News, articles and documents from
the Holy Land
Issue No. 150 - Tuesday, 30 April 2002
Dear Friends, Brothers and Sisters,
What I want to say in today’s editorial was very will said and expressed in the interview which was published by Fides, therefore I will let you read it and I hope that you will hear the message I wanted to say loudly in front of the world: “The siege has lasted for a month and the few Christians in the Holy Land are wondering where are the other two billion Christians in the world? What are they doing?"
Arrival tomorrow of Papal Envoy kindles new hope for Bethlehem siege
Jerusalem (Fides) – There is growing expectation among Christians in
the Holy Land, for the arrival tomorrow, May 1, of Papal Envoy French Cardinal
Roger Etchegaray, formerly President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and
Peace, charged in the past with many delicate missions by Pope John Paul II.
His task this time is to try to solve the situation of stalemate at the
Nativity Church compound in Bethlehem occupied and under siege now for almost a
month. The news was announced by the Holy See spokesman Dr Navarro-Valls this
morning, who said that Pope John Paul "out of concern for peace in the
Holy Land and for those Christian communities, and for the Israeli and
Palestinian peoples" was sending the Cardinal to Jerusalem.
Fides spoke to Father Raed Abusahlia, chancellor of the Latin
Patriarchate in Jerusalem. The priest voiced his satisfaction for the visit:
"We are anxious to welcome Cardinal Etchegaray. We have strong hopes that
this will be not just a visit of solidarity: we hope it will contribute to
finding a solution to the tragic siege of the Nativity Church. People are pinning
their hopes on the Cardinal, confident that as the "Pope’s
messenger", he will employ all the weight of the moral authority and
international credibility of the Catholic Church for peace".
Father Abusahlia continued: "The Cardinal’s mission may be the last
chance to relieve an unbearable situation, truly inhuman, not only for the
people inside the Church compound, but for all the people in this region. Some
100,000 men, women and children in Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour, and
surrounding refugee camps and villages live under a 24 hour curfew except for a
few hours a day. This means no work, no school, no food. They cannot stand it
much longer, they are desperate, starving, the sick and the elderly are dying.
This collective punishment is unacceptable."
The situation affects also spiritual life. Father Abusahlia explains that
for "four weeks now there has been no Sunday Liturgy for either, Catholic
or Orthodox Christians. Sunday May 5 is Orthodox Easter. If the Orthodox
community here is denied the celebration of the Easter Solemnity it will an be
extremely serious fact, unprecedented in 2000 years. The Church must be
restored to the faithful before the end of the week. The siege has lasted for a
month and the few Christians in the Holy Land are wondering where are the other
two billion Christians in the world? What are they doing?"
Cardinal Roger Etchegaray will arrive in Jerusalem tomorrow May 1. He will
meet high level officials. On Sunday May 5 he is due to say Mass at the Latin
Patriarchate in Jerusalem. "We hope with all our hearts - Father Abusahlia
concludes – that he can celebrate that Mass at the Church of the Nativity,
restored to the Christian faithful." (Fides 30/4/2002)
You will fin din today’s
Olive Branch the following documents:
1)
John
Paul II Urges Prayer for Peace in Holy Land In May, the Month of Mary
2)
Apartheid in the Holy Land by Bishop Desmond Tutu.
3)
“A legal
opinion from an international Law expert from Bethlehem" by Advocate Fadi Abu Saada from Beit Sahour.
4)
Diary of Jenin
Refugee Camp By George B. Sahhar who visited the camp with us last Thursday.
5) REFLECTIONS OF AN ENGENEER FROM RAMALLAH By
Eng. Samir Helou
6)
Blunt Talk about Peace? By Dr Harry Hagopian.
You notice that
I have already published 150 Olive Branches since October 6, 2000, which makes
almost an entire Olive Tree, but until now I am always reporting only bad news unfortunately,
I hope that when I reach issue 200 at the end of this year I will report you
only news of peace. Please, pray for that as we begin tomorrow the month of
may, dedicated to Mary with who’s intercession we hope to have the end of this
time of war as the Pope said last Sunday.
With my best wishes from Jerusalem City of Hope and Resurrection Fr. Raed Abusahlia
John Paul
II Urges Prayer for Peace in Holy Land
In May, the Month of Mary
VATICAN CITY, APRIL 28, 2002 (Zenit.org).-
John Paul II called for prayers for peace in the world, especially the Holy
Land, during the month of May.
