

The University of Michigan Campaign On the Question of Divestment from Israel/Palestine:
In 2/05, the UM-Dearborn campus Student Government passed a resolution calling for immediate divestment from Israel. This was the first time any UM student group had passed such a resolution, and was one of the first nationwide.
The students called for outright divestment, but faculty decided to follow a more formal process. As spelled out by the UM Regents in 1978: If an issue "involves serious moral or ethical questions which are of concern to many members of the University community, then "an advisory committee will be appointed." These conditions were employed with respect to South Africa in 1978 and with tobacco stocks in 2000. In both cases divestment was recommended and implemented.
An ad hoc group of faculty members from the Dearborn and Ann Arbor campuses drafted a "Letter of Support for an Inquiry into Divestment" and began circulating a petition calling on the UM administration, not to divest, but simply to establish an advisory committee and investigate if divestment is warranted. The inquiry would lay out the full extent of University investments in both Israel and Palestine and determine which, if any, are implicated in illegal and immoral actions occurring there. The committee would solicit comments from members of the UM community, weigh the arguments, and then make a recommendation.
Petition Calling for the Formation of a University of Michigan Divestment Committee on Israel/Palestine: The petition states in part: “Whereas, the undersigned believe that any University investments in entities contributing to human rights violations by either Israelis or Palestinians is inappropriate, the undersigned call for the formation by the University of Michigan of an advisory committee consisting of members of the University Senate, students, administration and alumni to determine if any University investments are questionable and in need of appropriate corrective actions.” The petition, signed by faculty, staff, students, and alumni, will be presented to UM Regents, UM President Mary Sue Coleman, and other officials. (wthomson@umich.edu)

From Garden To Ghetto: A History of Bethlehem

2006-08-26T21:06:00.000-04:00

O Little Town - By Nicholas Blincoe
Published in Drawbridge Magazine, Summer 2006.

As a child, studying O' level geography, I was given a list of every conceivable city-type: the fortress, the port, the market town and so on. I remembered the list when I first visited Bethlehem, my wife's home town.

Many of the cities of the Levant claim to be the oldest continually-settled sites in the world: among them, Jericho and Nablus in Palestine, and Beirut in Lebanon. Bethlehem is somewhere in that ballpark, between four and six thousand years old. It began as a Bronze Age settlement named after the fertility god Lacham, a kind of Middle Eastern Green Man whose garden temples served as camp-sites for visiting strangers. It is plausible to imagine the Holy Family staying in the one-time garden of Lacham on their visit to Bethlehem, just as Christ stayed in the garden of Gethsemane on his visit to Jerusalem. The site of Christ's birth, marked by a bronze star in a cave within the Church of the Nativity might once have been Lacham's garden temple. I suggest this, not because I want to resurrect a pagan god, but because until very recently Bethlehem was a green and fertile city. When my wife was a child in the 1970s, her whole family would decamp to their orchards in the hills at harvest time, to sleep beneath their trees. This local tradition is echoed in the Jewish Festival of the Booths, when Jews are required to eat a meal beneath a canopy of leaves. Today, my wife's orchards have been stolen by Israel and nationalised by the Jewish Land Agency. The fertile hills have been built-over by the settlements of Gush Etzion and Gilo, and though the Jews who live there no doubt continue to celebrate the Festival of the Booths, the age-old traditions they mimic have been destroyed.

Ancient Bethlehem was a modest walled town, an oasis at the edge of a wilderness that stretches to the Dead Sea. All of ancient Bethlehem is now contained within the walls of the Church of the Nativity whose Crusader battlements stand on the foundations of the older Bronze Age walls. Bethlehem grew over the centuries, prospering as a city of pilgrimage and, since Thomas Cook's package tours in the 19th Century, a modern holiday destination. It was once a thriving, open city: it is now sealed behind a wall, imprisoning the 170,000 Christian and Muslim citizens, while annexing their forests, farmlands and fresh-water springs to the Jewish settlements. There is no more brutal dictatorship than a military occupation. I have been shot at twice by soldiers, once in a group and once when I was alone on the streets during a military curfew. I have even had a pistol pressed to my head for straying too close to the Israeli wall. A renewed cycle of Israeli invasions that began in 2001 have brought closures, curfews and economic blockades and led to a sharp spike in emigration, notably among the Christian population. In the past five years, four hundred Christian families have left the city. Within a generation, the Bethlehem I know will have disappeared, and a bastion of Christianity in the Middle East, as well as a home to an open, multi-faith democracy, will have been wiped out.

According to one historical source - let's be honest, the Bible - Bethlehem has been ruled at various times by Amorites, Philistines, Judah and possibly the Hittites, the Moabs, the Jebusites among others. The Bible is confusing, but it is less a history than a kind of legalistic aspiration: it makes the case that Judah, alone, can claim the leadership of the tribes of Israel. The Bible was composed during and after the Jew's Babylonian exile. Though written in Hebrew (at the time, a dead language outside of the temple), the scriptures use the Aramaic alphabet. As English is the language of the age of the internet, Aramaic was the language of the first age of law, chosen by Cyrus as the language of his empire's legal code. This is one of the ironies of the Bible, that while it claims to be an account of Divine Law, handed from God to Moses, it rests upon codes of inheritance, ownership and property derived from Cyrus. The scriptures are filled with painfully spelled out geneaologies, meticulous detailed land purchases and claims to water resources. When Cyrus allowed the exiles to return in 538BC, these legalistic claims became the justification for the dispossession of other people, splitting the religion of Israel's tribes into two factions: the Jews and the Samaritans.

