News,
articles and documents from the Holy Land
Issue No. 170 - Saturday, 14 September 2002
Dear Friends, Brothers
and Sisters,
Even if my life changed due to my new job, I try to
follow-up the work that I began two years ago by publishing the Olive Branch
and all the other activities for Justice, Peace and Reconciliation in the Holy
Land including the coverage of all the news and documents from the religious
arena.
First of all, our Patriarch took part last September
11th in the memorial ceremony organized by the ICCI in West
Jerusalem where he delivered a short speech that I have the pleasure to send
you bellow. It is short but very significant.
I had the opportunity yesterday, Friday 13th
to take part in the reconstruction of a demolished house in Anata (near
Jerusalem) along with more than 25 peace activists, mostly for the organization
against the House Demolition and the Movement of Rabbis for Human Rights. This
house was demolished three times until now last 1998, 1999 and 2000, and it is
now reconstructed for the forth time in these five years, we hope that this
time it will not demolished another time also. It was such an interesting
experience to see peace activists, Israelis and Palestinians, Jews, Christians
and Moslems working together. It is a small sign of hope that we can and we
should live together.
I have the pleasure to inform you that we have began
the exercises for the song for peace that we intend to register within the next
two months and which will be done by 10 Jewish kids, 10 Christian kids and 10
Moslem kids. This initiative came from a French artist woman, the words and the
melody was composed by a very famous French musician. A German CD house of
production and distribution will publish it before Christmas. The song entitled
“STOP” is wanted to be a cry from the Children in the face of world, especially
the adults and the leaders telling them please help us to stop this tragedy. We
will keep you informed about the interesting initiative in case you want to
encourage it and diffuse it in your country.
You will find in today’s Olive Branch the following
documents:
1)
Speech of the
Patriarch for the 11th of September at the ICCI.
2)
As usual, Toine van
Teeffelen, keeps us updated in his Letter from Bethlehem (34), please note the announcement
about a publication at the end of the Letter.
3)
One of my dear friends,
Samer Salameh send me the “Political Vision” written by the Palestinian Council
of Young Political Leaders, in which he is the Director of Foreign Affairs.
4) Dr.Maria C. Khoury is “Printing Orthodox Books in the
Midst of Violence” as she tells us in here last article.
5) And Dr. Harry Hagopian, in his enclosed three-page
article assesses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today within the larger
Middle Eastern context. It also inputs different sources and 'aids' to
explain the realities that are far too often invisible to the ordinary eye.
I hope that you will enjoy reading some of these
documents which might give you a different point of view of what is happening
in the Holy Land while we approach the 2nd anniversary of the
Intifada without seeing the light at the end of this ling dark tunnel.
With my best wishes from Taybeh. Fr.
Raed Abusahlia
Speech of the Patriarch for the 11th of September at the ICCI
11th
September 2002
We are here to remember and to pray, to remember the victims, their relatives and friends, and all the American people, attacked and wounded in their humanity and dignity on the 11th of September 2001. We express our profound solidarity, with sincere prayers, to the American nation. As we remember the human sufferings we pray; we put ourselves in the presence of God and in the light of the divine presence we wonder how human beings, created at the image of God, are capable of such evil acts of terrorism. As we pray before God, we are confronted with the mystery of evil in the life of humankind, while we hear Our Lord Jesus Christ saying that: Our father in Heaven” causes his sun to rise on the bad as well as the good, and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike” (Mt 5:45).
The horrific events of last year caused a powerful shock throughout the whole world. Our freedom and our future have been threatened since then. Such a threat is unacceptable and must be resisted. Terrorism is to be fought and uprooted, so that a new world order can be instituted. Ways of fighting and uprooting terrorism are many and varied and it is never easy to decide which ways are more appropriate and more effective. However, if we want our reaction to have a lasting effect, we should also have the courage to recognize the causes that may push others to such acts. This is especially true when, possibly, the evil committed by others happens to be rooted in our own shortcomings or shortsightedness. The leaders and the powerful ones of this world bear their part of responsibility, when they are unable to provide the same level and way of life to all the peoples of the earth.
We all condemn terrorism, but at times we run the risk of going on killing in our attempt to stop killing, and by some of our actions we may sow seeds for new violence and killing. On the anniversary day of the senseless killing in the USA, while we witness and deplore so many killings around the world and in our country, each of us is called to search our own conscience and to ask ourselves this question: how much am I a part of the violence and the terrorism of which I am a victim and which today threatens all human societies? In particular, religious leaders - Jews, Christians and Moslems - and political leaders, are invited to ask themselves the same question. Some seeds of terrorism can be found in every one of us: in every one of us, they should be eradicated. Each of us, in our own way and place, remains responsible for good and evil in our world.