"Given the international situation, where so many needs and problems arise
and, in particular, in face of the endless drama of the Holy Land, we must take
confident recourse to the maternal intercession of the Virgin," the Pope
said today.
We "may be sure that she can sustain the efforts of the one who seeks
peace with sincerity and determination," the Holy Father told the pilgrims
gathered in St. Peter's Square to pray the Regina Caeli.
Speaking from the window of his study, John Paul II added, "No one more
than she, the Queen of Peace, constantly watches over this exhausting way of
humanity."
"May an uninterrupted and common prayer be raised to heaven from every
part of the world during the month of May, so that at last initiatives for
easing tension and for dialogue will be affirmed in the Land of Christ, and in
every other place of the planet, marked by violence and pain," the Holy
Father exhorted.
John Paul II has taken advantage of his recent Sunday public meetings with
pilgrims to ask for greater commitment to peace and prayers for an end to
Middle East violence.
In recent days, his appeals have been especially intense for the Franciscan friars
and nuns in Bethlehem's Basilica of the Nativity. The basilica has been under
siege by the Israeli army since April 2, when more than 200 Palestinians, many
of them armed, invaded the church.
The Holy Father reminded pilgrims that "next Wednesday, the month of May
begins, consecrated to Mary."
"Let us pray the holy rosary, if possible every day, either on our own or
in community," he said. "The rosary is a simple prayer, but profound
and very effective, to implore graces for families, communities and the whole
world."
Apartheid
in the Holy Land
Bishop Desmond Tutu
Monday April 29, 2002
In
our struggle against apartheid, the great supporters were Jewish people. They
almost instinctively had to be on the side of the disenfranchised, of the
voiceless ones, fighting injustice, oppression and evil. I have continued to
feel strongly with the Jews.
I am patron of a Holocaust centre in South Africa. I believe Israel has a right
to secure borders. What is not so understandable, not justified, is what it did
to another people to guarantee its existence.
I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me
so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the
humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like
us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about. On one of
my visits to the Holy Land I drove to a church with the Anglican bishop in
Jerusalem. I could hear tears in his voice as he pointed to Jewish settlements.
I thought of the desire of Israelis for security. But what of the Palestinians
who have lost their land and homes? I have experienced Palestinians pointing to
what were their homes, now occupied by Jewish Israelis.
I was walking with Canon Naim Ateek (the head of the Sabeel Ecumenical Centre)
in Jerusalem. He pointed and said: "Our home was over there. We were
driven out of our home; it is now occupied by Israeli Jews." My heart
aches. I say why are our memories so short. Have our Jewish sisters and
brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective
punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon? Have they
turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they
forgotten that God cares deeply about the downtrodden?
Israel will never get true security and safety through oppressing another
people. A true peace can ultimately be built only on justice.
We condemn the violence of suicide bombers, and we condemn the corruption of
young minds taught hatred; but we also condemn the violence of military
incursions in the occupied lands, and the inhumanity that won't let ambulances
reach the injured.
The military action of recent days, I predict with certainty, will not provide
the security and peace Israelis want; it will only intensify the hatred. Israel
has three options: revert to the previous stalemated situation; exterminate all
Palestinians; or - I hope - to strive for peace based on justice, based on
withdrawal from all the occupied territories, and the establishment of a viable
Palestinian state on those territories side by side with Israel, both with
secure borders.
We in South Africa had a relatively peaceful transition. If our madness could
end as it did, it must be possible to do the same everywhere else in the world.
If peace could come to South Africa, surely it can come to the Holy Land? My
brother Naim Ateek has said what we used to say: "I am not pro- this
people or that. I am pro-justice, pro-freedom. I am anti- injustice,
anti-oppression." But you know as well as I do that, somehow, the Israeli
government is placed on a pedestal [in the US], and to criticize it is to be immediately
dubbed anti-semitic, as if the Palestinians were not semitic.
I am not even anti-white, despite the madness of that group. And how did it
come about that Israel was collaborating with the apartheid government on
security measures? People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is
wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful - very powerful. Well, so what? For
goodness sake, this is God's world! We live in a moral universe.
