Archive for March, 2005

Expanding Settlement in Ma’aleh Adumim Endangers Peace Process

Published by
March 29, 2005 in Peace Process and The Settlements. 2 Comments

Today’s headlines are all about Sharon’s parliamentary victory: he won’t have to put the Gaza withdrawal plan up for a public referendum. But the real news is the expansion of Israel’s Ma’aleh Adumim settlement in the West Bank, to the tune of 3,500 new housing units. Heavy settlement in this critical area would spell the end of Palestinians’ hopes for a viable, contiguous state, and probably the end of the peace process. Sharon’s plan is in clear violation of Israel’s prior committments to the United States. The question is whether our government will take concrete steps to enforce the agreements.

When I was in the West Bank earlier this month, the extent of Israeli expansion into Palestinian territory was obvious. You could not drive a few miles anywhere in Palestinian territory without seeing settlements on the hilltops.

The Palestinians are watching their land being taken bit by bit. As the Sasson report documented, expansion continued unabated through the Oslo period, during which time the parties were supposed to be moving toward final status talks. No one - not Israel, not America, not even their Arab neighbors - seemed to care that they were being drivien from their home. That’s what the Intifada was about.

Annexation of Ma’aleh Adunim would leave the Palestinians completely cut off from East Jerusalem - which they have anticipated as their capital in a final status agreement - and would bisect the West Bank into non-contiguous northern and southern sections. A recent editorial in Ha’aretz pointed out:

Ma’aleh Adumim is a large town, with more than 40,000 residents. Presumably, the chance that it will be evacuated is nil. The question of what will happen to the territory between it and Jerusalem must be determined in the negotiations with the Palestinians.

Logic says the area should be preserved for Palestinian construction. Israel should not be interested in blocking the connection between the northern and southern parts of the West Bank, and it should leave open negotiations about the Palestinian capital, the special status of the Temple Mount and the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

For the Palestinians, Sharon’s plan essentially forecloses the possiblity of a negotiated settlement. Abbas said on Sunday, “Any talk of settlements that is not a discussion of stopping them is unacceptable. Here I’m talking about the discussions of annexing settlement blocs. This is unacceptable because this affects final status issues.”

Of course, a negotiated settlement is not what Sharon is after. I think Aluf Ben got it right in today’s Ha’aretz:

Sharon grew up in the era of the British mandate, and was educated on the “dunam after dunam” principles of practical Zionism. Ideology and sublime ideas never interested him, and even now he finds them difficult to understand and has contempt for them. For him, only power matters…

Two years ago, Sharon updated the goals of the war with the Palestinians. His demand that they surrender unconditionally was replaced with a policy of strengthening the “blocs” and preparing for their annexation to Israel: Ma’aleh Adumim, Ariel, Gush Etzion, Beit Arye. Ever since, Sharon has aimed unswervingly for that goal, with the planning of the fence, the construction permits and the land takeovers. He was correct in his assessment that if he promises to evacuate a few isolated settlements, the world will forgive his construction in the blocs.

The question is whether the U.S. will, indeed, overlook this. Israel committed explicitly two years ago to freeze new settlement construction over existing lines. However, it has managed to block efforts to define these lines until a few days ago, when the government finally released arial photographs showing the extent of existing population centers in the settlements.

Condoleeza Rice made a point of telling the LA Times that the Ma’aleh Adumim expansion was

“not really a satisfactory response…”

Rice said that despite recent progress, the peace effort remains at a “fragile” stage and that Arafat’s successor, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, needs help from outside as he tries to reform the government and bring its security services under control.

She said U.S. officials expected Israel “to be careful about anything” - including settlements, new laws or the route of a barrier being built to separate Israelis from Palestinians - that could affect the outcome of peace negotiations.

“It’s concerning that this is where it is, and around Jerusalem,” Rice said.

“We will continue to note that this (settlement expansion) is at odds with…American policy. So, full stop,” she said.

Furthermore, Yedioth Ahronoth caused a stir when it reported that Dan Kurtzer, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, in a speech to Foreign Ministry cadets,

rejected Ariel Sharon’s claim of an “understanding” with U.S. President George W. Bush that large settlement blocs in the West Bank will remain under Israeli sovereignty under any final status agreement with the Palestinians…

“I can assure you that no such understandings were reached. I have discussed the matter with Washington, and I have received full support on this matter.”

Kurtzer also said Israel makes “mistakes in the American diplomatic arena: Israelis have a tendency to go over and over the same issues, time after time. For instance, at the beginning of every meeting the Israelis repeat the mantra ‘Jerusalem, the eternal undivided capital of Israel.’

But he said that, despite the fact that “America is paying a steep price for defending Israel in international forums,” Kurtzer confirmed, “but it is a price the United States is prepared to pay.”

Kurtzer denied the remarks after the story came out. From today’s Washington Times:

The U.S. ambassador and embassy officials referred to a letter from President Bush published in April supporting Israel’s retention of large settlement blocks as part of a peace accord with the Palestinians.

“The president’s letter of April of last year is the definitive policy, and that hasn’t changed,” said embassy spokesman Paul Patin, summarizing the ambassador’s clarification.