It is high time we create a new world, in which “There will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness or pain” (Rev 21:4); it is high time we act correctly in order to reach a day in which we can say, again with the Book of Revelation: “ The world of the past has gone” (Rev 21:4; cf Isaiah 65:17-19), the world of terrorism has gone. “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered” (Isaiah 65:17).
Again we remember and we pray. We ask God
to fill our hearts with His wisdom and His light, and with the needed courage
to bear the light that can renew the face of the world.
+Michel Sabbah,
Patriarch
Jerusalem, 11 September 2002
Letter from Bethlehem
(34)
Toine van Teeffelen
September 13, 2002
My taxidriver
says that it is better to stay under curfew than to circle around like ants in
a closed bottle. Bethlehem is indeed not what it was. Most alarmingly, signs of
poverty are increasing. The garbage has not been picked up for over a week now
since municipal workers did not receive their salaries for several months. To
get the stench out of the air, people burn the garbage. However, opposite our
house the stench remains unbearable. We keep the windows shut, also to prevent
exhaust fumes of the trucks coming into the children’s bedroom. During the
night, the streets are dark and desolate since the municipality saves on electricity.
Mary is lucky to
work at the only Palestinian university which did not reduce the salaries of
its staff. However, teachers are leaving for all the known reasons; not in the
last place because they can get better salaries elsewhere. Fortunately,
Saoudi-Arabia made a considerable payment to all Palestinian universities to
cover the debts of third and fourth year students. These weeks, I helped
editing a report on the situation of Palestinian university students. It
consists of some 40 interviews conducted with students across the West Bank and
Gaza. Volunteers from a variety of organizations present in the area cooperated
in the undertaking (see down). What struck me most in reading the interviews
was the sheer persistence of students who said they continued to travel to
their place of study even though (in Gaza) they failed 80-90% to reach it in
time, or they had to sleep at the checkpoint, or they had to make complicated
detours through the fields. In the Birzeit hills, the students’ persistence was
only equalled by the stubbornness of donkeys following in their footsteps. One
student remarked, in despair: “You can’t think when your life is not in your
hands.” A most common problem was that students studied several times for the
same exam only to find out each time that it was cancelled due to curfews and
incursions.
*
* *
Even though
closed up, we in Bethlehem have no army in the streets and thus at least have
the possibility to raise our voice. Several NGOs, heads of churches and the
governate make themselves up for an activity to demand the children’s right to
education. Still so many kids have problems to travel from one village to
another or from the village to Bethlehem town. (In other cities the school year
is more forcefully disrupted by curfews).
During a
preparatory meeting we discuss the latest political developments such as the
pending annexation by Israel of Rachel’s Tomb, a holy place located inside
Bethlehem. One participant expresses his concern about the possibility of
“transfer.” This seemingly neutral and technical word stands for nothing less
than the complete deportation of the population in the West Bank and Gaza; the
perspective of an ethnic cleansing as we know it from areas such as
formerYugoslavia and also Palestine in 1948 when some 700.000 people were
forced to leave their homes or not allowed to return after taking refuge
elsewhere. Public opinion polls in Israel indicate that, depending on the
formulation of the question, some 40-60% of the population there support the
idea in principle. Military analysts in Israel consider transfer a distinct
possibility under well-defined circumstances such as a large scale Iraqi attack
on Israeli targets, or a Palestinian ‘mega-attack’ – a suicide bombing with a
great number of casualties. Israeli papers speak about secret military plans to
create several ‘Jenins’ in the West Bank which would then induce large numbers
of people to leave. A prolonged war in Iraq could give coverage.