The attempted dispossession by Judah of all other people of the Holy Land - Israelites and non-Israelites alike - continues to be a feature of Judaism. The Bible remains the key legal document. It is true, Israel recognises a panoply of other legal codes. It has used British military law to administer the occupation for almost forty years. It recognises Ottoman law, which is used to confiscate private land prior to Jewish nationalisation, and international law, insofar as it accepts it is engaged in 'belligerent occupation', though it disputes the clauses that forbid civilian colonisation. In short, Israel accepts a smorgasbord of laws, picking and choosing which ones it will obey. But above all, Israel recognises the Bible.

It ought to be possible to write a history of Bethlehem that does not rely primarily upon scripture.
Although few other historical documents exist, the landscape and the archeology represent a kind of document. The problem is, archeology is influenced by the military occupation as much as any other facet of life. In Israel, the only purpose of archeology is to support the Bible. Israeli archaeologists are like the fireman in the novel 'Fahreneheit 451'; their job is to erase the traces of non-Jewish civilisations, not to investigate them. Another strategy might be to read the Bible for holes and evasions: a kind of deconstruction. Take the confusion over the people of Bethlehem, for instance; all those Amorites, Moabs, Philistines and Hittites. In order to establish the primacy of Judah, the Bible has to continually admit other peoples, multiplying their numbers even as it insists they are long gone and have no further relevance. This stratagem bears comparison with the Biblical claim to the primacy of Mosaic Law and Hebrew, which itself depends upon a prior, furtive recourse to the law of Cyrus and the alphabet of the Aramaic language. In both cases, the attempt to aggrandise one people requires the Bible to posit a universal legal code and a pluralistic society that it simultaneously suppresses and erases.

Bethlehem began life as a walled citadel, and will end as a prison town. Beside it, looms Israeli Jerusalem which has redrawn its boundaries constantly since the occupation. As far as Israel is concerned, Jerusalem's borders now encompass all the settlements surrounding the city of Bethlehem. As an ex-deputy Mayor of Jerusalem has said, the expansion was planned according to Talmudic law which states that a city is defined by sightlines: if a collection of buildings can be seen from another point, then each constitutes a part of the same city. By grabbing the orchards of Bethlehem, Jerusalem has doubled and trebled in size over the past two decades, like a concrete amoeba, whose pseudopodia absorbs and digests everything they encircle. Modern Jerusalem - the city of Israel's forty-year-long occupation - is gruesomely ugly. It is also an entirely new kind of city, unimaginable in the 1970s when I studied O' level geography. But, strangled within this modern city, Bethlehem remains an archetype. It is no longer the place it was, but it is a recognisable type familiar from Venice, or Warsaw or Lodz: a ghetto.

JEWS FOR A JUST PEACE

2006-08-14T16:13:00.000-04:00

Jews for a Just Peace
“There is no such thing as a benign occupation.”

Submission by Jews for a Just Peace, Vancouver, B.C. to the 39th General Council of the United Church of Canada August 13-19, 2006 regarding Proposal GS 2,”Ethical Investment for Peace in Palestine and Israel”.

Jews for a Just Peace, Vancouver, believes in the right of both Israel and the Palestinians to live in peace and security. The Palestinians have the right to establish a viable independent state in the whole of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip. (This does not preclude the eventual establishment of one democratic bi-national state, with equal rights for both peoples.)

We support the principles of human rights and self determination and oppose all violence against civilians, whether perpetrated by the state or by others. We deplore all racism and ethnic hatred, whether directed against Jews, Arabs or any other group.

The most urgent problem is the Israeli occupation and the refusal of the Israeli government to recognize the right of the Palestinians to self-determination, in all its forms, under their own leadership. Occupation is violence. The occupation must end before there can be hope for a lasting, just peace.

We wrote those words years ago and since then, we’re sorry to say, the situation has only become worse.

Israel has chosen not to recognize the Palestinians’ democratically elected Hamas government and, with the support of the U.S. and other western countries, has been withholding funds from the Palestinian government. This has resulted in further deterioration in the already deplorable living conditions of Palestinians.

In the west bank, Israel’s expansion into Palestinian territory continues at a rapid rate. This has nothing to do with security or prevention of attacks against civilians. To quote Jeff Halper, of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, in a recent statement:

“Israel’s occupation is being institutionalized and made permanent. Neither security nor terrorism are really the issue; Israel’s policies of annexation are based on a pro-active claim to the entire country. Virtually no element of the Occupation — the establishment of some 300 settlements, expropriation of most West Bank land, the demolition of 12,000 Palestinian homes, the uprooting of a million olive and fruit trees, the construction of a massive system of highways to link the settlements into Israel proper or the tortuous route of the Barrier deep in Palestinian territory— can be explained by security. Terrorism on all sides is wrong (let it be noted that Israel has killed four times more civilians than the Palestinians have), but to demand that resistance cease while an occupation is being made permanent is unconscionable.”

