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<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="057285a1erlcgo.png"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFCC66" FACE="Arial" ><B>TurnTheTide</B></FONT><B>    </B><B> |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="TurnTheTide"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <B> </B><A HREF="id88.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Background Archives"><U><B>Background Archives</B></U></A><B>   |   </B><B>Key Resources</B><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id54.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Einsteins Page"><U><B>Einstein's Page</B></U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id49.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Rachels Page"><U><B>Rachel's Page</B></U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id41.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Perceptions of 9/11"><U><B>Perceptions of "9/11"</B></U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id40.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="World Religion Statements"><U><B>World Religion Statements</B></U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id47.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Congress Connect"><U><B>Congress Connect</B></U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFCC66" TEXT="#080000" background="056d2c00dkelyh.png"> <div> <B> </B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="index_site_map.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="TurnTheTide"><U><B>LINK TO SITE MAP</B></U></A></FONT></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>Key Resources</I></div> <div>  <A NAME="key_resources_1"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A><FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#BF0000" FACE="Arial" ><B>INDEX OF KEY RESOURCES</B></FONT></div> <div> <B>#1: We have betrayed our children</B></div> <div> <A HREF="#living_with_the_holocaust" TITLE="Key Resources"><U><B>#2: Living with the Holocaust: </B></U></A><B>The Journey of a Child of Holocaust Survivors.</B></div> <div> <A HREF="#heart__3_a_tragic_reversal_" TITLE="Key Resources"><U><B>#3: </B></U></A><A HREF="#heart__3_a_tragic_reversal_" TITLE="Key Resources"><U><B>A Tragic Reversal:</B></U></A><B> Madeleine Albright's View of Reality</B></div> <div> <A HREF="#_4_n_go_think_tank_in_israel_and" TITLE="Key Resources"><U><B>#4: The Israel/Palestine Center</B></U></A><B> for Research & Information.</B></div> <div> <A HREF="#_5_ipcri_s_peace_education_program" TITLE="Key Resources"><U><B>#5: IPCRI's Peace Education</B></U></A><B> Program report August 1, 2002</B></div> <div> <A HREF="#_6_from_jew_to_jew_" TITLE="Key Resources"><U><B>#6: "Jewish Voice for Peace"</B></U></A><B> (Best Historical document)  </B></div> <div> <A HREF="#_7_a_most_ungenerous_offer" TITLE="Key Resources"><U><B>#7: Historical update</B></U></A><B> -- "A Most Ungenerous Offer" by Jeff Halper, professor of anthropology, Ben Gurion University. </B></div> <div> <A HREF="#_7_a_most_ungenerous_offer" TITLE="Key Resources"><U><B>#8: "Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement</B></U></A><B> between People"</B></div> <div> <A HREF="#_9_history_of_palestine____" TITLE="Key Resources"><U><B>#9: History of Palestine </B></U></A><B>-- Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia</B></div> <div> <A HREF="#_10_two_modern_israeli_prophets____and" TITLE="Key Resources"><U><B>#10" Two Modern Israeli Prophets </B></U></A><B>-- and Their Unheeded Warnings"</B></div> <div>  <A NAME="we_have_betrayed_our_children"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>#1 </B><B><U>We have betrayed our children</U></B></div> <div> <I><B>Jerusalem Post, November 28, 2002</B></I></div> <div> <B>by Nurit Peled-Elhanan</B></div> <bR> <div> I belong to a group of bereaved parents, both Israeli and Palestinian. This group, The Parents Circle - Family Forum, does not represent anyone except its members, who strongly believe that we have been made to pay the highest price for a war that should have ended long ago, by letting careless, ruthless and cynical politicians use the lives of our children as chips in their deadly games, turning our children's blood into the cheapest merchandise in the political market. </div> <div> That is why we wish to strengthen the voice of parents. We believe that motherhood, fatherhood and the wish to save the children who are still alive are only the common denominators that overcome nationality, race and religion. </div> <div> Some of us are, indeed, religious. Yitzhak Frankenthal, the founder of this forum, is an Orthodox Jew, but his Judaism, unlike the Judaism of some of his friends, who refuse to pray with him when he says Kaddish for his murdered son, is a source of hope, of peace, of respect for the other, and therefore of dialogue. </div> <div> The main activity of our forum is talk. We talk to each other, we talk to the world, and we talk to young people who are about to join the army. </div> <div> We know that conversation is always about differences: It is the site where differences of power, of knowledge and of beliefs are constantly negotiated. </div> <div> People who do not accept differences and are not ready to make room in themselves for different kinds of knowledge and values cannot speak to each other. They can trick and deceive and humiliate each other, but they cannot converse. People who cannot, or will not, accept differences and who don't see heterogeneity as a blessing, have a monolithic approach to talking: namely, they want to impose their ideologies on others and dominate their thinking. </div> <div> Their speech is intolerant and offensive; it is the kind of approach we have been witnessing in most of the peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. </div> <div> Having a dialogic approach to conversation means being willing to hold back your ideologies, or your truth, or your personal and national narrative, and make room in yourself for the truth and the narrative of the other. </div> <div> Dialogic people do not believe in fixed personalities, consolidated thought or eternal realities. In fact, in Hebrew the terms finding, reality and invention all have the same root. It means that reality is what we invent; reality is the means we find to give meaning to what is going on around us, and therefore it can be changed. </div> <div> Fortunately there are people, even in Israel and Palestine,</div> <div> who are willing to talk to each other. Unfortunately, they are not many. Consequently the discourse that prevails in this country is extremely monologic, racist and aggressive, as evidenced by Frimet Roth's article.</div> <div> The annihilation, the demonization of the other has never been a very promising basis for dialogue. </div> <div> Our children kill other children because they are brought up on concepts of discrimination between blood and blood and on the belief that we are more deserving than others. Our children die because the voice of mothers and fathers has been suffocated and underrated for centuries, and because it is always replaced by the voices of corrupt politicians and bloodthirsty generals, of greedy businessmen and unscrupulous, so-called leaders who are, most of them, men, but who never speak as parents. </div> <div> AFTER MY daughter, Smadari, was murdered for being an Israeli girl by a young man desperate and distorted by humiliation and hopelessness to the point of killing himself and others, just because he was a Palestinian, I was asked by a reporter how I could accept condolences from the other side. </div> <div> My very spontaneous response was that I did not accept condolences from the other side, and when the mayor of Jerusalem came to offer his condolences I shut myself in my room. </div> <div> Because the people I count as "my side" are not defined by any religious or national criteria. When I say "we," I do not necessarily mean the Jews or the Israelis. I mean the people who see life as I see it. When I say "we," I mean my Israeli friends who swore before the open graves of their sons that although they had lost their children, they would never lose their heads. </div> <div> I mean Prof. Gazawi from from Bir Zeit University, my co-laureate of the Sakharov award who, after being confined in a solitary cell for his wish to be a free and dignified man in his homeland, after seeing his 15-year-old son shot in his schoolyard while helping a wounded friend, still refuses to think of man as evil, and says we must create the myth of hope for those who have none. </div> <div> I mean the young Palestinian mother, Najakh, who traveled with me to New York in order to speak of peace after watching her 10-year- old son being shot, and who had nothing but affection for my 10- year-old son. </div> <div> I mean Khaled, a Palestinian school principal who found his eldest son with 50 bullets in his body without ever being told why or how, and who, 20 days after that, called his wife and told her to stop crying for her child and start crying for mine. </div> <div> I mean all the parents in the world who would not dream of avenging the death of their children by killing the children of others. </div> <div> <B>TODAY, WHEN "terror" is the term coined to define the murderous deeds of the poor and the weak and "war against terror" is the term coined to define the murderous deeds of the strong and the rich, when the greatest democracies commit the most terrible crimes against humanity using terms such as "freedom," "justice" and "the clash of civilizations" to justify their crimes, we the bereaved, the victims of either terror or anti-terror terrorism, are the only ones left to tell the world that there is no civilized killing of the innocent or barbaric killing of the innocent, there is only criminal killing of the innocent. </B></div> <div> We are the ones to tell the world there is no clash of civilizations, that in the ever-growing underground kingdom of dead children there is no clash of civilizations. On the contrary: True multiculturalism prevails there, true equality and true justice. And maybe we are the ones who should remind the world that the golden age of both Islam and Judaism was when the two lived side by side, nurturing each other and flourishing together. </div> <div> We are the ones who travel from one country to another to remind the world that the death of a child, any child, in Palestine or Israel, in Afghanistan or Chechnya, is the death of the whole world; that after the death of a child, any child, there is no other, that no one can avenge the blood of a child because the child takes into her small grave, with her small bones, the past and the future, the reasons for the war and its consequences. </div> <div> We are the ones who keep telling the world that the only way for humanity to prevail is to join us in raising this ancient voice, that has always been there, the voice of motherhood and fatherhood, raise it until it deafens all the other voices. </div> <div> We demand that the world redefine its values and priorities, redefine crime, guilt, the rights of children and the duties of adults and therefore redefine education and justice, and make it very clear that anyone who kills a child will never be able to live in peace in this world. Not even as Cain. </div> <div> We are the ones who know that if we don't raise this voice very soon there will be nothing left to say or write or hear except for the perpetual cry of mourning and the silenced voices of dead children. </div> <div> Therefore we are the ones who would end the war, because we know that it doesn't matter what flag is put on what mountain, it doesn't matter who looks where when they pray, and that nothing is more important than to secure a young girl's way to her dance class. </div> <div> That is because we are the ones who realize, every hour of every day, that as parents and as adults we have betrayed our children by not being alert, by not fighting for their lives as vigorously as we should have done, by having promised them a good life and a better world. </div> <div> We are the ones who cried, like the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, when we saw our little girl or little boy for the last time before turning our backs and leaving them in the hands of strangers: "Why does that streak of blood rip the petal of your cheek?"</div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.theparentscircle.com/parents/op.asp?id=28" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.theparentscircle.com/parents/"><U><B><U>http://www.theparentscircle.com/parents/op.asp?id=28</U></B></U></A></div> <div> <B>[It is often said that the Sharon government and Palestinian terrorist groups share the common purpose of escalating the violence and blocking any peaceful resolution.  On the same principle, parents bereaved by the current conflict have a common purpose as well, that of stopping the belligerent agenda that has cost them their children's lives. They also have an urgent responsibility to see through the warmongering propaganda, ignorance, and brutal prejudices that blind so many people (or justify their unwillingness to look) to the real causes of the conflict.]</B></div> <div>  </div> <bR> <div>   <A NAME="living_with_the_holocaust"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>#2: "Living with the Holocaust:</B></div> <div> <B>The Journey of a Child of Holocaust Survivors"</B></div> <div> <B>By Sara Roy</B></div> <div> <I><B>Sara Roy, author of </B></I><I><B><U>The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development</U></B></I><I><B>, among other works, is a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University. This lecture was given as the Second Annual Holocaust Remembrance Lecture at the Center for American and Jewish Studies and the George W. Truett Seminary, Baylor University, on 8 April 2002. It was published in JPS Vo. XXXII, No. 1, Autumn 2002, Issue 125.</B></I></div> <div> Some months ago I was invited to reflect on my journey as a child of Holocaust survivors. This journey continues and shall continue until the day I die. Though I cannot possibly say everything, it seems especially poignant that I should be addressing this topic at a time when the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is descending so tragically into a moral abyss and when, for me at least, the very essence of Judaism, of what it means to be a Jew, seems to be descending with it.</div> <div> The Holocaust has been the defining feature of my life. It could not have been otherwise. I lost over 100 members of my family and extended family in the Nazi ghettos and death camps in Poland--grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, a sibling not yet born--people about whom I have heard so much throughout my life, people I never knew. They lived in Poland in Jewish communities called shtetls.</div> <div> In thinking about what I wanted to say about this journey, I tried to remember my very first conscious encounter with the Holocaust. Although I cannot be certain, I think it was the first time I noticed the number the Nazis had imprinted on my father's arm. To his oppressors, my father, Abraham, had no name, no history, and no identity other than that blue-inked number, which I never wrote down. As a young child of four or five, I remember asking my father why he had that number on his arm. He answered that he had once painted it on but then found it would not wash off, so was left with it.</div> <div> My father was one of six children, and he was the only one in his family to survive the Holocaust. I know very little about his family because he could not speak about them without breaking down. I know little about my paternal grandmother, after whom I am named, and even less about my father's sisters and brother. I know only their names. It caused me such pain to see him suffer with his memories that I stopped asking him to share them.</div> <div> My father's name was recognized in Holocaust circles because he was one of two known survivors of the death camp at Chelmno, in Poland, where 350,000 Jews were murdered, among them the majority of my family on my father's and mother's sides. They were taken there and gassed to death in January 1942. Through my father's cousin I learned that there is now a plaque at the entrance to what is left of the Chelmno death camp with my father's name on it--something I hope one day to see. My father also survived the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald and because of it was called to testify at the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961.</div> <div> My mother, Taube, was one of nine children--seven girls and two boys. Her father, Herschel, was a rabbi and shohet-a ritual slaughterer--and deeply loved and respected by all who knew him. Herschel was a learned man who had studied with some of the great rabbis of Poland. The stories both my mother and aunt have told me also indicate that he was a feminist of sorts, getting down on his hands and knees to help his wife or daughters scrub the floor, treating the women in his life with the same respect and reverence he gave the men. My grandmother, Miriam, whose name I also have, was a kind and gentle soul but the disciplinarian of the family since Hershel could never raise his voice to his children. My mother came from a deeply religious and loving family. My aunts and uncles were as devoted to their parents and they were to them. As a family they lived very modestly, but every Sabbath my grandfather would bring home a poor or homeless person who was seated at the head of the table to share the Sabbath meal.</div> <div> My mother and her sister Frania were the only two in their family to survive the war. Everyone else perished, except for one other sister, Shoshana, who had emigrated to Palestine in 1936. My mother and Frania had managed to stay together throughout the war--seven years in the Pabanice and Lodz ghettos, followed by the Auschwitz and Halbstadt concentration camps. The only time in seven years they were separated was at Auschwitz. They were in a selection line, where Jews were lined up and their fate sealed by the Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele, who alone would determine who would live and who would die. When my aunt had approached him, Mengele sent her to the right, to labor (a temporary reprieve). When my mother approached him, he sent her to the left, to death, which meant she would be gassed. </div> <div> Miraculously, my mother managed to sneak back into the selection line, and when she approached Mengele again, he sent her to labor.</div> <div> A defining moment in my life and journey as a child of Holocaust survivors occurred even before I was born. It involved decisions taken by my mother and her sister, two very remarkable women, that would change their lives and mine.</div> <div> After the war ended, my aunt Frania desperately wanted to go to Palestine to join their sister, who had been there for ten years. The creation of a Jewish state was imminent, and Frania felt it was the only safe place for Jews after the Holocaust. My mother disagreed and adamantly refused to go. She told me many times during my life that her decision not to live in Israel was based on a belief, learned and reinforced by her experiences during the war, that tolerance, compassion, and justice cannot be practiced or extended when one lives only among one's own. “I could not live as a Jew among Jews alone,” she said. “For me, it wasn't possible and it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to live as a Jew in a pluralist society, where my group remained important to me but where others were important to me, too.”</div> <div> Frania emigrated to Israel and my parents went to America. It was extremely painful for my mother to leave her sister, but she felt she had no alternative. (They have remained very close and have seen each other often, both in this country and in Israel.) I have always found my mother's choice and the context from which it emanated remarkable.</div> <div> I grew up in a home where Judaism was defined and practiced not as a religion but as a system of ethics and culture. God was present but not central. My first language was Yiddish, which I still speak with my family. My home was filled with joy and optimism although punctuated at times by grief and loss. Israel and the notion of a Jewish homeland were very important to my parents. After all, the remnants of our family were there. But unlike many of their friends, my parents were not uncritical of Israel, insofar as they felt they could be. Obedience to a state was not an ultimate Jewish value, not for them, not after the Holocaust. Judaism provided the context for our life and for values and beliefs that were not dependent upon national boundaries, but transcended them. For my mother and father, Judaism meant bearing witness, railing against injustice and foregoing silence. It meant compassion, tolerance, and rescue. It meant, as Ammiel Alcalay has written, ensuring to the extent possible that the memories of the past do not become the memories of the future. These were the ultimate Jewish values. My parents were not saints; they had their faults and they made mistakes. But they cared profoundly about issues of justice and fairness, and they cared profoundly about people--all people, not just their own.</div> <div> The lessons of the Holocaust were always presented to me as both particular (i.e., Jewish) and universal. Perhaps most importantly, they were presented as indivisible. To divide them would diminish the meaning of both.  Looking back over my life, I realize that through their actions and words, my mother and father never tried to shield me from self-knowledge; instead, they insisted that I confront what I did not know or understand. Noam Chomsky speaks of the “parameters of thinkable thought.” My mother and father constantly pushed those parameters as far as they could, which was not far enough for me, but they taught me how to push them and the importance of doing so.</div> <div> It was perhaps inevitable that I would follow a path that would lead me to the Arab-Israeli issue. I visited Israel many times while growing up. As a child, I found it a beautiful, romantic, and peaceful place. As a teenager and young adult I began to feel certain contradictions that I could not fully explain but which centered on what seemed to be the almost complete absence in Israeli life and discourse of Jewish life in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust, and even of the Holocaust itself. I would ask my aunt why these subjects were not discussed, and why Israelis didn't learn to speak Yiddish. My questions were often met with grim silence. </div> <div> Most painful to me was the denigration of the Holocaust and pre-state Jewish life by many of my Israeli friends. For them, those were times of shame, when Jews were weak and passive, inferior and unworthy, deserving not of our respect but of our disdain. “We will never allow ourselves to be slaughtered again or go so willingly to our slaughter,” they would say. There was little need to understand those millions who perished or the lives they lived. There was even less need to honor them. Yet at the same time, the Holocaust was used by the state as a defense against others, as a justification for political and military acts.