News,
articles and documents from the Holy Land
Issue No. 91 - Tuesday, 14 August 2001
Dear Friends, Brothers
and Sisters,
His
Beatitude the Patriarch Michel Sabbah just arrived today from a 10-days journay
in the Untied States where he meet our arabic speaking communities in LA and
SF, then he visited Wastigton and the Diocese od Sioux Falls where he dilivered
a speek that we send you hereby. After a short viist ti Toronto where he
celebrated a mass he returned back and began immediately his activities with a
lot of meetings and tomorrow will clebrate the feast of the assumption of our
Lady to Heaven at the Mother House of the Rosary Sisters in Beit Hanina where
he will preside the ceremony of sollennel and temperary proffisions of news
sisters and many other 25 & 50 years jubily of others.
Tomorrow
will begin also the campaign of Payer for Peace at 6.00 pm in the Armenian
Orthodox Cathedral of St. James. This campaign will continue until August 28.
We renew our invitation to all our brothers and Sisters allover the world to
join us in the prayer and we thank those who have already wrote us and promised
to join us with their communities and this is really great and shows the
solidarity that we appreciate very much in these difficult days hoping that
within next Chriatmas everything will change for the best, because our
strategic goal is undertake a lot of other intiatives in the next months under
the following slogan: “Next Christmas with Peace”. Inshallah = with God’s well.
As I
informed you in yesterday’s note we are really very glad for the election of
the new Greek Orthodox Patriarch Kyrios Kyrios Ireneus. Our Patriarch was very
happy also when he knew the good news because without the the Orthodox
Patriarch we cannot move in our common intiatives since there is very good
relations between all the 13 heads of Churches in Jerusalem who meet regulary
inorder to discuss all the church’s issues. I send you a news taken from (CWNews.com) in which Rabbi David Rosen, a
leading Israeli inter-faith activist, comments: "This election result is a
great disappointment for the Israeli government,". This statement from
this open-minded man astonished me very much and proves that they wanted even
to impose their own man, which is a clear interference in the internal church’s
affairs, which should be respected. But, thanks God that the Spirit of God
worked this time, especially because I felt that everybody is satisfied and
delighted with this election of this specific man that we wish him all the best
with progress and prosperity for our Sister Orthodox Church.
We would like to
appreciate the last statements of His Holiness the Pope in his last Sunday
Angelus, as you see in the following news: CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) -- In
the wake of more Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli reprisals, Pope John
Paul II condemned the ``unheard-of brutality'' of recent Middle East violence
and called on leaders of both sides to act in the best interests of their
people. Speaking at a Sunday blessing at his summer residence outside Rome Aug.
12, the pope said human life and dignity were being ``trampled'' in the Holy
Land. ``This outbreak of unheard-of brutality illustrates even more how
illusory it is to try to resolve the problems of justice and coexistence among
populations through recourse to violence,'' he said.
You will find
also in today’s Olive Branch some more documents and articles such as:
1) An article witten by Don Lattin, a Chronicle
Religion Writer, in San Fracisco Chronicale, last Sunday, August
12, 2001: Michel Sabbah, Catholic
prelate looks at Jerusalem from Arab perspective. He discusses land dispute on
Bay Area visit.
2) An article written by our dear friend Dr.
Harry Hagopian who is still out of the country since long time but he is still
interested about our situation and asking: Can We Retrieve Our Humanity?
3) I send you also the last article of the Israeli Peace Activist Uri Avnery
commenting about the occupation of the Orient House: “Orient House is in Our Hands!” in order
to show how some open-minded Israelis look at what happened, and this is the
correct an right position.
We still need
your support, solidarity and prayers. We are sure that you will join us in our
campaign of prayer for peace. We thank you in advance for that.
With our best
wishes and prayers from Jerusalem Fr.
Raed Abusahlia
Patriarch Michel Sabbah addresses
over 6000 Catholics
at the Diocese of Sioux Falls,
SD.