The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists.
Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful,
but in the end they bit the dust. Injustice and oppression will never prevail.
Those who are powerful have to remember the litmus test that God gives to the
powerful: what is your treatment of the poor, the hungry, the voiceless? And on
the basis of that, God passes judgment.
We should put out a clarion call to the government of the people of Israel, to
the Palestinian people and say: peace is possible, peace based on justice is
possible. We will do all we can to assist you to achieve this peace, because it
is God's dream, and you will be able to live amicably together as sisters and
brothers. Desmond Tutu is the former Archbishop of Cape Town and chairman of South
Africa's truth and reconciliation commission. This address was given at a
conference on Ending the Occupation held in Boston, Massachusetts, earlier this
month. A longer version appears in the current edition of Church Times. comment@guardian.co.uk
"a legal opinion
from an international Law expert from Bethlehem"
Advocate
Fadi Abu Saada
E-mail: fabusada@yahoo.com
- Mobil phone: 052-608847
Bethlehem on 28/4/2002
This memo random is directed to all those
concerned with fundamental human rights and human dignity all over the world.
The purpose here is to elucidate the extent to which the Israeli has encroached
upon these human rights authorizes headed by their prime Minster, the
perpetrator of Sabra and Shatella massacres. It is the duty of the countries of
the free world to lead an international campaign with a view to exert pressure
on the Security Council to set up an international criminal court to institute
legal proceedings against the Israeli war criminals for the crimes they
committed in the Palestinian territories. These crimes are outrageous
transgression of the Geneva conventions of 1949 and the subsidiary protocols;
and also of all the international conventions and agreements.
The most catastrophic of these crimes
include:
1.
The siege and destruction of
Palestinian cites and towns: The Israeli forces have besieged the Palestinian
cities, towns and villages for a long time. The Israeli war machine has turned
these towns and cities into ruins and rendered the infrastructure nonexistent.
The water and electricity supplies have been cut off. Moreover, these cities
and towns have suffered from food and medicine shortage. They were also
deprived of contacting the outside world. All these deeds are inconsistent with
article 55 of the Geneva Convention of 1949, regarding the protection of
civilians during the time of war. According to this article, the occupying
state should exceedingly provide food supplies and medicines to the occupied
areas mainly when the recourses of such areas are insufficient.
The Israeli forces have also
devastated many cities, towns and villages. The clearest evidence of such
destruction exists in the city of Nablus and Genin refugee camp. The
destruction was so tremendous that the representative of the United Nations
stated in describing it; as if an earthquake has struck the area. This is
surely incompatible with article 53 of the above-mentioned Geneva conventions.
This article states that the occupying state is proscribed from devastating any
stationary or movable property; whether such property is private or
governmental or whether it's possessed by public authorities or social and
cooperative societies…
2.
The assassination of civilians:
All the international
conventions and laws have distinguished between the fighters and the civilians.
However, in their war against the Palestinians, the Israeli forces did not
respect such conventions since most of their military operations were executed
against civilians. The great numbers of victims among civilians including old
people, women and children and the blood baths in the city of Nablus and Genin
refugee camp is the greatest evidence of such massacres. These barbarian
actions are in violation of the resolution passed by the general assembly of
the United Nations in its 19th session held in 1968. This resolution
declared the interdiction of employing the implements to inflict damage on the
enemy through rendering the civil susceptible to military attacks and have to
distinguish between fighters and civilians.
Furthermore, the slaughter of
the civilians is in violation of article 48 of the subsidiary protocols of the
Geneva Convention.
This article states that the
disputing parties should distinguish between the civilians and the fighters and
between the civil property and military targets. All military operations should
be directed to military targets and nothing else in order to respect and
protect the civilians and civil property.
Further, article 51 of the
above-mentioned subsidiary protocol has prohibited the shelling of the military
sites when this bombardment inflicts losses and causalities among the
civilians. This applies to the city of Nablus and Genin refugee camp. This
article prohibited haphazard attacks, which include:
1.
The attacks through shelling
the sites which artillery fire, regardless the ways and methods employed:
mainly when these attacks are directed to a number of military targets located
in a city, town, village or district that comprises a centre for civilians or
civil property as if all consist one military target.
2.
