News,
articles and documents from the Holy Land
Issue No. 162 - Saturday, 6 July 2002
Dear Friends, Brothers
and Sisters,
I am in a
complete isolation now since the 1st of July in Deir Rafat which is
the patron’s sanctuary of our Lady Queen of Palestine, about 35 kms far between
Jerusalem and Tel Aviv near Beit Shemesh. It is very calm place, and even if it
is very hot up a small hill, I will stay the next four to six weeks in order to
finish some work and my thesis. After this stay, I will move to my new parish
in Taybeh around the 1st of September. But, I promised not to interrupt
the Olive Branch, therefore, I will continue to share it with you at least once
a week.
This last week
many of our priests were in Haifa for the annual spiritual retreat along with
many other priests from all the other catholic churches in the Holy Land… it is
really a very interesting tradition of collaboration to hold this common
retreat together. The Patriarch was also there, but he had to leave to Italy
last Thursday because he was awarded the Monte Cassino Peace Award which is
given every year since 1944 to a personality from the world. This award was instituted
after the destruction of that famous abbey by the Americans during the second
world war. The Italian government along with the Municipality and the Abbay of
Monte Cassino wanted to transform this place of war and destruction to a place
of peace and reconciliation. We are very glad that our Patriarch got the award
this year for his efforts to bring about peace and Justice to the Holy Land.
The Patriarch
continued to Lebanon for some meetings organized by Pax Christi International
because he is its International President. He will be going also after the 21st
of this month to Toronto in Canada for the world youth meetings with the Pope,
he will be one of the catechists for the Arabic and French languages. You see,
it is a busy summer, but we hope that it will be a very fruitful one also!
The situation
here in the country is getting from bad to worst because the reoccupation of
all the Palestinian territories became normality and the curfew is imposed
since two weeks and nobody knows until when this will continue. The worst is
that there is no vision or a way out of this dark long dark tunnel. It is
enough to read the following documents to understand what is really happening
on the ground. Don’t say to me after all this that we didn’t know?
You will find in
today’s Olive Branch a lot of documents:
1)
LETTER FROM
BETHLEHEM (30) from Toine van Teeffelen who describe the daily life of the
people in Bethlehem area under the curfew. Interesting narrative!
2)
Also Prof
Sami Adwan, from The Faculty of education in Bethlehem University gives us some more details in his two
short stories: 1) Silent Occupation: The Daily Diary of Bethlehem District; 2) A Special Ride Instead of Sweet.
3) I am impressed to see
such a large number of prominent Evangelical Christians from the USA who have
signed a letter to President Bush. This is most en-couraging, and it is
important that we not equate all Evangelicals with the Christian Right. As the
letter states, they are not a monolithic group by any means.
4) The courageous
Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery
writes on the Opinion Polls in Israel and describes it as “A Maddened Cow”.
5)
My brother,
Dr. Sami Aldeeb believes that the only way out of this conflict is to create “One
Single State In Palestine!” for two peoples, an opinion that I share with him
even if it is almost a dream.
6) Dr Harry Hagopian sees that we are “Caught
Up in a Crossfire?”, therefore he give some suggestions for some possible directions.
This last article of Dr. Harry Hagopian comes up with a challenge. Are you
willing to read on this article, and are you able to take up the challenge?
You see that
everybody is concerned like me and trying to help and give new ideas, and I say
that if there is a will every thing will be possible. We have to seek peace and
work for it.
Best
wishes from Deir Rafat “peaceful” oasis of peace! Fr.
Raed Abusahlia
LETTER FROM BETHLEHEM
(30)
Toine van Teeffelen
July 6, 2002
Perhaps
‘crocodile’ is not the right word to describe the big machine which roams our
streets, as I did in the previous letter. It looks, and sounds, more like a
dragon. During curfew, it happens during late afternoons, when the weather
cools off somewhat, that the university road fills itself with some dozens of
children. If you would not know better, a lovely sight. The empty street with
the children playing on it, reminds somehow of the autoloze zondag [carless
Sunday] instituted in Holland in 1973 when the country ran out of oil supplies,
and when the highways were ostentatiously occupied by bikers taking pleasure in
the freedom they then enjoyed. Some of our neighbours lean relaxed against the
sidewalls while the kids are playing. A week ago, Janet gave Jara a scooter
which she proudly demonstrates it to the other children of the street whom she
all knows and whom she tries to lead with a voice which seem to become more
voluminous each week: “Marwan, Marwaaaan’, ‘Diiiiima’, she shouts to attract
the attention of her friends and, I think, of anybody else as well. Last week
she moved from one neighbor to the other, and didn’t stay home at all. But at
one point the dragon observed the kids playing from a distance, and it wasn’t
satisfied. Climbing with its thunderous and screeching sound towards the top of
the university hill, it threw out a shot to warn the families. Not to leave
doubt about its intentions, it came back several times. Like the ebb and flow of
the sea, the kids withdrew - from the street to the space behind a gate, or if
the noise was too scary, back to the garden, or, as a last retreat, into the
home itself – but always to return when the tank had disappeared out of sight.