13-Aug-01
His Beatitude Michel Sabbah, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, was the featured speaker at the Journey to Holiness Celebration Conference in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Speaking to over 6000 Catholic parishioners of the diocese, His Beatitude shared his observations of the Arab Christians living in Palestine. He spoke about his bretheran in the Holy Land and their daily experience of suffering and violence and, not unlike Jesus Christ, undertake a courageous journey every day that leads to holiness. The fraternal relations among the thirteen Christian Churches in the Jerusalem represent the Mother Church of all Christianity and thus maintain communion with Christians around the world. In closing he noted that for Christians, Jerusalem represents Christ's love for all of us and His love will contradict all obstacles toward holiness and it will be the cradle in which freedom will be born. His Beatitude spoke at the invitation of his Excellency Bishop Robert Carlson. The Diocese of Sioux Falls enjoys a partnership with the Latin Church in Zababdeh, a town approximately 90 minutes north of Jerusalem.
Sioux Falls
August 10, 2001
Brothers and sisters in Christ
I am glad to be with you to day, to pray with you, to listen with you to the word of God and to share with you your journey to holiness. Your father and bishop, Most Rev. Bishop Carlson, when he visited Jerusalem, on a pilgrimage and a visit of fraternal solidarity, he invited me to come to Sioux Falls, to share in your journey to holiness. I accepted the invitation. It is always good indeed to live moments of fraternal communion in Jesus Christ our Lord in whom we believe and in whom we live, wherever we are, in the Church of Jerusalem or in the Church of Sioux Falls.
The Church of Jerusalem, is also your mother Church. Jerusalem being the place of our roots as Christians, where every thing started for every Christian in the world. In Jerusalem Jesus started his human life, taught, suffered his passion, died and resurrected from the dead. In Jerusalem, he sent the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and so the Church, all Churches, were born on that Pentecost day in Jerusalem. Therefore, Jerusalem, the mother of all Churches, is and should be in communion with all churches of the world.
Today, we are in Jerusalem, thirteen churches, Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants: Thanks to God and through our good fraternal relations, every church or family of churches guarantees the communion of Jerusalem with the families of churches in the world, so as to keep Jerusalem a true mother in communion and in love with all its sons and daughters in the world.
The church of Jerusalem is a small church, (300,000 for a total population in Israel, Palestine and Jordan of 14 million people). We are the "small flock" living the mystery of Jesus, a mystery of refusal and rejection. When Jesus lived in our land, 2000 years ago, he remained a sign of contradiction, as the old Simon has predicted to Mary the mother of Jesus; a sign of contradiction, which means a cause of demolition of many, and a cause of resurrection of many. So the church of Jerusalem remained until today, in a very particular way, the image of her master: a small flock and a sign of contradiction in the same land in which Jesus was a sign of contradiction. We remained also, and we are until today, as he said to his disciples in the first chapter of the book of Acts, his "witnesses in Jerusalem".
We too, in Jerusalem, we had a similar spiritual journey, as we have started
our synod of the Catholic Churches in the Holy Land, on the eve of Pentecost in
1995. Our journey continued during five years. The conclusion came with the
pilgrimage of the Holy Father to our Churches in the Jubilee year 2000. Our
reflection was centered on the person of Our Lord Jesus Christ. We believed in
him, we accepted his message, since 2000 years. And now 2000 years after, we
asked ourselves how was our belief in him? How was the consonance of our daily
life to his teachings and how it should be?
Every life is a journey to holiness, because every life is guided by God, our
Father, who loves us and leads us, sometimes through ways which we can
understand and accept, and sometimes, through ways which we cannot understand
and which require from us a lot of courage to accept. Every day is a journey to
holiness, because our God is the Emmanuel, the one who dwells with us, who
cares for us, for every one, and manifests in various ways his love to each of
us. Our attitude as believers is the attitude of a permanent listener to hear
or to see any sign of the love of God in our life. On Mount Tabor, which we
celebrated few days ago, on the sixth of August, Jesus manifested his glory to
three of his apostles, Peter, James and John. Commenting on this manifestation
of his divine glory, he prepared the apostles to the difficult day of his
death. Because the cross also was a manifestation of his divinity, a
manifestation of the power of his love.
The cross is the only way to resurrection.