The scenario is
supposed to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, it would pacify the
Palestinian Intifadah. On the other hand it would release Israel from the
nagging demographic problem of loosing a Jewish majority in the area between
the Mediterranean and the river Jordan in the not too distant future (about
2020). The transfer discussion is not so familiar abroad, likely because it
puts Israel in a role which not many are willing to acknowledge as a
possibility. However, the discussion is pursued vigorously in Israel’s own
newspapers, which have always been more liberal and candid than the mainstream
Western.press on Israel. In an article this week (“Demagography as an enemy of
democracy”) , the Israeli writer Boaz Evron makes a plea to give up the idea
that a Jewish majority should define the Israeli state. “The only viable
solution is to turn Israel into what everyone, left and right, is most afraid
of – an open democratic state for all its citizens, based on the assumption
that a Hebrew culture is strong enough to include Christians, Moslems, Semites
and Slavs. “ (The last category refers to the many non-Jewish Russians who
immigrated into Israel because they could prove to have a distant Jewish family
member, or because their ancestry was not checked at all). Like most Israelis,
Evron enters the debate on a pragmatic note: “If that alternative [transfer] is
examined carefully – with a cool head, putting aside morality, and assuming it
were possible – we will soon discover that it won’t make any difference. The
angry ‘transferred’ will crowd along the borders and wage incessant war.
Transfer will recruit the entire Arab world to unite all its resources against
us. The shock in the rest of the world will most likely drive the United States
to drop its patronage. And then… remember Kosovo!”
The reasoning
may be convincing, but what is difficult to digest is that such scenarios
barely give another role to Palestinians than pawns in war. They enter the
argument not as human beings but only in so far as their anger and longing for
revenge and return make the scenario impractical for Israel. I try to imagine
the people around me – family, teachers, students - being driven out of town and
subsequently “waging incessant war” from along the border. Frankly, I don’t
think many of them have the stomach to do so. But if the transfer scenario
would become “viable,” does that reduce the right of people to stay in their
homeland with even one inch?
Mary says that
people would not leave, whatever happens. They would know that they would be
unable to return. I am not so sure, however; after all, war is war. It may be a
good sign that the Palestinian leadership is presently under real pressure to
reform. Leadership, largely absent during this Intifadah, may be more needed
than ever. While I talk about this scenario with people around me, Mary hears
that some of the neighbours give special credibility to arguments of a
foreigner like me. They think that I may have special sources of information
from, for instance, the Dutch embassy. Mary tells them that I just put things
together from the papers and the Internet. I myself become only more worried
after discovering that people believe my worries. “Anyway, don’t think about
it,” Mary tells me, and with a bright smile and a wink she puts on high volume
her latest favorite, a very melodramatic Egyptian song with the refrain
“daayman domou’, farah mamnou’a” [it’s always suffering, pleasure is
forbidden], a song which she knows I do not like.
*
* *
Fortunately,
pleasure is not forbidden for Jara. Last Sunday we, Dutch passport-bearers,
went to the beach in Tel Aviv. Previously I thought that Jara should not see
the intimidating Bethlehem checkpoint, but in the course of time the view of
army has become so familiar that I have changed my mind. On the beach, Jara made contact with
the children there who turned out to be Russian and didn’t speak the little
English Jara knows. “Why don’t they understand Arabic?” she asks me in Arabic.
As a last resort, Jara practised what he had learned from the Israeli
Teletubbies program: she counted to ten in Hebrew. The other children whispered
behind their hands. Their father curiously enquired who I am. “Oh, Holland,” he
said as if everything was clear and reassuring now. Afterwards, the kids
shouted and played with water and didn’t care anymore about verbal
communication. On the way back, Jara’s passport was elaborately investigated at
the Bethlehem checkpoint. “Are you even checking the passports of four-year old
children?” I asked the soldier, surprised. At home, Jara told Mary that she had
played with Israeli children, “you know, those of the jeesh [army].”
"You can't
think when your life is not in your hands" Palestinian students talk about
university life under occupation. A report compiled and edited by Christian
Peacemaker Teams, Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel,
Quakers Peace and Social Witness, and United Civilians for Peace, Summer 2002,
Jerusalem / Bethlehem. 32 pages.
Available at Educational Bookshop, Salaheddin Street, East-Jerusalem.
For more information, write: [tvant@p-ol.com].
Political
Vision
By the Palestinian Council of Young
Political Leaders
We, the Palestinian Council of Young Political Leaders, who represent the majority of the Palestinian Youth, feel obliged by virtue of our human responsibility to put forth what we believe as the bases for a future settlement of this painful conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. At no other time before have both Israeli and Palestinian societies suffered from the calamitous situation of the conflict as they do today. No one feels immune and\or safe from real danger or from the threat of death. The promised peace and the desired reconciliation of the 7-year – old political process have been replaced with ever-growing fear and confrontation.
While coming to the
Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon on the conviction of maintaining peace and
security for Israelis, Sharon, more than any Prime Minister before him, by
virtue of his policy of widespread assassination, destruction, siege and
starvation of Palestinians, has made Israelis less secure than they have ever
felt. Our vision and position as Palestinian Youth Leaders clearly stands on
the following basis:
1.