</div> <div> I could not comprehend nor make sense of what I was hearing. I remember fearing for my aunt. In my confusion, I also remember profound anger. It was at that moment, perhaps, that I began thinking about the Palestinians and their conflict with the Jews. If so many among us could negate our own and so pervert the truth, why not with the Palestinians? Was there a link of some sort between the murdered Jews of Europe and the Palestinians? I did not know, but so my search began. </div> <div> The journey has been a painful one but among the most meaningful of my life. At my side, always, was my mother, constant in her support, although ambivalent and conflicted at times. My father had died a young man; I do not know what he would have thought, but I have always felt his presence. My Israeli family opposed what I was doing and has always remained steadfast in their opposition. In fact, I have not spoken with them about my work in over fifteen years.</div> <div> Despite many visits to Israel during my youth, I first went to the West Bank and Gaza in the summer of 1985, two and a half years before the first Palestinian uprising, to conduct fieldwork for my doctoral dissertation, which examined American economic assistance to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. </div> <div> My research focused on whether it was possible to promote economic development under conditions of military occupation. That summer changed my life because it was then that I came to understand and experience what occupation was and what it meant. I learned how occupation works, its impact on the economy, on daily life, and its grinding impact on people. I learned what it meant to have little control over one's life and, more importantly, over the lives of one's children.</div> <div> As with the Holocaust, I tried to remember my very first encounter with the occupation. One of my earliest encounters involved a group of Israeli soldiers, an old Palestinian man, and his donkey. Standing on a street with some Palestinian friends, I noticed an elderly Palestinian walking down the street, leading his donkey. A small child no more than three or four years old, clearly his grandson, was with him. Some Israeli soldiers standing nearby went up to the old man and stopped him. One soldier ambled over to the donkey and pried open its mouth. “Old man,” he asked, “why are your donkey's teeth so yellow? Why aren't they white? Don't you brush your donkey's teeth?” The old Palestinian was mortified, the little boy visibly upset. The soldier repeated his question, yelling this time, while the other soldiers laughed. The child began to cry and the old man just stood there silently, humiliated. This scene repeated itself while a crowd gathered. The soldier then ordered the old man to stand behind the donkey and demanded that he kiss the animal's behind. At first, the old man refused but as the soldier screamed at him and his grandson became hysterical, he bent down and did it. The soldiers laughed and walked away. They had achieved their goal: to humiliate him and those around him. We all stood there in silence, ashamed to look at each other, hearing nothing but the uncontrollable sobs of the little boy. The old man did not move for what seemed a very long time. He just stood there, demeaned and destroyed.</div> <div> I stood there too, in stunned disbelief. I immediately thought of the stories my parents had told me of how Jews had been treated by the Nazis in the 1930s, before the ghettos and death camps, of how Jews would be forced to clean sidewalks with toothbrushes and have their beards cut off in public. What happened to the old man was absolutely equivalent in principle, intent, and impact: to humiliate and dehumanize. In this instance, there was no difference between the German soldier and the Israeli one. Throughout that summer of 1985, I saw similar incidents: young Palestinian men being forced by Israeli soldiers to bark like dogs on their hands and knees or dance in the streets.</div> <div> In this critical respect, my first encounter with the occupation was the same as my first encounter with the Holocaust, with the number on my father's arm. It spoke the same message: the denial of one's humanity. It is important to understand the very real differences in volume, scale, and horror between the Holocaust and the occupation and to be careful about comparing the two, but it is also important to recognize parallels where they do exist.</div> <div> As a child of Holocaust survivors I always wanted to be able in some way to experience and feel some aspect of what my parents endured, which, of course, was impossible. I listened to their stories, always wanting more, and shared their tears. I often would ask myself, what does sheer terror feel like? What does it look like? What does it mean to lose ones whole family so horrifically and so immediately, or to have an entire way of life extinguished so irrevocably? I would try to imagine myself in their place, but it was impossible. It was beyond my reach, too unfathomable.</div> <div> It was not until I lived with Palestinians under occupation that I found at least part of the answers to some of these questions. I was not searching for the answers; they were thrust upon me. I learned, for example, what sheer terror looked like from my friend Rabia, eighteen years old, who, frozen by fear and uncontrollable shaking, stood glued in the middle of a room we shared in a refugee camp, unable to move, while Israeli soldiers were trying to break down the front door to our shelter. I experienced terror while watching Israeli soldiers beat a pregnant women in her belly because she flashed a V-sign at them, and I was too paralyzed by fear to help her. I could more concretely understand the meaning of loss and displacement when I watched grown men sob and women scream as Israeli army bulldozers destroyed their home and everything in it because they built their house without a permit, which the Israeli authorities had refused to give them.</div> <div> It is perhaps in the concept of home and shelter that I find the most profound link between the Jews and the Palestinians, and perhaps, the most painful illustration of the meaning of occupation. I cannot begin to describe how horrible and obscene it is to watch the deliberate destruction of a family's home while that family watches, powerless to stop it. For Jews as for Palestinians, a house represents far more than a roof over one's head; it represents life itself. Speaking about the demolition of Palestinian homes, Meron Benvenisti, an Israeli historian and scholar, writes: </div> <div>     “It would be hard to overstate the symbolic value of a house to an individual for whom the culture of wandering and of becoming rooted to the land is so deeply engrained in tradition, for an individual whose national mythos is based on the tragedy of being uprooted from a stolen homeland. The arrival of a firstborn son and the building of a home are the central events in such an individual's life because they symbolize continuity in time and physical space. </div> <div>      “And with the demolition of the individual's home comes the destruction of the world.”</div> <div> Israel's occupation of the Palestinians is the crux of the problem between the two peoples, and it will remain so until it ends. For the last thirty-five years, occupation has meant dislocation and dispersion; the separation of families; the denial of human, civil, legal, political, and economic rights imposed by a system of military rule; the torture of thousands; the confiscation of tens of thousands of acres of land and the uprooting of tens of thousands of trees; the destruction of more than 7,000 Palestinian homes; the building of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands and the doubling of the settler population over the last ten years; first the undermining of the Palestinian economy and now its destruction; closure; curfew; geographic fragmentation; demographic isolation; and collective punishment.</div> <div> Israel's occupation of the Palestinians is not the moral equivalent of the Nazi genocide of the Jews. But it does not have to be. No, this is not genocide, but it is repression, and it is brutal. And it has become frighteningly natural. </div> <div> Occupation is about the domination and dispossession of one people by another. It is about the destruction of their property and the destruction of their soul. Occupation aims, at its core, to deny Palestinians their humanity by denying them the right to determine their existence, to live normal lives in their own homes. Occupation is humiliation. It is despair and desperation.</div> <div> And just as there is no moral equivalence or symmetry between the Holocaust and the occupation, so there is no moral equivalence or symmetry between the occupier and the occupied, no matter how much we as Jews regard ourselves as victims.</div> <div> And it is from this context of deprivation and suffocation, now largely forgotten, that the horrific and despicable suicide bombings have emerged and taken the lives of more innocents. Why should innocent Israelis, among them my aunt and her grandchildren, pay the price of occupation? Like the settlements, razed homes, and barricades that preceded them, the suicide bombers have not always been there.</div> <div> Memory in Judaism--like all memory--is dynamic, not static, embracing a multiplicity of voices and shunning the hegemony of one. But in the post-Holocaust world, Jewish memory has faltered--even failed--in one critical respect: it has excluded the reality of Palestinian suffering and Jewish culpability therein. As a people, we have been unable to link the creation of Israel with the displacement of the Palestinians. We have been unwilling to see, let alone remember, that finding our place meant the loss of theirs. </div> <div> Perhaps one reason for the ferocity of the conflict today is that Palestinians are insisting on their voice despite our continued and desperate efforts to subdue it.</div> <div> Within the Jewish community it has always been considered a form of heresy to compare Israeli actions or policies with those of the Nazis, and certainly one must be very careful in doing so. But what does it mean when Israeli soldiers paint identification numbers on Palestinian arms; when young Palestinian men and boys of a certain age are told through Israeli loudspeakers to gather in the town square; when Israeli soldiers openly admit to shooting Palestinian children for sport; when some of the Palestinian dead must be buried in mass graves while the bodies of others are left in city streets and camp alleyways because the army will not allow proper burial; when certain Israeli officials and Jewish intellectuals publicly call for the destruction of Palestinian villages in retaliation for suicide bombings or for the transfer of the Palestinian population out of the West Bank and Gaza; when 46 percent of the Israeli public favors such transfers and when transfer or expulsion becomes a legitimate part of popular discourse; when government officials speak of the “cleansing of the refugee camps”; and when a leading Israeli intellectual calls for hermetic separation between Israelis and Palestinians in the form of a Berlin Wall, caring not whether the Palestinians on the other side of the wall may starve to death as a result.</div> <div> What are we supposed to think when we hear this? What is my mother supposed to think? In the context of Jewish existence today, what does it mean to preserve the Jewish character of the State of Israel? Does it mean preserving a Jewish demographic majority through any means and continued Jewish domination of the Palestinian people and their land? What is the narrative that we as a people are creating, and what kind of voice are we seeking? What sort of meaning do we as Jews derive from the debasement and humiliation of Palestinians? What is at the center of our moral and ethical discourse? What is the source of our moral and spiritual legacy? What is the source of our redemption? Has the process of creating and rebuilding ended for us?</div> <div> I want to end this essay with a quote from Irena Klepfisz, a writer and child survivor of the Warsaw ghetto, whose father spirited her and her mother out of the ghetto and then himself died in the ghetto uprising.</div> <div>          I have concluded that one way to pay tribute to those we loved who struggled, resisted and died is to hold on to their vision and their    fierce outrage at the destruction of the ordinary life of their people. It is this outrage we need to keep alive in our daily life and apply it to all situations, whether they involve Jews or non-Jews. It is this outrage we must use to fuel our actions and vision whenever we see any signs of the disruptions of common life: the hysteria of a mother grieving for the teenager who has been shot; a family stunned in front of a vandalized or demolished home; a family separated, displaced; arbitrary and unjust laws that demand the closing or opening of shops and schools; humiliation of a people whose culture is alien and deemed inferior; a people left homeless without citizenship; a people living under military rule. Because of our experience, we recognize these evils as obstacles to peace. At those moments of recognition, we remember the past, feel the outrage that inspired the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto and allow it to guide us in present struggles.</div> <div> For me, these words define the true meaning of Judaism and the lessons my parents sought to impart.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div>  <A NAME="heart__3_a_tragic_reversal_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A><FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#BF0000" FACE="Arial" ><B>#3: </B></FONT><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#BF0000" FACE="Arial" ><B><U>A Tragic Reversal: </U></B></FONT></div> <div> <B><U>Madeleine Albright's View of Reality</U></B></div> <bR> <div> <I><B>Dear Friends,</B></I></div> <div> <I><B>The following article was written by Dr. Hanan Ashrawi. As the media coverage seems to slip into its usual pattern of simple analysis and short-term amnesia, once again turning this latest conflict into an  orchestrated political event for which President Arafat is given full responsibility, Dr. Ashrawi's article is a powerful reminder of the dynamics at play here.</B></I></div> <div> <I><B>Remember what Dr.Ashrawi writes next time you hear US Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, say that Palestinian stone-throwers have the Israeli military under seige...</B></I></div> <div> <I><B>Longing for peace with justice,</B></I></div> <div> <I><B>Sandra Olewine</B></I></div> <div> <I><B>United Methodist Liaison to Jerusalem</B></I></div> <bR> <div> <B>Jerusalem, October 9, 2000</B></div> <div> <B>By Dr. Hanan Ashrawi</B></div> <div> <B>Secretary-General, MIFTAH</B></div> <div> <B>PLC Member, Jerusalem</B></div> <div> In her interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" (Sunday, Oct. 8, 2000), US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright represented the epitome of the willful blindness, moral vacuum, human insensitivity, political cynicism, and strategic ignorance that have characterized the US handling of the Arab-Israeli "peace process" and the Palestinian Question in particular.</div> <div> When asked about the US abstention on the UN Security Council's Resolution 1233 deploring the [anonymous] "provocation carried out at Al-Haram Al-Sharif in Jerusalem on 28 September 2000" and condemning [also anonymous] "acts of violence, especially the excessive use of force against Palestinians," Albright immediately waxed apologetic.</div> <div> She was defensive not about diluting the text of the resolution and eliminating any explicit reference to Israel's culpability, not about abstaining when the US should have cast an affirmative vote in condemnation of the horrific and tragic loss of Palestinian lives (mainly children), and not about American passivity before the veryvisible crimes against humanity that are being committed by Israel with impunity and arrogance.</div> <div> Rather, Madam Albright expressed contrition at not casting a VETO on this hesitant, apologetic, and inadequate expression by the international community of minimal recognition of Palestinian humanity and suffering.</div> <div> Why? Because the US wants to "safeguard" its role as an "even-handed peace broker."</div> <div> To the Palestinians, this came as a complete surprise since the US has never been even-handed or fair or even remotely human in its brokerage of the peace process.</div> <div> Given the chance to atne, however modestly, for such double standards and bias, the US once again insists on failing the test of moral integrity and humanity.</div> <div> Worse yet, Madam Albright (and with a straight face) declares in a cold and deliberate tone that the Palestinians have "placed Israel under siege."</div> <div> I immediately assumed that she had confused her nouns, and that she had inadvertently given the converse version of reality.</div> <div> In the next breath, however, and with the same dead pan, expressionless, emotionless, glazed look, Madam Albright repeated: "Those Palestinian rock throwers have placed Israel under siege," adding that the Israeli army is defending itself.</div> <div> At the risk of tediousness and redundancy, it is appropriate to remind Madam Albright of a few basic facts that may have escaped her notice:</div> <div> It is Israel that is the belligerent occupant of Palestine (and not the other way around).</div> <div> Israeli tanks and armored vehicles are surrounding Palestinian villages, camps and cities (and not the other way around).</div> <div> Israeli (American made) Apache gun ships are firing Lau and other missiles at Palestinian protestors and homes (and not the other way around).</div> <div> It is Israel that is confiscating Palestinian land and importing Jewish settlers to set up illegal armed settlements in the heart of Palestinian territory (and not the other way around).</div> <div> The settlers on the rampage in the West Bank are Israelis terrorizing Palestinians in their own homes (and not the other way around).</div> <div> The homes that are being demolished at the hands of the Israelis are Palestinian homes (and not the other way around).</div> <div> The armed soldiers and Special Forces at checkpoints throughout Palestine are Israeli (and not the other way around).</div> <div> The more than a hundred murdered civilians and thousands of injured are all Palestinians being shot by Israeli occupation troops (and not theother way around).</div> <div> It is Israel that has closed down the Palestinian airport at Gaza thereby preventing badly needed medical supplies from reaching the Palestinians (and not the other way around).</div> <div> The crossing points to and from Palestine as well as entrances and exits to and from all Palestinian inhabited areas are manned and controlled by Israeli soldiers who have completely prevented all freedom of movement (and not the other way around).</div> <div> To state the obvious once again, Madam Albright, Israel is committing atrocities against the Palestinians with total impunity, and yet you maintain "Israel is besieged."</div> <div> To add insult to injury, you admonish the Palestinian leadership for not ordering their people to "stop the violence," as though you're entirely oblivious of the fact that all it takes is an order from Barak to his "disciplined" occupation army to stop killing Palestinians.</div> <div> No, we will not lie down and die in silence, even to accommodate you, Madam Albright, for cold-blooded murder is not a phenomenon we condone.</div> <div> May I suggest that the siege is in the minds of American officials and apologists for Israel who willfully persist in blaming the victim, in finding a false symmetry between occupier and occupied, in adopting a double standard on the value of human lives and rights while totally dehumanizing the Palestinians, in treating Israel as a country above the law and Palestinians as a people not worthy of the protection of the law, in manipulating and inventing a peace process that would accommodate such a racist and stereotypical version of reality rather than a reality of justice and evenhandedness, and in evading and distorting moral responsibility towards the Palestinian victims rather than celebrating the violence of the oppressor.</div> <div> Granted, Madam Albright, Milosovic is a war criminal (despite the fact that his army did not massacre the Serb opposition that brought about his downfall), but what about Ariel Sharon and even your good friend Ehud Barak. Whose blood is dripping from their hands?</div> <div> Granted, Madam Albright, "the people have spoken" in Yugoslavia, so why don't you listen when the Palestinian people cry out for justice?</div> <div> As a woman, a mother and grandmother, you surely understand the pain of children and their parents when they get hurt; what about the agony of senseless and brutal murder being visited on Palestinian children?</div> <div> May I suggest, Madam Albright, that before you go on television beforethe whole world to pontificate on issues Palestinian that you start by examining the facts, and then start to examine your own conscience.</div> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="_4_n_go_think_tank_in_israel_and"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <div> <U>#4: "NGO" THINK TANK in Israel and Palestine</U></div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="580" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 134 WIDTH="576"><div> <I><B>Israel/Palestine Center for Research & Information</B></I></div> <div> <I><B>SAMPLE WEB PAGE </B></I></div> <bR> <div> <B>Th</B><B>e following document is taken from the Home Page of IPCRI a think tank </B></div> <div> <B>founded in 1988.  Graphics and Links have been deleted. The web site address is </B><B><U>www.ipcri.org. </U></B><B> Zakaria al Qaq is the Palestinian co-director and Gershon Baskin is Israeli co-director.  </B></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="520" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 206 ><NOBR><div> <TABLE BORDER="2" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="417" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="NONE" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 171 ><NOBR><div> <IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><B>What is IPCRI</B></FONT> </div> <div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">How Was IPCRI Born?