The attacks that are
expected to inflict losses and causalities among the civilians or civil
property; main when the losses among the civilians exceed the direct and
tangible military gains.
In violation of this article,
The Israeli forces considered Genin refugee camp as on military camp as one
military target and destroyed it totally on the heads of its inhabitants
without providing the opportunity for civilians to leave.
3.
The entrenchment upon the
holy places in Bethlehem:-
The Israeli forces are still
besieging one of the most holiest christen places, the Nativity church of
Bethlehem. They also forbade the admittance of water, food and medicines for
the beleaguered including the monks in a time when supplies and medicine have
run out which mainly cause the death for some people there. The Israeli forces
have also burnt some of the church's room, thus violating article (53) of the
above-mentioned subsidiary protocols. This article states that all the
antagonistic actions directed to historical ruins, places of worship and works
of art which form the culture and spiritual heritage….are impermissible.
4.
The international society,
through hundreds of international resolutions, accentuates the rights of
occupied nations to use all available means including armed struggle in order
to dispose of colonialism. The international society considers these disputes
as armed disputes, in a legal sense. The individuals who resist colonialism are
regarded fighters. These fighters are granted all the rights stipulated in the
four Geneva Conventions. Some of the most important international resolutions
in this respect involve:
- Resolution
number 3070 passed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1973
which states that the general Assembly highlights the legitimacy of the
struggle of nations for the purpose of liberating from the foreign and
imperialistic control and foreign enthrallment, by using all the available
means including armed struggle.
- Resolution
number 3103 passed by the general Assembly in 1973, which states that the
armed disputes which imply the struggle of nations against foreign and
colonial control and racialist systems should be regarded as armed
disputes in the sense included in Geneva Conventions of 1949.
- 1-
Resolution number 3236 passed by the General Assembly in 1974 which
stipulates that the General Assembly acknowledge the Palestinian's rights
to retrieve their rights in all possible means in accordance to the
conventions and principles of the United Nations.
2- The General Assembly appeals
all countries and international organizations to extend aid to the Palestinians
in their struggle to recuperate their rights.
Geneva conventions and subsidiary
protocols state that fighters, after they surrender, should be treated as
prisoners of war which mainly mean that they should not assassinate them.
The injured and the sick should be
treated in the battlefield, or should be allowed to be treated by the
organizations of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent who should be granted
absolute freedom to offer medical services.
Contrary to all these resolutions, the
Israeli forces shot the fighters in Genin refugee camp after they had surrendered.
Among both the fighters and the civilians, the injured did not receive any
treatment, since the medical organizations were prevented from entering the
camp to offer medical services. Consequently, many injured hemorrhaged until
they died in the streets. Even the corpses were left to putrefy in the streets
before the Israeli forces allowed anybody to approach the area to bury
deteriorated corpses.
All these actions are in violation of all
the international conventions and laws and of the fundamental human rights. It
should be emphasized that article 3 of the Geneva Convention stipulates that
the individuals who do not participate activity in the offensive actions
including the troop, who hand on their arms or who are disqualified because of
a disease, wounds, arrest or any other reason should receive humane treatment.
Exemplary punishment against such individuals is forbidden; such punishment
includes all kinds off killing, torture maltreatment or mutilation.
Finally, I'm different to write down such
a memorandum in the twenty first century, in a time we believe the world has
achieved a degree of civilization that terminate the perpetration of such
massacres and such exorbitant infringements against the humane dignity.
We call all the nobles all over the world
to exert pressure on their governments to stimulate the Security Council to
constitute an international Criminal court to prosecute the Israeli war
criminals. We should warrant no such crimes would be committed in the future,
not only in Palestine but also in anywhere else. We should warrant that the
human values are preserved so that the future generations will not blame us for
being silent in view of these massacres. Thanks for your cooperation in
supplementing this campaign which aims at preserving of human dignity.
Diary of Jenin Refugee Camp
By:
George B. Sahhar
It was on Thursday, April 25, 2002, that I visited Jenin Refugee Camp. I will never forget what I saw there. What level of hatred could produce such devastation, I keep wondering.
At the entrance there, I saw an ambulance totally smashed by Israeli tanks. Also, I saw a building turned into rubble, and I was told that 7 members of one family were buried there alive. The smell was awful, testifying to the validity of the story told by survivors.