The key distinctions there are that the U.S. agreed to retention of existing settlement blocks, not expansion; and that this was supposed to be included in the final status negotiations, not preempt them.

I read into all this that the State Department is hopping mad about the Adumim tender. Whether Bush pays any attention to State is another matter. He certainly didn’t in his first term. We’ll see when Sharon visits in April. Sharon is quoted in today’s Ha’aretz saying

The large blocs of settlement in the West Bank “will remain in Israel’s hands and will fall within the (separation) fence, and we made this position clear to the Americans. This is our position, even if they express reservations.”

The Adumim issue is critical to the peace process. If Israel is allowed to settle the area surrounding East Jerusalem, there won’t be much of anything left to negotiate.

Right now, in the occupied territories, there is some glimmer of hope for a diplomatic solution. An acquaintance there told me, “the military guys have stepped back to give Abbas a chance. They’re not expecting much.” If diplomacy fails, the Palestinians will fight for their territory with everything they’ve got.

For those Americans, especially Jewish Americans, who do care about a just and peaceful end to the conflict, this would be an apt time to contact the White House and your congressional representative. Ask that the U.S. take firm measures to try to halt Israeli settlement expansion.

If you want to do more - join the protest in Crawford from April 9-11.

In the Halls of Congress with Refuser Yonatan Shapira

Published by
March 28, 2005 in Activism. 1 Comment

I’m very proud to welcome a new voice to this site. Brad Brooks-Rubin visited members of Congress with an Israeli refuser. The encounters say a lot about American politics around the issue of Israel, and the importance of Jewish dissent. The account below was written by Brad. He will be posting regularly on Semitism.net. First off, thanks to Andrew for allowing me the space to provide some commentary on this extraordinary site. I am Brad Brooks-Rubin, and, among other things, I am a board member of an organization called the Refuser Solidarity Network. RSN works to support all of the courageous Israelis, whether reservists, pilots or conscripts, who refuse to serve the Occupation. (One quick moment of PR — the most recent group of 250 high school seniors just announced their planned refusal. You can learn more about them here. The main focus of my work with RSN is to bring refusers to Washington, to meet with Congressional staff, think tank thinkers and Jewish community leaders. Now, I have no particular "ins" with any of these groups, but with some persistence, insistence and downright annoyance, I am usually able to put together a few days that are packed from morning ’til night with meetings. A few weeks back, I had the honor to escort Yonatan Shapira to Washington, for the second time. Yonatan spearheaded the refusal letter issued by the Israeli Air Force Pilots in Fall 2003, the letter that touched off so much controversy in Israel, given the pilots’ elite status in the Israeli military. Last August, in an interview posted elsewhere on this site, Dov Weisglass told Ha’Aretz that the Pilots’ Letter factored heavily in the government’s decision to pursue Gaza disengagement. Weisglass called Yonatan and the rest of the pilots "really our finest young people." And let me say up front that on this Dov Weisglass and I agree (and it may be the only such point of agreement): Yonatan really is one of the finest people you will meet. My hunch is he will be back many times to speak in the States. If you ever have a chance to hear him, or to read anything he has written, take it. Having spent much of the past 10 years listening to people from one side or another talk about Israel, about the situation, about their beliefs, few do it with as much eloquence, honesty and clarity as Yonatan. So with this fine fellow I trod the halls of Congressional office buildings and D.C. office buildings. As with our trip last summer, in nearly all cases, the meetings were eerily similar. Those on the other side of the table begin by expressing nothing but admiration for Yonatan and his fellow refusers. Some go so far as to say they would like to believe they would do the same were they in his shoes. And they quickly follow that sentiment by saying they are glad to hear voices from "the other side," to meet with credible folks from the opposition to the mainstream, even when they themselves define the mainstream in all its glory. Inevitably, what follows after Yonatan tells his story is a long litany of excuses, of rationalizations, of head-scratching. About why even though they are in a position to demonstrate their own courage, to refuse to give into the dominant beliefs and currents of their milieu, as Yonatan and the others have done, they do not. Time after time, we hear “I am with you personally, but…” But the Jewish community. But our constituents. But the media. Translating these statements into militaryspeak – "I’m just following orders." Yes, civilians too can suffer from the same syndrome as soldiers seeking immunity from war crimes. At first, I’ll admit I was excited just to be able to get in the door. And perhaps over-enthusiastic about the power of the refusers to start shaking the foundations of the mainstream’s understanding of and activity around the situation. But with time, with more meetings, and with optimism about the chances for peace growing by the minute, I find myself increasingly pessimistic. Why? Because we are repeating history. So soon after the failures of Oslo, here we are again, an American/American-Jewish mainstream giddy over the idea that this tragic conflict can come to an end with little cost to them. The excitement over Oslo brimmed because here was a chance to do what the civil rights legislation of the 1960s had done in the U.S. – give leaders a chance to sign some papers and try to believe/convince others the slate is clean, without changing the overall structure that created the problem. Oslo showed us that, without a true and deep understanding of what has happened during the Occupation, the progress is only superficial; the second intifada began because the Occupation never ended. And until the mainstream understands, truly, what the Occupation is and means, then it cannot end. Sadly, at the moment, I see no one looking to understand; I see only people looking to walk away. I heard time and again in Washington that peace was around the corner, that the refusers needed to change their tone because things have changed so much. But with the planned construction in Ma’aleh Adumim and the imposition of full closure for Purim, I ask someone to show me what has changed beyond the surface. And so, for years to come I fear, the courageous refusers will continue to listen to people tell them they’d like to see peace, but their orders don’t permit it just yet.