</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">IPCRI's History and Lessons</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Does All This Talk Really Make A Dent?</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Is IPCRI Still Needed?</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">How Does IPCRI Work?</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Exploration and fact-finding</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Developing ideas</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Personalities and Supporters</B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000033" FACE="Arial" ><B> </B></FONT><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="495" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 963 WIDTH="491"><div> <B>WHAT IS IPCRI?</B></div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="492" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 149 WIDTH="488"><div> IPCRI, founded in Jerusalem in 1988, is the only joint Palestinian-Israeli public policy think-tank in the world. It is devoted to developing practical solutions for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> IPCRI deals with the cardinal issues in the Israeli-Arab conflict - issues where the two sides find themselves at loggerheads, and where cooperation is necessary.</div> <bR> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <div> We concern ourselves with all the major stumbling blocks that divide Israelis and Palestinians: </div> <div>   </div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="493" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 57 ><NOBR><div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="453"><div> What is the nature of the final status agreement that the two sides must reach - two states, confederal and power-sharing arrangements, links with Jordan etc.<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 22 ><NOBR><div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER><NOBR><div> Where should the borders between the two entities be drawn? <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 38 ><NOBR><div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="453"><div> How to solve the intractable question of Jerusalem, the Holy City claimed by two nations and three monotheistic religions? <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 38 ><NOBR><div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="453"><div> What should happen to Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip? <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 57 ><NOBR><div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="453"><div> How to guarantee the physical security of Israeli and Palestinian citizens against violence perpetrated by extremist opponents of the peace process on both sides? <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 38 ><NOBR><div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="453"><div> How to stimulate the economic development of the Palestinian territories in a way beneficial to both sides? <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 38 ><NOBR><div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="453"><div> How to solve the dearth of domestic, agricultural and industrial water for in our area? <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 22 ><NOBR><div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="453"><div> How to protect our vulnerable environment? <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 38 ><NOBR><div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="453"><div> How to educate two traumatized nations toward peaceful coexistence? <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <B>IPCRI's approach is both head-on and hands-on:  </B></div> <div>  </div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="493" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 22 ><NOBR><div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="456"><div> confront the issues </div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 22 ><NOBR><div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="456"><div> propose a variety of alternative solutions </div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 22 ><NOBR><div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="456"><div> forward these to the responsible quarters </div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 38 ><NOBR><div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER WIDTH="456"><div> stimulate their discussion both among experts and among the public. </div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> We believe that the dilemmas must be aggressively confronted and not postponed. IPCRI concentrates both on process and final outcome. IPCRI is not itself committed to any specific outcome; we do prefer solutions entailing equality between parties, cooperation, reciprocity of obligations and benefits - in a word, solutions that move the peace process as a whole forward.</div> <div>   </div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="489" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 979 WIDTH="485"><div> <B>HOW WAS IPCRI BORN? </B></div> <div> The idea of IPCRI was born in 1988 at the onset of the intifada, the Palestinian uprising. Building bridges of communication between Israeli and Palestinian intellectuals became more urgent than ever. A need was felt for the creation of an organization that would squarely address the issue: how to bring about a peace process that will satisfy both the Palestinians' legitimate right of self-determination and Israel's equally legitimate security concerns. The cause of peace would be best served if some party could reach policy makers and decision makers on both sides ... and have concrete approaches ready. This is why IPCRI was established.</div> <div>  <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000033" FACE="Arial" ><B>But Does All This Talk Really Make a Dent?</B></FONT></div> <div> Starting with the discreet blessing of a number of Israeli and PLO leaders, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators and specialists tested new ideas through IPCRI - and discovered new areas of agreement! Influence may be hard to measure, yet IPCRI is proud of its achievements. Security specialists convening under our auspices stimulated the opening of the Oslo channel. Informal "pre-negotiation" in IPCRI's economy roundtable contributed to liberalizing Israel's economic policy in the West Bank. IPCRI's water master plan is considered at the bilateral and multilateral negotiations. IPCRI helped develop new policies with regard to the liberalization of freedom of movement for Palestinian laborers and merchants. IPCRI conducted the first ever major study assessing the needs and desires of the Palestinian refugees in camps throughout the West Bank and Gaza. IPCRI conducted the first ever joint training course for Palestinian and Israeli police officers. IPCRI developed together with Palestinian and Israeli environmental official a "priority list" of important environment projects. There are many more - often intangible - areas where IPCRI has made its voice heard. IPCRI has the ear of those whose opinion counts.  </div> <div>   </div> <div> <B>IS IPCRI STILL NEEDED?</B></div> <bR> <div> Since 1993 Israel and the Palestinians are negotiating at an official level. Ultimately, solutions must be decided upon in a diplomatic process. But IPCRI's work is now more important than ever. The signature under official agreements is but the tip of the iceberg. It is preceded by much, often informal, preparation. Israeli-PLO talks continue to reveal fresh areas of disagreement. A host of practical problems await solution. Many sensitive topics - from the new Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem to the received truths in history schoolbooks - have hardly yet been touched. IPCRI's contribution remains indispensable.</div> <div> <B><IMG SRC="07422140.png" border=0 width="34" height="20" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="502" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 2225 WIDTH="498"><div>  </div> <div> <B>HOW DOES IPCRI WORK?</B></div> <div> Peace with justice for all sides, economic prosperity together with respect for human rights, dialogue with tolerance of diversity - that is the vision that inspires IPCRI. But these ideals can only be turned into reality by perseverance, hard work, and sober thinking. Steadfastness of purpose must be met with a willingness for pragmatic compromise. IPCRI combines the heart with the head.  </div> <div> Here's how :</div> <bR> <div> Exploration and fact-finding<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <bR> <div> Whether to collect facts, compare situations, prepare activities, IPCRI staff or commissioned experts go out in the field to gather their data. Pollution measurements, unemployment figures, opinion polls ... all are grist to IPCRI's mill. We have had our staff compare different elections systems, sent a mission of prominent Jerusalemites to see how coexistence works in Brussels, and went to Jordan preparing for business cooperation. IPCRI has six departments working in a broad range of fields.  </div> <div> 1. The Strategic Analysis Department - (SAU) deals with final status issues such as: the future Israeli settlements, security, sovereignty, borders, the future of Jerusalem, and the refugees issue.  </div> <div> 2. The Law and Development Department (L&D) deals with issues of civil society and commercial law reform and the economic relations between the sides.  </div> <div> 3. The Environment and Water Department (E&W) deals with issues such as land and water pollution, transportation policy, use of pesticides, other public health issues and the allocation of water.  </div> <div> 4. The Pathways Into Reconciliation Department (PIR) . This is a multinational peace education project, teaching skills to defuse, manage, and solve conflicts and educate towards universal values of peace, human rights and tolerance as well as conflict-solving skills.  </div> <div> 5. JEMS - Joint Environmental Mediation Services. [<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><B>Click Here to Access JEMS Web Page</B></FONT>] </div> <div> JEMS is IPCRI's newest initiative. JEMS is a joint project of IPCRI and CBI - the Consensus Building Institute. JEMS aims to introduce the techniques of environmental conflict resolution to the Palestinian Territories (West Bank and Gaza) and to Israel. JEMS will train teams of Palestinian and Israeli practitioners in these techniques; and will develop an institution that can provide mediation services on an ongoing basis to Israelis and Palestinians engaged in environment-related disputes, particularly in border areas.  <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><B>[Click Here to Access CBI Website]</B></FONT> </div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Developing ideas </B></div> <bR> <div> IPCRI's approach is practical and realistic. We generate - as much as we help others generate - alternative solutions. IPCRI produces ideas, and provides a safe forum for Israeli and Palestinian experts, policy advisers, etc. to engage in creative problem solving - exploring options and outlining solutions. Participants are encouraged to discover mutual interests. They are challenged to bring to fruition the living solutions that lie waiting underneath the old antagonisms. IPCRI works mostly in the following ways :</div> <bR> <div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >Roundtables: ongoing, periodic dialogues between Israeli and Palestinian experts in seven specialized fields: economic cooperation, water management, environment, the future of Jerusalem, civil society, collective identities, and business law.  </FONT></div> <div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >Conferences : IPCRI conferences have been held in Jerusalem, Taba, Cairo, London, Oxford, Turkey, Gaza, and elsewhere on topics like : water management, Jerusalem, regional tourism, industrialization, environment, civil society, business law, hospital waste management, agricultural trade, the future of the Israeli settlements, security and strategic planning, Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian Trade agreements, and more.  </FONT></div> <div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >Commissioned research has reached the interested public in a whole gamut of useful publications, ranging from labor migration in the Middle East to the strategic choices facing Palestinian negotiators, and from our regional water master plan to models for confederation.  </FONT></div> <div> <B><IMG SRC="05e18120.png" border=0 width="24" height="18" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >Library and database filled with publications, periodicals and news-clippings on the Palestinian territories, the Peace Process, economics and peace, Jerusalem, environment and water, settlements, refugees, security, tourism, and agriculture.  </FONT></div> <div> Outreach Most often results are directly channelled to the appropriate authorities, and sometimes, where useful, to the general public. IPCRI has come out with detailed, pragmatic and implementable proposals about the future of Jerusalem, solving the dearth of water, coping with internal security challenges, trade arrangements, investment legislation, and much more. A host of material has found its way into our publications. IPCRI follows current events, and offers the leadership of both sides running comment, analysis and recommendations. IPCRI regularly participates in conferences and activities of other think-tanks. At other times, we ourselves initiate high-level meetings to foster agreement, and will do some quiet lobbying.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> IPCRI is small, but influential. A cross-section of our participants shows a mix of high-level individuals with direct access to decision makers on both sides. IPCRI is also in permanent contact with the diplomatic community of all countries that deal with the Middle East peace process. While IPCRI's past work has been mainly low-profile, our public outreach is growing. Israelis and Palestinians have to live together and there will always be a role for an NGO which encourages creative cooperations between them.</div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="499" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="495"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="19" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="495" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="2" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="443" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="COLS" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 205 ><NOBR><div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="234" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 97 WIDTH="230"><div> "<B>In the land of Israel the Jewish people was born, its spiritual, religious and national identity was formed...</B>" </div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 56 ><NOBR><div> The first sentence from the Israeli </div> <div> Declaration of Independence </div> <div> (1948).</div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER><NOBR><div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="200" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 116 WIDTH="196"><div> "<B>Palestine, the land of three monotheistic faiths, is where the Palestinian Arab people was born, on which it grew, developed and excelled...</B>" </div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 57 WIDTH="196"><div> The first sentence from the Palestinian Declaration of Independence (1988). </div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <div> <B><U> <A NAME="_5_ipcri_s_peace_education_program"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></U></B></div> <div> <B><U>#5: IPCRI's Peace Education Program</U></B></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Peace Education Continues - </B></div> <div> <B>Despite Violence</B></div> <div> <B>August 1, 2002</B></div> <div> Today, 80 Israeli and Palestinian teachers, participants in IPCRI's Peace Education Program are returning to Israel/Palestine after participating in a 5-day training workshop held in Turkey. </div> <div> IPCRI's Peace Education Program is active in more than 60 high schools in Israel and in the West Bank. There are more than 400 teachers and more than 4,500 students participating in the program's 9th and 10th grade classes.</div> <div> On Sunday, July 28, 2002, some 80 Israeli and Palestinian veteran teachers in the program left for a training workshop. These teachers have been participating in the program from 2 to 6 years.  Even during these terrible times, IPCRI is expanding the program in the coming school year by 30%. The requests from Israeli and Palestinian schools to join the program go far beyond the financial ability of IPCRI to include all of those who wish to join.  </div> <div> The program expenses include teacher training, encounters between teachers, encounters between students, subsidizing classroom hours in the schools, field staff, etc.   The main funding for the program comes from the US Government with additional support coming from the Governments of Switzerland, the UK, and Finland and the British Council.</div> <div> Unfortunately, our teachers have had to cope with the harsh realities of the violence in Israel and Palestine.  Yesterday the teachers had just completed their morning program when entering the dining room of the hotel their mobile phones began ringing informing them of the bomb that exploded in the Hebrew University. </div> <div>  This is not the first time that this has happened during an encounter between them - either terrorist bombings or Israeli incursion into the occupied territories. After checking that no close relatives were amongst the victims, the teachers spent their time consoling and encouraging each other. </div> <div> “We recognize that we are the alternative to violence, we must continue to provide the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians the opportunity to see and understand that there is a different way” said one Israeli teacher.  </div> <div> Another Palestinian teacher said: “We are living proof that there is someone to talk to on the other side”. </div> <div> IPCRI's peace education program offers curricula for the 10th and 11th grades. This next school year the program will also enter, for the first time, the Israeli religious school system. Through classroom study, encounters, internet discussions, teacher training, research, field work, etc. </div> <div> IPCRI's Peace Education program, the largest of its type in the region, is helping to create a bottom-up peace process of Israelis and Palestinians dedicated to finding a way out of the unbearable situation that our leaders have created. Peace Education is a long-term process and the realities of violence on the ground make the work of this program extremely difficult.  </div> <div> But even during the most difficult times, when participants of the program have been killed, teachers and students, on both sides, a flow of phone calls and condolence letters have been exchanged between the students, teachers and school principals participating in the program. </div> <div> This program is proof that peace is possible and that people on both sides are willing to work hard to build and to create that peace.</div> <div> We are sharing this information with you because we believe that Israelis and Palestinians and people around the world have to know that thousands of Israelis and Palestinians are working to change reality.  We encourage you to support these efforts and to spread the word.</div> <div> <U>www.ipcri.org</U></div> <div> <U>www.place4peace.com</U></div> <div> <U>www.our-shared-environment.net</U></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B> <A NAME="_6_from_jew_to_jew_"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <div> <B><U>#6: FROM JEW TO JEW: </U></B></div> <div> <B><U>HERE ARE THE FACTS</U></B></div> <bR> <div> <I><B>A Comprehensive History Compiled by the </B></I><I><B>"Jewish Voice for Peace." </B></I><I><B>Distributed also by "The Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between People"</B></I></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>FROM JEW TO JEW:</B></div> <div> <B>WHY WE SHOULD OPPOSE THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION</B></div> <div> <B>OF THE WEST BANK AND GAZA</B></div> <div> <B>A JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE PUBLICATION</B></div> <bR> <div> <I><B>INTRODUCTION</B></I></div> <div> Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, A JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE is one of a growing number of Jewish groups who are convinced that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory must end. There are two compelling reasons for this. </div> <div> First, we wish to preserve the best part of our Jewish heritage--a deeply-ingrained sense of morality--and pass it on to the next generation, unsullied by the mistreatment of another people. We were brought up to believe that, as Jews, we are obligated to always take the moral high road and we can't imagine letting this proud ethical tradition die now.</div> <div> Second, as we will show in this paper, we are convinced that the only way to ensure the security of the people of Israel is for their government to conclude a just peace with the Palestinians. Without some reasonable version of justice being done, there will never be peace, and so we oppose any Israeli government policy that denies the Palestinians their legitimate rights. What those are will be examined shortly.</div> <div> Is this position “anti-Jewish”? No, it is not (any more than criticizing U.S. government policies is anti-American.) Even as we love all of humanity, we have a special love for the Jewish people and for the warm and compassionate side of Jewish culture. We share with all Jews the trauma of the genocide of our people by the Nazis and our long history of periodic persecution. We understand the instinct to “circle the wagons” when our people face danger, and we long for the day when Jews in Israel, as everywhere, will be able to lead normal, secure, productive lives. The question is how will that happy day come about? By blindly supporting the Israeli government's self-destructive path to war and more war? We don't think so.</div> <div> We feel that these crucial issues need more discussion within the American Jewish community, not less.  They certainly are debated at length in Israel itself, as evidenced by a <I>Ha'aretz </I>poll published July 4, 2001, showing that 40% of Israelis think that all the settlements in the Occupied Territories should be evacuated, in total opposition to their government's policy. It's time for us to join the debate as well, and help formulate a more reasonable solution to the conflict.