We strongly reject any
kind of violence against innocent civilians from both sides.
2.
We believe that just and
eternity peace comes only through reconciliation and negotiation between two
peoples.
3.
We recognize the Israeli
right to live in security and peace within their own state.
4.
Peace is a strategic
decision of the Palestinian Youth.
On the other hand, as a
basis for our formula for the future, we believe that the Israeli occupation of
Palestine should immediately be ended and it requires an unequivocal Israeli
recognition of the unalienable right of the Palestinian People to
self-determination in an independent state, free of settlements, with East
Jerusalem is its Capital. For peace to endure, the right of Palestinian refugees
to return and\or to compensation should be recognized by Israel in fulfillment
of UN resolution 194.
In addition, it should be
emphatically stressed here that profound reform is a fundamental Palestinian
need, which hitherto has been complicated, and actually obliterated, by Israeli
occupation, with its oppressive practices against Palestinians. Even more
importantly, the Palestinian right to independent representation is a natural
right like all other peoples in the world. The people of Palestine consider
President Yaser Arafat as their historic national symbol who has been
democratically elected. In Palestinian’s mind, President Arafat is the founding
father of the Palestinian National Movement, similar to the American founding
fathers who launched the American Revolution.
Contact Persons
Samer Salameh
Director of Foreign
Affairs
Tel: 00 972 59 77 69 16
Fax: 00 972 2 240 8673
Email: ssalameh@birzeit.edu
Printing
Orthodox Books in the Midst of Violence
By Maria C. Khoury, Ed. D.
In the middle of
bloodshed and violence, the Lord, Christ our Savior is in our midst to give us
inner peace since obviously peace is not in our world and specifically not in
the Holy Land. For all Palestinians, both Christians and Muslims, it has been
almost two years of total destruction and devastation in the land of Christ's
birth. The war on terror and getting the terrorists with American tax dollars
has brought tremendous collective punishment and made most of us living in the
Holy Land virtual prisoners in our homes. The current curfews since June
deprive millions of people from their basic human rights. The school year began
with two regular school days under Israeli guns and four days of total curfew
with half of the schoolbooks missing due to the roadblocks.
Having seen the
Greek Culture Center "Macedonia" in Ramallah and educational
institutions such the ministry of education bombed, it seems that each and
every one of us are terrorists because the international community is doing
nothing to stop Israel from its brutal and cruel occupation of the Palestinian
territories. Both on the Palestinian and Israeli side, innocent people continue
to die in a catastrophic cycle of violence with the military occupation as the
root cause. Living here, I feel Israel is trying to wipe out an entire culture
and an entire nation from the face of the earth. I escaped for the summer to
promote my new Orthodox children's book "Christina's Favorite
Saints," featuring the lives of holy people to help young readers grow
closer to God and grow spiritually as they learn more about their Orthodox faith.
Fr. George Alexson and the parish board were generous to allow me to introduce
the new saints' book at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation in
Atlanta and to listen to the plight of Christians in the Holy Land during early
August. I am truly appreciative and grateful for the solidarity and financial
support they have shown to our struggle.
Publishing books
in Jerusalem has never been easy for me but since September 28, 2000 it has
become almost impossible. I always looked at printing Orthodox literature as my
service to Christ. I firmly believed that it was my responsibility to educate
my own children and help preserve the Orthodox values, traditions and symbolism
since I was born in a Greek Orthodox Christian family in Tripoli, Greece and
immigrated to the United States at a very young age. I can almost say that I
spent many years of my childhood trying to be "American" so that I
can become more assimilated and acculturated into the American mainstream.
Then, I sort of had a cultural awakening and made every effort to be
"Greek" and maintain my ethnic values and traditions so I can truly
be unique in the world and specifically in the American melting pot. Marrying
an Orthodox Palestinian Christian while attending Hellenic College added another
culture and challenge to my life.
I had to
convince my relatives that my husband David was not Jewish and not Muslim. For
some reason it was hard to believe that some Arabs are Christians. My husband
was indeed an Orthodox Christian from birth. This was very shocking news to my
family because they could not believe his Christian roots dated back to the
time of Christ in the land even of Christ's birth. His particular family tree
specifically dates back at least five hundred years and is a beautiful piece of
art although females are not included on the chart. Living in the Holy Land the
last seven years, I entered a new spiritual phase of making every effort to
just be Christian. I could have never guessed the struggle; pain and suffering
that would follow this identity. Many people believe that we spend our whole
lifetime trying to get to know who we are when all the time our identity is
giving to us at birth as being created in the image and likeness of God.