This is a basic truth in our life as Church, here in Sioux Falls as well as in Jerusalem. In these days, in Jerusalem, we live this truth in a very acute way. Our daily life today is on the cross, through the various difficulties caused by the political conflict between Israelis and Palestinians: killings, demolition of houses, siege imposed upon villages and cities, limitation of freedoms, confusion and anarchy; all these are various aspects of our daily cross. We are in the conflict, in a situation of injustice, imposed upon us since long years, sharing in the struggle of all the population to find justice and peace. The face of the Church of Jerusalem is a torn face, torn by pains and sufferings. With that, and through love for all, all those who suffer, all those who are the cause of our sufferings, those who kill, who demolish, who limit our freedom, through this love, living on the cross, we bear in our hearts and minds the resurrection, and we keep alive our hope in God Almighty and lover of all. All of them we love, those with whom we suffer and those who cause our sufferings, because, despite all evil which they can do they remain the image of God, the children of God, loved by God their Creator and their father, and because despite any evil they can do, they remain unable to demolish the love of God in themselves: strengthened with this vision of God and his love for us all, we pray, we act, and we wait the day when God will respond to the prayers of thousands and thousands who implore him for the peace of Jerusalem, and implore him to make his own love the dominating sovereignty over all human conflicts and disputes, in the city he chose to be the city of redemption and reconciliation of all humankind with himself.
This is our journey to holiness through sufferings, instability, war and quest of justice. The mystery of the cross in all its acuity is lived by the church of Jerusalem. For your journey to holiness, the Church of Jerusalem, in its sufferings and in its hope, is a sign: you look at Jerusalem, not only to try to help her, to alleviate the suffering of her sons and daughters, but also to see in her the light and guide of your own journey towards holiness amidst your own sorrows and joys. The cross is the only way to resurrection.
You have started a journey to holiness in this diocese of Sioux Falls.
During these days, you have of course asked yourself, is holiness possible to
every one? Is every one called to it or is holiness the proper of few persons
only among the best, and is not for all of you. Pope John Paul II in his letter
with which he introduces the Church in the third millennium, "the
Beginning of a new millennium", gives a clear answer to that question. He
says: "holiness does not consist in any extraordinary action which only some
genius can do. Every one is called to holiness, and ways to it are numerous and
varied. I do not hesitate to say that all pastoral journey should lead to
holiness".
Brothers and sisters, your bishop and father, bishop Carlson, has kindly
invited me to participate in your journey towards holiness, and to give a
humble contribution, a simple word coming form Jerusalem. The contribution of
Jerusalem in your journey towards holiness is simply to present the face of
Jesus which remains alive in the city and all the land, as a sign of
contradiction, calling all, without any discrimination, to contradict all
obstacles towards holiness, even the ways of history itself: the present
history of Jerusalem is a history of conflict, two peoples Israelis and Palestinians.
The result is violence, death and more hatred. But we believe that it is in
this terrible cradle that freedom will be born as well as love and holiness. So
in Sioux Falls also holiness will be born and will contribute to the holiness
of all the Church. Amen.
+ Michel Sabbah
Patriarch of Jerusalem
Michel
Sabbah, Catholic prelate looks at Jerusalem from Arab perspective
He discusses land dispute on Bay Area visit
Don Lattin, Chronicle
Religion Writer Sunday, August 12, 2001
San Francisco -- The latest cycle of terror and repression was three days away,
but Palestinian Michel Sabbah, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, had the
war-weary look of someone who knew it would happen again, and soon.
Sabbah, the highest-ranking Roman Catholic cleric in the Holy Land and the
first Arab to head the Jerusalem patriarchy, had just flown from Los Angeles to
San Francisco on a pastoral visit to the Arab Catholic community in California.
The 68-year-old patriarch was sitting at a table with leading members of St.
Anne of the Sunset Church in San Francisco, the gathering place for Bay Area
Catholics who are Palestinian, Jordanian and from neighboring lands.
"Palestinians are not terrorists," Sabbah told a reporter. "They
are people like any beings on Earth. They have their rights. The only way to
make reconciliation and end all this conflict is to give them back their
freedom and their lands in the occupied territories."
Three days later, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a pizza
parlor in the heart of downtown Jerusalem, killing at least 14 innocent people,
along with himself. Israel responded across the Palestinian Authority with
bulldozers, tanks and jet fighters, and the prospects for peace grew ever
dimmer.
On Friday, newspapers around the world ran a photo of suspected suicide bomber Izzadine
Masri, raising an M-16 rifle in his right hand and a copy of the Koran in his
left.
Once again, the image of Palestinians and "Islamic terrorism" etch
deeper in the mind. And public awareness of Palestinian Christians such as
Michel Sabbah fades away.