</div> <div> Unfortunately, the ongoing violence in Palestine and Israel has led too many people, on both sides, to adopt blanket stereotypes of one another, turning them into something “less-than-human”. This process of dehumanization then allows people to justify the violence committed by their own side, starting the cycle all over again. This is a classic “lose-lose” situation that can continue on forever.</div> <div> Is there a way out of this mess? Yes, we think so, but only if we suspend our understandable reaction of automatically blaming the other side. Only then can we objectively assess the root causes of the conflict and the realistic choices there are for resolving it. So, in the interest of peace, and with an open heart and mind, please consider the following facts.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>1.     THE OCCUPATION</B></div> <div> The international community, through the United Nations, has made it clear that virtually the entire world considers the Israeli occupation of territories it captured in the 1967 war to be wrong and contrary to basic principles of international law. Every year since 1967, up until the Oslo Process started, the UN General Assembly passed the same resolution (usually by lopsided votes like 150-2), stating that Israel is obligated to vacate the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.</div> <div> While the circumstances were much different, the legal basis of these resolutions is the same principle used to force Iraq out of Kuwait--i.e., a country cannot annex or indefinitely occupy territory gained by force of arms. The only reason that Israel is able to maintain its occupation of Palestinian land is that the US routinely vetoes every Security Council resolution that would put teeth into the General Assembly resolutions. One of the original goals of Zionism was to create a Jewish state that would be just another normal country. If that is what Israel wants (and that is a reasonable goal), then it must be held to the same standards as any other country, including the prohibition against annexing territory captured by force of arms.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>2.     THE SETTLEMENTS</B></div> <bR> <div> Similarly, all Jewish settlements, every single one, in territories outside Israel's 1967 boundaries, are a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions, which Israel has signed and is obligated to abide by. As John Quigley, a professor of international law at Ohio State has written, “The Geneva Convention requires an occupying power to change the existing order as little as possible during its tenure. One aspect of this obligation is that it must leave the territory to the people it finds there. It may not bring its own people to populate the country. This prohibition is found in the convention's Article 49 which states, `The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.'</div> <div> Here's what former President Jimmy Carter wrote recently, “An underlying reason that years of US diplomacy have failed and violence in the Middle East persists is that some Israeli leaders continue to <B>create facts</B> by building settlements in occupied territory. . . It is unlikely that real progress can be made...as long as Israel insists on its settlement policy, illegal under international laws that are supported by the United States and all other nations.”</div> <div> In fact, on December 5, 2001, a conference of 114 nations that have signed the Fourth Geneva Convention (a conference boycotted by the US and Israel), decided <I>unanimously </I>that the Convention did indeed apply to the occupied territories, that Israel was in gross violation of their obligations under that Convention, that Jewish-only settlements in those territories were illegal under the rules of the Convention, and that it was the responsibility of the other contracting parties to stop these violations of international law.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>3.     ISRAEL'S SECURITY</B></div> <bR> <div> It is sometimes argued that the settlements are necessary for Israel's security, to protect Israel from terrorism and the threat of violence. But the reality is that the settlements are a major cause of Israel's current security problems, not the cure for them. New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis pointed out the aggressive nature of the settlements as follows, “It is false to see the settlements as ordinary villages or towns where Israelis only want to live in peace with their Palestinian neighbors. They are in fact imposed by force--superior Israeli military force--on Palestinian territory. Many have been built precisely to assert Israeli power and ownership. They are not peaceful villages but militarized encampments. . .The settlement policy is not just a political but a moral danger to the character of the state.”</div> <div> “But wouldn't the Palestinians use their own state as a base for even more attacks against Israel?”, it might be asked. There is an historical precedent that gives a realistic answer to this question. During the first years after the Oslo agreements were signed, Hamas tried to disrupt the peace process but, because of the prevailing optimism, their influence in Palestinian society diminished and their armed attacks fell off sharply. What that means for the future is that if the Palestinian people feel that even a rough version of justice has been done, they will not support the more extreme elements in their political spectrum. This is not just guesswork; it already happened with just the hope of justice being done.</div> <div> The other aspect of this is that if Israel had internationally recognized borders, then they could be defended much more easily than the current situation where every hill in Palestine is a potential bone of contention because of Jewish settlements encroaching on Palestinian land. If they and their settlers and the military apparatus they require were gone, and the Palestinians were given enough aid by the international community to create a viable economy in their own state, they would naturally be overjoyed and a positive turn of events would be the inevitable result.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>4. “BUT DON'T THEY JUST WANT TO DRIVE THE JEWS INTO THE SEA?”</B></div> <bR> <div> Officially since 1988, and unofficially for several years before that, the Palestinian position has been that they recognize Israel's right to exist in peace and security within their 1967 borders. Period. At the same time, they expect to be allowed to establish a truly independent, viable, contiguous, non-militarized state in all of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. This is what UN Resolution 242 says: “Land for Peace”--and the Palestinian Authority has stated repeatedly that UN Resolution 242 has to be the basis for any long-lasting solution to the conflict.</div> <div> It is true that some Palestinians want all of what was Palestine to return to Arab control, as it was before 1948, but that just isn't going to happen. Statements to that effect by some Palestinians are just hyperbole and do not represent the official Palestinian position. Similarly, statements by some Palestinians inciting people to violence against Israelis can easily be matched by statements from Orthodox rabbis and fundamentalist settlers calling for death to the Arabs. There are <I>meshuganahs </I>aplenty on both sides.</div> <div> But since the Palestinians' official position is clear, why shouldn't Israel take the Palestinians up on this offer and withdraw from the occupied territories? Israel is far stronger militarily than all the Arab armies combined and would face no credible military threat from a Palestinian state. And the threat of individual terrorist acts would, of necessity, be much less once the Palestinians felt that they had received a modicum of justice.</div> <div> What would Israel lose by this obvious solution of just ending the occupation, which they could do tomorrow if they wanted to (or, more likely, if the US insisted that they do so)? The only thing it would “lose” is the dream of some of its citizens for a “Greater Israel”, where Israel's boundaries are expanded to its biblical borders. The problem with that dream is that it totally ignores the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, and the will of virtually the entire international community. As long as the right-wing settlers and their supporters in the Israeli government insist on pursuing this dream, there will be nothing but bloodshed forever. The Palestinian people have lived in Palestine for thousands of years and they are not going away. Israel must conclude a just peace with them or innocent blood will continue to be shed indefinitely, on both sides.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>5.     WHO IS PRIMARILY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CURRENT VIOLENCE?</B></div> <bR> <div> The answer to that question is to be found in reports issued by numerous human rights groups. Human Rights Watch, for example, states that, “Israeli security forces have committed by far the most serious and systematic violations. We documented excessive and indiscriminate use of lethal force, arbitrary killings, and collective punishment, including willful destruction of property and severe restrictions on movement that far exceed any possible military necessity.”</div> <div> <I>B'tselem </I>is Israel's leading human rights group and their detailed analyses of the current intifada can be found at <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.btselem.org/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.btselem.org/"><U><U>www.btselem.org</U></U></A></FONT>. They concluded early on that, “In spite of claims to the contrary, Israel has not adopted a policy of restraint in its response to events in the Occupied Territories...Israel uses excessive and disproportionate force in dispersing demonstrations of unarmed Palestinians. . .Collective punishment, in the form of Israel's severe restrictions on Palestinians' movement in the Occupied Territories, makes life unbearable for hundreds of thousands with no justification.” Collective punishment, by the way, is illegal under international law.</div> <div> The United Nations Commission on Human Rights reported the following, “There is considerable evidence of indiscriminate firing at civilians in the proximity of demonstrations and elsewhere (by Israeli troops). . .The live ammunition employed includes high-velocity bullets which splinter on impact and cause the maximum harm. Equally disturbing is the evidence that many of the deaths and injuries inflicted were the result of head wounds and wounds to the upper body, which suggests an intention to cause serious bodily injury rather than restrain demonstrations. . .</div> <div> “To the best of our knowledge, the IDF, operating behind fortifications with superior weaponry, endured not a single serious casualty as a result of Palestinian demonstrations and, further, their soldiers appeared to be in no life-threatening danger during the course of these events. . .</div> <div> The UN report continues by stating, “The demolition of homes and the destruction of olive and citrus trees, nurtured by farmers over many years, has caused untold human suffering to persons unconnected with the present violence. . .The measures of closure, curfew or destruction of property constitute violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and human rights obligations binding upon Israel.”</div> <div> Amnesty International has made numerous statements on the current intifada including the following, “Amnesty International reiterated its long-standing calls to Israel to end its policy of liquidations and other arbitrary killings and urged the international community to send international observers. . .In these state assassinations the Israeli authorities offer no proof of guilt, no right to defense. Extrajudicial executions are absolutely prohibited by international law.”</div> <div> The overwhelming consensus of these reports means that Israeli demands for the Palestinians to “stop the Violence” turns reality on its head. Answering stone throwing with M-16 military weapons, or ineffective Molotov cocktails with very effective armored tanks and attack helicopters is simply not morally justifiable and is why we hold Israel to be primarily responsible for the current situation.</div> <div> And, of course, things have deteriorated considerably, on both sides, since the start of the current fighting. For just one example, an IDF reserve soldier interviewed recently on prime-time First Channel Israeli TV (12/14/01) stated, “Nowadays, there is much less of a dilemma. We more or less got a clearance from both the military and the political echelons. Nowadays, we shoot them in the head and no questions asked.” Is this what we want our Jewish legacy to be?</div> <div> It is also important to keep in mind that most of Israel's actions have been going on, in various degrees, for the last 34 years--systematic torture of Palestinians in Israeli jails, the forcible and illegal appropriation of over half the West Bank and Gaza by Israel for Jewish-only settlements, Jewish-only by-pass roads and closed military areas, daily humiliations and abuse at Israeli military checkpoints all over Palestinian land--these are the root causes of the current violence. Please also note that a people finding themselves under military occupation (including the Palestinians), have the right, under international law, to resist that occupation.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>6.     NEGOTIATIONS LEADING UP TO THE CURRENT INTIFADA</B></div> <bR> <div> It has often been asked, “But didn't Barak offer 95% of the Occupied Territories to Arafat at Camp David and doesn't his rejection of that offer mean that they don't want peace?” There are several crucial things to understand here. First, prisoners may occupy 95% of a prison's space, but it is the other 5% that determines who is in control. Similarly, the offer Barak made at Camp David II would have left the main settlement blocks and their Jewish-only bypass roads in place. Along with the extensive areas Israel planned on retaining indefinitely for its military use, this would have dissected Palestinian territory into separate bantustans (“native reservations”), isolated from each other, each surrounded completely by Israeli-controlled territory, having no common borders with each other or other Arab nations, with no control over their own air-space, borders, or water resources, and with the Israeli military able to surround and blockade each enclave at will. Jerusalem would have been similarly dissected so that each Palestinian island would be surrounded by an Israeli sea. This wouldn't be an acceptable “end of the conflict” to you if you were Palestinian, would it? Please see the map on the cover of this paper and see for yourself what this “most generous” offer actually looked like.</div> <div> Also, the 95% theoretically offered to Arafat excluded “Greater Jerusalem”, which was unilaterally annexed by Israel after the 1967 war and which takes up a large chunk of the West Bank, most of it having no municipal connection with the actual city of Jerusalem. Thus the Foundation for Middle East Peace estimates that the actual percentage of occupied land offered to the Palestinians was more like 80%, not 95%. The international community has never recognized Israeli sovereignty over “Greater Jerusalem”, and has repeatedly declared that Israel should withdraw from this and all territories it has captured by force of arms during and after 1967.</div> <div> “But if Israel made concessions in the negotiations, shouldn't the Palestinians have to as well?” John Whitbeck, another international law specialist, answers this question as follows, “There is much talk of `concessions' being demanded from and offered by Israel. The word suggests the surrender of some legitimate right or position. In fact, while Israel demands numerous concessions from Palestine, Palestine is not seeking any concessions from Israel. What it is insisting on is `compliance'--compliance with agreements already signed, compliance with international law and compliance with relevant United Nations resolutions--nothing more and nothing less.”</div> <div> After the Camp David talks ended without an agreement, did Arafat refuse to negotiate? In a word, no. At the end of Camp David it was Barak who said that his offers there would not be the basis for further discussions, that they were now “null and void”, that Camp David was an “all or nothing” summit. The Palestinians were willing to continue serious negotiations, and did at Taba, even after the current intifada had started. According to Ron Pundak, an Israeli diplomat who was a key architect of the Oslo Accords, “The negotiations in Taba, which took place moments before Barak's government lost the elections, proved that a permanent status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians was within reach. (It) led to dramatic progress on all issues on the agenda.”</div> <div> But meanwhile, Sharon had gone to the Temple Mount with 1000 Israeli soldiers in tow, followed the next day by a demonstration of Palestinians (who had no firearms), which was met with totally unnecessary lethal force by the Israeli police, resulting in seven Palestinians being shot and killed. This demonstration, which could have been contained by non-lethal means if the Israeli government had wanted to, was the beginning of the current cycle of violence.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>7.     THE REAL MOTIVATION FOR THE OCCUPATION</B></div> <bR> <div> While we deplore and condemn the harming of innocent people (on either side), the use of violence against civilians by some Palestinian groups is a sign of Palestinian weakness, not strength, in relation to Israel, and is, among other things, a desperate response to their land being taken from them. Israel has one of the world's most powerful armies and the Palestinians have watched helplessly as Israel appropriated more and more Palestinian land for itself.</div> <div> Is Israeli security or raw expansionism the motivation for this policy? To cite the UN Human Rights Commission report again, “Initially this programme of creeping annexation pursued by means of the requisitioning and occupation of Palestinian land was justified by Israel on security grounds. This pretext has long been abandoned. . . From the perspective of the (Israeli) Government, <B>settlements create factual situations on the ground</B> that serve to establish political control over the occupied territories.”</div> <div> The proof that Israel's motivation for occupying Palestinian land is expansionism, not security, is to be found in the diplomatic history after the 1967 war was over. For an example of just one proposal, Allan Brownfield writes, “Senator J. William Fulbright proposed in 1970 that America should guarantee Israel's security in a formal treaty, protecting her with armed forces if necessary. In return, Israel would retire to the borders of 1967.  The UN Security Council would guarantee this arrangement, and thereby bring the Soviet Union--then a supplier of arms and political aid to the Arabs--into compliance. As Israeli troops were withdrawn from the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank they would be replaced by a UN peacekeeping force. Israel would accept a certain number of Palestinians and the rest would be settled in a Palestinian state outside Israel. The plan drew favorable editorial support in the United States. The proposal, however, was flatly rejected by Israel.”</div> <div> Or again from Prof. John Quigley's book, “Palestine And Israel”, “Mordecai Bentov, a cabinet minister who attended the June 4 (1967) cabinet meeting and supported the decision to invade Egypt, said Israel's `entire story' about `the danger of extermination' was `invented of whole cloth and exaggerated after the fact to justify the annexation of new Arab territories'.” The historical record is full of such statements by Israeli officials, including Menachem Begin, Yitzak Rabin and Moshe Dayan. Is the Israeli desire for additional land an acceptable justification for the endless conflict and bloodshed we see today? We don't think so.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>8.     THE JEWISH PEACE MOVEMENT</B></div> <bR> <div> One's opinion on the Israel/Palestine conflict need not be a black or white question; you can support the Israeli people but still criticize their government's illegal and ultimately self-destructive policies. We consider that the position of the Israeli government to hold onto territory that is not theirs (whether done to try to fulfill the fundamentalist vision of a “Greater Israel” or simply to be “the winner” of the conflict) is morally wrong and, in the long run, is nothing but a disaster for the people of Israel.</div> <div> We believe that the Jewish peace movement, both in Israel and around the world, has a far better plan to ensure Israel's security. That plan is to create real peace as a consequence of real justice being done, not a “peace” of victor and vanquished. We recommend that you go to <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><U>www.gush-shalom.org</U></FONT>, <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><U>www.btselem.org</U></FONT> and <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><U>www.batshalom.org</U></FONT> to read for yourself what thinking Israelis demand of their own government. Or go to www3.haaretz.co.il, where there is an English version of Israel's best newspaper and you can read journalists like Amira Haas, Gideon Levy and others who report daily on what is actually being done in our names. Thousands of Israelis, including hundreds of Israel's top university professors, are convinced their government is committing unpardonable acts and have taken public stands against them.</div> <div> And recently, over 300 reserve combat officers and soldiers (update 10/1/02: over 400) (updated 6/1/03: over 500) in the IDF have publicly stated their moral opposition to Sharon's increasingly brutal use of force during the current intifada. These “refuseniks” have the sympathy of a growing portion of the Israeli public, now up to 26% of those surveyed in a February 2002 poll.</div> <div> Their statement reads, in part:</div> <div> <I>“We, who sensed how the commands issued to us in the Territories destroy all the values we had absorbed while growing up in this country. . .hereby declare that we shall not continue to fight in this War of the Settlements. We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people. We hereby declare that we shall continue serving in the Israel Defense Forces in any mission that serves Israel's defense. The missions of occupation and oppression do not serve this purpose--and we shall take no part in them.