Charles Jacobs and the New Jewish Anti-Semitism

Published by
March 28, 2005 in Columbia Unbecoming. 1111 Comments

Charles Jacobs has made a career of accusing media outlets, human rights organizations and, of course, Columbia University of anti-Semitism. Dr. Jacobs’ true colors were on display at a conference at Columbia earlier this month, when he, himself, used a particularly offensive anti-Semitic slur to refer to Jews who dissent from his ultranationalist positions. From The Jewish Week:

Charles Jacobs, founder of the David Project, one of the event’s sponsors and the man behind the “Columbia Unbecoming” documentary, called Jewish critics of the film, including some Columbia professors, “Marranos of Morningside Heights,” a derogatory reference to Jews who converted to Christianity to avoid the Spanish Inquisition.

“Marrano” is Spanish for swine. In the fourteenth century, the Catholic Church headed a campaign to purge Spain of its Jewish population. Fifty thousand Jews were killed in riots and another one hundred thousand were forced to convert. Some of the converts secretly retained their Jewish identities and practiced their religion in secret. They were dubbed Marranos and were the target of the Inquisition, which lasted from 1478 to 1834.

Over the course of the Inquisition, nearly half a million Jews underwent a “trial” consisting of physical torture designed to elicit a confession, and 30,000 were burned at the stake. The public execution of a Marrano was called an Auto-de-Fe (Act of Faith).

One can only assume that Dr. Jacobs wishes the same fate for Jewish faculty and students who have thrown a wrench in his works by defending the Arab professors in the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) who are the target of his film.

The professors accused in the film are forceful critics of Israel. The film does not purport to question their right to hold or teach this view. Rather, it alleges that these professors have created a classroom atmosphere inimical to dissent, and are thus infringing on the freedom of Jewish students to express their own pro-Israel views.

The basis for this approach is well outlined in a paper called “Tenured or Tenuous” prepared by the Israel on Campus Coalition, of which Dr. Jacobs’ organization, The David Project, is a member. The paper serves as a strategic blueprint for combating academic criticism of Israel.

One of the most difficult and frustrating aspects of confronting the problem of anti-Israel behavior by faculty is the umbrella most universities give to their staff under the rubric of academic freedom…

Faculty speech is almost always protected from discipline by principles of academic freedom. The ideal of academic freedom demands that faculty members on university campuses be free to develop and espouse original and controversial ideas. Universities that have attempted to silence or remove faculty members for unpopular speech have faced significant pressure from the academic community not to do so. For these reasons, most universities are reluctant to regulate the speech of their professors both in and out of the classroom.

The paper goes on to suggest a remedy:

…colleges and universities are required to provide a learning environment that is safe and free from hostility for all students. A school violates its duty to prevent a hostile environment when

  • a hostile environment exists;
  • the school has notice of the problem; and
  • it fails to respond adequately to remedy the situation.

In keeping with this strategy, “Columbia Unbecoming” claims legitimacy not as a polemic against anti-Israel sentiment among faculty, but more broadly as as a defense of student rights and academic freedom. In the early phases of the project, Dr. Jacobs and his colleagues were very careful to stick to the script. He wrote in The Columbia Spectator in November:

We believe that the values of tolerance, pluralism, and civil society are prerequisites for achieving genuine peace. We do not endorse a political agenda beyond Israel’s right to exist peacefully among its neighbors. We believe in Jewish political self-determination in the Middle East, and are proud to be called Zionists. We also believe in the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

We had never heard of Professor Joseph Massad before we were invited last October to hear students’ concerns. These students love Columbia, but are troubled by certain professors who promote a biased education and deny dissenting views in class. We made the film to ensure that students’ voices be heard, and thereby encourage Columbia’s administration to take corrective actions.

Now, flush with success, they are getting a little sloppy. The conference referenced above was titled “The Middle East and Academic Integrity on the American Campus.” It was sponsored by The David Project along with, according to a report in the Forward,

the Zionist Organization of America, which opposes the creation of a Palestinian state and American peace efforts, and…Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, a three-year old organization that is working to “develop effective responses to the ideological distortions, including antisemitic and anti-Zionist slanders, that poison debate and work against peace.”

The anti-Arab agenda is pretty hard to miss.

In one especially fiery speech, Phyllis Chesler, professor emerita at the College of Staten Island and author of “The New Anti-Semitism,” argued, “The largest practitioner of apartheid on the planet is Islam, in terms of both religious apartheid and gender apartheid…”

Chesler, in a speech enthusiastically received by the crowd, said that the Palestine Solidarity Movement, an organization that has demonstrated on many American campuses, “is a group in my opinion that’s quite similar to the Ku Klux Klan, or to the Nazi party.”

One of the sharpest-edged speeches came right at the end, from the president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein. “There is no occupation,” Klein said, referring to Israel’s presence in the West Bank and Gaza.