Refugees were walking around, defiantly, trying to get on with their lives, as if there were any roads left or businesses to attend to, nevertheless they looked somber. Gradually, I was surrounded by destruction, destruction, and more destruction. I felt I was on a different planet altogether. Everything had been damaged by the Israeli Destruction Forces. In the midst of the dust, the smell, and the enormity of the scene, I could not look the refugees in the eye. I am not sure why I felt that way. Honestly, it was difficult for me to look them in the eye.
I saw a woman
and her young son, digging through the rubble. They told me that they were
trying to figure out where their home was, because they had some money and some
gold. A few meters away, I saw a
man digging, and he had just found his Palestinian Passport.
In Jenin Refugee
Camp, I was told that a 12-year-old girl was buried under the rubble, and only
the upper half of her body was retrieved.
Later on, I was taken to a place where a mentally retarded woman was
executed. Somewhere else, a man
told me that the spot where I was standing used to be his four-story building,
while there was absolutely no trace whatsoever that a building existed on that
spot.
I saw a store
with the name “Happy Home”, How sad and ironic, I thought, especially that
homes in the Camp were destroyed. The remaining homes were damaged, and one can
see inside, through the big holes pierced by Israeli shells. Inside, I could
see pictures hanging on the walls. People were sitting on the ground, some were
fortunate to have a sofa salvaged, while others had placed wooden blocks in
order to gain some privacy.
I saw a young
Palestinian woman, in her early twenties, veiled, standing by the door of her
home, surrounded by what seemed to me her younger brothers and sisters. She
tried to say something, but she started trembling, her hands were moving in an
expressive manner, and suddenly she burst into tears. She could not utter a single word.
A man with
crutches, walking defiantly from one heap of rubble to the other, insisted that
I walk into his home. “Come,” he said, “I want you to see what Sharon did to my
house,” and he insisted. As I looked inside his house, I saw a Palestinian
family trying to get on with its life, while every inch of the inner walls was
riddled with bullets.
In Jenin Refugee
Camp, I saw a Palestinian woman, sitting on the rubble, trying to salvage the
remains of her shattered life. She
had found a pair of pants, underneath a big chunk of cement. She was trying to
retrieve the pants without tearing it.
By then, I
arrived to a location where I could leave without having to go through this via
dolorosa once again. The concept of walking back was too painful for me.
I will never be
able to re-conceptualize the smell and the dust, the same way I find myself
unable to explain my feeling why I could not look the refugees in the eyes.
Yet, the faces and the destruction, the voices and the tears, and the
perseverance I saw there, are images that will live with me
forever. I am not someone
with a powerful story, because the story of Jenin Refugee Camp is powerful in
itself.
REFLECTIONS OF AN ENGENEER FROM RAMALLAH
By Eng. Samir Helou
It is ironic
that the Israeli Army selected their D- day to coincide with Good Friday. It
could also be that our lord intended, in a subtle way, to remind the world of
his crucifixion at the hands of his crucifiers albeit this time the act is
being done to the smaller of his sisters and brothers. The Lord may have wished
to remind us, contrary to the expectations of the crucifiers that resurrection
follows and light comes out only from the dark dungeon of the grave.
It was the
first time ever that I could not participate in the traditional Via Delarosa
procession in the streets of the old city of Jerusalem. We started hearing the
rolling of tanks and the armored vehicles at about one after mid night. There
was ferocious shelling and shooting. I gathered my children into one room which
I thought it might form a safe haven within the house and turned on the TV set.
The declared aim of the war was to eliminate the source of terrorism. Naively
one would think that this is prudent and falls quite in line with the “new
world order” and congruent with the campaign spearheaded by the US after the
September 11 tragic incidents. I know how most of the western world may view
this Israeli campaign; thanks to the modern world of satellite media that
turned the world into a small village. However, big TV coverage looks for big stories.
Small individual stories that might tell the tale remain buried in the regard
is a modest one meant to urge individuals like myself to pose legitimate
questions in a world where the power game is based on convoluted logic and
distorted facts. Perhaps it is constructive to describe the events from the
vantage point of an average person who is not a seasoned politician neither a
strategic analyst. I admit that these lines allow me to vent my sorrows and
resentments.