</I></div> <div> Even Ami Ayalon, the former head of the Shin Bet (Israel's equivalent to the FBI), recently stated in <I>Le Monde</I>, “I favor unconditional withdrawal from the Territories, preferably in the context of an agreement, but not necessarily. What needs to be done, urgently, is to withdraw from the Territories, a true withdrawal which gives the Palestinians territorial continuity.”</div> <div> So if disagreement with the Israeli government is kosher in Israel, shouldn't it also be a topic of discussion among American Jews? For just one example, a recent survey of American Jewish attitudes showed that 35% of us think that sharing Jerusalem would be an acceptable outcome of peace talks, in total contradiction to the views expressed by the major American Jewish organizations that claim to speak in our name. Our community does not, and should not, have just one opinion on these questions. What is needed is more discussion, not less, on these crucial matters. What should you do if you come to the conclusion that Israeli policies are morally wrong? Just like during the Vietnam War era, we feel that public protest is essential to bring these issues to the attention of the American public; and the American public is the only hope for persuading the American government to take a more even-handed role in the conflict and pressure Israel to live up to its obligations under international law.</div> <div> The intifada is not primarily the result of Arab religious fanaticism or blind anti-Semitism or “inherent violent tendencies”. Rather, in our view, it is the inevitable result of the most basic human emotions--their need to be free and to live with dignity in the land of their ancestors. A Palestinian child who is awakened at dawn by Israeli soldiers demolishing his home and uprooting the family's olive grove does not need anyone to tell him to hate. The Israeli Occupation has seriously eroded the Jewish people's proud moral heritage, developed over the centuries; and, in any case, we are convinced it will never work, even in the most pragmatic terms. The Palestinians will always resist being under military occupation, and understandably so. As a result, there will never be real security for Israel until there is a reasonable version of justice for the Palestinians. How could it be otherwise?</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>9.     THE FACTS OF THE CURRENT INTIFADA</B></div> <bR> <div> A major cause of misunderstanding between the Jewish peace movement and other American Jews is that we rely on different sources of information. If what you know about Israel and Palestine comes from the corporate press, TV news &/or the mainstream Jewish press, then your perception of events will be determined by their world-view. As Jewish media critic Normon Solomon recently wrote, “Searching the Nexis database of U.S. media coverage during the first 100 days of this year, I found several dozen stories using the phrase `Israeli retaliation' or `Israel retaliated.' During the same period, how many stories used the phrase `Palestinian relatiation' or `Palestinians retaliated'? One. Both sides of the conflict, of course, describe their violence as retaliatory. But only one side routinely benefits from having its violent moves depicted that way by major American media.”</div> <div> If, however, you supplement your information by reading the Israeli press, progressive magazines like Tikkun or The Nation, internet sites like <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.commondreams.org/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.commondreams.org/"><U><U>www.commondreams.org</U></U></A></FONT> or Znet at <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="http://www.lbbs.org/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.lbbs.org/"><U><U>www.lbbs.org</U></U></A></FONT>, then a very different picture of what is going on emerges. In particular, we suggest that you sign up for our Jewish Peace News, the single most useful source of information available, by sending an e-mail to jewishpeacenews-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. As of February 2002, to the best of our knowledge, the situation is as follows:</div> <bR> <div> <B>FATALITIES </B></div> <bR> <div> ·      At least 1000 Palestinians and 281 Israelis have been killed.</div> <div> ·      The Palestinians have been killed primarily by Israeli military personnel--snipers shooting demonstrators with high-powered rifles; assassinations of specific individuals, without trial; attacks on Palestinian towns by invading tanks, missiles, attack helicopters, and F-16 fighter jets, causing numerous casualties and widespread devastation. There have also been fatalities caused by rioting Jewish settlers who have rampaged through Palestinian villages, and by individuals who died from being denied access to medical care because of Israeli roadblocks and military checkpoints surrounding every Palestinian town in the West Bank and Gaza.</div> <div> ·       The great majority of Israeli casualties have either been the victims of suicide bombers or Israeli settlers shot by Palestinians while traversing Palestinian territory. Until 2002, there were no Israeli military fatalities at Palestinian demonstrations, checkpoints, etc., since the IDF operates from well-defended bunkers, armoured tanks and guard towers.</div> <bR> <div> <B>INJURIES</B></div> <bR> <div> ·       Over 15,000 Palestinians have been injured, thousands of them sustaining permanent, crippling injuries from Israeli high-tech weapons designed for battlefield use, not crowd control. Thousands of them are children under 18, the vast majority of whom were only throwing rocks or equally ineffective Molotov cocktails at well-defended Israeli soldiers.</div> <div> ·      Israelis injured in the intifada number in the hundreds, not many thousands. This is because the Israeli civilian population is not being periodically attacked by the region's most powerful and well-equipped army, as the Palestinian population is.</div> <bR> <div> <B>PALESTINIAN MORTAR ATTACKS</B></div> <bR> <div> According to an AFP news wire in May, 2001, “Since the beginning of the violent events, the Palestinians fired more than 160 mortar bombs, which led to the wounding of 12 Israeli civilians and one Israeli soldier,” the army said.” Please note that there were no fatalities in the first year of fighting from these crude mortar attacks but they were the excuse for numerous Israeli “reprisals” in which many Palestinians were killed.</div> <bR> <div> <B>COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENTS</B></div> <bR> <div> Israel has forcibly demolished hundreds of Palestinian residences and tens of thousands of Palestinian fruit and olive trees. Israeli forces have fired into crowds of protesters with live ammunition on numerous occasions. Israel has unilaterally imposed various degrees of ÒclosureÓ on virtually every town and village in Palestine, making daily life impossible, strangling their economy, preventing people from traveling to other villages, going to work or school, getting medical care, etc. These collective punishments of an entire civilian population because of the actions of a few serve no conceivable purpose and are totally contrary to international law.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>10.    CONCLUSION</B></div> <bR> <div> We certainly believe that Israel has the right of legitimate self-defense within its 1967 borders, but its policies for the last 34 years, and especially during the current intifada, have been based on the old adage, “the best defense is a good offense”. While that's OK in football, in Israel that has translated into systematic torture or ill-treatment of literally hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, according to <I>B'tselem </I>and other reputable groups. It translates into articles in <I>Ha'aretz </I>in which Israeli snipers calmly discuss their orders to target and shoot any protesters who might conceivably be a threat to them, as long as they look like they are over 12-years-old. It means wanton cruelty being inflicted every day at military checkpoints, wanton destruction of Palestinian homes, and illegal strangling of Palestinian economic life, leading to extreme deprivation. In short, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is simply wrong--brutal, illegal and unnecessary.</div> <div> We hate to be the bearers of bad news, but we are not making these things up--they are a matter of public record. As American Jews we are, in good measure, responsible for these actions since they are being done in our name and with our tax dollars. Of course, the Palestinians have also committed gross crimes themselves, but far less, if for no other reason than they are by far the weaker party in the conflict. We, however, are not morally responsible for their actions, only our own.</div> <div> In the long-run, the only hope for a normal, peaceful life for the people of Israel is for their government to end their occupation of Palestinian land, allow the creation of a viable Palestinian state, and live and let live. The only other alternative is the current situation of endless bloodshed, which our silence, among other things, makes possible.</div> <div> <I><B>“Thou shalt not side with the majority in doing wrong, nor bear false witness with the many and thereby pervert justice.” </B></I><B>Exodus 23:2</B></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>HOW TO DO YOUR PART FOR PEACE</B></div> <bR> <div> If you have found this paper enlightening, please join A JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE and help us in our work. We have been organizing and educating people about the real causes of the unrest in Israel and Palestine since 1996. Among our many useful projects, we have made available to people, free of charge, an e-news service that delivers daily to its readers the best articles on the current conflict, largely from the Israeli press. To sign up for the Jewish Peace News, simply send an e-mail to:</div> <div> <U>jewishpeacenews-subscribe@yahoogroups.com</U><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >.</FONT></div> <div> To get in touch with us, phone 510-239-2239 x 5788, write us at P.O. Box 13286, Berkeley, CA 94712, or email us at info@jewishvoiceforpeace.org. Our website is full of up-to-date information</div> <div> and is located at <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Arial" ><U>www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org</U></FONT>.</div> <div> Only by joining with others who agree that the Occupation must end can we make a real difference. The U.S. government must come to understand that a good part of the American Jewish community does not condone Israel's illegal and excessive actions. Only then will it be able to reverse its position of unqualified support for whatever the Israeli government does. And that is the key to ending the nightmare of the Occupation once and for all.</div> <div> We will be happy to send you copies of this paper for $.30 each (our cost) for you to give to your friends, family and your local rabbi. Your efforts for peace are crucial. Shalom.</div> <div> <B>Published by: A Jewish Voice For Peace </B></div> <div> <B>P.O. Box 13286, Berkeley, CA 94712</B></div> <div> <B><U>www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org</U></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B> </B></FONT></div> <div> <B>info@jewishvoiceforpeace.org</B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <A NAME="_7_a_most_ungenerous_offer"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <div> <B>#7: "A Most Ungenerous Offer"</B></div> <div> <B> <A NAME="a_most_ungenerous_offer"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <div> <B>by: Jeff Halper</B></div> <div> <B>September - October 2002 </B></div> <div> <I><B>This document and others available from The Link</B></I><B> - Volume 35, Issue 4  (www ameu.org)</B></div> <div> <B><U>Consider a prison: </U></B></div> <div> If you look at a blueprint of a prison, it looks like the prisoners own the place. They have 95 percent of the territory. The prisoners have the living areas. They have the cafeteria, the visiting area, the exercise yard. All the prison authorities have is 5 percent: the surrounding walls, the cell bars, a few points of control, the keys to the door. The prison authorities do not need 20 or 30 percent of the territory to control the inmates. They only need to control the strategic points. </div> <div> This analogy is useful for understanding why Barak's celebrated “generous offer” to the Palestinians was anything but generous. It also explains the callous impunity with which Israel relates to Palestinian national aspirations and rights. I would argue that Israel views the intifada, the Palestinian uprising, like a prison riot. Israel-and the Zionist movement before it-never recognized a Palestinian people possessing a distinct identity, culture or history, with legitimate claims to a country. Although Israel required the P.L.O. to recognize it as a legitimate political construct and not merely a “fact of life,” Israel in return did not recognize the Palestinians' right of self-determination. It never promised a Palestinian state at the end of the “peace process.” In Oslo Israel agreed only to negotiate "final status issues" with the P.L.O., without committing itself to any particular outcome. Indeed, given the fact that Israel doubled its settler population during the seven years of negotiations, constructed a massive highway system in the Occupied Territories that linked its settlements to Israel proper while creating barriers to Palestinian movement, and imposed an economic closure that impoverished the Palestinian population, no hint is evident “on the ground” that Israel ever contemplated the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. </div> <div> Understanding this is crucial for comprehending Israel's fierce reaction to the second intifada, leading to its current efforts to dismantle the Palestinian Authority completely and create a permanent bantustan. It explains why Israel mistreats Palestinians and violates their human rights with impunity, why it thumbs its nose at international humanitarian law, why it is able to build a prison wall against the Palestinians "so high that even the birds cannot fly over it.” For Israeli Jews, Palestinians are merely “Arabs” (Israeli Jews seldom use the word “Palestinians”), an undifferentiated part of an Arab mass that might just as well live in one of the "other" 22 Arab countries as in "ours." From their point of view there is only one legitimate "side" in this conflict, their own. Only Jews-wherever they live, Israeli or not- hold exclusive claims to the land. This is the source of Israeli human rights violations in both the Occupied Territories and within Israel itself. There is no symmetry, no "two sides," no more negotiations. Like prison guards Israelis claim a “right” to put down the prison riot, the intifada. Inmates have no right to riot, and certainly no right to challenge the dictates of the authorities. Once we put them down, once they know their place, once they submit and accept their life in a prison, then everything will be fine. We will make their prison-bantustan a pleasant place to live; we will even liberate them from the rule of their own criminal leaders. But they must understand they are in our country, and we will brook no challenge to our exclusive rights. </div> <div> <B>House Demolitions </B></div> <div> Now consider what it means to be a prisoner under occupation. </div> <div> Back in early 1997, when Bibi Netanyahu was prime minister and we were supposedly in the midst of a “peace process,” his government would often demolish 20-30 Palestinian homes a week. Demolishing houses is one of the most cruel and oppressive aspects of the occupation (even though Israel has been systematically demolishing homes and whole villages since 1948). Since the start of the occupation in 1967, 9,000 Palestinian homes have been destroyed, some 2,000 since the outbreak of the second intifada, leaving more than 50,000 Palestinians homeless, destitute, and living in fear and trauma. </div> <div> The motivation for demolishing these homes is purely political. Although Israel tries to lend its actions a legal facade through an elaborate system of planning regulations, laws and procedures-we are, after all, the “only democracy in the Middle East”-the practice of house demolitions violates international law and fundamental human rights. The purpose is to confine the three and a half million residents of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza to small, overcrowded, impoverished and disconnected enclaves, thereby foreclosing any viable Palestinian entity and ensuring Israeli control even if Palestinians achieve some nominal form of independence. </div> <div> The renewal of massive house demolitions by Netanyahu in 1997 sparked the founding of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), of which I am the coordinator. </div> <div> ICAHD began as a non-violent, direct-action group composed of representatives of diverse Israeli peace and human rights organizations: Bat Shalom, Rabbis for Human Rights, Yesh Gvul, the Public Committee Against Torture, Palestinians and Israelis for Human Rights, Netivot Shalom, parts of Meretz and Peace Now. Having become somewhat dormant during the years of Rabin and Peres, when many of us believed that “peace” was painfully being achieved, we all felt that now something must be done to resist the increasing oppressive occupation. We chose to focus on house demolitions because it lay at the juncture between a political policy crucial for perpetuating the occupation and the human suffering it engendered. We had little appreciation, however, of how that decision would change our lives and the style of our work. </div> <div> First, it required us to learn the “lay of the land.” Israeli peace groups tend to set their own agendas, seldom consulting Palestinian organizations. We felt this only replicated the power relations inherent in the occupation itself. Early on we decided that we would act only in the Occupied Territories in conjunction with a Palestinian organization. We therefore established close working relations with a number of grassroots Palestinian groups, in particular the Land Defense Committee, with branches throughout Palestinian towns, neighborhoods and villages, and LAW, a Palestinian human rights organization. </div> <div> For the first few months of our work, as we got to know the workings of the occupation and developed relations of trust with Palestinian organizations and families, we began to visit some of the thousands of families threatened with demolition orders. Here, too, our position as Israeli peace activists was challenged. The Israeli peace movement traditionally engaged in protest. It never promised to effect any concrete changes in Israeli government policy, and was never called upon to “deliver”-which is why Palestinians had little faith in many of our activities. The Palestinian families we met would have nothing of protest or mere solidarity. They wanted to know if we could prevent the demolition, if we could help them get a permit, if we could arrange legal protection, if we could use our political influence. What would we do, they wanted to know, when the army and bulldozers arrived. Would we stand and resist together with them? And if the house was demolished, they wanted to know what would we offer: To rebuild? To help finance alternative quarters? To secure them a permit? </div> <div> Suddenly, after decades in the peace movement and hundreds of demonstrations under our belts, we discovered how little we knew of the occupation and of the people living under it. Who issues demolition orders? The army? The Civil Administration? The police? Another government body? [Answer: the Civil Administration in the West Bank and Gaza, though the army also has the authority if “security” is involved; both the Municipality and the Ministry of Interior in East Jerusalem.] We had heard vaguely of the Civil Administration, but where was it located? [In the Beit El settlement northeast of Ramallah.] And who exactly is responsible for issuing demolition orders? Could we obtain building permits, and how? What is the government's demolition policy and what numbers are we talking about? And we realized how little we actually knew about the workings of the occupation we had protested for so many years. When a family contacted us from the town of Anata, part of which lies within the Jerusalem municipal boundary, none of us knew where it was or how to get there. </div> <div> In fact, none of us had ever seen a demolition. Normally they are carried out at dawn, after the men have left for work and only the women and children remain at home. And they are randomized so as to diffuse the fear and uncertainty, to deter people from building at all. Once a demolition order is confirmed by the court, the bulldozers could arrive the next morning, or next week, or next year-or never. It is like a reverse lottery you do not want to “win.” In the end the policy of house demolitions makes life so unbearable that those who have the means (especially the educated middle classes so critical for Palestinian society) are driven from the country altogether. </div> <div> A major change in our work occurred on July 9, 1998. At one o'clock in the afternoon, as members of ICAHD, the Land Defense Committee, and LAW were preparing a demonstration opposite the Civil Administration in Beit El (30 houses had been demolished the previous week), we received word that the house of Salim Shawamreh was being demolished in the nearby village of Anata. It was the fifth house being demolished that day, and the Civil Administration had apparently gotten greedy, thinking that because of the lack of resistance it would keep demolishing throughout the day. </div> <div> Salim Shawamreh, his wife Arabia, and their six children were one of the families we had met earlier. Their village of Anata, with a population of some 12,000, is a microcosm of the occupation. It is divided between Jerusalem and the West Bank. Almost all the village's lands have been expropriated to build Israeli settlements, leaving the residents crowded into a small “core.” Twenty-three demolition orders had been served on Anata residents by the Jerusalem municipality, the Ministry of Interior and the Civil Administration. </div> <div> The Shawamreh house fell into Area C of the West Bank, which is under full Israeli control. After several unsuccessful attempts to obtain a permit, Salim, having nowhere else to live, built on his own private land. He promptly received a demolition order, but managed to live in his home undisturbed for four years. One fine day in July, as he was having lunch with his wife and six children, he heard a knock on the door. When he opened it, he found himself confronted by dozens of soldiers. Their leader, a field inspector of the Civil Administration named Micha, asked Salim: “Is this your house?” “Yes, this is my house,” answered Salim. “No, it isn't,” Micha replied. “This is now our house. You