Something must go terribly wrong as we live in the world because we could not
possibly kill each other like we do if we see God in the other.
My new
children’s Orthodox book printed in the Holy Land this year entitled
Christina's Favorite Saints presents stories about holy people in children's
language with colorful illustrations featuring a saint per month including St.
Anthony, St. George, St. Sophia, and St. Katherine. This book helps teach
children that we can learn how to live our life better by reading how the
saints lived and loved God. Many saints help us to have stronger faith in God
because of the hard work they did to preserve the Christian faith not to
mention that many of them died for Christ as martyrs because they lived in the
early centuries when Christianity was not legal. I made a great effort to
select a variety of saints in terms of their contributions to the Church and
balance among male, female, martyrs, some from the monastic tradition, etc. I
have been thinking about doing a book about saints for over five years but
could never find the right artist for the illustrations until I met Ms. Fotini
Dedousi one of the thirty Greek women in the West Bank who is married to a
Palestinian.
Twelve
illustrations were completed by Fotini, a Greek artist living in the Holy Land
and having the desire to draw saints from kindergarten. She is the mother of
two boys and works at the Greek Cultural Center in Ramallah. She received a
two-year certificate in design from the Veloudakis Workshop of Free Studies in
Athens, Greece. Her family comes from Sparta, Greece. Ms. Vasiliki Zarbala, an
iconographer from my hometown Tripoli, Greece illustrated the cover of
Christina's Favorite Saints depicting St. George.
In the early
80's with the help of Antonia Marshal, we created "Christina," an
ideal Orthodox character that children could identify to help validate their
Orthodox identity. In this first book, Christina Goes to Church, Orthodox young
children get all of their questions answered about icons, candles, etc., and
try to have a deeper understanding of their church experience. It was truly a
success and I have continued to publish books on my own ever since because I
just can't seem to get an Orthodox publisher to invest in the artistic fees up
front.
I have made
efforts in the last decade to produce children’s Orthodox literature that
preserves and documents precious traditions, values and the rich symbolism of
the Orthodox faith. All books promote spiritual development at a young age.
Light and Life Publishing, St. Vladimir's Bookstore, Conciliar Press, Holy
Cross Bookstore and the Department of Religious Education make it possible for
me to distribute the books I print in the Holy Land which in a small way
contribute to the local economy. Christina's Favorite Saints is an ideal
Orthodox gift for elementary children and I would hope that every godparent
would purchase one to help children with their Orthodox identification and
spiritual growth. If your godchild is thirty years old, never feel too shy to
buy a child's Orthodox book because there is a child in each and everyone of
us. You never know at their age they might appreciate Christina's Favorite
Saints the most and keep it in their collection of Orthodox literature as a
treasure. May all of God's blessings be yours from this precious land of Christ's
birth. Thank you for the prayers.
Editor's Note: As a Greek-American, Maria
moved to the Holy Land following the Oslo Peace agreement when her husband
David C. Khoury, also a Hellenic College graduate invested in his home village
of Taybeh to help boost the Palestinian economy by producing the first and only
micro-brewed beer in the Middle East. Taybeh Beer is the first Palestinian
product to receive franchise and be produced in Germany. Due to the constant
closures and roadblocks, the brewery currently operates less than 10% of its
capacity. The Khourys live with their three children Elena (l7), Canaan (15)
and Constantine (13) in the only Christian village left in Palestine. The
village is 20 minutes outside Jerusalem on the West Bank of the Jordan River.
Dr. Khoury frequently writes about the importance of a Christian presence in
the Holy Land and is making efforts to raise funds for a housing project to
help needy families of St. George's Greek Orthodox Church of Taybeh. She holds
a Doctor of Education degree, Boston University (l993); Master of Liberal Arts,
Harvard University (l985) and a Bachelor of Arts, Hellenic College (l982).
Much
Ado About Anything?
Dr Harry Hagopian,
KSL-KOG
The
last few weeks have been busy ones for the conflict between Israelis and
Palestinians. But they have also been busy ones regarding the looming war with
Iraq let alone the future of the whole Middle Eastern region. As such, a number
of documentaries, statements, initiatives and articles have once more attempted
to address those topical issues.