BORN IN NAZARETH
Sabbah was born on March 19, 1933, in the town of Nazareth, where the Bible
says Jesus was miraculously conceived. He began his seminary studies in
Bethlehem, where the Gospel says Christ was born.
He was ordained a priest on June 29, 1955, and began working in a parish in
Madaba, across the river Jordan.
After studying Arab language and literature at the University of St. Joseph in
Beirut, Sabbah became director of schools for the Latin Diocese of Jerusalem.
After the Arab-Israeli war in 1967, when Israel occupied eastern Jerusalem and
the West Bank, Sabbah taught Arabic and Islamic studies to Europeans in the
East African nation of Djibouti.
He continued his doctoral studies in 1973 at the Sorbonne in France and in 1980
was named president of the University of Bethlehem.
TAPPED BY POPE JOHN PAUL II
In 1987, he was picked as the new Latin patriarch of Jerusalem by Pope John
Paul II.
Sabbah replaced a 77-year-old Italian, Archbishop Giacomo Beltritti, one of a
long line of Italian clerics to oversee the Latin Rite church in the Holy Land
and its dwindling number of indigenous Catholics.
The Rev. Labib Kobti of San Francisco, one of three priests to serve under
Sabbah, said the patriarch has become "a national hero" for Arab
Christians in the Holy Land. "He represents their dreams and hopes,"
said Kobti, who was born in Beirut and educated in Bethlehem.
"The Church of Jerusalem was an Arab Christian church, before Islam,"
he said. "Without a Palestinian patriarch, the Israelis could call us
strangers. But we are the people of this land."
Sami Odeh, an Orange County real estate agent who accompanied Sabbah from Los
Angeles to San Francisco last week, said the patriarch is "a major source
of pride" for Arab Christians in California. "He understands our
pain," said Odeh. "He is one of our own."
Odeh's brother, Alex, was killed in a 1985 bombing of the Arab-American
Anti-Discrimination Committee in Southern California. Federal officials suspect
Jewish extremists were responsible for the still-unsolved attack.
FRUSTRATED WITH VIOLENCE
Sabbah's speeches over the years show his increasing frustration with the cycle
of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
"Every believer who is sincere -- Jew, Christian or Muslim -- must ask
himself in anguish: How long will religion be the cause of war and disputes
between believers?" he said in 1992.
In his Easter message of 1997, Sabbah said, "Blood is still being shed… The
blood being shed is innocent blood."
Last month, in a speech to the U.S. Bishops Conference, the patriarch said,
"Violence is only the visible aspect of the Palestinian-Israeli struggle.
The press, the media, politicians, even statesmen, try to reduce the conflict
to various manifestations of violence, as if quelling the violence is
sufficient to resolve the underlying problem.
"Violence has a cause," he said, "and the cause has to be
removed in order to remove violence. That cause is the Israeli military
occupation of Palestinian land."
Last week, Sabbah told The Chronicle that he is only talking about the 22
percent of the historic Palestine that Israel seized in 1967. "Why isn't
Israel satisfied with 78 percent of the Palestinian land?" he said.
Sabbah said Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat cannot control extremist elements,
because there is no way he can tell his people, " 'No. We cannot have our
land, and we have to accept the Israeli occupation. No leader can control that
situation," Sabbah said. "You can't side with the occupier."
E-mail Don Lattin at dlattin@sfchronicle.com.
GREEK ORTHODOX IN HOLY LAND ELECT NEW LEADER
13-Aug-2001 -- EWTN News Brief
JERUSALEM, Aug 13, 01 (CWNews.com) - The Greek Orthodox Church in the Holy Land has elected a new leader for the church, selecting a a new patriarch from among a list of several who had been rejected by Israel under an ancient protocol.
The synod of the local church elected Metropolitan Irineos to succeed the late Diodorus I. Under an ancient Ottoman law, the Greek Orthodox synod in the Holy Land submits candidates to the sovereign power in the area, which now includes Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority. While the latter two accepted all the names on the list of 15 men, Israel objected to five, including Irineos, citing "security considerations" and "interests in Jerusalem."