have fifteen minutes to remove your belongings before we destroy it.” </div> <div> When I arrived on the scene and managed to pass through the dozens of soldiers to reach the house, I found Salim lying beaten on the ground and his wife being carried unconscious to the hospital. Both had resisted the attempt to demolish their home, and both had been violently ejected from the house. The terrified children had scattered and were not to be found. </div> <div> Together with Salim and his neighbors, I resisted the army's attempts to drive us away so that the bulldozer could begin its work. I sat in front of the bulldozer (something that would have gotten a Palestinian shot) and was pushed down the hill by the soldiers. Finally, lying with Salim and the others in the dirt, I witnessed a unique experience for an Israeli-watching through the eyes of a Palestinian as his house was systematically destroyed and all the fruit trees of his garden uprooted. </div> <div> Demolition is a different experience for men, women and children. Men probably are the most humiliated, since the inability to provide a home for their families and to protect them destroys their very position as head of the family. The loss of one's home means loss of one's connection to the land, the family's patrimony. The message of demolitions is clear: there is no place for you here; there is no place for a Palestinian on the face of the earth. </div> <div> Men often cry at demolitions, but they also are angered and swear revenge, or plan to build again. </div> <div> For women the loss of the home is the loss of one's identity as a woman, wife and mother. For Palestinian women, most of whom do not work outside the home, the house is their entire world. In fact, they lose twice. They lose their own home in a traumatic act of violence-their most personal belongings thrown unceremoniously outside in the dirt-and they must go to live in the home of another woman (a mother- or sister-in-law), thereby losing their status as the head of the domestic household and even as mother. Palestinian women tend to sink into mourning, their behavior-crying, wailing, and then depression-very much like those of people who have lost loved ones. The demolished home can never be replaced, and after demolitions women undergo personality changes. Some become more sullen or moody, often frightened by small sounds or unexpected events, prone to break into crying. Others step into the vacuum left by the emasculated husband and become the strong center of the family unit. </div> <div> For children the act of demolition-and the months and years leading up to it-is a time of trauma. To witness the fear and powerlessness of your parents, to feel constantly afraid and insecure, to see loved ones beaten, to experience the harassment of Civil Administration field supervisors-and then to endure the noise and violence and displacement and destruction of your home, your world, your toys-these things mark children for life. The signs of trauma and stress among children are many: bed-wetting, nightmares, fear to leave home lest one “abandon” parents and children to the army, dramatic drops in grades and school attendance, exposure to domestic violence that occasionally follows impoverishment, displacement and humiliation. One day recently, Israeli tanks appeared before the windows of the Shawamreh's rented apartment, and their 11-year-old daughter Wafa went blind for two hours. Her mind simply shut down under the weight of successive traumas. </div> <div> A month after the demolition of the Shawamreh home, ICAHD brought hundreds of Israelis to join local Palestinians in rebuilding the house. It was promptly demolished a second time by Israeli bulldozers, but we all decided to rebuild it yet again as a political act of resistance. When we all had finished the home for the third time, Salim said: “Together with Israelis who seek a just peace, we have built here a House of Peace.” In April 2001, the Shawamreh house was demolished yet again. We are now planning to rebuild it for the fourth time. We refuse to let the occupation win. </div> <div> <B>Israel's Matrix of Control </B></div> <div> As “the only democracy in the Middle East,” Israel attempts to conceal its prison-like occupation behind a legalistic facade. Thus the Palestinians are cast as the “law-breakers.” How else could Israel explain its demolition of thousands of Palestinian homes while at the same time constructing exclusive Jewish settlements on the occupied land-some 40,000 Jewish-only housing units in the West Bank since 1967, and 90,000 in East Jerusalem. </div> <div> It also denies the very fact of occupation. Israel claims it is merely “administering” the West Bank and Gaza (having formally annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights) until their final status is negotiated-a position unanimously rejected by the international community. But by embedding its occupation in an elaborate bureaucratic and legal system, Israel hides the illegality of its occupation policies under international law. </div> <div> Since 1967, Israel has laid over the Occupied Territories what I call a Matrix of Control. It is a sophisticated, complex, and integrated system designed: a) to control every aspect of Palestinian life while giving the impression that “occupation” is merely proper administration; b) to cast Israel's military repression as self-defense against an aggressive Palestinian people endeavoring to expel it; and c) to carve out just enough space to establish a dependent Palestinian mini-state-or worse, a number of feudal and disconnected cantons-that will relieve it of responsibility for the Palestinian population. </div> <div> The Matrix operates on three interlocking levels: </div> <div> <B>(1) </B><B><U>Military Controls, Military Strikes and Close Surveillance </U></B></div> <div> * Outright military actions, including attacks on civilian population centers and the Palestinian infrastructure, especially evident during the two intifadas (1987-1993; 2000-present), are not Israel's preferred means of control. They are brutal, too visual, and generate both internal and foreign opposition. Citing “security” concerns, Israel uses military force effectively and with impunity to suppress resistance to the occupation and as a deterrent (“teaching the Palestinians a lesson;” conveying a “message”). In the longterm, however, Israel prefers to control the Palestinians administratively-including the issuance of thousands of “military orders” and by “creating facts on the ground.” </div> <div> * Extensive use is also made of collaborators and undercover “mustarabi” army units. The dependency which Israel's stifling “administration” engenders turns thousands of Palestinians into unwilling (and occasionally willing) collaborators. Simple things such as obtaining a driver's or business license, a work permit, a permit to build a house, a travel document or permission to receive hospital care in Israel or abroad is often conditioned on supplying information to the security services. Extortion, the only word to describe forcing people into traitorous activities that undermine their own society, is an essential feature of the Matrix. So effective is this that Israel can pinpoint and assassinate Palestinian figures-“targeted prevention” is the euphemism-in their cars or even in telephone booths. </div> <div> * Israel has at its disposal sophisticated means of surveillance. In May of this year it launched Amos 5, the fifth in a series of spy satellites, which can detect the tiniest movement even at night. Since the Occupied Territories are small and largely barren patches of land, surveillance is virtually complete. </div> <div> * Mass arrests and administrative detention are also common features of the military side of the Matrix of Control. In the March-April 2002 raids on West Bank cities, towns, villages and refugee camps, about 3,000 people were detained, 280 of them held in administrative detention, which can last for months or years, without being either charged or tried. </div> <div> <B>(2) </B><B><U>Creating Facts on the Ground </U></B></div> <div> * Since 1967 Israel has expropriated for settlements, highways, by-pass roads, military installations, nature preserves and infrastructure some 24 percent of the West Bank, 89 percent of Arab East Jerusalem, and 25 percent of Gaza. </div> <div> * More than 200 settlements have been constructed in the Occupied Territories; over 400,000 Israelis have moved across the 1967 boundaries: 200,000 in the West Bank, 200,000 in East Jerusalem, and 6,000 in Gaza. A key goal of the settlement enterprise is to foreclose the establishment of a viable Palestinian state (or, for some, any Palestinian state) by carving the Occupied Territories into dozens of enclaves surrounded, isolated, and controlled by Israeli settlements, infrastructure and military. </div> <div> * While a number of Israeli highways were built in the Occupied Territories before the Oslo Accords, construction of a massive system of 29 highways and by-pass roads, funded entirely by the United States at a cost of $3 billion, was begun only at the start of the “peace process.” Designed to link settlements, to create barriers to Palestinian movement and, in the end, to incorporate the West Bank into Israel proper, this project, which takes up an additional 17 percent of West Bank land, contributes materially to the creation of “facts on the ground” that prejudiced the negotiations. </div> <div> Another mechanism of control that came into being with the signing of Oslo II in 1995 was the further carving of the Occupied Territories into Areas A, B, and C in the West Bank; H-1 and H-2 in Hebron; and Yellow, Green, Blue, and White Areas in Gaza. In addition, Israeli-controlled “nature reserves,” closed military areas, security zones, and “open green spaces” restrict Palestinian construction in more than half of East Jerusalem. This system confines Palestinians to an archipelago of some 190 islands encircled by the Israeli Matrix. Israel formally controls 60 percent of the West Bank (Area C), 60 percent of Gaza, and all of East Jerusalem. Its frequent incursions into Palestinian territory and its virtual destruction of the Palestinian Authority between March and July 2002, have left it, however, in de facto control of the entire area. </div> <div> * Hundreds of permanent, semi-permanent, and “spontaneous” checkpoints and border crossings severely limit and control Palestinian movement. </div> <div> * Construction of seven of 12 planned industrial parks on the “seam” between the Occupied Territories and Israel gives new life to isolated settlements while robbing Palestinian cities of their own economic vitality. These parks exploit cheap Palestinian labor while denying it access to Israel. They also afford Israel's most polluting and least profitable industries to continue dumping their industrial wastes into the West Bank and Gaza. </div> <div> * Israel's Matrix of Control extends underground as well, using settlement sites to maintain control over the main aquifers of the Occupied Territories. </div> <div> * Even seemingly innocuous holy places such as Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, sites in and around Jerusalem, and Joseph's Tomb in Nablus serve as pretexts for maintaining an Israeli “security presence.” </div> <div> <B>(3) </B><B><U>Bureaucracy, Planning and Law, the most subtle control mechanisms. </U></B></div> <div> * “Orders” issued by the Military Commanders of the West Bank and Gaza-some 2,000 in number since 1967-supplement Civil Administration policies that replace local civil law with procedures designed to strengthen Israeli political control. </div> <div> * Since the start of the “peace process,” a permanent “closure” has been laid over the West Bank and Gaza, severely restricting the number of Palestinian workers allowed into Israel and impoverishing the Palestinian community whose own infrastructure has been kept underdeveloped. </div> <div> * Discriminatory and often arbitrary systems of work, entrance and travel permits further restrict movement both within the country and abroad. </div> <div> * Given Israel's goal of controlling the entire country and its “demographic problem”-Palestinians will soon outnumber Jews in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea-policies of displacement are actively pursued: exile and deportation; revocation of residency rights; economic impoverishment; land expropriation; and house demolitions, all are means of making life so unbearable that it will induce “voluntary” emigration. Schemes of “transfer” have become a common and acceptable part of Israeli political discourse, with two parties in Prime Minister Sharon's government, the National Union Party and Israel Is Our Home, now promoting transfer as their main political program. </div> <div> * Zoning and planning policies are ideal vehicles for rendering the occupation invisible, since they are couched in supposedly neutral terms and professional jargon but serve Israel's political ends by obstructing the natural development of Palestinian towns and villages. Central to this system is the restrictive use of building permits, reinforced by house demolitions, arrests and fines for “illegal” building, and daily harassment by Israeli building inspectors. </div> <div> While the Palestinian population is being confined to small enclaves, planning for Israeli expansion employs “master plans” that encompass broad stretches of Palestinian land intended for future settlements. Within this framework Israel can cynically claim that its settlement building is “frozen” and that it is only “thickening” existing ones for purposes of “natural growth.” In fact, small settlements often give rise to large settlement-cities which, of course, “do not count” because they share an existing master plan. </div> <div> * Severe restrictions on the planting of crops and their sale hit an already destitute population hard, especially when combined with Israel's practice of uprooting hundreds of thousands of olive and fruit trees since 1967, either for settlements or for “security” purposes. </div> <div> * Use of abusive licensing and inspection procedures limits the local economy and keeps it dependent on Israeli goods. </div> <div> <B>Barak's “Generous Offer” </B></div> <div> If anything has turned public opinion in Israel and abroad against the Palestinians, it is the contention that Israel under Barak made far-reaching concessions to the Palestinians and that they rebuffed his “generous offer” with violence. In this popular view the Palestinians are to “blame” for the breakdown of the peace process and, in the light of terrorism, Israel's policies of repression are justified. Seen in the light of the prison analogy, however, Israel does not need more than 5-10 per cent of the Occupied Territories to retain control and render any Palestinian state non-viable and non-sovereign. </div> <div> The fallacy lies in equating territory with sovereignty. Although gaining control of 95 or 88 percent of the territory is important-especially if the territory is contiguous-it does not necessarily equal a sovereign state. This is where the Matrix of Control enters the picture, and where knowing the “lay of the land” is critical. If anything, Taba revealed how much Israel could relinquish and still retain effective control over the entire country. Looked at closely, this is what the “generous offer” in fact offered (see maps on pp. 8-9): </div> <div> <B>*</B><B><U> Consolidation of Strategic Settlement Blocs.</U></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><U> </U>Israel retains the three large blocs of Ariel and its surrounding “Western Samaria” bloc; the central Givat Ze'ev-Pisgat Ze'ev-Ma'alei Adumin, and perhaps Beit El bloc; and the Efrat-Gush Etzion-Beitar Illit bloc. </FONT></div> <div> <B>*</B><B><U> The Creation of a “Greater [Israeli] Jerusalem.”</U></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><U> </U>The Givat Ze'ev-Adumim and Gush Etzion settlement bloc, with their 80,000 settlers, when annexed to Israeli-controlled “Greater Jerusalem,” will dominate the entire central region of the West Bank. Because some 40 percent of the Palestinian economy revolves around Jerusalem in the form of tourism, commercial life and industry, removing Jerusalem from the Palestinian realm carries such serious economic consequences as to call the very viability of a Palestinian state into question. </FONT></div> <div> <B>*</B><B><U> Emergence of a “Metropolitan [Israeli] Jerusalem.” </U></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >The ring roads and major highways being built through and around Jerusalem are turning the city into a metropolitan region, incorporating 10 percent of the West Bank. Within its limits are found 75 percent of the West Bank settlers and the major centers of Israeli construction. </FONT></div> <div> <B>*</B><B><U> An East Jerusalem Patchwork.</U></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><U> </U>Israel will not cede the entire area of East Jerusalem, where Israelis, now about 200,000, outnumber Palestinians. Palestinian presence in Jerusalem will be fragmented and barely viable as an urban and economic center. The Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif issue remained unresolved at Taba, with Israel seemingly prepared to cede “functional sovereignty” (though not official) to the “upper” area of the mosques, while retaining sole sovereignty over the “lower” Western Wall. </FONT></div> <div> <B>*</B><B><U> Israeli Control over Highways and Movement</U></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><U>.</U> Over the past decades Israel has been building a system of major highways and by-pass roads designed to link its settlements, to create barriers between Palestinian areas, and to incorporate the West Bank into Israel proper. Even if physical control over the highways is relinquished, strategic parts will remain under Israeli control: the Eastern Ring Road, Jerusalem-Etzion Bloc highway, Road 45 from Tel Aviv to Ma'aleh Adumim, a section of Highway 60 from Jerusalem to Beit El and Ofra, and the western portion of the Trans-Samarian highway leading to the Ariel bloc. In terms of the movement of people and goods, this will divide the Palestinian entity into at least four cantons (see maps on pp. 8-9): the northern West Bank, the southern portion, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Plus, Israel insists on retaining rights of “emergency deployment” to both the highway system and to the Jordan Valley. </FONT></div> <div> <B>*</B><B><U> Limited Palestinian Sovereignty.</U></B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > Such a Palestinian state would possess limited sovereignty only. It would be demilitarized and unable to form military alliances not approved by Israel. It would have jurisdiction over its borders, but would have certain restrictions as to who may enter, especially vis-</FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>Defeating Palestinian Aspirations </B></div> <div> Faced with the prospect of being locked forever into a tiny non-viable bantustan, Palestinians rose up in their second intifada in September 2000. It spelled the final rejection by the Palestinian people of the Oslo “peace process,” which they considered a sophisticated form of apartheid. Since then, the intifada has turned into a full-scale war for independence. For Israel it has turned into a last-ditch battle in which Israel will emerge victorious and the Palestinians' aspirations for self-determination in a viable state will be dashed forever. The May 12th vote-by acclamation-of the Likud Central Committee against the establishment of any Palestinian state flowed logically and smoothly from “Operation Defensive Shield,” the ferocious incursion into Palestinian areas in March-April 2002. </div> <div> In the wake of this military action and the reoccupation of Palestinian areas-all done with U.S. support for “reform” of the Palestinian Authority (read: implant a quisling leader)-the Sharon government believes it has defeated the Palestinians once and for all, and can thus drop the pretense of even a Palestinian mini-state. It has three good reasons for thinking so: </div> <div> <B>1. </B><B>Jenin.</B><B> </B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >Although the Israeli attacks of March-April 2002 extended far beyond the Jenin refugee camp, Jenin became the focal point and symbol of Israel's thrust to “destroy the infrastructure of terrorism.” In fact, it represents for Sharon the final defeat of any Palestinian attempt to resist the occupation. Palestinians, in his view, have nowhere to go. Their infrastructure is demolished, and given Israel's suffocating control of Areas A and B, they will never be able to reorganize. There may be isolated incidents, but the problem of terrorism/resistance has been reduced to manageable proportions. </FONT></div> <div> <B>2. </B><B>Ramallah.</B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > Although the Israeli assault on Ramallah received far less press and was focused on events around Arafat's compound, it represents nothing less than the destruction of the Palestinian Authority's ability to govern. In Ramallah virtually the entire civil infrastructure was destroyed-all the data of the government ministries, hospitals and clinics, the land registry office, the courts and banking system, businesses, non-governmental organizations and research institutes, even the Palestinian Academy of Sciences. We already see Israel's Civil Administration stepping into the vacuum. Before the incursion, Israel recognized the documents/passports issued by the Palestinian Authority to Palestinians traveling to Jordan; now Palestinians will have to get travel documents from Israel. In addition, they will need special permits to leave their cities in order to travel to the bridge to exit, which they didn't need before. And we must not miss the “message” of the soldiers left behind: “Death to Arabs” scrawled on walls with excrement, excrement and urine spread throughout offices and homes, wanton destruction of furniture, equipment, artworks, and gardens. </FONT></div> <div> <B>3. </B><B>The American Congress.