Next day, Mary
saw that the tank stopped in the middle of the road, put off its engine,
circled its barrel, and poured out a benzene smell and apparently also a lot of
dust. She said that she even had to close the windows. I imagine the angry
beast in the movies, swinging its long neck from left to right, exhaling fire
and smoke. Afterwards, Mary warned me not to take my daily route to our own
house through the gardens anymore as soldiers might find that suspicious.
Intimidated, Jara asked Mary the other day to be guided back to the street.
Although afraid she also longed for that new flat, slightly sloping playground
that she can use so well for her scooter. Sternly told that she should
immediately leave the street as soon as a tank approached, Jara answered that
we should not be too concerned about her, “because you always still have
Tamer.” That remark stung. We became angry. Did she say this because she was
jealous for all the attention we now give to Tamer, or because death had
somehow become a normal part of our life? I myself was caught lately talking in
an apparently careless tone about somebody who was assassinated. “Do you
realize what you are saying,” I stood corrected.
The most
annoying, almost unlivable aspect of the present curfews is its complete
unpredictability. One day opening hours are from one to five, another day we
first think it is from ten to two, but no, it turns out to be from ten to six.
What everybody hopes for is that Israel in its mercy will decide for a curfew
that would stretch from seven to seven, a time span which now seems enormous to
us. That would allow people and institutions to function somehow normally. Yet
today and yesterday we had a 24-hour curfew. Another problem is that the
lifting of the curfew is announced only at the last moment. Everybody is ready
to go out to work but is continuously frustrated. All kinds of theory float
about the reasons behind the length of a particular curfew: yesterday’s attack
in Gaza, the suspicion that a suicide bombing mission is prepared from the
Bethlehem area (“For sure they think we conspire in the Church of Nativity”,
comments a university lecturer), or the curfew as a preventive measure against
disturbances expected during the Friday when many Moslem believers go to the
mosque. As if subject to a psychological experiment that measures the limits of
coping with frustration, we, as rats in the box, are gradually treated to
slightly higher doses of uncertainty. According to reports in Haaretz,
the Israeli army warned Sharon that it curfews would remain in place for too
long people would riot at checkpoints and many would be killed. One
interpretation of what is going on is that the army decides to lift curfews a
little so that people have some breathing space, and will not riot with all the
ensuing negative publicity; however, as soon as journalists turn their heads
away the curfews are reinstalled in force. The interpretation brought forward
by the Israeli army is that when people remain calm they ‘earn’ longer opening
hours.
“They are mad,”
says Mary, “and we become mad.” During the single day that she was able go to
the university after her pregnancy leave, she observed how several of her
colleagues turned inwards, didn’t give articulate responses to questions, were
less concentrated. Today, if the curfew was lifted, there would have been
several masses in the Nativity Church; two for the dead, and several more to
commemorate the third or the 40th day after the decease of a loved
one. Like many others, Mary’s cousin delayed her wedding in the church “till
the curfew is over.”
*
* *
This period is
particularly frustrating for tawjihi [matriculation] students. Elias,
whose son Faady is in the tawjihi, told me a week ago that an exam was
announced the next day although nobody knew what would happen. As it turned
out, there was curfew. Like others, Elias took the risk and brought his son by
car to the exam in Beit Jala. Just at that moment, soldiers were in the area of
his house apparently in search for somebody whom they thought was hiding.
According to Elias’ family, who observed the soldiers’ behaviour through the
window, they used screwdrivers to prick the face and back of people who trespassed
the curfew. The soldiers also entered Elias’ house while he and his son were
out. They noticed in the ID of Elias’ wife, Judith, that she was married and
had a son of tawjihi age. So they stayed in the house to wait until
Elias was back. Judith was however able to warn him by mobile not to come.
After the exam, Elias and Faady waited outside in Beit Jala until Judith
informed them that the area was free. However, not for long; the soldiers
re-entered the house but after seeing that the son was not the one they wanted,
they left. One soldier said that he himself, too, bore the “beautiful” name Faady,
and that this was his motive to allow Elias’ son to go free. Like anybody else,
Faady is barely able to concentrate for his exams.
