Preaching Moderate Islam and Becoming a TV Star for Youths
By ROBERT F. WORTH
JIDDA, Saudi Arabia — As Ahmad al-Shugairi took the stage, dressed in a flowing white gown and headdress, he clutched a microphone and told his audience that he had no religious training or titles: "I am not a sheik."
But over the next two hours, he worked the crowd as masterfully as any preacher, drawing rounds of uproarious laughter and, as he recalled the Prophet Muhammad's death, silent tears. He spoke against sectarianism. He made pleas for women to be treated as equals. He talked about his own life — his seven wild years in California, his divorce, his children — and gently satirized Arab mores.
When he finished, the packed concert hall erupted in a wild standing ovation. Members of his entourage soon bundled him through the thick crowd of admirers to a back door, where they rushed through the darkness to a waiting car.
"Elvis has left the building," Mr. Shugairi joked, in English, as he relaxed into his seat.
Mr. Shugairi is a rising star in a new generation of "satellite sheiks" whose religion-themed television shows have helped fuel a religious revival across the Arab world. Over the past decade, the number of satellite channels devoted exclusively to religion has risen from 1 to more than 30, and religious programming on general interest stations, like the one that features Mr. Shugairi's show, has soared. Mr. Shugairi and others like him have succeeded by appealing to a young audience that is hungry for religious identity but deeply alienated from both politics and the traditional religious establishment, especially in the fundamentalist forms now common in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
In part, that is a matter of style: a handsome, athletically built 35-year-old, Mr. Shugairi effortlessly mixes deep religious commitment with hip, playful humor. He earned an M.B.A. during his California years, and he sometimes refers to Islam as "an excellent product that needs better packaging."
But his message of sincere religious moderation is tremendously powerful here. For young Arabs, he offers a way to reconcile a world painfully divided between East and West, pleasure and duty, the rigor of the mosque and the baffling freedoms of the Internet.
"He makes us attached to religion — sometimes with our modern life we get detached," said Imma al-Khalidi, a 25-year-old Saudi who burst into tears when Mr. Shugairi, uneasy with his rock-star departure from the auditorium, returned to the hall to chat with a group of black-clad and veiled young women. There was an audible intake of breath as the women saw him emerge. A few bold ones walked forward, but most hung back, seemingly stunned.
"Before, we used to see only men behind a desk, like judges," Ms. Khalidi said.
Mr. Shugairi is not the first of his kind. Amr Khaled, an Egyptian televangelist, began reaching large audiences eight years ago. But the field has expanded greatly, with each new figure creating Internet sites and Facebook groups where tens of thousands of fans trade epiphanies and links to YouTube clips of their favorite preachers.
Mr. Shugairi's main TV program, "Khawater" ("Thoughts"), could not be more different from the dry lecturing style of so many Muslim clerics. In one episode on literacy, the camera follows Mr. Shugairi as he wanders through Jidda asking people where to find a public library (no one knows). In another, he pokes through a trash bin, pointing to mounds of rotting rice and hummus that could have been donated for the poor. He even sets up "Candid Camera"-style gags, confronting people who pocket a wallet from the pavement and asking them if the Prophet Muhammad would have done the same.
At times, his program resembles an American civics class disguised as religion, complete with lessons on environmental awareness and responsible driving.
Criticized From Both Sides
Inevitably, hard-line clerics dismiss Mr. Shugairi as a lightweight who toadies to the West. From the other side, some liberals lament that Mr. Shugairi and the other satellite sheiks are Islamizing the secular elite of the Arab world.
And while most of these broadcast preachers, including Mr. Shugairi, promote a moderate and inclusive strain of Islam, others do not. There are few controls in the world of satellite television, where virtually anyone can take to the air and preach as he likes on one of hundreds of channels.
[The complete article can be found in the 1/3/09 NY Times -JRK]
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
GAZA: A Test for Progressive US Jewish Groups
Progressive Jewish Groups See Test in Crisis
Spencer Ackerman
The Washington Independent
December 30, 2008
http://washingtonindependent.com/23198/progressive-jewish-groups-see-test-in-cri... [1]
As the Israeli bombardment of Gaza enters its fourth day, there is no shortage of tests. The wisdom of Israeli strategy is being tested. The resilience of the Palestinian people is being tested. The ability of the U.S. and the international community to impose a ceasefire is being tested.
And the might of the new progressive American Jewish infrastructure that emerged in 2008 — unapologetically pro-peace and pro-Israel — is undergoing its own test as well: How to effectively argue that an Israeli war is counterproductive to Israel’s long-term security while the bombs are falling.
“Absolutely,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street, a new liberal Jewish lobby group. “This is a real testing moment for those of us who honestly believe you can be supportive of Israel but questioning of steps its government takes.”
M.J. Rosenberg, director of policy analysis for the Israel Policy Forum, another progressive Jewish organization, was similarly blunt. “It’s put-up-or-shut-up time,” he said. “For a two-state solution, for the U.S. to be an honest broker — if all of us just sit back and say, ‘Israel had no choice [to bomb Gaza], then we’re just a bunch of phonies. But I don’t see that happening.”
As is typical during moments of crisis in the Middle East, the bombing of Gaza quickly led to statements of unambiguous support for Israel from leading American politicians, including from Democrats and progressives.
“When Israel is attacked,” said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), “the United States must continue to stand strongly with its friend and democratic ally.” House Majority Leady Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said, “Israel is acting in clear self-defense in response to heinous rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza.” Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the progressive chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, at least acknowledged the 364 Palestinians killed in Gaza over four days, but only to say, “The loss of innocent life is a terrible tragedy, and the blame for that tragedy lies with Hamas.”
The Gaza crisis is the first Israeli-Palestinian emergency since J Street launched in April. As a self-identified force to shift the American debate on Israel and Palestine to the left, it has not previously had to make its arguments while Israel has been at war. Usually, when Israel finds itself at war, “our side gets cowed into silence,” Ben-Ami, a former domestic policy aide to President Bill Clinton, told the Washington Independent in April. So Gaza is the first test for whether that silence can be broken, and the expected pro-bombing statements made by U.S. politicians and media commentators demonstrates its uphill struggle.
On Sunday afternoon, J Street emailed supporters and asked them to endorse a statement: “I support immediate and strong U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to urgently reinstate a meaningful ceasefire that ends all military operations, stops the rockets aimed at Israel and lifts the blockade of Gaza. This is in the best interests of Israel, the Palestinian people and the United States.”
The appeal was accompanied by an anguished email written by online director Isaac Luria. “At this moment of extreme crisis, J Street wants to demonstrate that, among those who care about Israel and its security, there is a constituency for sanity and moderation,” Luria wrote. “There are many who recognize elements of truth on both sides of this gaping divide and who know that closing it requires strong American engagement and leadership.”
By 5 p.m. Monday, the organization said it had collected 11,870 signatures. Ben Ami said he would present the petition to the Obama transition team, with which the organization is in talks about appointments to Middle-East policy positions.
For its part, the transition has been circumspect, declining to step on the Bush administration’s efforts before Obama takes office. “President-elect Obama is closely monitoring global events, including the situation in Gaza, but there is one president at a time,” said Brooke Anderson, the transition’s chief national-security spokeswoman.
Further steps, Ben Ami said, depend on whether the Israeli campaign winds down or escalates. But he said that the organization’s leadership would “do whole range of media” appearances in order to demonstrate that “this organization with strong roots in the pro-Israel community is willing to say, ‘Let’s discuss the best way going forward and not blindly go down a path we think is counterproductive.’”
Others discussed next steps already. Rosenberg anticipated forming a coalition with organizations like J Street and Americans for Peace Now, another progressive Jewish lobby group, as well as progressive Arab-American organizations like the American Task Force on Palestine — which has also called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza — to coordinate messaging and lobbying.
While coordinated efforts have not yet coalesced, some in the progressive Jewish community think that the “message is getting out there,” as Ori Nir, spokesman for Americans For Peace Now, put it. “It’s getting reported by Jewish and general media, getting it out to our base,” Nir said. “We sent out yesterday our statement and today an action alert calling on activists to send letters to President Bush urging what the press statement urged, and to President-elect Obama.”
In the statement, Americans For Peace Now’s president, Debra DeLee said, “While we hold – as we always have – that Israel has the right and the obligation to protect its citizens from attack and threats, we know that military power alone will not provide real, long term remedy for the threat that the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip poses to Israel. Israel needs stability on its border with Gaza. Such stability can only be achieved through a political process,” a sentiment echoed by organizations like J Street and the Israel Policy Forum.
Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow with the American Task Force on Palestine, urged progressive Jewish organizations to “be very clear with their Israeli friends that there isn’t going to be a military solution [to the conflict], just as we are with our Palestinian and Arab friends.” But he cautioned that a moment of hostility might not actually be such a proving ground for the new liberal Jewish lobbying apparatus.
“Peace groups on both sides are more fully tested when the spotlight is not on the process, counterintuitively,” Ibish said. “That’s when the hard work — building the basis of a negotiated agreement comes in. That’s the only way this ends, and you can’t bring that out in any meaningful when the bombs are flying.”