Ariel Beery helped Jacobs produce “Columbia Unbecoming.” He and two other students tried to distance themselves from the more extreme statements made at the conference.

“Much of what has been said today is not only unproductive, it is counterproductive,” Beery said. “Anything that is said in order to disparage or to generalize or to characterize some type of people is wrong.”

The students drew angry shouts from an audience that had applauded their arrival onstage moments earlier. Their appearance was billed as a question-and-answer session, but the students were cut off by the organizers after just a few minutes…

Jacobs defended the tack taken by most of the day’s speakers.

“It’s more than (the student’s) story now,” Jacobs said. “Their story is harassment and intimidation. The story now includes not how what’s being taught is taught, but what is being taught, and who has captured these departments.”

Well, yes. Exactly. Was Mr. Beery really suprised to find out that Jacobs had an ulterior motive in making the film?

If he is looking for a place to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with academic rigor, and without invective, perhaps Mr. Beery should try taking a class in MEALAC. According to Columbia student Elisheva Cohen, whose testimony was collected by Eric Posner along with that of twenty-four others in support of the department,

I, as a Jew who is fairly supportive (though critical) of Israel, have had nothing but positive experiences in the MEALAC department… To be honest, in all the MEALAC classes I have taken, Professor Massad, more than any other professor.. is open to hearing the other side, answering questions, and entertaining criticism. In my experience, he does it readily because, as a teacher, it is his job to make students think.

At any rate, Liel Leibovitz, writing in The Jewish Week, found the values of tolerance and pluralism honored mainly in the breach by the conference’s erstwhile defenders of academic integrity:

When Chesler defended Israel’s actions regarding the 2002 battle in Jenin, one woman in the audience shouted, “We should have bombed them from the start” - referring to the Palestinian residents of Jenin.

“We should have killed them all,” a man yelled.

Another man in the audience, who turned out to be a member of the leftist group Jews Against the Occupation, rose to ask a question, prefacing his remarks by saying that he had once been shot by the Israeli army.

He was drowned out by a sea of invectives.

“Too bad they missed,” shouted a young man with a denim shirt.

Another man added, “They should have shot you in the head…”

The Jewish Week’s reporter was approached with…demands for identification and was flash-photographed repeatedly by a woman in the audience. When asked to stop, the woman said, “We’re taking pictures of you. We want to know who you are.”

A New York Times photographer, taking photos of the silenced dissenter from Jews Against the Occupation leaving the room, was surrounded by a large group of people telling her to put down her camera.

I understand that the New York Department of Health has located the dog that bit these conferees, and placed it under quarantine.

I’m happy to report that the Columbia students who support MEALAC have put up an excellent web site called Censoring Thought, and an accompanying weblog of the same name.

As to Dr. Jacobs’ anti-Semitic slur… I find it deeply offensive, as will many Jews who are proud of our heritage. Forced converts from Spain were among the first Jews to settle in the New World. American Jewry owes its existence to them.

Readers who wish to take action might consider filing a complaint against Dr. Jacobs with the Anti-Defamation League. This can be done online by following the link.

Jewish Values Do Not Include Lynching

Published by
March 24, 2005 in Religion. 2 Comments

Last week, yeshiva students attacked a small group of Palestinian workers outside the settlement of Nahliel in the West Bank. The incident was reported by Haaretz, Yedioth Ahronoth, the BBC and other media. By all accounts, the attack was unprovoked. The workers were employed by the settlement, and were showing their permits at a checkpoint when the mob descended on them.

From the Jerusalem Post:

Hurling stones and waving bats, some 40 students from a yeshiva in Nahliel, west of Ramallah, attacked a group of eight Palestinian workers congregating outside the West Bank settlement, wounding three of them. The wounded were taken to a Ramallah hospital…

One of the injured Palestinians - Muki Shakarni - said he had no idea why the attack started.

“We came to the entrance of the settlement in the morning, and while a soldier was checking our identification, about 40 settlers came from inside and started beating us,” he said. “One of my colleagues fell down and they beat him; I tried to protect him, but they beat me, too. I lost consciousness and only came round in the hospital.”

An IDF spokesman described it as an attempted lynching.

There have been numerous other incidents of violence against unarmed Palestinians. These have been escalating as the disengagement plan ramps up. In Hebron, settlers tried to poison a whole herd of sheep owned by a Palestinian farmer. In Nablus, a group of settlers beat a truck driver quite seriously. Haaretz published an editorial yesterday blaming the situation on lax policing of the settlers by the Israeli government:

The lenient attitudes shown by the army and police allow the settlers to conclude that the state either cannot or will not deal with them. If a handful of rioters from Nahliel and Hebron get off scot-free after what the army itself defined as an attempted lynching, the next pogrom is virtually inevitable. The extreme right will stop at nothing to put a spoke in the wheels of disengagement, and the current clashes are merely an omen of what is to come.

I have been watching for the past week. Perhaps I’ve missed something, but I have seen no expressions of outrage from the Rabbinic community over these acts, no formal condemnations or expressions of regret from Jewish organizations in Israel or the U.S.

A Jewish mob attacks innocent workers, and we hardly notice. Have we completely abandoned our values? Have we all signed on to the despicable project of driving the Palestinians from their land? If so, Judaism has reached a pitfully low ebb.