*
* *
During a day
with opening hours, I queue with others in front of the main Bethlehem
checkpoint to leave for Jerusalem. We are waiting about twenty meters before
the soldiers’ shed in a narrow iron corridor suitable for cattle. Some waiters
are impatient and encourage a university student to go forward but the soldiers
turn her back. With each waiting minute the queuers move a little forward to
win some meters. There is a female relative of the soldiers present who
emotionally supports them. This seems to be a new army guideline or practice.
But who needs counseling?
*
* *
Jara goes to a
summer camp in Bethlehem which includes a lot of swimming. Each day she asks
whether she can go out and swim, but until now she could leave only once. When
we tell her that we plan a summer vacation in Cyprus, she is not convinced and
says that she is happy to play in the garden and in the big plastic bowl there
that can be filled with water. But after she sees the photos of the swimming
pool in the hotel she wants to go too. “Is that Al-Quds [Jerusalem]?”
she asks.
Each day she
tends to a little dog, which was hit by a sudden car.
The
Silent Occupation:
The
Daily Diary of Bethlehem District
July 6,2002
By
Prof. Sami Adwan
Faculty of
education - Bethlehem University
This is the
sixth time since Oct.2001 that Israeli Occupying forces re-occupy Bethlehem
District under the claim of “fighting terrorism”. The District since June 19
was again under complete curfew and siege. People are locked in their homes,
pupils are unable to finish their school year, the school leaving exam (al-Tawjeehi)-
was interrupted seriously prohibiting hundreds of pupils from taking it and
Bethlehem university has to postpone the spring semester as well. The streets
are deserted except from Israeli tanks, jeeps and armored vehicles that daily
destroy the sign of life.
The inhabitants of the district are facing daily
humiliation and are exposed to all forms of oppression and harassments. As an
example, one of the Israeli tanks had a mechanical problem stopped in a street of
Al-Doha town opposite to the Municipality Building. The Israeli armies forced
Palestinian men living in the vicinity to go outside their homes, tied them up
together for about two hours around the broken tank as human shield.
Less than a week ago (June 30,2002) Hamdi Al-Atrash a 9
years old child went form his home to buy some sweets from a nearby store was
chased and abducted by Israeli solders. They decided to take him for a ride in
their tanks as a punishment for breaking the imposed curfew. Hamdi found
himself in a tank full with ammunition and surrounded by solders. He was very
scared. traumatized. When he was asked how did you feel?. He said” I felt
lonely, unsafe and afraid of what is going to happen to me”.
The infrastructures of the district are under daily destruction as well. Today an
8 inches water pipe was broken by an Israeli tank in Biet Sahour cutting of the
water supplies and leaving thousands of people without water in mid summer.
Few electrical poles in Ortas town near Solomon Pools
were crushed by another tank cutting of the electricity and endangering the
lives of the people since some of these poles have high voltage stations.
These daily practices of the Israeli forces are done
under the slogan of “fighting terrorism” and are not reported on. For how long
the world will stay silence in front of this?.
Silent and
bystanders persons, officials and government are fully responsible for such
daily crimes and human rights violations. This gradually will lead to more
crimes and finally to genocide.
Let share
our responsibilities in fighting for justice, safety and a better future. No
way out of wars. Wars, occupation and oppression only destroy humanity and
cause suffering and suffering gets us nowhere.
A Special
Ride Instead of Sweet
By
Prof. Sami Adwan
July
6,2002
Hamdi Marouf Al-Atrash is a 9 years old boy, who lives
with his 9 brothers and sisters near Dehaisha refugees Camp on the main road.
On Sunday, June 30, 2002, exactly a week ago at about 7:30pm, he went to buy
some sweet from a nearby store that happens to be located inside one of their
neighbor’s home. For his bad luck he has to cross the street. Children give up
everything for sweets.
Three Israeli armored vehicles spotted him while
crossing the street. 5-6 soldiers got out of the vehicles ran after him into
the neighbor’s home and abducted him. They blindfolded him and tied his small
hands with black plastic handcuffs. He started screaming and begging them to
release him” for the sake of Allah (God), please let me go. I only want to buy
some sweet for me and my little siblings”. He was heard saying. “They started
beating me every where before and after they pushed me inside the tank. There
were about 8 soldiers in the tank who took turn in beating me”.
He was taken in this special ride to an Israeli
Military checkpoint located north of Bethlehem near Al-Tantour. They took him
out of the tank, took of the blindfold and started interrogating and beating
him again. He said” they asked me if I ever burnt any tire or threw stones? Do
you any political groups or parties?
Finally, they ordered him to walk home by himself. “I
was scared to death. The streets are empty except from military vehicle and
soldiers”, he said. “I was afraid they will shoot me while walking home (the
distance is about 2km.)”, He adds. “Now and then I stopped to feel my body and to
make sure I am still alive. I kept looking around. Afraid from dogs, cats, the
darkness and from every things”, he described his journey while trying to wipe
his tears that started running down his small face like a small stream. He kept
looking at the scars that were made around his small hands by the plastic
handcuff.