American Task Force on Palestine - 815 Connecticut Ave., Suite 200, Washington DC 20006 - Telephone:
Spencer Ackerman
The Washington Independent
December 30, 2008
http://washingtonindependent.com/23198/progressive-jewish-groups-see-test-in-cri... [1]
As the Israeli bombardment of Gaza enters its fourth day, there is no shortage of tests. The wisdom of Israeli strategy is being tested. The resilience of the Palestinian people is being tested. The ability of the U.S. and the international community to impose a ceasefire is being tested.
And the might of the new progressive American Jewish infrastructure that emerged in 2008 — unapologetically pro-peace and pro-Israel — is undergoing its own test as well: How to effectively argue that an Israeli war is counterproductive to Israel’s long-term security while the bombs are falling.
“Absolutely,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street, a new liberal Jewish lobby group. “This is a real testing moment for those of us who honestly believe you can be supportive of Israel but questioning of steps its government takes.”
M.J. Rosenberg, director of policy analysis for the Israel Policy Forum, another progressive Jewish organization, was similarly blunt. “It’s put-up-or-shut-up time,” he said. “For a two-state solution, for the U.S. to be an honest broker — if all of us just sit back and say, ‘Israel had no choice [to bomb Gaza], then we’re just a bunch of phonies. But I don’t see that happening.”
As is typical during moments of crisis in the Middle East, the bombing of Gaza quickly led to statements of unambiguous support for Israel from leading American politicians, including from Democrats and progressives.
“When Israel is attacked,” said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), “the United States must continue to stand strongly with its friend and democratic ally.” House Majority Leady Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said, “Israel is acting in clear self-defense in response to heinous rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza.” Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the progressive chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, at least acknowledged the 364 Palestinians killed in Gaza over four days, but only to say, “The loss of innocent life is a terrible tragedy, and the blame for that tragedy lies with Hamas.”
The Gaza crisis is the first Israeli-Palestinian emergency since J Street launched in April. As a self-identified force to shift the American debate on Israel and Palestine to the left, it has not previously had to make its arguments while Israel has been at war. Usually, when Israel finds itself at war, “our side gets cowed into silence,” Ben-Ami, a former domestic policy aide to President Bill Clinton, told the Washington Independent in April. So Gaza is the first test for whether that silence can be broken, and the expected pro-bombing statements made by U.S. politicians and media commentators demonstrates its uphill struggle.
On Sunday afternoon, J Street emailed supporters and asked them to endorse a statement: “I support immediate and strong U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to urgently reinstate a meaningful ceasefire that ends all military operations, stops the rockets aimed at Israel and lifts the blockade of Gaza. This is in the best interests of Israel, the Palestinian people and the United States.”
The appeal was accompanied by an anguished email written by online director Isaac Luria. “At this moment of extreme crisis, J Street wants to demonstrate that, among those who care about Israel and its security, there is a constituency for sanity and moderation,” Luria wrote. “There are many who recognize elements of truth on both sides of this gaping divide and who know that closing it requires strong American engagement and leadership.”
By 5 p.m. Monday, the organization said it had collected 11,870 signatures. Ben Ami said he would present the petition to the Obama transition team, with which the organization is in talks about appointments to Middle-East policy positions.
For its part, the transition has been circumspect, declining to step on the Bush administration’s efforts before Obama takes office. “President-elect Obama is closely monitoring global events, including the situation in Gaza, but there is one president at a time,” said Brooke Anderson, the transition’s chief national-security spokeswoman.
Further steps, Ben Ami said, depend on whether the Israeli campaign winds down or escalates. But he said that the organization’s leadership would “do whole range of media” appearances in order to demonstrate that “this organization with strong roots in the pro-Israel community is willing to say, ‘Let’s discuss the best way going forward and not blindly go down a path we think is counterproductive.’”
Others discussed next steps already. Rosenberg anticipated forming a coalition with organizations like J Street and Americans for Peace Now, another progressive Jewish lobby group, as well as progressive Arab-American organizations like the American Task Force on Palestine — which has also called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza — to coordinate messaging and lobbying.
While coordinated efforts have not yet coalesced, some in the progressive Jewish community think that the “message is getting out there,” as Ori Nir, spokesman for Americans For Peace Now, put it. “It’s getting reported by Jewish and general media, getting it out to our base,” Nir said. “We sent out yesterday our statement and today an action alert calling on activists to send letters to President Bush urging what the press statement urged, and to President-elect Obama.”
In the statement, Americans For Peace Now’s president, Debra DeLee said, “While we hold – as we always have – that Israel has the right and the obligation to protect its citizens from attack and threats, we know that military power alone will not provide real, long term remedy for the threat that the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip poses to Israel. Israel needs stability on its border with Gaza. Such stability can only be achieved through a political process,” a sentiment echoed by organizations like J Street and the Israel Policy Forum.
Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow with the American Task Force on Palestine, urged progressive Jewish organizations to “be very clear with their Israeli friends that there isn’t going to be a military solution [to the conflict], just as we are with our Palestinian and Arab friends.” But he cautioned that a moment of hostility might not actually be such a proving ground for the new liberal Jewish lobbying apparatus.
“Peace groups on both sides are more fully tested when the spotlight is not on the process, counterintuitively,” Ibish said. “That’s when the hard work — building the basis of a negotiated agreement comes in. That’s the only way this ends, and you can’t bring that out in any meaningful when the bombs are flying.”
American Task Force on Palestine - 815 Connecticut Ave., Suite 200, Washington DC 20006 - Telephone:
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
The Work of Reconciliation
Dear Friend,
I'm trying to shed light on injustice AND steps being taken toward Salaam/Shalom/Peace.
Below is an in depth report of a women's conference in Isr/Pal that frankly looks at the pain we must see in each other's soul, that will lead to understanding, humility, compassion and the roots of shared existence, beyond the cycle of carnage that spirals ever downward. In my view, THIS is what it's all about for "peace" and "security". Until the world is ready and willing to go HERE, it just won't happen!
Read, digest and share with your "world".
Thanks to our friends at MUSALAHA and all, have a blessed season, JRK
Dear Friends,
We just finished our second national women’s conference this year which proved to be an intense time of tackling tough brokenness resulting from [women's] experiences of the Shoah (Holocaust) and the Nakba (the catastrophe termed by Palestinians dispossessed and displaced from their land in 1948). The purpose of the conference was to understand the other side’s pain and not to compare. Though it exposed the pain of the women who attended, it was by the grace of God a success. The women had to come to a level of trust that enabled them to listen to the stories of the other side’s brokenness, moving them one step closer to reconciliation. Here is a report:
Every single one of us is broken. I am a broken person. You are a broken person. We can be broken physically or we can have a broken heart. An endless number of devastating and evil things in this world can break us down and fill us with bitterness, anger, despair and hatred leading us to self destruction. You can be broken by people destroying your self confidence, by depression or loneliness eating you up inside, by the financial crisis stripping you of everything you own, by war or conflict destroying everything and everyone around you. Brokenness is a focal element in our everyday life. How many of your conversations today have centered on brokenness, your pain or someone else's pain?
We often tend to compare our brokenness, sometimes for more sympathy and compassion. But every one's brokenness, each person's pain and suffering is deeply unique and individual and to a person suffering, their pain seems enormous, no matter how small it may seem to others. In Henri Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved, he says, “Each human being suffers in a way no other human being suffers.” The way each person is broken tells us something unique about the person and therefore sharing our brokenness with others will deepen our relationship with them and bring us closer to our own healing.
The Holocaust has broken the Jewish people. The Nakba has broken the Palestinian people. Horrible and unique events for both have caused some in the two groups of people to grow angry, bitter and have hatred, becoming the driving force behind their behavior towards each other. As such brokenness is a hindrance to reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians and one of the issues at the root of the conflict between them. We cannot reconcile with another person if we do not know the pain and suffering of the other or deal with our own brokenness.
At our latest women's conference, which took place at the end of November, 45 Israeli and Palestinian women studied the Holocaust and the Nakba in order to listen to and acknowledge each others brokenness and in order to recognize and deal with their own brokenness. From this point on, they were able to move yet another step forward towards reconciliation. It is not easy to face pain and suffering straight on, whether it belongs to someone else or to yourself and because of this many women felt anxious before the conference. It is also not easy to acknowledge the pain of others, particularly if your pain is closely intertwined and you fear that acknowledging the pain will diminish your own pain. “But the first step to healing pain is not a step away from the pain, but a step towards it" (Nouwen, 93). We have to find the courage to embrace it, no matter how frightening that can be.
Following lectures on the Holocaust and the Nakba, two guest speaker shared with us their personal testimonies.
A Dutch Holocaust survivor told us how she was forced to leave her home, parents and brother at the age of six and flee from the German soldiers together with her aunt and her sister. A Christian family in southern Holland hid them in their house until the end of the war. Her parents were not as fortunate. Her mother died from a simple illness after not getting the necessary medical care. Her father and brother managed to jump off a train enroute to a concentration camp but the German soldiers saw them escaping and shot her father. Her brother managed to hide in a small doghouse until the soldiers were gone again and then to get to a house that was willing to hide him. After the war, the three orphans were reunited.