It is quite illustrative to look back to the last time we had a Jewish state.

The Jewish people reoccupied Jerusalem in 539 B.C.E., after a period of exile. We rebuilt the temple and restored the priesthood, which began again to conduct the ancient rituals of worship and animal sacrifice. Jews lived in Jerusalem under Persian and Greek rule, and then under the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty. Jerusalem and the surrounding areas came under Roman control in 63 B.C.E.

By the beginning of the Common Era, the Jewish community was deeply divided. The priesthood was loyal to Rome. The wealthiest and most powerful members of the community (the Sadducees) supported the priesthood and its temple rites. To them, the purpose of religion was to appease God and give divine sanction to rulers. The priests’ main task was to carry out animal sacrifices. The nobles provided choice livestock, and supported the priests with gifts and money. Religion had nothing to do with the common people.

An opposing party, the Pharisees, was in the process of developing a more populist religious and legal code. Religion was to be practiced in the home, not the temple. Schools were established. Legal and religious teachings were accessible to anyone who wanted to study them. Learning was more highly valued than wealth or social standing. Matters of religious belief were not transmitted as dogma, but rather were open to discussion and intepretation. Perhaps most importantly, ethical precepts developed through scholarship and dialogue superceded the laws of the State and applied equally to all people, regardless of power or position.

There is a famous story about the great Phariseic teacher Hillel. A sceptic asked Hillel to teach him the Torah while he stood on one foot. Hillel responded: “What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary. Go and learn.”

In 68 C.E., repressive measures instituted by the Roman procurator precipitated a Jewish insurgency. It was led by a party called the Zealots, who advocated violent resistance to Roman rule.

By the year 70 the city of Jerusalem was under siege. A group of Zealots escaped and holed up in a fortress on Mount Masada, where they kept an entire Roman army division at bay for more than two years. When the Romans finally broke into the fortress, they found that all 960 of the besieged had committed suicide rather than surrender.

The Masada story - which is from the Roman historian Josephus, and is not mentioned in the Talmud or any other Jewish text - has been resurected by modern Israeli nationalists. IDF recruits climb the mountain to take an oath that “Masada shall not fall again”. The story figures prominently in settler lore as well.

The Zealots, in fact, accomplished nothing. Jerusalem fell in 70 C.E. and Masada in 73. The temple was destroyed. If nationalistic zeal had been the basis of Judaism, that would have been the end of us.

In fact, it was the Pharisees who saved Judaism. In 68, Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai was carried out of Jerusalem under the noses of the Roman soldiers by his students, disguised as a corpse. He founded the first Yeshiva, or Jewish Academy, at Yavneh.

This was a pivotal moment in Jewish history. Ben Zakkai recognized that Judaism no longer needed a temple and priests. It had evolved from a religion centered around sacred objects and places, to a body of knowledge that could be studied and transmitted from one generation to the next. At that moment, the Jews ceased to be a circumscribed nation with a patron deity, and became the bearers of a theophany through time, a people in constant dialogue with the eternal.

Five hundred years later, Jews (and yeshivas) had spread throughout Europe and the Mideast and even Asia; and the Rabbis had completed the Talmud, the masterpiece of Jewish religious thought.

Traditional (pre-Zionist) Rabbinic Judaism strongly emphasizes humility, mercy and peace. This example, from the Midrash, is typical:

R. Johanan b. Zakkai says, “It says YOU MUST BUILD THE ALTAR OF THE LORD YOUR GOD OF WHOLE STONES (Deut. 27:6) - stones which bring peace. It is a matter of logical inference. If the Holy One prohibited wielding the sword above stones - which cannot see or hear or speak - because they will bring peace between Israel and their Father in Heaven, certainly suffering will not come to anyone who brings peace between one man and another, between man and wife, between one city and another, between one nation and another, between one family and another, between one government and another!”

This is why - above and beyond from the basic inhumanity of the act - the whole concept of Yeshiva students engaging in a lynching is deeply disturbing. What on earth are their Rabbis teaching them? How horribly has Jewish nationalism warped millenia of Jewish tradition?

Jerusalem is made of stones. The wailing wall is a relic - an inanimate object. We don’t worship objects, much less persecute and kill people over them. The West Bank - insofar as it consists of sand, water and vegetation - is an object. Land and water are important only as resources that need to be protected and shared by the people who depend on them. The attribution of iconic status to the land - the assertion of a right to possess it, and to drive other people off of it - is a profound betrayal of Jewish values.

Somewhere, Rabbi ben Zakkai must be weeping.

Gaza Blues

Published by
March 18, 2005 in Personal Reflections. 1 Comment

I was most heartened when Linda Grant wrote to me about a book called Gaza Blues. The book was co-authored by Samir al-Youssef (a Palestinian) and Etgar Keret (an Israeli). It contains 15 short stories and one novella. Both authors say the book is non-political. But it exposes, in literary form, some of the more intimate experiences of oppressed and oppressor that have arisen out of the conflict.

Sometimes art provides an antidote to politics. There is a lot to say about life in Israel and Palestine that is never approached in political discourse.