</B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > On May 2nd, in the wake of the attacks and in anticipation of Sharon's visit to Washington, Congress overwhelmingly passed a resolution (94-2 in the Senate, 352-21 in the House), supporting Israel's campaign to destroy “the terrorist infrastructure and attacking the Palestinian Authority.” The resolution showed clearly why the U.S. Congress is Israel's “trump card,” allowing it to defy the international community while thumbing its nose at American administrations. </FONT></div> <div> All this leads inexorably towards a three-fold permanent “solution” to the “Arab problem.” First, Arafat will be transferred to Gaza, which will become one large prison for PLO members. At some point, probably when Arafat leaves the scene and a more compliant leader can be found, Gaza will become the Palestinian state as a sop to international demands for Palestinian independence. </div> <div> The West Bank will then be divided into three separate cantons according to settlement blocs and Israeli highways already in place. A northern canton would be created around the city of Nablus, a central one around Ramallah and a southern one in the area of Hebron, with a possible separation of Qalkilya and Tulkarem from the rest. Each would be disconnected from the other and connected independently to Israel. A road or two might connect the differenct cantons, but checkpoints and cargo docks would ensure complete Israeli control. Each canton, whose residents would have a residency status similar to that of the Palestinians of East Jerusalem today, would be granted local autonomy to run its municipalities, schools and services, as envisioned by Begin. </div> <div> Finally, Israel would ensure submission using a combination of controls. The administrative tools of the Matrix, together with the “facts on the ground,” effectively foreclose any Palestinian organization beyond local autonomy. Fear of losing the economic opportunities promised by Peres's industrial parks and other enterprises would counteract moves towards renewed resistance. And then there is the “quiet transfer.” By inducing the emigration of the educated Palestinian middle classes, Israel renders Palestinian society weak, leaderless and easily controlled. Since the outbreak of the second intifada an estimated 150,000 Palestinians have left the Occupied Territories, the vast majority of them middle class, including many Christians from the Bethlehem and Ramallah areas. </div> <div> <B>What Must Be Done? </B></div> <div> A just peace will not be achieved unless the following elements are present: </div> <div> -An explicit declaration that the eventual goals of the negotiations are a viable and truly sovereign Palestinian state, together with an Israel enjoying security and regional integration (a position very close to the Saudi plan). </div> <div> -A direct connection between the negotiations and the realities on the ground. Oslo was formulated in a way that put off the “hard issues,” those most crucial to the Palestinians, for the final stages of the negotiations, which never happened. Jerusalem, borders, water, settlements, the fate of the refugees and security arrangements-all these issues (except the last, important mainly for Israel) were put off during the seven years of negotiations. Although Article IV of the Declaration of Principles talks about preserving the “integrity” of the West Bank and Gaza during negotiations, it did not prevent Israel from “creating facts” on the ground which, as we have seen, completely prejudiced the discussions. </div> <div> -Reference to international law and human rights. International humanitarian law provides a map for the equitable resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian "conflict." By guaranteeing the collective rights of both peoples to self-determination and prohibiting occupation and the perpetuation of refugee status, it leaves only the details of an agreement to be worked out by negotiations. Boundaries, the just resolution of the refugee issue based on the Right of Return and individual choice and the other "final status issues" can be resolved only if they are addressed in the context of human rights and international humanitarian law-and not as mere by-products of power. Nothing is being asked of Israel that is not asked of any other country-accountability under covenants of human rights formulated and adopted by the international community, which Israel pledged to respect as a condition for its creation by the United Nations. </div> <div> - Dismantling the Matrix of Control. As we have seen, the strategic 5-15% of the Occupied Territories Israel seeks to retain would frustrate Palestinian national aspirations. Viability, sovereignty and an end to Israeli control (along with addressing genuine Israeli security concerns) must be the markers of progress towards a just peace. </div> <div> -Refugees. Some seventy percent of the Palestinian people are refugees. No resolution of the conflict is possible without addressing their rights, needs and grievances. Israel must acknowledge its active role in creating the refugee problem and recognize the refugees' right of return. Once that is done, the Palestinians, and the wider Arab world that endorsed the Saudi plan, have indicated their willingness to negotiate a mutually agreed-upon actualization of that right. </div> <div> -Involvement of the wider international community, civil society as well as governmental, in peace-making efforts. We must closely monitor whether peace proposals in fact further Palestinian independence in a viable state. Key to this is understanding the implications of the various discussions and proposals in terms of the reality "on the ground." This may involve initiatives on the part of civil society; investigating the events in the Jenin refugee camp, for example, if the U.N. is prevented from doing so. </div> <div> -Mobilizing public opinion. ICAHD's campaign to organize 1,000 house parties in order to raise funds for the rebuilding of demolished Palestinian houses is a meaningful act of resistance that involves Israelis, Palestinians and internationals in civil society peace-making. (For more information on this effort, see our campaign web site at www.rebuildinghomes.org.) </div> <div> -Lobbying. Palestinian and Israeli delegations should be brought to parliaments and Congress. </div> <div> The occupation poses a bold challenge to the international community, whether to its elected representatives or to the civil society as represented by Non-Governmental and faith-based organizations. In an era of global transparency, of mass media, instantaneous news coverage and the internet, can a new Berlin Wall be built that locks millions of Palestinians behind massive fortifications, Israel's $100-million "security fence?" Decades after the end of colonialism and a decade after the end of South African apartheid, will the international community actually sit passively by while a new apartheid regime arises before our very eyes? In a world in which the ideal of human rights has gained wide acceptance, could an entire people be imprisoned in dozens of tiny, impoverished islands, denied its right of self-determination? </div> <div> The cardinal mistake in the American approach is to believe that Israel will voluntarily relinquish its occupation in return for full security or regional integration, or, as National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice put it, that Israel has an interest in a strong, stable Palestinian state. The Israeli government does not consider its occupation an “occupation,” but merely an administration until such a time that its control can be formalized in negotiations. The recent July 2002 bombing in Gaza, in which 17 people were killed and some 150 wounded, most of them children, illustrates this clearly. The attack came just hours before the Fatah Tanzim were to declare a ceasefire, and when even Hamas was considering a similar change of policy. The attack was nothing less than an intentional escalation designed to scuttle any developments that might force Israel into real negotiations. Unless this fundamental point is grasped, all efforts to shake Israel's hold of the Occupied Territories will end in failure…</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B> <A NAME="_8_centre_for_rapproachement"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <div> <B>#8</B><B><U> </U></B><B><U>CENTRE FOR RAPPROACHEMENT</U></B></div> <bR> <div> <I><B>Excerpts from Home Page of </B></I></div> <div> <B><U>The Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between People</U></B></div> <div> <B><U>64 Star Street, P.O.Box 24</U></B></div> <div> <B><U>Beit Sahour - Palestine</U></B></div> <div> <B><U>www.rapprochement.org</U></B></div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="javascript:" TARGET="_top" TITLE="javascript:"><U><B><IMG SRC="079101e0.png" border=0 width="528" height="30" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="07a90500.png" border=0 width="400" height="80" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> <I><B>Dear Readers,</B></I></div> <bR> <div> <I><B>Allow us to welcome you to our website. We believe that the Internet, if used appropriately, can function as an important means of communication. We therefore hope that this site will serve as a way of reaching out to many people.</B></I></div> <div> <I><B>This site will give you an idea of the structure of PCR and the staff and activists involved. In addition, you will be able to view our projects and activities.</B></I></div> <bR> <div> <I><B>Below you will find information regarding the content of our site. This information will make it easier for you to browse our site:</B></I></div> <bR> <div> <I><B>In the "</B></I><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Verdana" ><I><B><U>About Us</U></B></I></FONT><I><B>" section, you can receive more information about the vision of PCR.</B></I></div> <div> <I><B>In the "Articles" section, you can find different articles regarding PCR or articles we recommend you read in order to ascertain a better understanding of the situation in the region of Palestine.</B></I></div> <div> <I><B>In the "News" section, you can read about the news we managed to get on the Israeli attacks against Bethlehem and especially Beit Sahour. We will also try to provide some news from Beit Sahour reflecting the daily life and activities in our town. This is an attempt to view the situation from a different angle.</B></I></div> <div> <I><B>The "Units" section gives you a detailed description of the structure of the volunteers at PCR; their different functioning units and their projects.</B></I></div> <div> <I><B>In the "Projects" section, you can read about some of the old projects organized by PCR or in partnership with PCR and photos if available. In the same section, you can also read about the "Short Term" activities held in or by PCR.</B></I></div> <div> <B>Contact Information can be found under the "Contacts" menu. You can contact us via phone, fax, mobile, post, e-mail, or physical address. You will also find a </B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Verdana" ><B>Feedback</B></FONT><B> Form and a </B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Verdana" ><B>Guest Book</B></FONT><B> in this menu.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="154" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="VOID" RULES="NONE" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="150"><div> <B>Home</B></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 36 ><NOBR><div> <B>ISM Daily Updates</B></div> <bR> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 19 ><NOBR><div> <B>News Archives </B></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 19 ><NOBR><div> <B>Recent Photos </B></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 19 ><NOBR><div> <B>Political Cartoons</B></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 19 ><NOBR><div> <B>Nonviolence (APJU)</B></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 19 ><NOBR><div> <B>Peace to The City</B></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="150"><div> <B>Support ISM</B></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 19 ><NOBR><div> <B>The Youth Group</B></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="150"><div> <B>Youth Projects</B></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 19 ><NOBR><div> <B>ISM info pack here</B></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 36 WIDTH="150"><div> <B>FAQ about Campaigns</B></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="150"><div> <B>Whats New</B></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></B></div> <bR> <div> =================================</div> <div> <B>The center is a non-profit making NGO, started in 1988 during the first Intifada.</B></div> <div> <B>PCR runs community service programs, youth empowerment and training programs.</B></div> <div> <B>PCR is also very much involved in the non-violent resistance against the Israeli Occupation to Palestine.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <I><B><U> <A NAME="_9_history_of_palestine____"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></U></B></I></div> <div> <I><B><U>#9: History of Palestine -- </U></B></I></div> <div> <I><B><U>Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia</U></B></I></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <I>History of Palestine</I></div> <div>      <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >I</FONT>     <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >INTRODUCTION  </FONT> <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>Palestine</B>, historic region, the extent of which has varied greatly since ancient times, situated on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, in southwestern Asia. Palestine is now largely divided between Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories, parts of which are self-administered by Palestinians.</FONT></div> <div>      <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >II</FONT>     <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >THE LAND </FONT> </div> <div> The region has an extremely diverse terrain that falls generally into four parallel zones. From west to east they are the coastal plain; the hills and mountains of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea; the valley of the Jordan River; and the eastern plateau. In the extreme south lies the Negev, a rugged desert area. Elevations range from 408 m (1,340 ft) below sea level on the shores of the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the surface of the earth, to 1020 m (3347 ft) atop Mount Hebron. The region has several fertile areas, which constitute its principal natural resource. Most notable of these are the Plain of Sharon, along the northern part of the Mediterranean coast, and the Plain of Esdraelon (or Jezreel), a valley north of the hills of Samaria. The water supply of the region, however, is not abundant, with virtually all of the modest annual rainfall coming in the winter months. The Jordan River, the region's only major stream, flows south through the Sea of Galilee (Lake Tiberias), the region's only large freshwater lake, to the intensely saline Dead Sea.</div> <div>      <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >III</FONT>     <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >HISTORY </FONT> </div> <div> The Canaanites were the earliest known inhabitants of Palestine. During the 3rd millennium  BC they became urbanized and lived in city-states, one of which was Jericho. They developed an alphabet from which other writing systems were derived; their religion was a major influence on the beliefs and practices of Judaism, and thus on Christianity and Islam.</div> <bR> <div> Palestine's location-at the center of routes linking three continents-made it the meeting place for religious and cultural influences from Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor. It was also the natural battleground for the great powers of the region and subject to domination by adjacent empires, beginning with Egypt in the 3rd millennium BC.</div> <div> Egyptian hegemony and Canaanite autonomy were constantly challenged during the 2nd millennium BC by such ethnically diverse invaders as the Amorites, Hittites, and Hurrians. These invaders, however, were defeated by the Egyptians and absorbed by the Canaanites, who at that time may have numbered about 200,000. As Egyptian power began to weaken after the 14th century BC, new invaders appeared: the Hebrews, a group of Semitic tribes from Mesopotamia, and the Philistines (after whom the country was later named), an Aegean people of Indo-European stock.</div> <div>      <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >A</FONT>     <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >The Israelite Kingdom </FONT> </div> <div> Hebrew tribes probably immigrated to the area centuries before Moses led his people out of serfdom in Egypt (1270? BC), and Joshua conquered parts of Palestine (1230? BC). The conquerors settled in the hill country, but they were unable to conquer all of Palestine.</div> <div> The Israelites, a confederation of Hebrew tribes, finally defeated the Canaanites about 1125 BC but found the struggle with the Philistines more difficult. The Philistines had established an independent state on the southern coast of Palestine and controlled a number of towns to the north and east. Superior in military organization and using iron weapons, they severely defeated the Israelites about 1050 BC. The Philistine threat forced the Israelites to unite and establish a monarchy. David, Israel's great king, finally defeated the Philistines shortly after 1000 BC, and they eventually assimilated with the Canaanites.</div> <div> The unity of Israel and the feebleness of adjacent empires enabled David to establish a large independent state, with its capital at Jerusalem. Under David's son and successor, Solomon, Israel enjoyed peace and prosperity, but at his death in 922 BC the kingdom was divided into Israel in the north and Judah in the south. When nearby empires resumed their expansion, the divided Israelites could no longer maintain their independence. Israel fell to Assyria in 722 and 721 BC, and Judah was conquered in 586 BC by Babylonia, which destroyed Jerusalem and exiled most of the Jews living there.</div> <div>      <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >B</FONT>     <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >Persian Rule </FONT> </div> <div> The exiled Jews were allowed to retain their national and religious identity; some of their best theological writings and many historical books of the Old Testament were written during their exile. At the same time they did not forget the land of Israel. When Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylonia in 539 BC he permitted them to return to Judea, a district of Palestine. Under Persian rule the Jews were allowed considerable autonomy. They rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and codified the Mosaic law, the Torah, which became the code of social life and religious observance. The Jews believed they were bound to a universal God, Yahweh, by a covenant; indeed, their concept of one ethical God is perhaps Judaism's greatest contribution to world civilization.</div> <div>      <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >C</FONT>     <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >Roman Province </FONT> <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >Persian domination of Palestine was replaced by Greek rule when Alexander the Great of Macedonia took the region in 333 BC. Alexander's successors, the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria, continued to rule the country. The Seleucids tried to impose Hellenistic (Greek) culture and religion on the population. In the 2nd century BC, however, the Jews revolted under the Maccabees and set up an independent state (141-63 BC) until Pompey the Great conquered Palestine for Rome and made it a province ruled by Jewish kings. It was during the rule (37-4 BC) of King Herod the Great that Jesus was born.</FONT></div> <div> Two more Jewish revolts erupted and were suppressed-in AD 66 to 73 and 132 to 135. After the second one, numerous Jews were killed, many were sold into slavery, and the rest were not allowed to visit Jerusalem. Judea was renamed Syria Palaistina.</div> <div> Palestine received special attention when the Roman emperor Constantine the Great legalized Christianity in AD 313. His mother, Helena, visited Jerusalem, and Palestine, as the Holy Land, became a focus of Christian pilgrimage. A golden age of prosperity, security, and culture followed. Most of the population became Hellenized and Christianized. Byzantine (Roman) rule was interrupted, however, by a brief Persian occupation (614-629) and ended altogether when Muslim Arab armies invaded Palestine and captured Jerusalem in AD 638.</div> <div>      <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >D</FONT>     <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >The Arab Caliphate </FONT> <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >The Arab conquest began 1300 years of Muslim presence in what then became known as Filastin. Palestine was holy to Muslims because the Prophet Muhammad had designated Jerusalem as the first <I>qibla</I> (the direction Muslims face when praying) and because he was believed to have ascended on a night journey to heaven from the area of Solomon's temple, where the Dome of the Rock was later built. Jerusalem became the third holiest city of Islam.</FONT></div> <bR> <div> The Muslim rulers did not force their religion on the Palestinians, and more than a century passed before the majority converted to Islam. The remaining Christians and Jews were considered “People of the Book.” They were allowed autonomous control in their communities and guaranteed security and freedom of worship. Such tolerance (with few exceptions) was rare in the history of religion. Most Palestinians also adopted Arabic and Islamic culture. Palestine benefited from the empire's trade and from its religious significance during the first Muslim dynasty, the Umayyads of Damascus. When power shifted to Baghdâd with the Abbasids in 750, Palestine became neglected. It suffered unrest and successive domination by Seljuks, Fatimids, and European Crusaders (<I>see</I> Caliphate; Crusades). It shared, however, in the glory of Muslim civilization, when the Muslim world enjoyed a golden age of science, art, philosophy, and literature. Muslims preserved Greek learning and broke new ground in several fields, all of which later contributed to the Renaissance in Europe. Like the rest of the empire, however, Palestine under the Mamelukes gradually stagnated and declined.</div> <div>      <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >E</FONT>     <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >Ottoman Rule </FONT> <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >The Ottoman Turks of Asia Minor defeated the Mamelukes in 1517 and, with few interruptions, ruled Palestine until the winter of 1917 and 1918. The country was divided into several districts (sanjaks), such as that of Jerusalem. The administration of the districts was placed largely in the hands of Arabized Palestinians, who were descendants of the Canaanites and successive settlers. The Christian and Jewish communities, however, were allowed a large measure of autonomy. Palestine shared in the glory of the Ottoman Empire during the 16th century, but declined again when the empire began to decline in the 17th century.