A Palestinian woman shared with us the traumatic night in 1948 when her family, living in Bet Sahn (Beit Shean), was given two hours to leave the house by the Hagannah (Israeli resistance movement) or they would be shot. With only a few belongings, they ran to the town hall where buses waited to take them and other Christians to Nazareth while the remaining buses transported the Muslims to Jordan. On the way, they ate unleavened bread and the whole situation reminded them of the Israelites fleeing Egypt. The girl thought that she would return home after a few days and left her pocket money in her drawer. And, now 60 years later she still has not returned to the house, which remains in Israeli hands. A bank and playground have been erected over the area where her house once stood. The first night in Nazareth, they all slept on the floor in a big hall. After that the Anglican Church took them in to live on their compounds. They still live there today. She encouraged us with this statement, “I cannot change the past but I can change the future.”
We were moved to tears as we sympathized with our sisters who had gone through such pain and suffering. I came to the conference with the idea of what our message would be – understanding each other’s brokenness and not ignoring the pain. But God is great and he had much greater things in store for us and a much more important message. The testimonies of the two ladies did not end here.
The Jewish survivor went on to tell us how she started reading the Bible, looking for answers to all the gruesomeness she had experienced. As she read through the book, she realized the greatness of our God and came to faith. Shortly thereafter, she immigrated to Israel and married. Every year a German professor came to visit them and every year he encouraged her to visit Germany. Filled with enormous hatred towards the German people, she blankly refused and swore that she would never set foot in the land. After refusing to go for ten years, she felt that God was calling her to Germany to deal with her brokenness and today she is a free woman. No longer broken, no longer filled with the anger and hatred that she once felt was slowly eating her up and destroying her life.
The Palestinian woman did not deny that the episode still remains in her mind and her heart and that it still hurts till this day but she has forgiven and does not hold grudges. Many still have hatred towards the enemy but we do not have enemies. We were the enemies of Jesus, who died for us and gave us life. This woman came from a family of strong believers and she firmly believes that the Lord had a plan for what happened. She met her husband in Nazareth and for 35 years they worked with Christians and Muslims. Today she is involved in reconciliation. She felt that the Lord was with her and the family through it all and her message to us came from Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.”
We shouldn’t wait for others to settle our hatred, but we should deal with it ourselves by bringing it to God. To seek healing, healing from brokenness does not only come from someone else. Healing from brokenness comes also from God and to seek healing we need to seek him. While we need others in order to understand their pain we don’t need their apologies for our own healing. These women didn’t wait for others to ask forgiveness or for situations to change, such as getting a house back, but surrendered their hatred to God. They were set free and today they shine out as an amazing witness of the greatness of God. As part of a mass service by Leonard Bernstein, it is written that a priest drops a glass chalice and says, “I never realized that broken glass could shine so brightly.”
We cannot allow the pain and suffering of the past to paralyze us but we need to look and see how we change the present for the future. It is not an easy process. At this conference, we saw how the lectures stirred up many mixed and strong feelings in the women and how they led to heated discussions and disagreements. We still have a very long way to go and we still need to study many issues relating to the Holocaust and the Nakba. It took the two women more than 10 years to move forward. But these women have shown us that it is possible to overcome hatred and anger resulting from awful and life shattering experiences. It reminds me of the fact that God never gives us more than we can handle. He wants to bring us near to him but in order to do so he sometimes needs to break us first. This way the suffering does not become an obstacle to peace, but a means to it. It becomes a blessing. We are no longer victims. That, to me, is comforting.
We came to the conference to move one step forward, God ended up moving us two steps forward.
Written by Louise Thomsen
Project Coordinator
www.FriendsofPalestiniansandIsraelis.blogspot.com
I'm trying to shed light on injustice AND steps being taken toward Salaam/Shalom/Peace.
Below is an in depth report of a women's conference in Isr/Pal that frankly looks at the pain we must see in each other's soul, that will lead to understanding, humility, compassion and the roots of shared existence, beyond the cycle of carnage that spirals ever downward. In my view, THIS is what it's all about for "peace" and "security". Until the world is ready and willing to go HERE, it just won't happen!
Read, digest and share with your "world".
Thanks to our friends at MUSALAHA and all, have a blessed season, JRK
Dear Friends,
We just finished our second national women’s conference this year which proved to be an intense time of tackling tough brokenness resulting from [women's] experiences of the Shoah (Holocaust) and the Nakba (the catastrophe termed by Palestinians dispossessed and displaced from their land in 1948). The purpose of the conference was to understand the other side’s pain and not to compare. Though it exposed the pain of the women who attended, it was by the grace of God a success. The women had to come to a level of trust that enabled them to listen to the stories of the other side’s brokenness, moving them one step closer to reconciliation. Here is a report:
Every single one of us is broken. I am a broken person. You are a broken person. We can be broken physically or we can have a broken heart. An endless number of devastating and evil things in this world can break us down and fill us with bitterness, anger, despair and hatred leading us to self destruction. You can be broken by people destroying your self confidence, by depression or loneliness eating you up inside, by the financial crisis stripping you of everything you own, by war or conflict destroying everything and everyone around you. Brokenness is a focal element in our everyday life. How many of your conversations today have centered on brokenness, your pain or someone else's pain?
We often tend to compare our brokenness, sometimes for more sympathy and compassion. But every one's brokenness, each person's pain and suffering is deeply unique and individual and to a person suffering, their pain seems enormous, no matter how small it may seem to others. In Henri Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved, he says, “Each human being suffers in a way no other human being suffers.” The way each person is broken tells us something unique about the person and therefore sharing our brokenness with others will deepen our relationship with them and bring us closer to our own healing.
The Holocaust has broken the Jewish people. The Nakba has broken the Palestinian people. Horrible and unique events for both have caused some in the two groups of people to grow angry, bitter and have hatred, becoming the driving force behind their behavior towards each other. As such brokenness is a hindrance to reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians and one of the issues at the root of the conflict between them. We cannot reconcile with another person if we do not know the pain and suffering of the other or deal with our own brokenness.
At our latest women's conference, which took place at the end of November, 45 Israeli and Palestinian women studied the Holocaust and the Nakba in order to listen to and acknowledge each others brokenness and in order to recognize and deal with their own brokenness. From this point on, they were able to move yet another step forward towards reconciliation. It is not easy to face pain and suffering straight on, whether it belongs to someone else or to yourself and because of this many women felt anxious before the conference. It is also not easy to acknowledge the pain of others, particularly if your pain is closely intertwined and you fear that acknowledging the pain will diminish your own pain. “But the first step to healing pain is not a step away from the pain, but a step towards it" (Nouwen, 93). We have to find the courage to embrace it, no matter how frightening that can be.
Following lectures on the Holocaust and the Nakba, two guest speaker shared with us their personal testimonies.
A Dutch Holocaust survivor told us how she was forced to leave her home, parents and brother at the age of six and flee from the German soldiers together with her aunt and her sister. A Christian family in southern Holland hid them in their house until the end of the war. Her parents were not as fortunate. Her mother died from a simple illness after not getting the necessary medical care. Her father and brother managed to jump off a train enroute to a concentration camp but the German soldiers saw them escaping and shot her father. Her brother managed to hide in a small doghouse until the soldiers were gone again and then to get to a house that was willing to hide him. After the war, the three orphans were reunited.
A Palestinian woman shared with us the traumatic night in 1948 when her family, living in Bet Sahn (Beit Shean), was given two hours to leave the house by the Hagannah (Israeli resistance movement) or they would be shot. With only a few belongings, they ran to the town hall where buses waited to take them and other Christians to Nazareth while the remaining buses transported the Muslims to Jordan. On the way, they ate unleavened bread and the whole situation reminded them of the Israelites fleeing Egypt. The girl thought that she would return home after a few days and left her pocket money in her drawer. And, now 60 years later she still has not returned to the house, which remains in Israeli hands. A bank and playground have been erected over the area where her house once stood. The first night in Nazareth, they all slept on the floor in a big hall. After that the Anglican Church took them in to live on their compounds. They still live there today. She encouraged us with this statement, “I cannot change the past but I can change the future.”
We were moved to tears as we sympathized with our sisters who had gone through such pain and suffering. I came to the conference with the idea of what our message would be – understanding each other’s brokenness and not ignoring the pain. But God is great and he had much greater things in store for us and a much more important message. The testimonies of the two ladies did not end here.
The Jewish survivor went on to tell us how she started reading the Bible, looking for answers to all the gruesomeness she had experienced. As she read through the book, she realized the greatness of our God and came to faith. Shortly thereafter, she immigrated to Israel and married. Every year a German professor came to visit them and every year he encouraged her to visit Germany. Filled with enormous hatred towards the German people, she blankly refused and swore that she would never set foot in the land. After refusing to go for ten years, she felt that God was calling her to Germany to deal with her brokenness and today she is a free woman. No longer broken, no longer filled with the anger and hatred that she once felt was slowly eating her up and destroying her life.
The Palestinian woman did not deny that the episode still remains in her mind and her heart and that it still hurts till this day but she has forgiven and does not hold grudges. Many still have hatred towards the enemy but we do not have enemies. We were the enemies of Jesus, who died for us and gave us life. This woman came from a family of strong believers and she firmly believes that the Lord had a plan for what happened. She met her husband in Nazareth and for 35 years they worked with Christians and Muslims. Today she is involved in reconciliation. She felt that the Lord was with her and the family through it all and her message to us came from Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.”
We shouldn’t wait for others to settle our hatred, but we should deal with it ourselves by bringing it to God. To seek healing, healing from brokenness does not only come from someone else. Healing from brokenness comes also from God and to seek healing we need to seek him. While we need others in order to understand their pain we don’t need their apologies for our own healing. These women didn’t wait for others to ask forgiveness or for situations to change, such as getting a house back, but surrendered their hatred to God. They were set free and today they shine out as an amazing witness of the greatness of God. As part of a mass service by Leonard Bernstein, it is written that a priest drops a glass chalice and says, “I never realized that broken glass could shine so brightly.”