According to reviewer Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, writing in Lebanon’s Daily Star, Gaza blues

…carves out intimate space where as yet unexplored dimensions of the conflict may be probed. It resists falling prey to identity politics, and as such it appeals to anyone who might feel compelled to take a deep and weary breath before answering such questions as “What are you?” or “Where are you from?” Moreover, “Gaza Blues” is marked throughout by dark humor, touches of surrealism, and hip urban language.

“Our collaboration is meant to refer to a different area in the Palestine/Israel issue,” says Youssef. “And different means that which is deliberately overlooked and marginalized such as, in my case, the reality of the fragmentary nature of Palestinian society. There isn’t only one Palestinian society but many and different, and that’s why the Palestine/Israel issue is not limited to a certain geography or history.”

Ms. Grant interviewed Mr. Keret last month for The Independent. She describes a reading of Arab and Israeli writers that took place at “a marquee next to the border between Green Line Israel and Jordan, a no-man’s land on the edge of the Jewish and Arab world.” A Palestinian writer, Ahmed Harb,

…told an anecdote about the Six Day War when, as a teenager, he had believed the sermons of the mullah in his mosque near Nablus, who told local people that the Israeli planes were falling from the sky like flies.

Harb saw the Jordanian forces retreating, then a convoy of tanks which he believed were Arab forces coming to save them. When the tanks turned out to be Israeli, he ran to the cave where he was born and hid there for three months. The place of the imagination, the inner life, the closeness to one’s inner being as a refuge from rhetoric and propaganda: that was the theme that triumphantly emerged from the bridge event.

Mr Keret comments:

“People went there to play the role they’re supposed to play… Fighter for peace on one side and victim on the other - and you go out of those roles feeling dehumanised. But when they told their stories they were unclear and ambiguous, and then people listened to each other.”

Both authors have been attacked for the collaboration. Youssef has been criticized for violating a widely accepted ban among Arab writers against “normalizaion” of relations with Israel. He told the Daily Star:

…instead of introducing a thoughtful argument against a certain activity or policy that would involve meeting with the Israelis, Arab intellectuals who abide by the rule of ‘anti-normalization’ excuse themselves from thinking, from getting involved in a debate. Thus they dismiss their role as intellectuals. It’s for this reason that I call it idiotic. I have no time for idiocy!

Keret, for his part, was labelled an anti-semite by the Israeli right.

“The attackers’ goal is to stop any kind of humanization and empathy between Israeli and Palestinian and being attacked by them is, for me, a sure sign that Samir and I are doing something right.”

Apart from the Israeli-Palestinian battle over territory, there is a pitched battle over narratives. From the Jewish side, the story is of a persecuted people returning to its homeland against all odds and fighting implacable Arab enemies for the survival of their small nation. From the Palestinian side, the narrative tells of land stolen by imperial powers, of innocent people mercilessly persecuted and driven from their homes by an expanding Zionist state. In the official versions, each side demonizes the other and sees itself as a victim.

Good writing challenges comfortable beliefs and subverts the narratives that support power structures. Even without being overtly political, it can be a catalyst for change.

I’m looking forward to reading the book. If you are interested you can buy a copy online here.

The Thahdiya

Published by
March 17, 2005 in Peace Process. 0 Comments

The main militant groups operating in the occupied territories have agreed to maintain the thahdiya, or period of calm, that has been in place since Abbas assumed power. Abbas and the leaders of Hamas and other armed groups reached the acccord at a summit meeting in Cairo.

This event is a significant step toward building a cohesive Palestinian political sructure. The Daily Star reports:

The talks are the broadest between Palestinian factions for years, thanks to high-level representation by groups based in Damascus and opposed to the Palestinian Authority’s policies.

A senior official…said that Hamas was willing to join a reorganized and reformed Palestine Liberation Organization, which is now monopolized by secular factions…

In an interview with the Arab newspaper Al-Hayat published Wednesday, Abbas said he hoped Hamas and Jihad would become purely “political organizations,” participating in the Palestinian government.

Asked if that would mean the two groups would give up their weapons, Abbas said: “The decision of armed resistance should be made by the Authority.”

Haaretz has Israel’s response, to wit,

Sharon’s office said the prime minister told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak by telephone that “the arrangement reached in Cairo is a positive first step.”

But according to the statement, Sharon made clear that for progress to be made in the peace process, “the terrorist organizations cannot continue to exist as armed groups and certainly not as terrorist organizations.”

This period of calm does not, in itself, signify an end to the military conflict. The armed groups are holding back to see if Palestinian claims can be pursued successfully by non-military means. I would read in Abbas’ statement a committment to them that the armed struggle will resume if negotiation fails.

“What was agreed upon today is calm until the end of this year as a maximum period of time in exchange for an Israeli commitment to withdrawal from cities and release prisoners,” top Hamas official Mohammad Nazzal told reporters on Thursday.

Senior Palestinian officials said militants would not retaliate for Israeli attacks during the period of the calm “to give the international community a chance to press Israel to implement its commitments.”

From Israel’s point of view, peace will have been achieved when the armed groups are dismantled and attacks on Israelis stop.