He was stopped four times in his way home by different
group of soldiers. Every time he was interrogated, searched and asked to stand
against the walls with his hands up.
Hamdi did not try to run away nor hide or to resist
his arrest. He is too small to do so He is like a bird in front a giant
monster. At first, he did not think that he was haunted by the Israeli army or
he was in their wanted list He may thought that The convention of the rights of
the children or the Geneva Convention will protect him. He probably remembered
that Israel was one of signatory state on both of them. But, he did not
remember that Israel was one of the last states to sign the convention of the
rights of the children and it could take years before they abide themselves by
the articles they have signed.
Finally he reached home at about 12:30 midnight. “We
were waiting for him impatiently”, his mother said. “We heard his scream soon
after they abducted him but we could not do anything. I started crying and
feeling pain”, she adds. “ We are simple people. We did not know what to do. We
only kept waiting for his return at the veranda of our home. I cannot describe
our feelings. His brothers kept watching the local TV stations to hear anything
on his fate. Will he come back a life or…?” She was weeping and trying hard to
wipe her tears while describing her story.
The Red Cross told them to wait until the morning. They
claimed they could not do anything to help now. Later representatives of the Red
Cross came to their home.
“Hamdi, became violent with his brothers and sisters.
He attacked them. He has nightmares and difficulties in sleeping. He wakes up
many times at nights, screaming or crying and saying un-understandable words.
He became afraid from others, from the darkness, from the sound of cars and
from going outside home alone. Hamdi needs help. He is in trauma”. The mother
said” We need somebody to help my son”
Hamdi is now in the summer vacation and we do not know
if he will be able to go back to his school by himself as he used to. I wonder
what Hamdi will tell about his special ride in the tank to his classmates, his
teachers or his to his wife and children.
Hamdi story is not unique. This story or similar could
have happened with hundreds of other Palestinian children. Hamidi and his
family were lucky. Hundreds of Palestinian children never made home. They are
lucky too that their son’s story has been heard and written about in contrary
to hundreds of stories.
Hamdi as symbol for all Palestinian children has to
live to tell his story again and again. Hamdi will grow up with his pain and
grieve. Would you dare to blame Hamidi in the future for the fear, hate and
agony he was forced to develop in himself. If you are planning to do so, why
are you all silent now!!!!??.
Would Hamdi be able to develop love, compassion, and
positive attitudes toward others in general and toward Israelis in specific?
Answer to this question has to be left open…………….
It is too late to protect Hamdi this time but can you
make sure that he and all other children will not go into similar experiences.
Look at the eyes of your children before answering this question, please.
Evangelical
Leaders' letter to President Bush
July 2, 2002
President George Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
We write as American evangelical Christians concerned for the well-being of all the children of Abraham in the Middle East – Christian, Jewish and Muslim. We urge you to employ an even-handed policy toward Israeli and Palestinian leadership so that this bloody conflict will come to a speedy close and both peoples can live without fear and in a spirit of shalom/salaam.
An even-handed U.S. policy towards Israelis and Palestinians does not give a blank check to either side, nor does it bless violence by either side. An even-handed policy affirms the valid interests of Israelis and Palestinians: both states free, economically viable and secure, with normal relations between Israel and all its Arab neighbors. We commend your stated support for a Palestinian state with 1967 borders, and encourage you to move boldly forward so that the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people for their own state may be realized.
We abhor and condemn the suicide bombings of the last 22 months and the failure of the Palestinian Authority in the first year of the intifada to stop the violence against Israeli citizens. We grieve over the loss of life, particularly among children, and the suffering by Israelis and Palestinians. The longer the bloodletting continues, the more difficult it will be for both sides to reconcile with each other.
We urge you to provide the leadership necessary for peacemaking in the Middle East by vigorously opposing injustice, including the continued unlawful and degrading Israeli settlement movement. The theft of Palestinian land and the destruction of Palestinian homes and fields is surely one of the major causes of the strife that has resulted in terrorism and the loss of so many Israeli and Palestinian lives. The continued Israeli military occupation that daily humiliates ordinary Palestinians is also having disastrous effects on the Israeli soul.
Mr. President, the American evangelical community is not a monolithic bloc in full and firm support of present Israeli policy. Significant numbers of American evangelicals reject the way some have distorted biblical passages as their rationale for uncritical support for every policy and action of the Israeli government instead of judging all actions – of both Israelis and Palestinians – on the basis of biblical standards of justice. The great Hebrew prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah, declared in the Old Testament that God calls all nations and all people to do justice one to another, and to protect the oppressed, the alien, the fatherless and the widow.