In Gaza, the siege continues. Israel has kidnapped elected Palestinian officials, shelled and bombed, conducted military operations resulting in civilian deaths, and destroyed civilian infrastructure power grids, bridges, government buildings and more. Still understood as occupation under international law, Israel controls Gazan airspace, borders and ports.

The appeals to the Israeli government to end their harsh treatment of Palestinians appeals from Israelis and from around the world - for justice and compassion, employed in the past have simply not worked. That’s why stronger measures are called for, measures such as selective divestment. That’s why we support the proposal coming before your council “Ethical Investment for Peace in Palestine and Israel”.

We strongly disagree with the address to your gathering from the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) opposing the motion on ethical investment. The CJC’s claim to represent Canadian Jews is invalid. They certainly do not represent us.

There is no such thing as a benign occupation. We support the views of the prominent Israeli writer, the late Yeshayahu Leibovitz, who wrote: “We must free ourselves from the curse of dominating another people.”

Respectfully submitted by Jews for a Just Peace
http://www.jewsforajustpeace.com/

It's Time for Jewish Dissenters to Challenge Israeli (and U.S.) Policies

2006-08-12T09:21:00.000-04:00

It's Time for Jewish Dissenters to Challenge Israeli Policies
by Henri Picciotto

I grew up Jewish in Beirut. Although I left nearly 40 years ago, my memories of Lebanon -- vibrant and multicultural -- have stayed with me. And so, my wife and I had started talking about taking a trip there.

I would show her the neighborhood where I grew up, the beaches where I swam in the warm Mediterranean waters and the small mountain hotel we loved to stay at in the summer. I would also show her my school, where Jewish, Christian and Muslim children learned and grew together.

After the past few weeks, we may never be able to take this trip. Israeli bombings have killed more than 700 Lebanese civilians. Hundreds of thousands -- more than one-fifth of the population -- have become refugees, uprooted from their homes. Lebanon's civilian infrastructure has been systematically destroyed.

We, as Americans, bear a special responsibility for this carnage. If Washington would withhold its unconditional military, economic and diplomatic support for Israel, the Israeli government would waste no time in starting genuine negotiations. Current U.S.-backed cease-fire proposals are so unfair to Lebanon that the Lebanese government has already indicated it cannot accept the terms, which do not even include a full Israeli withdrawal.

This one-sided U.S. policy is the result of a combination of factors, but it thrives on the myth that all American Jews stand uncritically behind the Israeli government.

Many believe that American Jews unanimously and unconditionally support the Israeli government. That what we learned from the Holocaust is to shoot first and ask questions later. That our commitment to justice and equal rights is a quaint feature of our past.

There is a saying ``two Jews, three opinions.'' Now we are told ``1 million Jews, one opinion.''

In fact, our community is profoundly divided:

Hundreds, if not thousands, of Jews all over the country have demonstrated to demand an end to the bombing of Gaza and Lebanon. In one of these demonstrations, 17 Jewish protesters were arrested in an act of civil disobedience.

In the past few days, thousands of Jews have signed a petition demanding that the United States intervene to stop the wanton killing of Lebanese civilians by the Israeli war machine.

Jewish organizations that sponsor such demonstrations and petitions, such as Jewish Voice for Peace (on whose board I serve), are experiencing exponential growth. Jews are looking for ways to express their outrage at the actions of the Israeli government, and of the blind support accorded by the Jewish establishment in this country.

We are appalled by the Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israeli cities, just as we were the earlier attacks by Israel on Lebanese cities. We mourn the loss of Israeli, Palestinian and Lebanese lives equally. We are outraged by the destruction of Lebanese airports, roads and bridges, the bombing of homes and private cars, the killing of children, and the other horrors visited by the Israelis on their neighbors.

It is this kind of past Israeli behavior that gave birth to both Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that have strengthened immeasurably in recent weeks. Israeli intransigence has made Israel a pariah state, and is the biggest enemy of all the people of the Middle East -- Arabs and Israelis alike.

Jewish American leaders work tirelessly to promote the myth of Jewish consensus. Their tactics include refusing to rent space to dissenters, threatening funding cuts when Jewish institutions question Israel's actions and canceling meetings when they suspect debate might occur. Their most ubiquitous weapon is the hurtful charge of anti-Semitism, hurled at both dissenting Jews and Gentiles.

Many Jews question Israel's policies, but are afraid to speak out in their congregations or even to their families. But the time has come for Jewish dissidents to challenge the policies of the Israeli government. In the short run these policies kill Arabs, mostly innocent civilians; in the long run, they can result only in disaster for Israelis and Jews worldwide. Our silence in this time of crisis is complicity. We need to help bring about the peace that would one day make my visit to Beirut -- and the visit of all Jews -- possible.

HENRI PICCIOTTO of Berkeley is a mathematics educator and chairman of the board of Jewish Voice for Peace. He wrote this article for the Mercury News.

© Copyright 2006 San Jose Mercury News