</FONT></div> <div> The decline of Palestine-in trade, agriculture, and population-continued until the 19th century. At that time the search by European powers for raw materials and markets, as well as their strategic interests, brought them to the Middle East, stimulating economic and social development. Between 1831 and 1840, Muhammad Ali, the modernizing viceroy of Egypt, expanded his rule to Palestine. His policies modified the feudal order, increased agriculture, and improved education. The Ottoman Empire reasserted its authority in 1840, instituting its own reforms. German settlers and Jewish immigrants in the 1880s brought modern machinery and badly needed capital.</div> <div> The rise of European nationalism in the 19th century, and especially the intensification of anti-Semitism during the 1880s, encouraged European Jews to seek haven in their “promised land,” Palestine. Theodor Herzl, author of <I> The Jewish State</I> (1896; translated 1896), founded the World Zionist Organization in 1897 to solve Europe's “Jewish problem” (<I>see</I> Zionism). As a result, Jewish immigration to Palestine greatly increased.</div> <div> In 1880, Arab Palestinians constituted about 95 percent of the total population of 450,000. Nevertheless, Jewish immigration, land purchase, and claims were reacted to with alarm by some Palestinian leaders, who then became adamantly opposed to Zionism.</div> <div>      <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >F</FONT>     <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >The British Mandate </FONT> <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >Aided by the Arabs, the British captured Palestine from the Ottoman Turks in 1917 and 1918. The Arabs revolted against the Turks because the British had promised them, in correspondence (1915-1916) with Husein ibn Ali of Mecca, the independence of their countries after the war. Britain, however, also made other, conflicting commitments. Thus, in the secret Sykes-Picot agreement with France and Russia (1916), it promised to divide and rule the region with its allies. In a third agreement, the Balfour Declaration of 1917, Britain promised the Jews, whose help it needed in the war effort, a Jewish “national home” in Palestine. This promise was subsequently incorporated in the mandate conferred on Britain by the League of Nations in 1922.</FONT></div> <div> During their mandate (1922-1948) the British found their contradictory promises to the Jewish and Palestinian communities difficult to reconcile. The Zionists envisaged large-scale Jewish immigration, and some spoke of a Jewish state constituting all of Palestine. The Palestinians, however, rejected Britain's right to promise their country to a third party and feared dispossession by the Zionists; anti-Zionist attacks occurred in Jerusalem (1920) and Jaffa (1921). A 1922 statement of British policy denied Zionist claims to all of Palestine and limited Jewish immigration, but reaffirmed support for a Jewish national home. The British proposed establishing a legislative council, but Palestinians rejected this council as discriminatory.</div> <div> After 1928, when Jewish immigration increased somewhat, British policy on the subject seesawed under conflicting Arab-Jewish pressures. Immigration rose sharply after the installation (1933) of the Nazi regime in Germany; in 1935 nearly 62,000 Jews entered Palestine. Fear of Jewish domination was the principal cause of the Arab revolt that broke out in 1936 and continued intermittently until 1939. By that time Britain had again restricted Jewish immigration and purchases of land.</div> <div>      <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >G</FONT>     <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >The Post-World War II Period </FONT> </div> <div> The struggle for Palestine, which abated during World War II, resumed in 1945. The horrors of the Holocaust produced world sympathy for European Jewry and for Zionism, and although Britain still refused to admit 100,000 Jewish survivors to Palestine, many survivors of the Nazi death camps found their way there illegally. Various plans for solving the Palestine problem were rejected by one party or the other. Britain finally declared the mandate unworkable and turned the problem over to the United Nations in April 1947. The Jews and the Palestinians prepared for a showdown.</div> <div> Although the Palestinians outnumbered the Jews (1,300,000 to 600,000), the latter were better prepared. They had a semiautonomous government, led by David Ben-Gurion, and their military, the Haganah, was well trained and experienced. The Palestinians, on the other hand, had never recovered from the Arab revolt, and most of their leaders were in exile. The Mufti of Jerusalem, their principal spokesman, refused to accept Jewish statehood. When the UN proposed partition in November 1947, he rejected the plan while the Jews accepted it. In the military struggle that followed, the Palestinians were defeated. Terrorism was used on both sides.</div> <div> The state of Israel was established on May 14, 1948. Five Arab armies, coming to the aid of the Palestinians, immediately attacked it. Israeli forces defeated the Arab armies, and Israel enlarged its territory. Jordan took the West Bank of the Jordan River, and Egypt took the Gaza Strip.</div> <bR> <div> The war produced 780,000 Palestinian refugees. About half probably left out of fear and panic, while the rest were forced out to make room for Jewish immigrants from Europe and from the Arab world. The disinherited Palestinians spread throughout the neighboring countries, where they have maintained their Palestinian national identity and the desire to return to their homeland. In 1967, during the Six-Day War between Israel and neighboring Arab countries, Israel captured the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as other areas.</div> <bR> <div> In 1993, after decades of violent conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, leaders from each side agreed to the signing of an historic peace accord. Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin met in the United States on September 13, 1993, to witness the signing of the agreement. The plan called for limited Palestinian self-rule in Israeli-occupied territories, beginning with the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho. Palestinian administration of these areas began in 1994. In September 1995 the PLO and Israel signed a second peace accord, expanding limited Palestinian self-rule to almost all Palestinian towns and refugee camps in the West Bank. Under the agreements, Israel maintains the right to send armed forces into Palestinian areas and controls the areas between Palestinian enclaves.</div> <bR> <div> Contributed By: </div> <div> Philip Mattar</div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B> <A NAME="_10_two_modern_israeli_prophets____and"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B><B>#10" Two Modern Israeli Prophets -- and</B></div> <div> <B>Their Unheeded Warnings</B></div> <div> <I><B>Document downloaded from: http://www.shalomctr.org/html/peace129.html</B></I></div> <div> <B>By Shalom Goldman of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia</B> </div> <div> In October of 1953, a charismatic young Israeli army officer named Ariel Scheinerman was assigned a delicate task. Moshe Dayan, the army's head of operations, had received orders from the government's political leadership to organize a reprisal raid against Jordan. Infiltrators from the West Bank who had killed three Israelis during a nighttime raid in the village of Yehud. </div> <div> The directive to General Dayan, conveyed by Dayan to Scheinerman, was to strike at the Jordanian village of Kibiyeh, from which the infiltrators were thought to have come. The general's orders to his young officer were to punish the village by destroying some buildings and fighting any armed combatants he and his soldiers might encounter. Citizens, especially women and children, were not to be harmed. </div> <div> Scheinerman had his own ideas as to how the military orders should be carried out. He commanded his unit to take over Kibiyeh by night and mine all of its houses with explosives. The fuses were set and when the charges went off 69 Jordanian civilians, most of them women and children, were killed. The Israeli government, faced with the diplomatic repercussions of the incident, denied responsibility for the bombings and blamed them on "provocateurs." Within the army and government, many officers and officials were dismayed by Scheinerman's initiative, but none of their objections interfered with his advancement in the ranks. Under his command, a further series of reprisal raids was undertaken. Their net result was a cycle of raid reprisals and counter-raids that escalated until they culminated in the outbreak of the 1956 Arab-Israeli War. <B>Scheinerman was soon to change his name to Sharon, and the results of his military-political thinking are still with us today.</B> </div> <div> One of the few Israeli public voices to speak out against Sharon's adventurism was that of Hebrew University professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz. In his 1953 essay "After Kibiyeh," he provided Israeli readers with a Jewish meditation on the exercise of military power. Distancing himself from the "saintly pacifism" of some of his left-leaning Hebrew University colleagues, Leibowitz opened the essay making a strong case for the necessity of Jewish armed self-defense. The classical Jewish tradition, he noted, did not have to confront the issue of the misuse of power. But now, in Israel, thinking people must confront it. "We, the bearers of a morality which abominates the spilling of innocent blood, face our acid test only now that we have become capable of defending ourselves and responsible for our own security." </div> <div> It was the line between justifiable action and unjustifiable action that Leibowitz wanted to solidify. Self-defense and proactive military strikes might be necessary, wrote Leibowitz, but reprisals - "cruel mass punishment of innocent people for the crimes of others in order to prevent their recurrence" - these were another matter. As Leibowitz was to note then and in the 1970s, reprisals didn't work as a deterrent. His critique of militarism was not moralistic, but fiercely pragmatic. Repression, reprisals, and the denial of minority rights were not problematic solely because they violated ethical norms. They were policy errors first and foremost, and their continued implementation would lead to more violence and further repression. </div> <div> Though he did not mention Scheinerman-Sharon by name, Leibowitz condemned political-military actors who confused the categories of religion and state. </div> <div> Their thinking, he said, grew out of what was then, in the 1950s, a newly formed ideology: the application of the religious category of holiness to social, national and political interests. "[H]oliness," he wrote, "was transferred to the profane." Military action was thus infused with religious meaning, and the possibility of rational debate on the outcome of military actions was diminished. When God was on your side, restraint was not a necessity. From the 1950s until his death in the 1990s, Leibowitz was, for many educated Israeli Jews, the conscience of the country, a latter-day prophet who spoke in prophetic terms of modern situations. </div> <div> In the aftermath of the 1967 War, Leibowitz's was one of the few voices that called for a pragmatic approach to the Palestinian issue. Here he angered many Israelis and many American Jews for whom the Israeli military victories had transformative religious significance. He commented: </div> <div> "Shortly after the Six Day war, when most of the Israeli public (and a good part of Jewry in the Diaspora) were overcome by the intoxication of national pride, military arrogance, and fantasies of the glory of messianic deliverance, I expressed, both orally and in writing, my concern lest the great victory that led to the conquest (or 'liberation') of the entire territory of the historical Eretz Israel (with the addition of the Sinai peninsula) prove in the course of history to have been the event initiating the process of the decline and fall of the state of Israel. At the time these words evoked much anger. Today, after the 1973 (Yom Kippur) war and the ensuing developments, including the peace with Egypt, many people refer to those concerns, and many also remark that my fears are being justified."</div> <div> Some American Jewish leaders and pundits were especially angered by the Jerusalem professor's prophetic utterances. Among Modern Orthodox Jews, many of whom have long been under the sway of the messianist ideas of Gush Emunim, the ideological standard bearers of the settler movement, a considerable objection to Leibowitz was that he was a committed Orthodox Jew, a rabbinic scholar and a teacher of Jewish philosophy. He of all people should know better! But Leibowitz's critique was an insider's critique, and therefore all the more dangerous. It unpacked the religious nationalist view of Israel, a view with Messianic pretensions, while at the same time affirming the need for a strong Jewish state. Leibowitz wrote: </div> <div> "It is a brute fact that the major portion of Jewish history has taken place in the absence of a Jewish state. I might add that it is possible to have a very highly refined Judaism outside of Israel. Still, I am a Zionist, which is to say that I do not wish to live a Jewish life within the framework of the Gentile world, subjected to its rule. I have had my fill of this rule. But important as the existence of the state is for me, I do not attribute to it any elements of sanctity and do not regard religion as functioning in its behalf, any more than I regard it as performing a function in behalf of the Jewish people."</div> <div> Though his opinions were ridiculed and discounted in the US, within Israel, Leibowitz remained a vibrant oppositional presence. As Avishai Margalit noted in the New York Review of Books in 1993, "Early this year a ninety-year old man was driving Israelis crazy." The Israeli Ministry of Education had awarded the prestigious Israel Prize to Professor Leibowitz. A public furor ensued; the political right was outraged, and in the end Leibowitz declined to accept the prize. Vilified but uncowed, the nonagenarian scholar continued to warn of the consequences of continued Israeli rule over the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. <B>While Leibowitz could be dismissed by American Jewish leaders as a mere ivory-tower liberal, with no political or military experience, it was much more difficult (though ultimately not impossible) to dismiss the message conveyed in the 1980s by Yehoshafat Harkabi, former head of Israeli military intelligence. </B></div> <div> Harkabi's early books on the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially his 1972 work, Arab Attitudes Towards Israel, were source books on the seemingly implacable Arab hostility to the Jewish State. The books were often quoted in Israeli government pronouncements, and by extension in American Jewish publications. To this day, any suggestion that Israel too might be responsible for the terrible political-military situation it is in is met by this rejoinder: "Haven't you read Harkabi's books? Don't you know that the Arabs hate Israel? There is nothing Israel can do but harshly control them, and if necessary, fight them and defeat them." <B>That Harkabi's research of the '70s and '80s had led to a revision of his central thesis was news to many American Jews. </B></div> <div> According to Harkabi, in the 1980s "Arab attitudes," as expressed in the aftermath of the 1967 War, were changing, and were far from monolithic. If a settlement of the conflict was to take place, Israe1's attitudes and actions would determine it. The 1980s, before the first intifida, was the period in which Harkabi made his most forceful pronouncements on the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations. In fact, he anticipated the outbreak of the intifada. <B>In his book Fateful Decisions, he warned that without evacuation of the settlements and a resolution of refugee issues, the conflict would remain intractable. </B></div> <div> Both Harkabi and Leibowitz died in 1994. Towards the ends of their lives, each spoke in prophetic terms about Israel's immediate political-military future, which they saw as bleak unless some "fateful decisions" (Harkabi's term) were made. Among these decisions were the removal of the settler population from the West Bank and Gaza and the normalization of the political status of the Arabs citizens of the Israel. </div> <div> The 1982 Israeli-Lebanon War, dubbed "Operation Peace for Galilee" by its architect Ariel Sharon, was seen by General Harkabi, then Professor of International Relations at Hebrew University, as a turning point in Israeli history. "Israel has gained something from all of the wars that it initiated, except for the Lebanon War, which was a great disaster," he said. </div> <div> "Its main damage wasn't in the number of killed and wounded - one surely wouldn't want to take lightly these great losses to the families and to the nation - but it its lasting negative effect on Israel's strategic situation." Of Sharon's policies in the West Bank and Gaza, Harkabi said that "the settlements are an obstacle to peace, and they are a military liability, not an asset." <B>For Harkabi, self-criticism, not territorial expansion, was the key to Israel's political and military survival:</B> </div> <div> "Of course we are not wholly responsible for the worsening of our political-military situation," he wrote. "But self-criticism is essential if we are to overcome a tendency to self-righteousness, a tendency which results from Jewish approaches to history, from our historical experience, and from the 'ethos' of self-righteousness as promoted by Prime Minister Begin. <B>In my opinion, there is no greater threat to our survival than this ethos of self-righteousness. It renders us blind and unable to understand our situation - and it gives legitimacy to bad national leadership." </B></div> <div> In an interview from his hospital bed during his final illness, Harkabi told a reporter that he feared that a rightist fanatic would assassinate Rabin in order to prevent the end of the settlers' dream of permanent occupation of what they dubbed the "liberated territories." Within a year of Harkabi's death, his prophecy was fulfilled. </div> <div> In my title, I spoke of "prophets" and "warnings." I am of course borrowing the idea of prophecy from the biblical tradition. In the Hebrew Bible, one of the hallmarks of the true prophet was the willingness to speak up against injustice, especially injustice committed by the state. As Abraham Joshua Heschel put it in his study of Hebrew prophecy: "Of paramount importance in the history of Israel was the freedom and independence enjoyed by the prophets, their ability to upbraid the kings and princes for their sins." </div> <div> As Ariel Sharon's followers have dubbed him "Arik, king of Israel," it is only appropriate that prophets should arise to condemn his policies and warn against the consequences of his actions. </div> <div> What exactly were these modern prophetic warnings? </div> <div> Leibowitz wrote: "Israeli policy in the occupied territories is one of self-destruction of the Jewish state, and of relations with the Arabs based on perpetual terror. There is no way out of this situation except withdrawal from the territories." Writing in 1976, the Israeli philosopher saw two processes that would facilitate the process of Israeli self-destruction. One would occur within the West Bank and Gaza: "The colonizing situation will lead to the establishment of a political structure combining the horrors of Lebanon with those of Rhodesia - the state of a people possessing a common national heritage will turn into a system of imposed rule over two peoples, one ruling and the other ruled." </div> <div> The second process was the worsening of Jewish-Arab relations within the borders of the State of Israel. "The occupation in the West Bank and Gaza will bring about solidarity of the half a million Israeli Arab citizens with their brothers in the occupied territories. This will lead to a radical change in their state of mind. Inevitably, they will no longer regard themselves as Arab citizens of the state of Israel, but rather as members of a people exploited by that state. In such a situation, one must expect the constant incidence of terror and counterterror." Leibowitz wrote this a quarter of a century ago. Sadly, his prediction has come true. </div> <div> Leibowitz did not live to see Sharon elected to the Israeli Prime Minister's office. For decades his prophetic voice railed against earlier prime ministers. He was especially exercised when Prime Minister Begin appointed Sharon Minister of Defense in 1982. When Israel moved into Lebanon, Leibowitz called for Israeli soldiers to refuse to serve in the invasion forces which laid siege to Beirut. </div> <div> Harkabi, writing in 1986, spoke critically of the Jewish settlers in the territories (and here he was writing before the first intifada). "Some of the settlers will exploit Palestinian hostility to them to bring into being a system of extreme repression. The greater the repression, the greater the Arab rebellion will be . . . We won't be able to turn the Arabs' lives into hell without our own lives turning into hell. The harm to us will be both internal and external. The international community will condemn us." </div> <div> Let us compare the predictions of these two Israeli "prophets" with the pronouncements and actions of Ariel Sharon. During the 1970s and 180s, when Leibowitz, Harkabi and others were warning of the high political price of Israeli settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Sharon as a government minister was the great facilitator of settlement construction and expansion in those same territories. Sharon and Gush Emunim, the religious Zionist settler movement, became intimate political bedfellows. Sharon assured his political allies that the combination of Israeli military action in Lebanon, which would install a "pro-Israeli" government, and the expansion into the territories, which would "pacify" the Palestinian population, would bring peace and prosperity to the Israeli people. </div> <div> Twenty years have passed since Sharon made that prophecy. Now, as Israel's Prime Minister, he is presiding over the fulfillment of the nightmare that his critics foresaw. Leibowitz and Harkabi, whose voices still reach us though their terrifyingly prescient writings, were accurate in their predictions that Israeli actions would determine that country's future. In any other country and context, that message might seem so obvious as to not require the services of a "prophet." In the Israeli context, and especially in the context of American Jewish opinion on Israel, that simple message required a number of prophetic voices. Tragically, they went unheeded.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>