Finally, Mr. President, be assured of our prayers for you and your cabinet as you lead our nation in this troubled time. May the strength and peace of the Lord be with you.
Sincerely,
c: Colin L. Powell, Secretary of State
Avnery on Opinion Polls: A Maddened Cow
Uri Avnery, 6.7.02
Israel is the only
state in the world that has a population of 200%. And that's a fact. Public
opinion polls show that it has two simultaneous majorities. One is
peace-loving, the other supports extreme nationalism.
At the present time, it looks like this: In every
public opinion poll there is a large majority that supports the Prime Minister,
Ariel Sharon. Sharon wants, of course, to enlarge the settlements, intensify
the war against the Palestinians, eliminate Yasser Arafat, postpone a permanent
solution and refuse any peace negotiations until unattainable conditions are
met. Anyone who supports him must be a radical right-winger.
But the very same public opinion polls show also that
a majority agrees to withdraw from (almost) all the occupied territories,
dismantle (almost) all settlements and accept the establishment of a
Palestinian state in return for peace.
How is this possible? Can a state have a population of
more than 100%? If so, Israel is a very special country. This curious situation
did not come about yesterday. It started long ago.
I remember public opinion polls of more than 20 tears
ago, which also revealed two majorities. The first majority supported the idea
of expelling all Arabs from the country west of the Jordan river. The second
one supported a withdrawal from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Together with
those who were against both proposals, this totaled 200%.
Statisticians and sociologists examined, researched,
shook their collective heads, shrugged their shoulders, raised both hands and
thought: a crazy people. Doesn't know what it wants. Mixed up. Schizophrenic.
Suffering from a split personality.
But the people were not mad at all. The professors
just did not know how to read the results of their polls. What the public tried
to say was: If it were possible to drive out all the Arabs, that would be
wonderful. If it's impossible, let's get the hell out of there.
Why? For a simple reason: the one thing that unifies
almost all Jewish Israelis is the wish to live in a state where there are only
Jews. If we could achieve such a state in all the country between the
Mediterranean and the Jordan river, O.K. If not, let's leave the occupied territories.
Not "land for peace", but "withdrawal for the sake of
safeguarding a homogeneous Jewish state". This is the majority opinion,
and there is, indeed, only one majority.
Some call this "racist". Some call it
"nationalist". Some say that this is "apartheid". But this
attitude is rooted in the fact that for thousands of years Jews have lived as a
religious-ethnic community dispersed throughout the world and often suffered
cruel persecution (especially in the Christian world). They have developed a
ghetto mentality. They want to live among themselves, separate from others,
surrounded by a
high fence.
Zionism wanted to achieve this by establishing a state
where the Jews would live together, without Goyim (Gentiles). Even the presence
of a considerable minority (the Arab citizens) in Israel creates severe mental
stress. For most Israelis, the ideal situation would be a state without a
single non-Jewish citizen. (The presence of foreign workers does not bother
anybody; it is temporary, and they are devoid of any rights.)
Lately this aspiration has found new expression in an
idea which is becoming quite popular: to transfer the Israeli Arab villages
adjoining the West Bank, together with their inhabitants, to the future
Palestinian state, which means giving up territory so that Israel will have
less non-Jewish citizens.
This is quite unusual. The French, for example, have
shed rivers of blood in order to keep Alsace, whose people are of German
descent. India is ready to wage a nuclear war in order to keep Kashmir, which
is populated by Muslims. For other nations, territory is more important than a
homogeneous population, geography precedes demography. Israelis, too, like
territory - but demography is by far more important to them.
One example: after the 1956 war, during which Israel
conquered the Sinai and the Gaza Strip, David Ben-Gurion was compelled to give
up the Sinai. At the time there was a clamor from the right and the left to
annex the Gaza Strip. Ben-Gurion adamantly refused, because he did not want to
increase the number of Arab citizens by hundreds of thousands at any price.
(The brilliant idea of an eternal military occupation, which allows the
occupier to abstain from conferring citizenship on the occupied population, was
not yet invented.)
Today, too, there is only one majority in Israel. Most
Israelis are ready to pay the price demanded for peace. So why do they support
Sharon, who represents the opposite? For one simple reason: they have been
brought to believe that "we have no partner". There is a complete
unanimity, from Avigdor Liberman and Effy Eitam on the right to Haim Ramon and
Yossi Sarid on the "left", that "there is no partner". And
since there is no partner for peace, let's support Sharon, who knows (or so it
seems) how to wage war. The aim of this brainwashing is precisely to make it
possible to keep the occupied territories and, God willing, to drive the
Palestinians out.