Israel withdrew its objections earlier this month after coming under Greek Orthodox and international pressure to stay out of the church's affairs. "This election result is a great disappointment for the Israeli government," Rabbi David Rosen, a leading Israeli inter-faith activist, said. "Irineos is seen as less amenable and less willing (than other nominees) to kowtow to Israeli interests. This result proves the real futility of the effort and assumption you can draw the map to suit your own political interest," he said.
Since the Greek Orthodox Church owns large tracts of land in Jerusalem, it exerts a huge influence on the political environment. Diodorus had leased or sold several large tracts of land to Israel to the displeasure of many Arabs. Israel was seen as wary of the church being led by a pro-Arab patriarch.
Can We Retrieve Our
Humanity?
Dr Harry Hagopian, LL.D
- KSL
In his path-breaking
book entitled ‘The Invisible Man’, the African-American novelist Ralph Ellison
wrote, ‘I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.’
His powerful expression about wilful exclusion - the decision we all can make
to demote the humanity of others - intruded painfully into my mind yet again
this week. Indeed, like scores of peoples across the orb, I followed with
frustration the latest saga of tit for tat violence wracking the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But only one week
earlier, on 6 and 7 August 2001, the World Council of Churches in Geneva had
put together another consultation on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The outcome
of this gathering of familiar faces disappointed me in that it went back to the
age-old but safe custom of setting up a specialist committee mandated with the
task of pursuing the dynamics (as if the dynamics are not already known to
peoples of different persuasions and perspectives!) of the conflict between
Israel and the Palestinians. It also regurgitated some of the recommendations
that have been adopted time and again by a number of church-related
organisations world-wide. However, what impacted me most about this
consultation is a small interlude that marked the whole event. In his opening
worship sermon, Anglican Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal from Jerusalem pointed out to
the fact that Jesus had blessed peace-makers rather than peace-talkers. In so
doing, Bishop Riah reminded the audience that Jesus had adopted a proactive
agenda and had challenged the status quo rather than merely analysed it!
How true are his
words! In fact, I just concluded this weekend a consultation on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict organised by a very reputable Central European
think-tank. Guided by the Chatham rules, the two key sessions took place on the
day of the suicide attack at the Sabarro pizzeria in west Jerusalem and the
subsequent closure of Orient House in east Jerusalem. I stood up to deliver the
paper I had written on the ‘variables’ of the conflict. But looking at the
specialist audience of men and women assembled in the hall, I veered away from
my prepared text and focused instead on the human dimension of the conflict.
After all, ten bloody months of an Intifada that is tantamount to a Palestinian
decolonisation process have resulted in hundreds of lamentable deaths on both
sides. Surely, in an almost Abel versus Cain scenario, we can no longer
tolerate so many ‘fratricidal’ and ‘neighbourly’ killings? And surely, in an
equally Hegelian sense, we cannot indulge in the notion of super-men who deem
themselves more powerful - and by implication much wiser - than their Creator?
It seems to me that
many people have become entrapped in the abstract academia of the conflict -
for reasons too embarrassing and critical to enumerate in this article. Yet, as
Professor Richard Falk (an international jurist from Princeton University and
member of the Human Rights Inquiry Commission) mentioned in his recent report,
it does not take most Israelis or Palestinians much effort to appreciate the
‘dynamics’ of this pernicious conflict. By and large, they include the issue of
a large number of Israeli settlements that have sprung up unlawfully in many
parts of the West Bank and Gaza, the future of the Palestinian refugees who
have lost home and property in 1948 and 1967, and the future of the eastern
(Palestinian) sector of Jerusalem. All the other issues - from water to
infrastructure to closures to economy - are either attached to or associated
with those core issues.
However, what needs to
be done at this stage is to take on board much more actively the human toll of
this conflict. What about the visceral hatred of Palestinians and Israelis for
each other? What about the fear they experience toward each other? What about
all the orphaned children who have lost mothers and fathers? Or the mothers and
fathers who have lost their sons and daughters? I believe that the Mitchell
Commission Report - which underlines the freezing of all forms of Israeli
settlements and the implementation of international monitors as predicated by a
cessation of hostilities between the two unequal warring sides - provides one
adequate answer.
And that answer, in
its Christian kernel, also contains the seeds of a non-violent resistance that
should be as much the concern of the Churches as of their related
organisations. After all, if the argument states that an injustice has been
committed against the Palestinians, then that injustice needs to be redressed.