We cannot allow the pain and suffering of the past to paralyze us but we need to look and see how we change the present for the future. It is not an easy process. At this conference, we saw how the lectures stirred up many mixed and strong feelings in the women and how they led to heated discussions and disagreements. We still have a very long way to go and we still need to study many issues relating to the Holocaust and the Nakba. It took the two women more than 10 years to move forward. But these women have shown us that it is possible to overcome hatred and anger resulting from awful and life shattering experiences. It reminds me of the fact that God never gives us more than we can handle. He wants to bring us near to him but in order to do so he sometimes needs to break us first. This way the suffering does not become an obstacle to peace, but a means to it. It becomes a blessing. We are no longer victims. That, to me, is comforting.
We came to the conference to move one step forward, God ended up moving us two steps forward.
Written by Louise Thomsen
Project Coordinator
www.FriendsofPalestiniansandIsraelis.blogspot.com
Friday, December 12, 2008
Getting Obama's Attention for a New Start
There are many proposals being drafted and circulated, urging Barack Obama to take an entirely different tack in bringing Israelis and Palestinians together for real change.
Here is one of the most comprehensive, by Jeff Halper, long-time Jewish activist opposed to land confiscation and Palestinian home demolition. It is based on the proposal by Brent Scowcraft Zbeigniew Breezinski, US officials "in the know".
FRAMING, PRINCIPLES AND ELEMENTS: IF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TRULY SEEKS A BREAK-THROUGH ON THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT
Jeff Halper
December 10, 2008
Writing recently in The Washington Post ("Middle East Priorities," Nov. 21), Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, two former US National Security Advisors, a Republican and a Democrat, declared: "We believe that the Arab-Israeli peace process is one issue that requires priority attention [from the incoming Obama Administration]."
Their assessment is correct, of course. . . . Let us begin with the four "well known" elements which Scowcroft and Brzezinski suggest as essential for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict.
(1) Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders with minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon modifications. This is indeed a central element in any two-state solution, but it conceals the dangers inherent in all negotiations between a strong Occupying Power and a powerless people under its control: the likelihood that "minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon" will be defined by the strong side and imposed on the weaker one, to its detriment. Merely the annexation of Palestinian East Jerusalem to Israel, only a "minor" adjustment of just over 1% to the 1967 borders, will rob a Palestinian state of its political, cultural and religious center, not to mention its economic heart. Israel's annexation of its West Bank "settlement blocs," containing fully 80% of its settlers, would involve a "minor" adjustment of only 7-10% of the 1967 borders, but it, too, eliminates a viable Palestinian state.
Reciprocal? Is the exchange of 10% of West Bank land containing East Jerusalem, the settlement blocs, some of Palestine's richest agricultural lands and its water resources for an equivalent amount of land in the Negev desert truly "reciprocal"? Does the notion of reciprocal land exchange include such considerations as the territorial integrity of a Palestinian state, freedom of movement or, in the end, genuine sovereignty? If, for example, Israel was to annex or "lease" the Jordan Valley, which it has always insisted must be done, it could easily "compensate" the Palestinians with another few percentages of land within Israel, but how could that "reciprocal" exchange compensate for the loss of a border with an Arab country, something that would turn a Palestinian "state" into a mere Bantustan?
And "agreed upon," as we have seen in previous negotiations, means little if there is no parity of power between the sides. Only a peace process based on international law, human rights conventions and UN resolutions – all studiously eliminated from negotiations by the US and Israel – will level the playing field. So while Scowcroft and Brzezinski's "element" is indeed fundamental to a just peace, it must be embedded in three other principles that make up the underlying approach and prevent abuse: negotiations based on international law, human rights and UN resolutions; the principle of return to the '67 borders agreed upon before modifications begin, in conformity to UN resolution 242 (and not to Israel's self-serving interpretation of it); and commitment to a viable Palestinian state possessing territorial contiguity, control of borders, airspace, resources and movement of people and goods. Only then will negotiations be able to avoid the pitfalls of power differentials.
(2) Sharing Jerusalem as a capital of two states. This is actually an important step forward, but it's certainly not "well known," since the "Clinton Parameters" which guided discussion over Jerusalem, envisioned a divided city. This is, indeed, the way to approach the issue of Jerusalem. But here, too, the devil is in the details. Who defines "Jerusalem"? The Israeli definition incorporates the eastern side of the city, annexed to Israel already in 1967, but plans are almost completed for the further annexation – de facto if not de jure -- of what Israel calls "Greater Jerusalem." Not only will an additional 150,000 Jews be added to the Jerusalem population, but the Palestinians in the city will be isolated from the West Bank, thereby depriving a Palestinian state of its main source of income, tourism, as well as other crucial economic and political resources. Indeed, Israel has defined, for planning purposes, a "metropolitan" Jerusalem that includes Ramallah and Bethlehem, effectively turning those Palestinian cities into economic satellites of an Israeli Jerusalem. Palestinians, on the other hand, while agreeing with Scowcroft and Brzezinski's "element" of a shared Jerusalem, consider it an integral part of their country. This element, then, must also be anchored in a principled approach: Jerusalem should not only be shared but it must be wholly integrated into the political, economic, social and cultural fabric of the Palestinian state, not simply accessible from a few bus routes.
(3) No right of return into Israel, but compensation and agreements with Arab states for the granting of citizenship. Again, a technical "solution" to a problem that will simply not work because it ignores the principle of justice. It is true that, technically, a resolution of the refugee issue may not be difficult. Studies indicate that only 10% of the refugees have a desire to return to what is today Israel, and those are mainly the elderly. Others will return either to a Palestinian state, stay where they are in an Arab country or expect resettlement and compensation in another country. Israel could also allow a limited return: Ehud Barak, when he was Prime Minister, once spoke of 150,000.
But, as Jews well know, victims of an injustice on the scale of the Nakba require more than merely compensation, especially if they are expected to give up their right to return to their country – and they do have an absolute right to return that cannot be taken from them. Two preconditions, symbolic but indispensable, must precede any negotiations. First, Israel will have to acknowledge the right of the refugees' return. Palestinians will not allow their 60-plus year nightmare of suffering and injustice to be dismissed as merely a "humanitarian" problem. By the same token, Israel will have to admit and acknowledge its role in creating the refugee issue in 1948. Victims need the injustice they suffered to be acknowledged if the wounds are to heal and reconciliation take place. (We may even need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.) Getting Israel to do these two things is the most difficult part of the refugee problem; Israel will resist doing so. But unless this principled approach is adopted, the refugee issue – which is central in the Palestinians' view of the conflict – will never be truly resolved and the conflict never really ended.
(4) A demilitarized Palestinian state, perhaps with NATO and other foreign troops to protect Israel (!) and the Palestinians. This element of Scowcroft and Brzezinski's approach exposes the bias and naiveté of the traditional US position. Why in the world does Israel, a nuclear power with an army that rivals any in Europe, need foreign troops to protect it?! And what of the Palestinians? Even if they also receive some foreign protection, why should they be the world's only demilitarized state and, given Israel's military aggressiveness, will a foreign contingent really protect them against Israel? Once again, principle must precede technical "elements" of a peace agreement. The Palestinians should be guaranteed what every other country has, actual sovereignty, including unmediated borders with its Egyptian and Jordanian neighbors, the essential corollary of national self-determination. Once genuine sovereignty and viability are defined to the Palestinians' satisfaction, and in line with international norms, negotiating the details specified by Scowcroft and Brzezinski can proceed.
Scowcroft and Brzezinski then add one other element to the mix:
(5) The president speaking out clearly and forcefully about the fundamental principles of the peace process [and pressing] the case with steady determination. This, however, is more than an "element." It represents precisely what I have been advocating: the realization that without a declared and principled approach underlying a peace process, we have nothing more than the failed Oslo process, open-ended negotiations towards no clearly defined goal, which, in the end, only permit Israel to entrench its control. And its absence is not simply an oversight; nor is it as easy to articulate as Scowcroft and Brzezinski indicate. The problem has to do with framing.
And here is where a president hits up against Israel's fundamental refusal to enter into a peace process that might actually threaten its hold over the Occupied Territories. A framing based on the principles I enumerated or the elements of a genuine Israeli-Palestinian peace as outlined by Scowcroft and Brzezinski will simply not be accepted by either Israel, its allies in Congress or sectors of the American public Israel is capable of mobilizing. For both the principles and the elements are already framed as "anti-Israel" because they lead precisely to what Israel has avoided these past 40-odd years: a complete dismantling of its Occupation and the rise of a genuine Palestinian state. Any presidential statement, especially if it is forceful, that does not place Israel's Occupation at the forefront is simply not acceptable. And yet, without it, there can be no fruitful negotiations or an end to the conflict.