First, there were the
documentaries! The first one was entitled Dangerous
Liaisons and shown on Channel Four on 24 August 2002. It was a personal
journey by Professor Jacqueline Rose, a British Jew, who has had a long-running
interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever since she first visited
Israel twenty years ago. On that occasion, after a chance meeting with a young
Palestinian, she visited Ramallah (in the Palestinian West Bank) and then spent
a few weeks living with Bedouin Arabs in the Sinai Desert.
In making the
documentary, she investigated Israel’s relationship with America as the main
country she believes holds the key to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She
travelled from the war-torn West Bank to the American halls of power in
Congress seeking to find a reason why peace in the Middle East has proven so
elusive. Along her way, she met and spoke with many key political figures and
intellectuals and tried to discover the level of responsibility that the USA bears
for Israel’s current militant stance.
Jacqueline Rose argues
that amongst the founders of the state of Israel were those who believed that
the state could only survive if it were both aggressive in its own defence and
blind to the humanity of the Palestinians. She thinks that amongst the many
views battling for control in Israel today is this aggressive vision that
happens to be the barrier to an Israeli-led peace settlement. With the death toll on both sides
rising by the day and the situation more hopeless than it has been for years,
she also argues that the one country with the power and influence to force the
warring parties, America, is achieving nothing. With the current Israeli and
Palestinian administrations leaving no room for negotiation, Professor Rose
posits the belief that America is ignoring more creative voices in Israel today
and embracing those extreme strands of Israeli thought and practice it should
most reject.
To my mind, Dangerous
Liaisons was a raw insight into the various links of a chain that joins
Israel and America together so tightly. But one of those links in the chain
also binds in the intractable problems of the Palestinian people. Therefore,
when one link in the chain suffers an historic injustice, can the rest of the chain
ever be wholly at peace?
An equally interesting
documentary was aired on 25 August 2002. Promises provided a unique
perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Featuring Israeli and
Palestinian children living in and around Jerusalem, the film offered an
intimate, refreshing, and sometimes hilarious insight at the heart of the
crisis in the Middle East.
Living no more than
twenty minutes apart, but locked in two separate but unequal worlds, Promises
explored the ‘boundaries’ that lie between the Israeli and Palestinian children
and told the story of a few who dared to cross the line to meet their
neighbours. Aged between 9 and 12, those children were mirrors of their
cultures and spokespeople for future generations of Israelis and Palestinians. They
spoke directly, without self-censorship, and were neither self-conscious as
teenagers nor polite as adults. Many of the children held passionate beliefs
about the land rights that the ‘opposing’ side did not possess, and openly
harboured fervent feelings of hatred towards their neighbours. The programme
ended on a sad note that substantiated the wide political chasm existing today
between Palestinians and Israelis. It showed young children, living in the
Palestinian Dheishe Refugee Camp on the one hand and in the Israeli settlement
of Beit-El on the other, who remain totally locked in their separate and
exclusive worlds.
The End of an Affair
was yet another documentary shown on 7 September 2002. It featured as presenter
the Labour politician and Zionist Gerald Kaufman. A staunch critic of Israel
and of PM Ariel Sharon’s government policies, Kaufman revoked his earlier
promise never to revisit the land he used to love. However, travelling through
Israel and the Palestinian Territories where he met many men and women from
both sides of the political divide, he felt despair at the current levels of
political polarisation. He left Israel with the renewed promise never to return
to this land. Kaufman said that the documentary told of his infatuation with
Israel, and how disillusion had cooled down that infatuation.
Then, there were the
statements! In one of his rare public comments, Rabbi
Jonathan Sacks who leads the Orthodox Jewish community in Britain criticised
Israeli actions against the Palestinians. He drew on the Bible and reminded his
interviewers that the Book of Exodus instructs Jews not to ‘ill-treat or
oppress’ others because ‘you were strangers in the land of Egypt’. He said that
this command is repeated thirty-six times in the Mosaic Books and cannot be
ignored by any Jew. Although his criticism was pungent and well-measured, it
was much less so than that of his predecessor Lord Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits
who had once condemned Israel for ‘lording it over’ the Palestinians.
The Central Committee
of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC) also issued another
statement on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on 2 September 2002. This
ecumenical body, which includes as members the Orthodox and Protestant
Churches, re-affirmed its earlier resolution in Potsdam in February 2001 and
called for ‘an action-oriented ecumenical campaign to end the illegal
occupation of Palestine, in support of reconciliation between Israelis,
Palestinians and others in the Middle East and their co-existence in justice and
peace’.