The real criminal in this story is Ehud Barak. In
order to hide his monumental failure as a peace-maker, he created the legend
that "we offered them everything and they rejected everything." This
historic lie is the connecting link between the two seemingly contradictory
results of the polls: the majority is ready to pay the price of peace but does
not believe that peace is possible. So let's support Sharon.
There is no riddle here. Israel is not a mad cow.
It is, at most, a maddened cow.
One
Single State In Palestine!
By Sami
Aldeeb, doctor of laws
Swiss,
Christian of Palestinian Origin
e-mail: aldeeb@bluewin.ch
homepage: http://go.to/samipage
According to a joke, Hitler wanted to send a naval detachment to the Dead Sea. He was subsequently informed that the Dead Sea is a land-locked waterway.
Bush proposes the creation of a
Palestinian State alongside a Jewish State. He should have had a look at a
geographical map of Palestine before deciding to support such foolishness.
Palestine (which the Jews call Israel,
but the true biblical name of which is the Land of Canaan – Genesis 17:8) is
about the size of a pocket-handkerchief, with populations belonging to
different religious communities (Jewish, Moslem, Christian, Druze, Samaritan,
etc). To draw a geographical line between these tangled communities in order to
create two States, one for the Jews, and the other for the Palestinians, would
be like cutting a mother in two in order to pacify irreconcilable brothers. I
will spare you the details.
Sooner or later, the inhabitants of
Palestine will realise that on this piece of land, there is space for only one
State at the service of all, without discrimination on the basis of religion,
race, colour or sex.
Bush, known for his blunders, can be
excused. The other political actors on the Israeli, Palestinian, Arab and
Western sides have less claim to be excused. But the biggest surprise is
provided by the (supposedly) pacifist Israeli movements that also demand the
creation of a Palestinian State, not for philanthropic reasons, but because
they do not want to cohabitate with non-Jews and refuse the resettlement of
Palestinian refugees on their own lands and those 385 of their own villages
which were destroyed by Israel. They attribute the suffering of the Jews and
the Palestinians to the Israeli occupation, but forget that the underlying evil
is discrimination.
Bush wants the Palestinians to organize
elections so as to elect new leaders who will match his tastes. He would do better to demand general
elections for all the inhabitants of Palestine and the creation of a single
State with the same rights and duties for all. A State with a single flag, a
single parliament, a single army, a single police force, a single legal system,
a single court structure, a single school system and unified cemeteries
accessible to everyone. A State that I call the Republic of Canaan, to avoid
annoying anyone.
Caught Up in a Crossfire?
Dr Harry
Hagopian, KSL-KOG
Prologue?
Sir Andrew Green, head of a medical mission that visited Israel and Palestine, was quoted three weeks ago as saying that the situation in the Palestinian territories is shocking. He exclaimed that ‘ditches and barbed wire now surround Palestinian towns. Palestinians need a permit from the Israelis to leave their own town. Even then they are kept waiting for hours at check points. This is having a serious effect on medical services but there are also wider implications. As some Israelis are now themselves saying, this amounts to the systematic oppression and humiliation of an entire people. The inevitable result is anger, frustration and a desire for revenge that bodes ill for any prospect of peace. If the Israelis think they are rooting out terrorism, they are sadly mistaken. They are engendering it’.
These unvarnished words come from a man of considerable political stature. So why did it all go horribly wrong?
Major
Problems?
· Palestinian Borders
& Settlements
It might be possible for Israel to give Palestinians full sovereignty over the whole of the West Bank and Gaza Strip - as it did with Sinai in 1979 - were it not for the 163 Jewish settlements encroaching upon the Palestinian landscape. Since the Oslo process began, the number of Jewish settlers in the Palestinian territories has doubled to over 214,000.
Only last month, and according to B’Tselem, PM Ariel Sharon gave the green light to Israeli settlement agencies and settler organisations to found three dozen new settlements on occupied land. Avigail is one such example! It is literally a collection of four mobile homes on a hilltop about 16 kilometres southeast of Hebron. It consists of four men, a woman, four soldiers and two dogs. Such settlement development is a breach of the Geneva Conventions under International law that forbid a country to transfer ‘parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies’.
Just consider the facts today: 40% of the West Bank that the PA once partially controlled is divided into 8 separate security zones, 120 military checkpoints and 220 enclaves! In his article entitled ‘Incarceration or Transfer: the Post-Incursion Plan’, Jeff Halper who is Professor at Ben Gurion University and Director of the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, focused on a new fence that Israel is erecting which separates it from the Palestinian territories. 215 miles long, 10 feet high and costing $400 million, ‘this fence extends some 10-20 kilometres into Palestinian territory, and constitutes a separation that will annex another 15% of Palestinian territory under the guise of security’ let alone strangle even further Palestinian freedom of movement and economic prospects.