It seems to me that from the Palestinian point of view, the main things required for a durable peace settlement would be:

  • Release of political prisoners.
  • Moral acknowledgement of Israeli actions that created the Palestinian refugee crisis in 1947-1948.
  • Establishment of a mutually agreed border between Israel and Palestine.
  • Dismantlement of the existing separation barrier. If a barrier is needed, it should be built along the agreed border and not within Palestinian territory.
  • Palestinian sovereignty over territory that is acceptable in size, contiguity and resources. This basically means sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza, with some room for compromise over heavily settled areas on both sides.
  • Control by the Palestinians of their borders with neighboring countries (Jordan and Egypt).
  • Dismantlement of Jewish settlements on the Palestinian side of the border (or, alternatively, continuation of these communities under Palestinian control).
  • An end to unauthorized Israeli incursions into Palestinian territory.

If you stop and think about it, these are pretty reasonable conditions. Most of the items on the list are basic elements necessary for the establishment of an independent state. If Israel accedes to them, and makes substantive moves toward implementing them, it has every right to expect a full cessation of hostilities.

However, Israel’s intentions are not at all clear at this point. Sharon is focused on the Gaza disengagement and has given little indication of his intentions after Gaza. Most of the signs point toward a highly limited conception of Palestinian independence, with Israel maintaining control of borders, resources, and most of the territory of the West Bank. I doubt that the Palestinian side will demilitarize until there is genuine progress toward a viable state.

Demanding an end to violence is not enough. Israel does respond to American pressure. If we really care about peace, we - American Jews - need to support the efforts of the Palestinian people to achieve their goals through non-violent means. This means advocating for an American policy that places Palestinian independence and territorial sovereignty on an equal footing with Israel’s security needs.

The Sasson Report

Published by
March 15, 2005 in The Settlements. 1 Comment

Want to understand why most Palestinians are so cynical about the prospects for a viable state at peace with Israel? To paraphrase James Carville and company: “it’s the settlements, stupid.”

Drive around the West Bank, and you see them on every hilltop. The white houses with red roofs are unmistakable - as are the adjacent clusters of trailers marking new outposts. Cranes and bulldozers are visible in many.

Look at the maps prepared by Peace Now and its obvious that the settlements do not just cluster around the Green Line. They’re spread quite extensively through the entire territory, as far east as the Jordan River.

No Palestinian, surrounded by this reality, thinks the “settlement freeze” promised by all prime ministers since 1993 is anything but a joke.

Now a new report commissioned by the office of the Prime Minister confirms that settlement expansion, prohibited under the Oslo Accord, has been proceding vigorously, with direct support from the top echelons of Israel’s government, since the day the accord was signed. The report was prepared by attorney Talia Sasson. I quote from her executive summary:

The expansion of the unauthorized outposts… began in the mid nineties, after the building in Judea, Samaria and Gaza was frozen by the Rabin Administration in 1993…

In fact, the unauthorized outposts phenomenon is a continuation of the settlement enterprise in the territories. But while in the distant past the Israeli governments officially acknowledged and encouraged the settlement enterprise, in some of the years, a major change took place in the beginning of the nineties. The Israeli governments were no longer officially involved in the establishment of settlements, apparently due to Israel’s international situation, and the negative position of most nations towards the settlement enterprise. That was not the case for public authorities and other Israeli government bodies, who took, along with others, a major role in establishing the unauthorized outposts.

The Palestinians, of course, understand this better than anyone. The daily experience of seeing their land appropriated and their state, in effect, foreclosed, has fueled tremendous cynicism regarding the peace process. This goes a long way toward explaining the failure of Oslo.

The report supports the claims of Palestinian landowners, that their fields were seized outright for settlement projects. According to Haaretz:

Many of the outposts built in the territories since March 2001 were established on lands that are not state-owned: 15 are on private Palestinian land, and 46 on lands of unknown ownership, Attorney Talia Sasson, author of the report on illegal outposts, said yesterday.

“The Housing Ministry was virtually indifferent to the question of who owns the land,” Sasson said at a news conference in Jerusalem…

The report focuses on “illegal” settlements or “outposts”, defined as settlements built without an official government resolution, on land not owned by Israel, without a building permit, and without bounds of jurisdiction issued by the IDF. This definition raises obvious questions - what settlement is legal under Oslo? In what sense is any land east of the Green Line “owned” by the State of Israel?

In its analysis, Haaretz notes: “The difference between the terms, ’settlement’ and ‘outpost,’ will turn out to be a myth, relating more to the internal dialogue of self-deception that has been going on in Israel for years.”

Nonetheless, Ms. Sasson’s report goes a long way toward exposing what has been happening in the West Bank under everyone’s nose for the past decade. It is packed with interesting information. For example, it reveals the ways the settlers circumvent the procedures that supposedly regulate settlement construction.

One way to establish an outpost is first to falsely ask for an antenna to be placed up on a hill. Afterwards comes a request to supply electricity - only for the antenna. Then a cabin is placed, for the guard, and the cabin is also connected to the electricity. Then a road is paved to the place, and infrastructure for caravans is prepared. Then, one day a number of caravans arrive at the place - and an outpost is established.

Another way is falsely requesting to build an agricultural farm (either an acclimatization or a biosphere farm). The farm is supposedly built for agricultural needs. After a while, caravans arrive to the place and an outpost is established.

Another way is founding an educational institution. “Staff” families settle in the place and an outpost is established.