But could such redress be achieved non-violently and through an effective -
dare I add creative - strategy at a time when both sides do not trust each
other as far as they can throw them, let alone shoot them? Could we re-read
some of the arguments being put forward by a host of Christian contemporaries -
many of whom like Father Raed Abu Sahlieh are Palestinian themselves? Can we
then attach those arguments to the wider structure of beliefs inherent in the
schools of thought of many Jewish and Muslim scholars, practitioners and
institutions in the region?
I am often dumbstruck
by the very circular nature of the arguments between Israelis and Palestinians.
Let us take the latest chapter alone! Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
insists that he will not budge on anything until the Palestinians stop totally
the Intifada. Notwithstanding, he continues apace with the targeted
assassinations and punitive measures. In return, the Palestinians insist that
they cannot silence the stones or bullets unless Israel recognises their
legitimate rights and provides a solution based on the principles of
international legality. So, the Intifada continues too. Israel then takes this
continued struggle as proof that the Palestinians are not a peaceful people and
implements its repressive and coercive measures. Does anyone miss the vicious
cycle .?!
I come back to my
constant argument that a legitimate solution which calls for compromise also
requires the courage, vision, good will and good faith of those empowered to
execute it. During a recent meeting in Geneva of the Commission on Human
Rights, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, ‘We are all of equal worth, born equal in
dignity and born free and for this reason deserving of respect whatever our
external circumstances. We belong in a world whose very structure, whose
essence, is diversity almost bewildering in extent and it is to live in a
fool’s paradise to ignore this basic fact.’
Indeed, it is time
that the human toll of this conflict becomes our ascending concern. But in
order to achieve this goal, it is important for the world to remember that the
Palestinian people cannot be made invisible, and thereby their aspirations will
simply not drift away. It is indeed high time for Palestinians to be offered
their dignity and freedom so that their sense of self-worth can be restored
too. And in so doing, it is also my perfervid belief that Israelis will attain
the security they so richly and truly deserve in their own lives and societies.
Anything else will be nothing more - and nothing less - than singing in the
wind. Or even worse!
Can
we be truthful to ourselves, or will we use our own political version of the
truth to perpetuate our own interests?
Can we become peace-makers? Or will most of us remain peace-talkers ..?
harry-bvH
@ 12 August 2001
Orient
House is in Our Hands!
Uri Avnery 11.8.01
Forget about the battle of Negba. Forget about the battle of Ammunition
Hill. Forget about the Entebbe raid. All these are overshadowed by the
latest exploits of our forces. Songs will be sung about them, victory albums
will proclaim their glory.
In a daring action, in the middle of the night, the elite units of the
border police and the picked commandos of the paratroops stormed the
"Orient House" in East Jerusalem and the Palestinian governor's
office in Abu-Dis. In a heroic battle, the two empty buildings were
conquered. Our glorious forces suffered no casualties.
Every Jewish heart was filled with pride when the Israeli flag was
hoisted over these two fortresses of the cruel enemy. Every man and woman
sang the praises of our valiant male and female fighters. And when
the generalissimo, Interior Security Minister Uzi Landau, was photographed at
the scene of the immortal victory - who did not share his joy at the
realization of the dream of generations? The governor's house conquered!
Orient House in our hand!
If there is cynicism in this description, that's because Orient House is
very close to my heart. I was a frequent guest there, I have spent there
many many hours, both happy and sad. I love this beautiful building of simple
elegance and elegant simplicity.
Minutes after the signing of the Oslo agreement on the White
House lawn, I stood, with many others, Israelis and Palestinians, on its
stairs. We embraced each other, feeling that it was the right place to be at
this moment, because for us Orient House was a symbol of the struggle for
peace.
Several times, when right-wing demagogues in Israel tried to achieve a cheap
victory by "closing Orient House", I was with the peace activists who
rushed to the building in order to express our solidarity
with its defenders. Again we stood on these special
stairs, Israelis and Palestinians together, while in the street hate-mongering
Cahanists were shouting their blood-thirsty slogans, under the protection of the
Border Police.
How many hours did we spend in this building with the unforgotten Faisal
Husseini, talking about peace? About united Jerusalem that will truly be
"ours" - ours, both Israelis and Palestinians. About the refugee
problem, for which Faisal proposed solutions that were amazingly
moderate and sensible. About borders.
