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.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
Israeli Conscientious Objector Jailed
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
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
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Methodists and Quakers
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."
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."
Thursday, July 10, 2008
A Psychiatrist in Gaza
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
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
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Letter to Barack Obama and John McCain
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)
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)
Friday, June 06, 2008
An experiment in building a better world
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.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
On Dialogue
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
"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
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Let's get the candidates talking about Israel-Palestine
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
"We are blessed -- or cursed -- to live with each other. I prefer the first."
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Annapolis
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
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
Monday, November 19, 2007
How to Get Out?
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.
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.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
International Survey of Boycotts, Divestment Actions, and Sanctions
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.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Time for Real Peace Negotiations
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
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
Monday, July 30, 2007
A Voice of Sanity
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.
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.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
"A completely avoidable crisis"
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.
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.
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