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Palestinian
Refugees
More than 623,000
refugees are living in 27 squalid camps across the occupied territories - from
Jabalia in Gaza with 102,000 to Beit Jibrin in Bethlehem with 1800. An
additional 612,000 live in 32 camps in three neighbouring countries. They have
been awaiting the right of return for generations, and they remain
dispossessed. Many attempts have failed at resolving this issue, and both
parties remain at loggerheads as to the best way to tackle this demographic
issue.
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Jerusalem
The motto is two
capitals for two states! However, the divergences are wide between both
parties. The Palestinians insist on sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif, but
Israel cannot give up the ground underneath where the Western Wall and the
remnants of Solomon’s Temple lie. All attempts made to date have not cracked
this issue either, and this city holy to three monotheistic traditions remains
a hot cauldron of exclusive claims and counter-claims.
Tentative
Suggestions?
At a time when mutual
trust between Israelis and Palestinians is virtually non-existent, and when the
parties are talking at each other
rather than to each other, the best
way forward for the whole region seems to be the adoption of the pan-Arab
[Saudi] peace plan. This should take place at an international peace conference
convened under the auspices of the USA, the European Union Presidium and Russia
and that brings together the two warring sides.
But is that feasible
today? Being an optimist who breeds on pragmatism, I have not given up! Nor
have many others! So it might be instructive for a reality check that quotes an
excerpt of an article by Shlomo Ben-Ami, former Israeli Foreign Minister who
led the negotiations at Camp David and Taba, published in the Financial Times
on 5 June 2002.
In his article,
Ben-Ami writes, ‘Success would depend on a strict framework for peace based on
Israeli withdrawal, the dismantling of settlements and a practical solution to
the problem of refugees that does not entail their “return” to the state of
Israel. The parameters for peace set out by the Clinton administration are
still the most advanced and precise set of principles on which a reasonable
compromise with overwhelming international legitimacy could be articulated’.
He adds, ‘In addition
to overseeing the reform of the Palestinian system, the international taskforce
would facilitate and monitor the evacuation of occupied territories, the
dismantling of settlements and the resettlement of refugees in the Palestinian
state’. How unfortunate it is that his words have not been heeded to date by an
omnipotent and omnipresent but hardly omniscient US Administration in
Washington! Indeed, and as Robert Fisk wrote in the Independent this week, the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems so urgent for the US that it now needs
action, but yet not so urgent that it necessitates a proper and US-slotted
timetable yet!
But Ben-Ami’s Israeli
Jewish plea for a solution sits quite well with the Palestinian Christian
prophetic plea of the Lutheran pastor Mitri Raheb! In his article ‘Winning the
Enemy’, he writes that ‘the conflict underlies the stereotyping of the two
peoples. The Israeli occupation fuels existing anti-Semitism and the
Palestinian need to resist the occupation fuels the stereotyping of
Palestinians as terrorists. For the last hundred years, both our Israeli and
Palestinian fathers were busy pushing the neighbour to become the enemy. [] It is
now time to think of transforming the enemy into a neighbour (Lk 10:25-37) and
for Palestinians and Israelis to re-discover the humanity of the other.
Reconciliation is the possibility to move beyond the concept of “winning the
war” into “winning the enemy” - that is to transform each into a potential
neighbour. [] People who are not courageous enough to cross boundaries to meet
the other will soon find themselves prisoners of their own constructed
ghettoes. [] Our role as Christians is to restore justice by ending the Israeli
occupation and to work for peaceful co-existence of the two peoples and three
religions in two states’.
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This article ’Caught Up in a Crossfire’ originally came about as a
talk delivered recently at a commemorative evening organised by the
London-based Armenian Institute to mark the third anniversary of the death
and the 70th anniversary of the birth of Catholicos Karekin
I. Karekin I was the 131st
Catholicos of All Armenians from 1995 to 1999. A Middle Eastern by birth, and a man of remarkable
intellect, charisma, learning, humour, experience and savvy, Karekin I was
also a committed Armenian and an every-day-born-again Christian. The first in a series of books containing the complete writings of this remarkable spiritual man will soon be published as a tribute to his memory. The first 238-page volume, entitled ‘In His Own Words’, has already come out and is an introduction to the series with a narrative of his service and a celebration of his life. |
Suzan Sahori, an
employee at the Beit Sahour municipality, echoes the same message in a personal
plea entitled ‘The Continuation of the Deadly Cycle’ that she wrote on 20 June
2002 under curfew from her home. She said ‘Those of us who believe that only
fair negotiations will bring peace and justice for both sides are disturbed at
this critical deterioration of the political conflict. It is driving us all
into a well of blood where only the innocents lose their lives’.