If framing is the problem, it may also be the solution. If the elements listed by Scowcroft and Brzezinski must be anchored in a set of principles which direct the negotiations, then those principles themselves must be anchored in an American reframing. Obama could by-pass the Israeli framing by taking a lesson from Reagan, who faced a similar problem in 1981 when he sought to sell AWAC surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia. When it became clear that AIPAC might actually muster enough opposition in Congress to block the sale, Reagan pulled rank – which is just what Scowcroft and Brzezinski seem to be suggesting that Obama do. Reagan told Congress: I am the Commander-in-Chief, and I am telling you that this sale is in the vital interests of the United States. Framed like that, Congress could hardly reject the deal. In order for President Obama to "speak out clearly and forcefully about the fundamental principles of the peace process," as he will have to if he wants to enter into meaningful negotiations, he must anchor those principles in American interests. A complete end to Israel's Occupation and the establishment of a truly sovereign and viable Palestinian state next to a secure state of Israel, he must state, is in the vital interests of the United States.
Only that package – identifying the essential elements of a peace agreement, anchoring them in an approach based on overarching principles of justice acceptable to the Palestinians, and then framing it all in terms of American interests in seeing this conflict resolved – will enable a president to finally break through the obfuscation created by the Israeli framing, the major obstacle standing in the way of a just and sustainable resolution of the conflict. But in reversed order: first the framing, which will present the president's case in a coherent and compelling fashion to the public, followed by the principles and then the specific elements. Tiny points in a global conflict, but then again, if Israel has taught us anything these past four decades of fending off attempts to end its Occupation, it is that the devil is in the details.
(Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be reached at.)
Here is one of the most comprehensive, by Jeff Halper, long-time Jewish activist opposed to land confiscation and Palestinian home demolition. It is based on the proposal by Brent Scowcraft Zbeigniew Breezinski, US officials "in the know".
FRAMING, PRINCIPLES AND ELEMENTS: IF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TRULY SEEKS A BREAK-THROUGH ON THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT
Jeff Halper
December 10, 2008
Writing recently in The Washington Post ("Middle East Priorities," Nov. 21), Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, two former US National Security Advisors, a Republican and a Democrat, declared: "We believe that the Arab-Israeli peace process is one issue that requires priority attention [from the incoming Obama Administration]."
Their assessment is correct, of course. . . . Let us begin with the four "well known" elements which Scowcroft and Brzezinski suggest as essential for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict.
(1) Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders with minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon modifications. This is indeed a central element in any two-state solution, but it conceals the dangers inherent in all negotiations between a strong Occupying Power and a powerless people under its control: the likelihood that "minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon" will be defined by the strong side and imposed on the weaker one, to its detriment. Merely the annexation of Palestinian East Jerusalem to Israel, only a "minor" adjustment of just over 1% to the 1967 borders, will rob a Palestinian state of its political, cultural and religious center, not to mention its economic heart. Israel's annexation of its West Bank "settlement blocs," containing fully 80% of its settlers, would involve a "minor" adjustment of only 7-10% of the 1967 borders, but it, too, eliminates a viable Palestinian state.
Reciprocal? Is the exchange of 10% of West Bank land containing East Jerusalem, the settlement blocs, some of Palestine's richest agricultural lands and its water resources for an equivalent amount of land in the Negev desert truly "reciprocal"? Does the notion of reciprocal land exchange include such considerations as the territorial integrity of a Palestinian state, freedom of movement or, in the end, genuine sovereignty? If, for example, Israel was to annex or "lease" the Jordan Valley, which it has always insisted must be done, it could easily "compensate" the Palestinians with another few percentages of land within Israel, but how could that "reciprocal" exchange compensate for the loss of a border with an Arab country, something that would turn a Palestinian "state" into a mere Bantustan?
And "agreed upon," as we have seen in previous negotiations, means little if there is no parity of power between the sides. Only a peace process based on international law, human rights conventions and UN resolutions – all studiously eliminated from negotiations by the US and Israel – will level the playing field. So while Scowcroft and Brzezinski's "element" is indeed fundamental to a just peace, it must be embedded in three other principles that make up the underlying approach and prevent abuse: negotiations based on international law, human rights and UN resolutions; the principle of return to the '67 borders agreed upon before modifications begin, in conformity to UN resolution 242 (and not to Israel's self-serving interpretation of it); and commitment to a viable Palestinian state possessing territorial contiguity, control of borders, airspace, resources and movement of people and goods. Only then will negotiations be able to avoid the pitfalls of power differentials.
(2) Sharing Jerusalem as a capital of two states. This is actually an important step forward, but it's certainly not "well known," since the "Clinton Parameters" which guided discussion over Jerusalem, envisioned a divided city. This is, indeed, the way to approach the issue of Jerusalem. But here, too, the devil is in the details. Who defines "Jerusalem"? The Israeli definition incorporates the eastern side of the city, annexed to Israel already in 1967, but plans are almost completed for the further annexation – de facto if not de jure -- of what Israel calls "Greater Jerusalem." Not only will an additional 150,000 Jews be added to the Jerusalem population, but the Palestinians in the city will be isolated from the West Bank, thereby depriving a Palestinian state of its main source of income, tourism, as well as other crucial economic and political resources. Indeed, Israel has defined, for planning purposes, a "metropolitan" Jerusalem that includes Ramallah and Bethlehem, effectively turning those Palestinian cities into economic satellites of an Israeli Jerusalem. Palestinians, on the other hand, while agreeing with Scowcroft and Brzezinski's "element" of a shared Jerusalem, consider it an integral part of their country. This element, then, must also be anchored in a principled approach: Jerusalem should not only be shared but it must be wholly integrated into the political, economic, social and cultural fabric of the Palestinian state, not simply accessible from a few bus routes.
(3) No right of return into Israel, but compensation and agreements with Arab states for the granting of citizenship. Again, a technical "solution" to a problem that will simply not work because it ignores the principle of justice. It is true that, technically, a resolution of the refugee issue may not be difficult. Studies indicate that only 10% of the refugees have a desire to return to what is today Israel, and those are mainly the elderly. Others will return either to a Palestinian state, stay where they are in an Arab country or expect resettlement and compensation in another country. Israel could also allow a limited return: Ehud Barak, when he was Prime Minister, once spoke of 150,000.
But, as Jews well know, victims of an injustice on the scale of the Nakba require more than merely compensation, especially if they are expected to give up their right to return to their country – and they do have an absolute right to return that cannot be taken from them. Two preconditions, symbolic but indispensable, must precede any negotiations. First, Israel will have to acknowledge the right of the refugees' return. Palestinians will not allow their 60-plus year nightmare of suffering and injustice to be dismissed as merely a "humanitarian" problem. By the same token, Israel will have to admit and acknowledge its role in creating the refugee issue in 1948. Victims need the injustice they suffered to be acknowledged if the wounds are to heal and reconciliation take place. (We may even need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.) Getting Israel to do these two things is the most difficult part of the refugee problem; Israel will resist doing so. But unless this principled approach is adopted, the refugee issue – which is central in the Palestinians' view of the conflict – will never be truly resolved and the conflict never really ended.
(4) A demilitarized Palestinian state, perhaps with NATO and other foreign troops to protect Israel (!) and the Palestinians. This element of Scowcroft and Brzezinski's approach exposes the bias and naiveté of the traditional US position. Why in the world does Israel, a nuclear power with an army that rivals any in Europe, need foreign troops to protect it?! And what of the Palestinians? Even if they also receive some foreign protection, why should they be the world's only demilitarized state and, given Israel's military aggressiveness, will a foreign contingent really protect them against Israel? Once again, principle must precede technical "elements" of a peace agreement. The Palestinians should be guaranteed what every other country has, actual sovereignty, including unmediated borders with its Egyptian and Jordanian neighbors, the essential corollary of national self-determination. Once genuine sovereignty and viability are defined to the Palestinians' satisfaction, and in line with international norms, negotiating the details specified by Scowcroft and Brzezinski can proceed.
Scowcroft and Brzezinski then add one other element to the mix:
(5) The president speaking out clearly and forcefully about the fundamental principles of the peace process [and pressing] the case with steady determination. This, however, is more than an "element." It represents precisely what I have been advocating: the realization that without a declared and principled approach underlying a peace process, we have nothing more than the failed Oslo process, open-ended negotiations towards no clearly defined goal, which, in the end, only permit Israel to entrench its control. And its absence is not simply an oversight; nor is it as easy to articulate as Scowcroft and Brzezinski indicate. The problem has to do with framing.
And here is where a president hits up against Israel's fundamental refusal to enter into a peace process that might actually threaten its hold over the Occupied Territories. A framing based on the principles I enumerated or the elements of a genuine Israeli-Palestinian peace as outlined by Scowcroft and Brzezinski will simply not be accepted by either Israel, its allies in Congress or sectors of the American public Israel is capable of mobilizing. For both the principles and the elements are already framed as "anti-Israel" because they lead precisely to what Israel has avoided these past 40-odd years: a complete dismantling of its Occupation and the rise of a genuine Palestinian state. Any presidential statement, especially if it is forceful, that does not place Israel's Occupation at the forefront is simply not acceptable. And yet, without it, there can be no fruitful negotiations or an end to the conflict.