Another way is establishing outposts by “expansions” and “neighborhoods” in disguise, within an existing outpost. The new outpost is named as the old one, as though it were just a neighborhood, even when it is sometimes kilometers away (as the crow flies; on the ground the distance is much greater)… This enables financing the new outpost by the different authorities: the money supposedly goes to the old settlement, as known to the authorities. In fact, it goes to the new outpost.

After a while, when the outpost stands still, it is no longer convenient for its inhabitants to be considered just as a neighborhood of an existing settlement. They wish for direct connection to different sources; they are interested in an independent emblem given by the Ministry of Interior Affairs (which allows budget from the Ministry of Interior Affairs as a local authority). Therefore the Assistant to Defense Minister - Settlement Affairs requests the Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organization to acknowledge some of the outposts as independent settlements, eligible for an emblem and a budget.

The report makes it clear that these activities occured with the complicity of the Israeli agencies in charge of monitoring settlement growth and development.

The “engine” behind a decision to establish outposts are probably regional councils in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, settlers and activists, imbued with ideology and motivation to increase Israeli settlement in the Judea, Samaria and Gaza territories. Some of the officials working in the Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organization, and in the Ministry of Construction & Housing, cooperated with them to promote the unauthorized outposts phenomenon. After the mid nineties, these actions were apparently inspired by different Ministers of Housing, either by overlooking or by actual encouragement and support, with additional support from other Ministries, initiated either by officials or by the political echelon of each Ministry.

The Sasson report in essence states that Israel pursued a secret policy of continuing to settle the occupied territories during the Oslo period. It seems highly unlikely that this was done without the tacit support of the Prime Minister. So the million-dollar question is why Ariel Sharon commissioned a report that blows the whistle a policy that he himself has supported. The answer appears to be that he did it under pressure from the U.S.

Sharon requisitioned the report on the outposts not to learn something he hadn’t known before, but to minimize the damage and in an effort to divert discussion away from the fate of the settlements in general and onto the outposts only. But, apparently, this too won’t do any good. The insistent demand from Washington to afford the Palestinian state to be established with “territorial contiguity” that will not be hampered by settlements, coupled with the fact that George Bush and Condoleezza Rice make sure of mentioning this expression at every opportunity, will lead in the end to the evacuation of all the settlements that get in the way of acceptable contiguity.

May it be so. At the moment, the U.S. is signaling that it expects action on the “illegal” outposts. Haaretz reported last week that “The U.S. administration has warned Israel that its failure to keep its promise to remove all outposts established in the West Bank since March 2001 will harm relations between the countries and could have an impact on American aid to Israel.” A few days later, the cabinet announced that it would dismantle 24 outposts. This is fewer than 25% of those identified by Sasson; and the cabinet recommended putting off action on them until after the Gaza disengagement is complete.

There was supposed to be a companion report to Sasson’s. Its aim was to demarcate the built-up areas in all of the settlements, including those that preceded Oslo, for the purpose of placing limits on their growth. The second report - promised in a letter from Dov Wesglass to Condoleeza Rice last April - was assigned to Brigadier General Baruch Spiegel, who was to work in cooperation with a group of American experts. Haaretz reports today that Israel has, in effect, stonewalled the Spiegel report:

The joint task force was supposed to work on the basis of aerial photographs of the settlements. However, Israel had no updated photographs, a fact that attorney Talia Sasson also noted in the report on the outposts that she submitted to Sharon last week. And in the 11 months since Weisglass sent his letter, the government has made no effort to rectify this: It has neither commissioned such photographs from a private company nor utilized Israel’s own satellite to take such pictures (the latter proposal was nixed by the Defense Ministry). As a result, the American experts have repeatedly postponed their planned trip to Israel.

In the meantime, Sharon has approved the final route of the separation wall. According to the International Herald Tribune,

The final route of Israel’s separation barrier around Jerusalem is intended to enclose large areas claimed by the Palestinians, including their intended capital and the biggest Jewish settlement in the West Bank, Israeli officials have confirmed. The route would also place a holy site in the Palestinian town of Bethlehem on the Israeli side of the barrier, while leaving a Palestinian refugee camp in Jerusalem encircled by a separate fence, the officials said.

It seems to me Sharon is biding his time, giving the Americans the least he can get away with, and waiting for a new outbreak of violence or some other event that will allow him to back off his committments with regard to the West Bank settlements. His aim is to draw Israel’s eastern border to his own specifications, rather than establish one in negotiation with the Palestinians.

The current peace is tenuous. Mahmoud Abbas has taken swift and effective action to stop attacks on Israelis. He has signaled in many ways a willingness to negotiate the most intractable issues in the conflict, such as the Palestinian right of return. But substantive moves on Israel’s side are still lacking. The release of political prisoners (most of whom were near the end of their sentences) and the handover of a few towns are little more than gestures. The Gaza disengagement plan will not be interpreted as a move toward a peaceful settlement if it is accompanied by expansion into more land on the West Bank.

American pressure can make a difference. American Jews - whether motivated by the desire for justice, or simply by the wish to see Israel at peace with its neighbors - should signal our clear support for dismantling settlements east of the Green Line, and for action by our govenment to hold Israel responsible for its committments in this matter.

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