In this
situation one would think that information is of dire importance, in Ramallah
we have few private and primitive TV and Radio stations and one single official
TV and radio station. We resort to the private ones as the official one was
completely dynamited two months ago by an Israeli army on the pretence that it
helps incite the public. Few hours after the invasion started all TV and radio
stations were silenced. Then electricity was out and soon after, water was cut.
The repercussions that followed included but were not limited to the spoiling
of food in the fridge, the spoiling of the medications that needed
refrigeration and lack of energy for heating and cooking. Most important we
were left with no touch with what was going on. Fortunately our telephone line
remained on.
The actual
street fight soon subsided. In other towns and villages the fight did not even
start. This is because in the Palestinian Authority administered areas there is
no regular army. The police force present is hardly enough to stop a Bank
robbery. Even this force lost its entire infrastructure prior to the invasion
by continued Israeli air attacks. The brave defiance in the old city of Nablus
and the refugee camp of Genin forms an exception rather than the rule. The
ferocious fight in those two locations portrays pure national heroic defiance
rather than good strategic military action. It is fair to note that the brave
young men and women of Genin without even a helmet were never defeated, they
simply ran out of ammunition and were killed. Can it be that the Israeli people
needed to realize that perhaps the copy rights of MASADA are not exclusive to
the Hebrews only!
The twin
cities of Ramallah and Albireh are under curfew since March 29 save for three
hours every four days that are granted to the inhabitants in order to buy food
supplies from the already depleted stores. Last week accompanied by my son
Habib we went out the market during the curfew lifting hours. To my bad luck I
drove into a junction were Israeli tanks were stationed. There was no way for me
to turn back and run for my life. All bullets run faster than my car. I
realized that at this point I have no protégé except my guardian angel. My
heart of four bypasses doubled its normal beats and missed some in the process
and so did my adrenalin gland. The American made gun pointed to my head was not
on the shopping list my wife gave me. The 10 minute ordeal ended but not its
effect which included returning home with empty basket.
Since the
Palestinians have no army to be defeated obviously the war against terror would
not be complete without house to house searches. Here I can solemnly testify
that our daily rosary prayers did pay off. We were all quite lucky that only
two tanks (merkava 3, the most modern in the world) and two armored personnel
carriers stopped by the front entrance of our house. As we saw the soldiers
dash out towards our house I rushed to open our front door in order to avoid
what happened to our church Usher Abu George who got a shrapnel in his head
when the soldiers blew open his apartment door. I could count twenty two armed
to the teeth soldiers entering our house. The scene was indeed horrifying that
I lost count of those who encircled the house and took firing positions. I
should admit that their chieftain was well mannered and refrained from shooting
me when I dared to ask if he mistakenly thought that my house was a garrison.
The search by itself was smooth and non eventful. All my children together with
their mother were locked up in one room but not without one armed soldier with
them who stood sentry with a loaded M16. After about 75 minutes the soldiers
surprisingly left. The general climate in our house was so serene that I really
praised God almighty that upon checking up on my children I found them all
still breathing. A similar episode repeated itself in the house of our next
door neighbors “the Tannousses” with one exception nevertheless. The soldiers
locking all the families in one apartment decided to spend the night right in
the beds of those neighbors. In order to safely park the APCs the soldiers
literally dragged the cars out of the driveway and smashed them with the
Merkava tanks. I thought that perhaps for the Israeli individuals’ safety and
wellbeing, the aim justifies all means. Actually I have seen this practice
repeating itself at the end of each day.
Today is the
22nd day that our nation is locked up at home. Ironically this is
the day in which our adversaries celebrate their independence day. Certainly
this is not the proper time to think of old wounds or to remember what our
parents went through in those dark days of Palestinian history. To our dismay
history is blatantly repeating itself. It is more practical for me to think and
concentrate on our small fruit garden and allow myself to call my weekly pesticides
spraying against insects ‘my private war against terror’ which I very badly
lost due to the continued curfew imposed by the Israeli army and my inability
to poke my head out of the window. The consolation in this matter is the fact
that every thing in life is relative. Sure enough I lost over 1000 kilograms of
fine grapes and fruits but how can this be compared to the millions of tons of
fruits and vegetables that were lost by Palestinian farmers. The basic
difference is that if my garden is there to satisfy my ego but for others it is
a way of life. My 1993 SIAT car riddled with bullets and shrapnel is still
running, for numerous other people their cars do not look like cars anymore.