If framing is the problem, it may also be the solution. If the elements listed by Scowcroft and Brzezinski must be anchored in a set of principles which direct the negotiations, then those principles themselves must be anchored in an American reframing. Obama could by-pass the Israeli framing by taking a lesson from Reagan, who faced a similar problem in 1981 when he sought to sell AWAC surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia. When it became clear that AIPAC might actually muster enough opposition in Congress to block the sale, Reagan pulled rank – which is just what Scowcroft and Brzezinski seem to be suggesting that Obama do. Reagan told Congress: I am the Commander-in-Chief, and I am telling you that this sale is in the vital interests of the United States. Framed like that, Congress could hardly reject the deal. In order for President Obama to "speak out clearly and forcefully about the fundamental principles of the peace process," as he will have to if he wants to enter into meaningful negotiations, he must anchor those principles in American interests. A complete end to Israel's Occupation and the establishment of a truly sovereign and viable Palestinian state next to a secure state of Israel, he must state, is in the vital interests of the United States.
Only that package – identifying the essential elements of a peace agreement, anchoring them in an approach based on overarching principles of justice acceptable to the Palestinians, and then framing it all in terms of American interests in seeing this conflict resolved – will enable a president to finally break through the obfuscation created by the Israeli framing, the major obstacle standing in the way of a just and sustainable resolution of the conflict. But in reversed order: first the framing, which will present the president's case in a coherent and compelling fashion to the public, followed by the principles and then the specific elements. Tiny points in a global conflict, but then again, if Israel has taught us anything these past four decades of fending off attempts to end its Occupation, it is that the devil is in the details.
(Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be reached at
Friday, December 5, 2008
An Informed, Accurate Palestinian Perspective
Obama's 'Palestinian friend' laments catastrophic U.S. policy in Mideast
By Akiva Eldar
Ha'aretz -- Friday - December 5, 2008
No one stopped Rashid Khalidi, the Columbia University professor of Modern Arab Studies, at Ben-Gurion airport. Having just landed after the long flight from New York, the professor was anticipating the traditional reception from airport security personnel reserved for visitors with "suspicious" names. To his surprise, he entered the airport like anyone else, with no problems or delays. Perhaps word had gotten around at Ben-Gurion that he was the Palestinian friend of United States President-elect Barack Obama.
Khalidi, 60, who spent three weeks in Israel and the territories before continuing on to Beirut this week, doesn't like all the fuss surrounding his relationship with the president-elect. Up to now, he had avoided speaking about it publicly, for better or worse. The reason may be, as reflected in my interview with him at his hotel in Jerusalem, overlooking Damascus Gate, his disappointment in his Chicago friend's treatment of the Arab and Islamic community in the United States. Or maybe it's also discomfort with the Democratic candidate's response during the campaign to reports about the ties between them. "He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel's policy," said Obama in a widely publicized comment from a May campaign event, in response to a question about their relationship. His spokesman made certain to add that the president-elect has been "clear and consistent on his support for Israel."
"Obama was my colleague at the University of Chicago, a family friend, neighbor and my district representative in the Illinois State Senate," says Khalidi. "Since I moved to New York in 2003 and he moved to Washington a year later, we've had much less opportunity to remain in contact." In April, The Los Angeles Times reported that, at the farewell party at an Arab-American community center, Obama noted that they had shared frequent dinners and interesting conversations, adding, "I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation - a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world." The article further related that Obama said he hoped to give the Palestinians hope with a new American policy in the Middle East. Another one of the guests reportedly likened the settlers in the territories to Osama bin Laden, asserting that both are "blinded by ideology."
Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, took the story and ran with it, seeking to score some points with Jewish voters. "Obama is a friend of a Palestinian hater of Israel," proclaimed McCain. Palin attacked The Los Angeles Times for refusing to make public a videotape of the farewell party. Their people "discovered" that, during the 1980s, when the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was considered a "terror organization," Khalidi was the organization's spokesman in Beirut.
Khalidi, considered the successor to Prof. Edward Said among the Palestinian intelligentsia, studied and taught for 12 years, until 1983, at the American University of Beirut and the Institute for Palestinian Studies there. While he did maintain connections with foreign reporters, he was never a PLO spokesman. Later on, between the Madrid summit in late 1991 and the Oslo Accords in September 1993, Faisal Husseini got Khalidi added as a consultant to the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid summit and to the bilateral talks with the Israeli team, headed by Elyakim Rubinstein. That was when Khalidi formed his opinion of the coordinator - the U.S. mediator Dennis Ross, who is one of Obama's advisors on foreign affairs. Khalidi alludes to him when he says in the interview that he hopes the new president will not bring back the same people who contributed to the failure of the peace process here. Nor was Khalidi thrilled to hear that Obama has appointed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Clinton's courting of Israel during the darkest days of the intifada made her a darling of the Jewish community and distanced her from the Palestinian community.
Obama's campaign went on the counterattack against McCain-Palin: This is yet another attempt, they said, to recycle controversy and divert public attention from the fact that McCain supports Bush's economic policies. Obama's spokesman suggested that instead of berating the media's supposed double standards, McCain ought to explain why, during the time he was chairman of the International Republican Institute, for years it helped fund the Center for Palestine Research and Studies, an organization that sponsored some of Khalidi's lectures and published some of his work.
Khalidi, who wanted the black Democratic candidate to win, kept his head down and avoided the media. As the son of a political family, he is adept at swimming in such murky waters. His family tree in Jerusalem on his father's side dates back at least to the 15th century. He says it's quite likely that some of his ancestors, who were Chief Judges in Cairo during the Mameluke period, are buried in the Muslim cemetery in the Mamila area (the designated site of the new Museum of Tolerance). His uncle was the mayor of Jerusalem from 1935 to 1937, until he was deposed by the British Mandate authorities and exiled to the Seychelles. In the 1950s, the uncle was appointed foreign minister of Jordan and, for a brief time, also served as prime minister under King Hussein.
Khalidi, who is married and has one grandchild, speaks with eloquence and firmness. He was born in New York in November 1948. His father, a university student at the time, married a woman from Lebanon and developed a diplomatic career as an international civil servant working in the UN Secretariat. After his return from Beirut, Rashid Khalidi earned a place of honor among the Palestinian intellectual elite, alongside professors Edward Said, Walid Khalidi (his cousin) and Ibrahim Abu Lughod. His book Under Siege: PLO Decisionmaking during the 1982 War, was translated into Hebrew and published by Ma'arachot Press. He is the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University and served as the Director of the Middle East Institute there for five years, before stepping down last year. In 2006, he published his most recent book, "The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood" (Beacon Press).
After being around for about two weeks, after quite a long time away, what kinds of changes have you sensed in Palestinian society?
"It would be presumptuous of me, after an absence of over two years, and not having been able to go to Gaza, to pronounce myself on this subject. I will give some impressions nevertheless. I sense even greater anger than before in Jerusalem at the systematic choking off of the city from its West Bank hinterland, the unceasing pressure of new settler strongholds and property expropriations, and the denial of a minimal level of basic municipal services to Arab neighborhoods. Just compare the miserable state of the roads or the schools or the parks in East Jerusalem to those in the West. On a broader level, I detect enormous popular frustration and disgust with both wings of the national leadership, Fatah and Hamas. In spite of this crisis at the political level, there is an irrepressible dynamism, ingenuity and vitality in the Palestinian economy and society, whether in the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem or the Palestinian community inside Israel. This is the underlying strength of the Palestinian people: it is like water that cannot be dammed up, but finds a way to get through. This resilience is there no matter what new refinements the occupier devises to torture his captive."
Do you believe that the current PLO leadership will be able to cut a deal with Israel on a two-state solution that will be accepted by the Palestinian people?
"The current PLO leadership does not and will not properly represent the entire Palestinian people until it can achieve a historic compromise with the other wing of the Palestinian national movement, and until a renewed, unified leadership can agree on minimal national goals and a strategy, whatever they are. This requires resisting the internal and external pressures that are intent on keeping the Palestinians divided. Only if they are unified do the Palestinians have a chance of achieving their national goals. Thereafter, to be binding and legitimate, any agreement that might be reached would have to be submitted to a referendum of the entire Palestinian people, inside and outside the country."
How do you see the future of the Palestinian territories? "Both the occupation regime and the settlement enterprise have gotten constantly stronger since the negotiating process began in 1991 - after being weakened by the first intifada. These twin processes went on steroids after the second intifada started in 2000. If these two bulldozer-like endeavors are not rapidly reversed - not halted, reversed - then there is no possibility whatsoever of a two-state solution. These processes - the consecration of the occupation regime and the expansion of settlements - have been ongoing for 41 years. I suspect that because of them, combined with the blindness of Israeli leaders and the weakness of Palestinian leadership, there is little chance for a two-state solution to be implemented. And anyone who wants to implement a real, equitable two-state solution would have to explain in detail how they would uproot all or most of the settlements. Equally difficult will be overcoming the powerful interlocking complex of forces in Israeli society that have extensive material, bureaucratic, political and ideological interests in the Israeli state's continued control over the lives of 3.5 million Palestinians, a control that is exercised under the pretext of security."
As someone who has long been involved with the PLO and Palestinian politics, what can you say about the current Palestinian leadership?
"The Palestinian people have certainly not always had the leadership they deserved. Israel worsened this situation by systematically liquidating Palestinian leaders - generally the most effective and intelligent among them - going back to the early 1970s. Several Arab regimes also played a part by assassinating key PLO leaders. Historians have pointed to similar efforts by the Zionist movement in the late 1930s and 1940s.