About
the settlements. About a relationship that will last for generations.
How many demonstrations for peace did we plan in this building? Against
the provocative settlements in Jebel Abu-Gheneim ("Har
Homa") and Ras-al-Amud. For the release of Palestinian prisoners. How many
times did we celebrate there? A joint concert of
Palestinian and Israeli musicians. The marriage of a Palestinian cabinet
minister. Always together, side by side, with mutual
respect and equality.
The "conquest" of this building is a
cynical, treacherous, stupid, evil and disastrous act.
A c y n i c a l act, because it utilizes the
terrible suicide attack at the Jerusalem restaurant, the suffering of the families
and the fury of the public, to do something that has absolutely
nothing to do with "the fight against
terrorism". The extreme right, headed by Sharon, Landau
& Co., just waited for an opportunity to do what they wanted
to do. The blood served as a pretext.
A t r e a c h e r o u s act, because it is a brutal violation
of a solemn promise. Foreign Minister
Shimon
Peres signed this undertaking on behalf of the State of Israel in the
wake of the Oslo agreement. It said that Israel will not
close any existing Palestinian institution in Jerusalem. Another
piece of paper torn by the government in which Shimon Peres serves
as a Foreign Minister.
A s t u p i d act, because it officially confirms the fact
that East Jerusalem is an occupied city. As long as the
big Palestinian flag was hanging from the flagpole at Orient House, it
represented the hope of the city's 200 thousand Palestinian inhabitants
that the problem would be solved by peaceful means. This hope has now been
struck down. Like their brethren on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip,
they have now been convinced that "the Jews
understand only the language of force". The teachings of Faisal
Husseini will be displaced by the teachings of Hamas. The
conquered building will become a symbol of occupation and
resistance - much more so than at its times of splendor.
An e v i l act, because it sends an unequivocal
message to the Palestinian people and the whole world: this is
the end of the peace process. At Camp David the mantra of
"Undivided Jerusalem, eternal capital of Israel" was put aside. Even
Ehud Barak, who was quite insensitive to Palestinian aspirations,
understood that there can be no peace without giving East Jerusalem
back to the Palestinians (or at least appearing to do so).
Now come Sharon and his henchmen and throw us
many years back. What they are saying is: Peace is out! No
Oslo, no Madrid, no nothing. War against the Palestinians,
War against the Arab world, today, tomorrow, for generations to come.
A d i s a s t r o u s act, because it is a
step in a terrible direction. After Orient House, after
Abu-Dis,
what is left
to conquer? Once people start to run amok, they cannot stop. The
right-wing demagogues who feed on the occupation will
not be satisfied with this. Their appetite is growing. Where to
go now? One doesn't have to search long: just around the
corner, the golden Dome of the Rock is shining. No doubt, that is the
real aim of this madness: the Temple Mount, the Holy Sanctuary, the
Dome of the Rock, al-Aksa. That is where the dance of the daemons started,
where Ehud Barak and Shlomo Ben-Ami let Sharon loose. And that is where it
will end, in a regional blood-bath. I do not know when this will happen. But as
from this week I am convinced that it will come, if the world does not pound
on Sharon's table with an iron fist.
Who will be the
accomplices in this crime? Usi Landau, the
smiling fanatic, a right-wing bully disguised as a civilized
human being. Ehud Olmert,
the mayor of West Jerusalem and military governor of
East Jerusalem, a mayor making war on half his city, a cynical politician
if ever there was one, a man without principles, who treads on
human bodies on his way to power (see: the tunnel incident). Defence
Minister Benjamin Ben- Eliezer, a man for every season and every policy,
whose sole interest is in himself.
Shimon Peres, who
always objects to Sharon's actions and always serves him faithfully.
Avraham Burg, who hopes to become Labor's chairman, who was
rejoicing with us on the stairs of Orient House on the day of Oslo and is
now eager to join the Sharon government. At the head of the pyramid: Sharon
himself, determined to close every door and window that could serve
as an opening, not only for now but forever, in order to "inherit the
land" and fill it with settlements, as commanded by a god he does not
believe in. And in the background, Binjamin Netanyahu is trying to
outflank Sharon on the right, causing him to move even more to the right.
Indeed, a small step of the occupation, a giant step towards
disaster.
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