Obviously when trigger happy soldiers did not find human targets to shoot at
they found Palestinian cars parked in the streets as a convenient alternative
to quench their thirst for blood.
The declared
war against terror did not stop me from checking on our church. I did this the
first time the curfew was lifted. However, I sadly report that I could not
drive there because the roads leading to the church and downtown were totally
devastated and looked like they have never been asphalted. Telephone and
electricity poles are lying on the ground. Many trees were uprooted and all
curbs and sidewalks were systematically ruined. I met St. Joseph sisters who
informed me that the offices of the ministry of education have been completely
destroyed. This included all student records from 1950 onward. All banks were
and are still closed. This means that the people who are out of work and with
no income could not even call upon their savings to maintain their lives. I
should reiterate that presently the unemployment rate in about 100%. Yes, this
is not an error; the number I typed is a hundred percent.
Yesterday,
April 19, I succeeded in buying some meat for my children though I truly hope I
did not. At the crowded butchery I ran into Dr. Muaed, an invasive cardiologist
and Dr. George, a Pediatrician. When I very quickly inquired about why they
were not in their normal position i.e. in hospital, both informed me that they
could not reach there and were prevented from doing so by the invading army. To
the best of my knowledge Ramallah has very few cardiologists. I thought to
myself about what would happen to those people who may get a heart attack or
those who need continuous cardiac care. I personally can easily relate to such
cases because, two years ago, I myself had to fight a long and painful battle
against 4 almost occluded arteries. A short conversation with those two
Physicians uncovered another painful and regretful fact. The twin cities of
Ramallah and Al bireh with about 100,000 inhabitants are now without even one
single ambulance. All ambulances are out of commission due to either direct
destruction by the Israeli Army or are out of order and cannot be repaired as
all garages are closed. My thought traveled to think of those individuals with
cancer, with people with kidney failure requiring dialysis, with mothers
approaching the delivery dates, with children needing immunization, with
children of meningitis, with diabetics needing special diet and medication,
with people with no food or money and the list goes on with the sky as a limit.
Still the most ominous result of all this was the success the Israeli
leadership have achieved in setting a schism between human beings and their
respective humanity and on both sides of the divide. The Palestinians are being
treated with absolutely no respect to any dignity or human rights. The Israeli
soldiers on the other hand are behaving as if they do not belong to a human
species that has heart and conscience. Sadism is best manifested at the road
blocks that they have erected around each Palestinian village and town.
Personally I go through one road block between Ramallah and Jerusalem twice
each day. What I see there is so despicable that gets beyond my ability to
describe.
The above was a modest attempt to describe personnel experiences and observations since the onset of this latest Israeli action which in my opinion was an exercise in futility. The acronym used is ‘Defensive shield’ in order to save the Israeli public from potential suicide bombers. I am sure a heavy cost was incurred on their side both in casualties and in material even if this incomparable to the losses they inflicted upon us. In spite of this tragic situation I am not about ready to lose sight of the whole story. I am not a bit eluded by their carefully worded press reports and vehemently opposed to them. The war was in fact waged against the Palestinian National movement which has been gathering momentum and mushrooming. History tells us that such grassroots movements cannot be defeated they simply transcend with evolution from one state to the next. Suicide bombers are not born they are made. They constitute a phenomenon that is worthy of serious investigation. I do not pretend that I understand it neither do I condone it in any way shape or form. I can say however, that the very brutal living conditions imposed by the occupation have created the right environment for this evolution. The lack of any parity between the strong and the week is an important factor. To be magnanimous, I can point to the influence of the American Veto in the UN Security Council which adds insult to injury from the Palestinian vantage point. The Palestinians very much value and revere life; towards this goal for themselves and for their future generations they are presenting daily sacrifices on the freedom alter. If the Israeli army succeeded in eliminating a number of Palestinian hard liners they also succeeded in setting the stage for the birth of a multitude of even harder ones, some of whom may not have been conceived by their mothers yet. The gruesome scenes resulting from a lopsided power balance succeeded in amalgamating the Palestinian people together with their national movement in a single searing kiln of national unity rather than amplifying ideological differences amongst them.