Anglican Archbishop
Desmond Tutu, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his work against
apartheid in South Africa, also contributed an Opinion to the International
Herald Tribune on 14 June 2002. Entitled ‘Build Moral Pressure to End the
Occupation’, he wrote that ‘almost instinctively, the Jewish people have always
been on the side of the voiceless. In their history, there is painful memory of
massive round-ups, house demolitions and collective punishment. In their
scripture, there is acute empathy for the disenfranchised. The [Israeli]
occupation [of Palestine] represents a dangerous and selective amnesia of the
persecution from which these traditions were born’.
The archbishop’s
article also finds strong resonance in a recently published letter ‘Not in My
Name’ that was signed by Ronnie Kasrils, Max Ozinsky and several hundred other
prominent South African Jews who were heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle.
The letter drew an explicit analogy between apartheid and current Israeli
policies.
Possible
Directions?
Dr Gershon Baskin is
the Israeli co-director and co-founder of the Israel / Palestine Centre for
Research and Information. In an article entitled ‘A Civil Society Contract for
Peace’, he observed wryly about the situation on the ground. He wrote that
‘military operations conducted by Israel create a public illusion that
terrorism can be beaten by force. The Israeli public is blinded by its fear and
anxiety from seeing the suffering of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian
people are untouched by the terror that Israelis feel in their streets as a result
of terrorist suicide bombers’.
In his article, Dr
Baskin also lamented that ‘the media on both sides beats the drums of war in
the name of patriotism. Public debate and political opposition supporting
options for peace are virtually non-existent on both sides’.
As I also mentioned
earlier in this article, Dr Baskin underlined that what needs to be done is the
building of international support with a UN Security Council mandate for an
imposed peace plan built around the Taba + Clinton Principles and the Saudi
initiative. Such a mandate should be coupled with international forces and
observers between the sides to buffer them, as well as on the external borders
of Palestine to insure implementation and enforcement of the agreed
arrangements’. He added that ‘when
governments fail, it is the job of civil society to take responsibility and to
play a more substantial role. [] While our governments are leading us towards
doom and destruction, the leaders of civil society must stand up together and
create partnerships’.
Lord William Wallace,
professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, opined
in an article in the Financial Times on 27 June 2002 that EU perceptions of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict differ from those of the USA. They are shaped by a
different interpretation of the roots of terrorism and of approaches to
resolving the conflict.
Indeed, at a time when
there is a wider European loss of confidence in US policy towards the Middle
East, and an increasing unease at what is seen as high-handed American foreign
policy-making, this re-doubling of efforts by the EU becomes almost mandatory.
President Bush has accepted a two-state solution as the only way forward. The
EU, perhaps through PM Tony Blair, must now impress upon the USA that a broader
peace conference drawing together existing political leaders from across the
region and beyond is the only way to reverse the dreadful spiral of violence.
In the midst of all
those bald challenges and bare odds, the Churches of Jerusalem - Eastern and
Oriental Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant - are struggling to infuse that
sense of justice and partnership into this political conflict. And in so doing,
I am also aware that they are fulfilling their roles as moral compasses within their
own societies.
Their task is far from
easy! Yet, and despite insuperable human and financial obstacles, they have
been calling for an end to the conflict that secures the legitimate rights of
all Palestinians to live in an occupation-free state of their own as much as
guarantees the legitimate rights of all Israelis to live in security in their
own state. Church-related organizations in Israel and Palestine have also been
encouraging the development of a partnership within a stronger civil society that
would serve the basis of a future guiding beacon for both sides. Their
humanitarian appeals - from the most distant to the most recent - are a
testimony to their unrelenting faith and untiring efforts.
What one now also
expects more audibly in this multi-faceted equation are the Jewish and Muslim
voices! Many are those who
criticize the churches - both in the Holy Land as much as abroad - for not
speaking out clearly and loudly. They are not always too wrong in their
criticisms since the churches are at times mired in their ecumenical and
power-hungry squabbles. But I would like to submit that the churches have been
fulfilling their religious role much more adequately than the Jewish or Muslim
religious leaders, scholars and counterparts. With some notably resounding and
scholarly exceptions, few are the leading Jewish or Muslim rabbis or sheikhs
who have spoken out on the conflict. Perhaps Jews and Muslims too should look
more closely into their faith-based traditions, examine their scriptures and consciences
and come out with an assessment of the mechanisms that would help resolve a
political conflict that has become a human travesty for so many men, women and
children from the region.
Are we all meant to
stay caught up in a crossfire that is both consuming and unrelenting? Or can a
determined, sustained and bold vision transform the conflict? I am afraid that
time alone will tell!
©
harry-bvH
@ 2 July 2002
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