"That said, the current leadership seems to me to be lacking in several respects, and certainly does not seem up to the difficult tasks at hand. It is time for a wholesale renewal of the Palestinian leadership, and the replacement of the few remaining members of the founding generation of the modern Palestinian national movement and their entourage with younger individuals with new ideas. This requires a major effort to confront the failed policies of the current leaders of both major factions, and to find new approaches to the grave problems the Palestinian people face."
How do you assess the last eight years of U.S. conduct in the Middle East and specifically in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
"It has been catastrophic. It made a bad situation worse, undermined democracy all over the region by helping to sabotage the results of the 2006 Palestinian elections, played a major role in splitting the Palestinian national movement, and helped Israel dig itself even deeper into the hole of a permanent occupation. The administration's other foolish Middle East policies, like the occupation of Iraq, the 'cold war' with Iran and Syria, and encouraging Sunni-Shi'ite conflict in the region, have all been negative in and of themselves, but they also had a profoundly harmful effect on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Many American historians say George W. Bush may have been the worst president in American history, but his impact on this region has certainly been little short of a disaster."
What are your expectations of Barack Obama's administration in the Middle East? Do you believe he will stick to his promise to put it at the top of his agenda?
"I have no special insight. I do believe that the president-elect takes this problem very seriously, and will give it his attention. Obsessed as we are with our own issues, however, we should not ignore the fact that he faces the greatest American and global economic crisis since 1929, and must necessarily give that priority.
"In any case, much will depend on who is chosen for the key positions relating to the Middle East. If some of the unimaginative, close-minded and biased advocates of conventional thinking who bear a major share of the responsibility for the mess we have been in for over 20 years - from the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations to that of Clinton, even before George W. Bush made things even worse - are appointed to important posts, my expectations will be low. I was involved in the negotiations as an advisor to the Palestinian delegation from Madrid in 1991 until June 1993, before Oslo. Those American officials who helped get the Palestinians and Israelis into the mess they are in via a deeply flawed negotiating process, and a cowardly refusal to confront occupation and settlement head-on when it would have been far easier to do in the 1980s and 1990s, do not deserve another chance to ruin the future of the peoples of this region."
Can Obama save the two-state solution, or is it too late? What would you suggest he could do in order to accomplish this?
"It may well be too late, as I have said. The new administration would have to prevail on the Israeli government to put into reverse the twin bulldozers of occupation and settlement. This would mean removing walls and barriers inside the occupied territories that separate Palestinians from Palestinians and allowing free movement instead of restricting the population to segregated inferior roads. It would mean ending land confiscation and the building of new residential units for settlers all over the occupied territories, and the return to the population of these territories of the land stolen from them on various 'legal' pretexts or without a pretext at all. In sum, it means ending Israeli security control over the occupied territories, and scrapping the whole overarching structure of the occupation regime that has constantly grown more deeply rooted for 41 years.
"Doing this would require a lot of the new president's political capital. Despite the immense significance of Barack Obama's victory in terms of American history and politics, I do not think things have necessarily changed in terms of the balance of forces in Washington where Israel/Palestine issues are concerned. This balance of forces is and has long been an obstacle to progress toward ending occupation and settlement and achieving peace."
Are you disappointed with Israeli intellectuals and the peace camp?
"I respect what many Israeli groups and individuals do. However, their efforts are insufficient in light of the looming prospect of a permanent occupation and the continuation into the indefinite future of what exists today. This is a de facto one-state solution, wherein the State of Israel rules over the entirety of Mandatory Palestine and over more than 5 million Palestinians, most of whom have no rights at all in the polity that takes all the important decisions, the Israeli polity. Although the responsibility of Israel in this matter is paramount, the efforts of Palestinians and of outsiders have been insufficient as well, and we will all be affected by such an outcome, so we all have an urgent responsibility to act. More immediately, targeting a civilian population of 1.5 million people of the Gaza Strip with hunger, deprivation and effective imprisonment, whatever the nature of their leaders, is criminal and is a violation of international law, as are all attacks on civilian populations, Jewish or Arab - something I have said repeatedly in talks here. That people, whether in Tel Aviv, Ramallah, the Arab countries, or the capitals of the world, can remain silent while Gazans are punished on this scale is beyond belief."
What have you learned from the political-media affair in regard to your relations with Obama?
"It proved once again that to be of Palestinian origin and to be publicly opposed to the occupation and critical of U.S. policy is grounds for public defamation as a 'terrorist.' It attests to the survival of McCarthyite tendencies in the U.S. media and politics. It also reaffirmed that Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians specifically are still the 'other' in American society. A higher percentage of Arab-Americans voted for Obama than any other ethnic group besides African-Americans, and they voted in record numbers too, I believe, and yet they are still pushed aside, almost literally. For instance, two Arab-American women in hijab were removed from the camera's gaze at one of Obama's rallies during the election. Obama did not visit one mosque or Arab community center throughout the entire two-year campaign, and he never mentioned Arab- or Muslim-Americans in his speeches. Whatever may have been the 'strategic' political reasons for these actions, they show the kind of atmosphere we in the U.S. live in.
"This situation is linked to the problematic notion that it is acceptable to create a U.S. Middle East policy which caters to Israel - and specifically to the Israeli right - and to the concerns of powerful forces like the Israel lobby that are allied to the Israeli right, but hardly at all to Arab- and Muslim-Americans. Such a policy is based on the opinions, 'expertise' and allegiances of Washington insiders who are not knowledgeable about all the complex realities of the region, and are mainly sensitive to Israeli concerns. Just as an Obama administration aspires to reflect the entire country in all its diversity, so should its Middle East policy-making reflect a comprehensive set of interests and concerns, and not just one narrow range of them."
Do you believe that J-street and Arab-American peaceniks can contain AIPAC and Jewish right-wing organizations?
"They appear to have begun to make some headway. They need to convince American politicians, Democrats in particular, that where Israel and Palestine are concerned, leaders of the main institutions of the American Jewish establishment, notably AIPAC, do not represent the views of the majority of the American Jewish community. In fact, the hawkish views of most of these leaders are far closer to those of the 24 percent of that community who voted for McCain than they are to the 76 percent who voted for Obama.
"Arab-Americans of course have a long way to go before they have significant influence, although this is already beginning on the local level in some states. This is still largely a first-generation immigrant community, although more and more of the young have been born, brought up, and educated in the U.S., and will play a much larger political role than their elders. Part of the problem is that the range of opinions that is permissible in the United States is far narrower than those voiced in politics and the media in Israel, or anywhere else. And the general level of ignorance in the U.S. about Middle Eastern realities, in part due to the unceasing propaganda bombardment, is higher than any place in the world."
As an historian - why did Oslo fail and why does it look like our conflict is reaching a final deadlock?
"Oslo was doomed to fail for several reasons. It was never an agreement between equals, granting statehood and self-determination to the Palestinians, nor was it intended to allow that outcome, Palestinian illusions about it notwithstanding. It did not deal with the key issues between the two sides - Jerusalem, refugees, land, borders, sovereignty and water - and failed to halt settlement or end the occupation. It was an agreement that in effect allowed one side to continue eating the pie that the two were supposed to negotiate over dividing. Indeed, the decade of negotiations that began with Madrid saw a doubling of the settler population, the implementation of plans to parcel up the West Bank into cantons, and the consecration and strengthening of the occupation regime. The 2000 intifada then gave [former Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon a chance to accelerate those already ongoing processes.
"There is no such thing as 'final' in history. The current situation is inherently unstable, with intolerable pressure being put on the Palestinians. This pressure will sooner or later produce a reaction, unless it is relieved. The Palestinian national movement is currently in eclipse, as has happened before. Who can say what will come next, but the past 60 years have shown that Palestinian society, whether the part that remained behind in the Jewish state in 1948, or that currently under occupation, or that in the diaspora, has shown enormous vitality and a remarkable capacity to re-knit itself and resist enormous pressure. Look at the Palestinians in Lebanon, who have suffered and suffer more than any segment of Palestinian society, except the people of Gaza. In spite of the serial atrocities committed against them, the multiple external foes they have faced, and the many terrible mistakes and failures of the political leadership, like the Gazans they manage to maintain their social cohesion in conditions of indescribable difficulty."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043689.html
By Akiva Eldar
Ha'aretz -- Friday - December 5, 2008
No one stopped Rashid Khalidi, the Columbia University professor of Modern Arab Studies, at Ben-Gurion airport. Having just landed after the long flight from New York, the professor was anticipating the traditional reception from airport security personnel reserved for visitors with "suspicious" names. To his surprise, he entered the airport like anyone else, with no problems or delays. Perhaps word had gotten around at Ben-Gurion that he was the Palestinian friend of United States President-elect Barack Obama.
Khalidi, 60, who spent three weeks in Israel and the territories before continuing on to Beirut this week, doesn't like all the fuss surrounding his relationship with the president-elect. Up to now, he had avoided speaking about it publicly, for better or worse. The reason may be, as reflected in my interview with him at his hotel in Jerusalem, overlooking Damascus Gate, his disappointment in his Chicago friend's treatment of the Arab and Islamic community in the United States. Or maybe it's also discomfort with the Democratic candidate's response during the campaign to reports about the ties between them. "He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel's policy," said Obama in a widely publicized comment from a May campaign event, in response to a question about their relationship. His spokesman made certain to add that the president-elect has been "clear and consistent on his support for Israel."