It further urged
churches and church-related organisations to join the WCC in:
v Supporting
the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), as a
concrete manifestation of Christian solidarity through active presence and witness
of a non-violent resistance to the occupation of Palestine, working towards
public awareness and policy change through advocacy;
v Calling
for the suspension of the EU-Israel Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreement
that conditions ‘relations between parties, as well as the provisions of the
Agreement itself on respect for human rights and democratic principles which
guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential
element of this Agreement’, until such time that Israel complies with these
provisions;
v Pressuring
governments, in particular the USA, to review economic aid to the State of
Israel and to halt all forms of military cooperation with the State of Israel
including instituting a strict arms embargo, until such time that Israel
complies with UN Security Council Resolutions;
v Providing
generous financial resources towards the ecumenical humanitarian and human
rights efforts that seek to respond to the ever increasing human suffering;
v Praying
together for peace and for all those who work for peace and an end to all forms
of violence in the Holy Land, seeking to embody our shared hopes and
aspirations for peace with justice for all the peoples in these lands where our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was received as the Prince of Peace.
In an article that
could double up as a statement dated 11 September 2002 and entitled ‘A
Humanitarian Perspective on the Autumn of our Discontent’, HRH Prince Hassan
bin Talal of Jordan used his title of Moderator of the World Conference on
Religions and Peace to encourage the quest for an end to violence and the
search for commonality through a dialogue of universal values. He asserted that
‘What we need is to bring certain ‘unacceptables’ to an end - war, terror,
violence and disregard for the inherent dignity of humanity’. He urged his
readers that ‘We must become more sensitised to the concept of consequences:
the consequences of poverty, illiteracy, oppression, lack of opportunity,
despair and anger, which can all lead to the contemplation of violence’.
Aspiring for an ethical code of conduct, he concluded his article with a
visionary exhortation that all the victims of violence be ‘remembered as the
souls who lit our humble, human steps towards a deeper understanding of each
other for final peace’.
Then came the
initiatives! On 4 September 2002, a group of Israeli reserve
soldiers called on the Supreme Court in Jerusalem to rule illegal the
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This is the first time that the
Supreme Court has been called on to rule on the legality of the Israeli
occupation and is likely to set a date for an oral hearing of the evidence
within a fortnight. The seven petitioning officers and sergeants are among 500
members of the so-called ‘refusenik’ group of reservists who have declined to
serve in the territories on conscientious grounds. One of the soldiers in the
group said that they are the conscience of [our] country and feel ‘like the
Chinese student who stood in front of the tank in Tienanmen Square’. All seven
have been sentenced to military jail terms for failing to obey orders.
In an article by
Harvey Morris in the daily Financial Times on 5 September 2002, the seven said
that service in the territories was ‘illegal, unlawful and against their moral
code’. They added that ‘the duties imposed on IDF soldiers in the occupied
territories are immoral and illegal. Moreover, they do not serve the security
interests of Israel’.
The petition that was
submitted to the Supreme Court indicated that the occupation severely damaged
the lives of thousands of innocent civilians who were confined to what had
become ‘one huge jailhouse’. One former soldier, Ishay Rosen-Zvi, spoke out, ‘I
cannot forget this picture - it is 5:00 am and there is line of hundreds of
Palestinians waiting to pass the checkpoint. And you see in their eyes the
humiliation, frustration and hatred. Israelis have the power, and Palestinians
have no power. You can, at any second, take their Identity Card and they have
nothing. Without identification, any soldier can arrest them. You are the man
that stands there and keeps them without rights, without freedom’. The petition
claimed that the army had breached almost every article of the Fourth Geneva
Convention relating to the protection of civilians in wartime, and that its
actions constituted war crimes.
Another global joint
initiative was undertaken earlier this month by HRH Prince Hassan bin Talal of
Jordan and John Marks. The former is chairman of the Arab Thought Forum and
president of the Club of Rome. The latter is president of ‘Search for Common
Ground’ and the ‘European Centre for Common Ground’ which together constitute
the largest NGO working in the field of conflict prevention.
They launched Partners
in Humanity, a new body that will be a network of NGO’s, government
agencies and international organisations and will act as catalyst and
facilitator of Islamic-Western dialogue. It will ‘dedicate itself to preventing
- and transcending - the clash of civilisations that some see as inevitable
after 11 September 2001’. Both founders hope that the activities undertaken by Partners
in Humanity will ‘help strengthen the forces of dynamic moderation [since]
moderates need to be as energetic in their commitment as extremists are in
theirs’.