Finally I wish to echo
Patriarch Michel Sabbah’s position in this matter which trusts that a short and
effective way out of this predicament is through justice. Accordingly, peace
and security for all would prevail. Forgiveness is indispensable prerequisite
for a historical reconciliation. Prophet Isaiah wrote that peace is the fruit
of justice.
Blunt Talk about
Peace?
Dr Harry Hagopian, KSL – KOG
Sharon’s problem is not a few terrorists. His problem is the entire Palestinian population. When people are made miserable and hopeless, they do not mind dying. As much as the Israelis would like to, they cannot kill them all, and they cannot beat them into submission. As long as the Palestinians have no state, Israel will have no security.
The American reporter Charley Reese wrote those uncompromising words in a challenging article entitled ‘Bush Plays Pontius Pilate’ that he filed from Jerusalem on 12 April 2002. He expressed the strong belief that Israel cannot extinguish the collective - and at times violent - hatred felt by many Palestinians so long as it does not withdraw from the occupied territories to allow for the establishment of a sovereign and viable Palestinian state.
It is so easy and comforting to think of the
entire Palestinian society as primitive, bloodthirsty terrorists, after the raw
material and product of their intellectual, cultural, social and economic
activity has been destroyed. That way, the Israeli public can continue to be
deceived into believing that terror is a genetic problem and not a sociological
and political mutation, horrific as it may be, derived from the horrors of the
occupation.
Amira Haas, an outspoken Israeli journalist, wrote an article on 23 April 2002 to describe how the Israeli incursion into the West Bank had caused the wanton destruction of many Palestinian non-governmental organisations. She raised the point that PM Ariel Sharon’s war against terrorism in the West Bank was no more than a fig leaf in his attempt to crush Palestinian aspirations for a future Palestinian State. Otherwise, she added, what was the point of destroying the computers and databases of non-military and ‘non-terrorist’ institutions such as the Ministries of Education and Health?
The broken concrete in Jenin reeked of
rotting corpses. But it also gave off the whiff of wrongdoing. Nearly half the
Palestinians dead who have been identified were civilians, including children.
There was a man who had a bullet in his head. I tried to call an ambulance, but
it was sent back by the Israelis. Over and over again, witnesses have been
giving similar accounts of atrocities in Jenin.
This article, co-written by the British journalists Justin Huggler and Phil Reeves, was published on 25 April 2002. It followed a visit by both journalists, along with a representative from the Human Rights Watch organisation, to the Jenin refugee camp. Their report raised serious questions about Israel’s ‘Operation Defensive Shield’ and the dubious facts of what truly happened at the refugee camp. A preliminary conclusion by Amnesty International found evidence of severe abuses of human rights - including extra-judicial executions - and called for a war crimes enquiry.
Suicide bombings are an explanation, not a
justification, of oppression and occupation.
This is the sobering assessment offered by Vicky Metcalfe, a British lawyer working as a volunteer in Gaza, to a BBC report that was aired on television last week. It provides a non-Palestinian [and ostensibly less partial] take on the situation in the Holy Land, and edits somewhat the case that US President G W Bush and other American politicians or neo-conservative factions have been making with unblinking ease against Palestinian violence.
The irony here is that I would not have used such unvarnished words to describe the dirty war that Israel has been waging against Palestinians. I will have unequivocally condemned suicide bombings as an unacceptable tool of resistance. I will have probably added that both the Palestinian and Israeli psyches have been traumatised, and that both sides must pull back from the brink toward dignity, justice, peace and reconciliation. But the excerpts I have quoted call a spade a spade! They convey a truth that is far too often watered down, and a pain that is far too frequently dulled, for the sake of a morally interactive, more balanced and less jarring depiction of this unequal conflict. But verbal shock therapy sometimes helps people to grasp the endmost truth and wade more resolutely through the political fudge.
The irony also is that I am willing to move beyond the atrocities suffered by both peoples to date as the price paid for Palestinian independence and statehood. If only Israel would heed at long last to the sound voice of reason and reach out toward this tantalizing vision of peace that could blunt the cycle of pain and violence. To achieve that goal, though, it needs to pull out from territories it occupied in 1967. But can Israel do it? Or perhaps more importantly, will it do it?
© harry-bvH @
29 April 2002
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