Finally, there were
the articles! Entitled ‘Confronting Anti-American Grievances’ and published
as an Opinion in the New York Times on 1 September 2002, Zbigniew Brzezinski
wrote that ‘American involvement in the Middle East is clearly the main impulse
of the hatred that has been directed at America. [] Yet, there has been a
remarkable reluctance in America to confront the more complex historical
dimensions of this hatred. [] To win the war on terrorism, one must set two
goals: first to destroy the terrorists and, second, to begin a political effort
that focuses on the conditions that brought about their emergence’. Sounding an
ominous note, the former national security adviser in the Carter administration
added, ‘Mr Sharon would welcome a deterioration in the United States’ relations
with Saudi Arabia and perhaps American military action against Iraq while
gaining a free hand to suppress the Palestinians’.
Brzezinski’s former
boss was even more outspoken. Jimmy Carter wrote an article in the Washington
Post on 5 September 2002 entitled ‘The Troubling New Face of America’. As
chairman of the Carter Centre in Atlanta, the former US president analysed the
consequences of an American foreign policy that is being hijacked by ‘a core
group of conservatives who are trying to realise long-pent-up ambitions under
the proclaimed war against terrorism’.
Whilst applauding
President Bush for his war against terrorism, Carter nonetheless hooked it up
with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and wrote, ‘Tragically, our government is
abandoning any sponsorship of substantive negotiations between Palestinians and
Israelis. Our apparent policy is to support almost every Israeli action in the
occupied territories and to condemn and isolate the Palestinians as blanket
targets of our war on terrorism, while Israeli settlements expand and
Palestinian enclaves shrink’. He added, ‘There still seems to be a struggle
within the administration over defining a comprehensible Middle East policy.
The president’s clear commitments to honour key UN resolutions and to support
the establishment of a Palestinian state have been substantially negated by
statements of the defence secretary that in his lifetime “there will be some
sort of an entity that will be established” and his reference to the “so-called
occupation”. This indicates a radical departure from policies of every
administration since 1967, always based on the withdrawal of Israel from
occupied territories and a genuine peace between neighbours’.
So what do all the
documentaries, statements, initiatives and articles conclude? And where do they
leave us today?
I would like to
suggest that the answer lies perhaps in another documentary, Palestine is
Still the Issue, to be shown on ITV on 16 September 2002. It consists of a
Special Report presented and written by John Pilger, an award-winning
journalist and filmmaker. He returns to the West Bank and Gaza to ask why
Palestinians are still caught up in a terrible limbo - refugees in their own
land, controlled by Israel in one of the longest military occupations in modern
history.
Pilger writes, ‘This
occupation is condemned by the UN and almost every country in the world,
including Britain. But Israel is backed by the United States as a very powerful
friend. So in twenty-five years, if we are to speak of the great injustice
here, nothing has changed’. He goes on to add, ‘What has changed is that the
Palestinians have fought back. Stateless and humiliated for so long, they have
risen up against Israel’s huge military machine, although they themselves have
no army - no tanks, no American planes and gun ships or missiles. Some have
committed desperate acts of terror, like suicide bombing. But for Palestinians,
the overriding, routine terror, day after day, has been the ruthless control of
almost every aspect of their lives, as if they live in an open prison. This
Report is about the Palestinians and a group of courageous Israelis united in
the oldest human struggle - to be free’.
In revealing
interviews with both Palestinians and Israelis, John Pilger witnesses the daily
humiliations imposed on Palestinians at myriad checkpoints and with a permit
system not dissimilar to apartheid South Africa’s infamous ‘pass laws’. He goes
into the refugee camps and meets children who, he says, ‘no longer dream like
other children, or if they do, it is about death’. He asks each time for the
solution, and is left in little doubt as to the answer.
To my mind, that
solution - or that answer - might be complex but it still remains clear. As a
first step, there should be a halt on suicide bombings that is also coupled
with an Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories. Palestinians can then
proceed freely with the urgent task of weeding out corruption, installing a
fresh and viable political leadership and re-engaging at long last in the
arduous task of state building. This ‘model’ alone will provide justice and
stability as much as the long-term strategic peace with security that both
Israelis and Palestinians aspire for. All other violent measures –
psychological, institutional or physical - prosecuted by both sides cannot
provide the incentive for peace to grow in trust and security. Nor will they
encourage a much-needed dialogue between Islam and the West.
Only then will
documentaries, statements, initiatives and articles truly bear their worthwhile
and measurable fruit.
© harry-bvH @
12 September 2002
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