"Obama was my colleague at the University of Chicago, a family friend, neighbor and my district representative in the Illinois State Senate," says Khalidi. "Since I moved to New York in 2003 and he moved to Washington a year later, we've had much less opportunity to remain in contact." In April, The Los Angeles Times reported that, at the farewell party at an Arab-American community center, Obama noted that they had shared frequent dinners and interesting conversations, adding, "I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation - a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world." The article further related that Obama said he hoped to give the Palestinians hope with a new American policy in the Middle East. Another one of the guests reportedly likened the settlers in the territories to Osama bin Laden, asserting that both are "blinded by ideology."
Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, took the story and ran with it, seeking to score some points with Jewish voters. "Obama is a friend of a Palestinian hater of Israel," proclaimed McCain. Palin attacked The Los Angeles Times for refusing to make public a videotape of the farewell party. Their people "discovered" that, during the 1980s, when the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was considered a "terror organization," Khalidi was the organization's spokesman in Beirut.
Khalidi, considered the successor to Prof. Edward Said among the Palestinian intelligentsia, studied and taught for 12 years, until 1983, at the American University of Beirut and the Institute for Palestinian Studies there. While he did maintain connections with foreign reporters, he was never a PLO spokesman. Later on, between the Madrid summit in late 1991 and the Oslo Accords in September 1993, Faisal Husseini got Khalidi added as a consultant to the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid summit and to the bilateral talks with the Israeli team, headed by Elyakim Rubinstein. That was when Khalidi formed his opinion of the coordinator - the U.S. mediator Dennis Ross, who is one of Obama's advisors on foreign affairs. Khalidi alludes to him when he says in the interview that he hopes the new president will not bring back the same people who contributed to the failure of the peace process here. Nor was Khalidi thrilled to hear that Obama has appointed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Clinton's courting of Israel during the darkest days of the intifada made her a darling of the Jewish community and distanced her from the Palestinian community.
Obama's campaign went on the counterattack against McCain-Palin: This is yet another attempt, they said, to recycle controversy and divert public attention from the fact that McCain supports Bush's economic policies. Obama's spokesman suggested that instead of berating the media's supposed double standards, McCain ought to explain why, during the time he was chairman of the International Republican Institute, for years it helped fund the Center for Palestine Research and Studies, an organization that sponsored some of Khalidi's lectures and published some of his work.
Khalidi, who wanted the black Democratic candidate to win, kept his head down and avoided the media. As the son of a political family, he is adept at swimming in such murky waters. His family tree in Jerusalem on his father's side dates back at least to the 15th century. He says it's quite likely that some of his ancestors, who were Chief Judges in Cairo during the Mameluke period, are buried in the Muslim cemetery in the Mamila area (the designated site of the new Museum of Tolerance). His uncle was the mayor of Jerusalem from 1935 to 1937, until he was deposed by the British Mandate authorities and exiled to the Seychelles. In the 1950s, the uncle was appointed foreign minister of Jordan and, for a brief time, also served as prime minister under King Hussein.
Khalidi, who is married and has one grandchild, speaks with eloquence and firmness. He was born in New York in November 1948. His father, a university student at the time, married a woman from Lebanon and developed a diplomatic career as an international civil servant working in the UN Secretariat. After his return from Beirut, Rashid Khalidi earned a place of honor among the Palestinian intellectual elite, alongside professors Edward Said, Walid Khalidi (his cousin) and Ibrahim Abu Lughod. His book Under Siege: PLO Decisionmaking during the 1982 War, was translated into Hebrew and published by Ma'arachot Press. He is the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University and served as the Director of the Middle East Institute there for five years, before stepping down last year. In 2006, he published his most recent book, "The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood" (Beacon Press).
After being around for about two weeks, after quite a long time away, what kinds of changes have you sensed in Palestinian society?
"It would be presumptuous of me, after an absence of over two years, and not having been able to go to Gaza, to pronounce myself on this subject. I will give some impressions nevertheless. I sense even greater anger than before in Jerusalem at the systematic choking off of the city from its West Bank hinterland, the unceasing pressure of new settler strongholds and property expropriations, and the denial of a minimal level of basic municipal services to Arab neighborhoods. Just compare the miserable state of the roads or the schools or the parks in East Jerusalem to those in the West. On a broader level, I detect enormous popular frustration and disgust with both wings of the national leadership, Fatah and Hamas. In spite of this crisis at the political level, there is an irrepressible dynamism, ingenuity and vitality in the Palestinian economy and society, whether in the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem or the Palestinian community inside Israel. This is the underlying strength of the Palestinian people: it is like water that cannot be dammed up, but finds a way to get through. This resilience is there no matter what new refinements the occupier devises to torture his captive."
Do you believe that the current PLO leadership will be able to cut a deal with Israel on a two-state solution that will be accepted by the Palestinian people?
"The current PLO leadership does not and will not properly represent the entire Palestinian people until it can achieve a historic compromise with the other wing of the Palestinian national movement, and until a renewed, unified leadership can agree on minimal national goals and a strategy, whatever they are. This requires resisting the internal and external pressures that are intent on keeping the Palestinians divided. Only if they are unified do the Palestinians have a chance of achieving their national goals. Thereafter, to be binding and legitimate, any agreement that might be reached would have to be submitted to a referendum of the entire Palestinian people, inside and outside the country."
How do you see the future of the Palestinian territories? "Both the occupation regime and the settlement enterprise have gotten constantly stronger since the negotiating process began in 1991 - after being weakened by the first intifada. These twin processes went on steroids after the second intifada started in 2000. If these two bulldozer-like endeavors are not rapidly reversed - not halted, reversed - then there is no possibility whatsoever of a two-state solution. These processes - the consecration of the occupation regime and the expansion of settlements - have been ongoing for 41 years. I suspect that because of them, combined with the blindness of Israeli leaders and the weakness of Palestinian leadership, there is little chance for a two-state solution to be implemented. And anyone who wants to implement a real, equitable two-state solution would have to explain in detail how they would uproot all or most of the settlements. Equally difficult will be overcoming the powerful interlocking complex of forces in Israeli society that have extensive material, bureaucratic, political and ideological interests in the Israeli state's continued control over the lives of 3.5 million Palestinians, a control that is exercised under the pretext of security."
As someone who has long been involved with the PLO and Palestinian politics, what can you say about the current Palestinian leadership?
"The Palestinian people have certainly not always had the leadership they deserved. Israel worsened this situation by systematically liquidating Palestinian leaders - generally the most effective and intelligent among them - going back to the early 1970s. Several Arab regimes also played a part by assassinating key PLO leaders. Historians have pointed to similar efforts by the Zionist movement in the late 1930s and 1940s.
"That said, the current leadership seems to me to be lacking in several respects, and certainly does not seem up to the difficult tasks at hand. It is time for a wholesale renewal of the Palestinian leadership, and the replacement of the few remaining members of the founding generation of the modern Palestinian national movement and their entourage with younger individuals with new ideas. This requires a major effort to confront the failed policies of the current leaders of both major factions, and to find new approaches to the grave problems the Palestinian people face."
How do you assess the last eight years of U.S. conduct in the Middle East and specifically in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
"It has been catastrophic. It made a bad situation worse, undermined democracy all over the region by helping to sabotage the results of the 2006 Palestinian elections, played a major role in splitting the Palestinian national movement, and helped Israel dig itself even deeper into the hole of a permanent occupation. The administration's other foolish Middle East policies, like the occupation of Iraq, the 'cold war' with Iran and Syria, and encouraging Sunni-Shi'ite conflict in the region, have all been negative in and of themselves, but they also had a profoundly harmful effect on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Many American historians say George W. Bush may have been the worst president in American history, but his impact on this region has certainly been little short of a disaster."
What are your expectations of Barack Obama's administration in the Middle East? Do you believe he will stick to his promise to put it at the top of his agenda?
"I have no special insight. I do believe that the president-elect takes this problem very seriously, and will give it his attention. Obsessed as we are with our own issues, however, we should not ignore the fact that he faces the greatest American and global economic crisis since 1929, and must necessarily give that priority.
"In any case, much will depend on who is chosen for the key positions relating to the Middle East. If some of the unimaginative, close-minded and biased advocates of conventional thinking who bear a major share of the responsibility for the mess we have been in for over 20 years - from the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations to that of Clinton, even before George W. Bush made things even worse - are appointed to important posts, my expectations will be low. I was involved in the negotiations as an advisor to the Palestinian delegation from Madrid in 1991 until June 1993, before Oslo. Those American officials who helped get the Palestinians and Israelis into the mess they are in via a deeply flawed negotiating process, and a cowardly refusal to confront occupation and settlement head-on when it would have been far easier to do in the 1980s and 1990s, do not deserve another chance to ruin the future of the peoples of this region."
Can Obama save the two-state solution, or is it too late? What would you suggest he could do in order to accomplish this?
"It may well be too late, as I have said. The new administration would have to prevail on the Israeli government to put into reverse the twin bulldozers of occupation and settlement. This would mean removing walls and barriers inside the occupied territories that separate Palestinians from Palestinians and allowing free movement instead of restricting the population to segregated inferior roads. It would mean ending land confiscation and the building of new residential units for settlers all over the occupied territories, and the return to the population of these territories of the land stolen from them on various 'legal' pretexts or without a pretext at all. In sum, it means ending Israeli security control over the occupied territories, and scrapping the whole overarching structure of the occupation regime that has constantly grown more deeply rooted for 41 years.
"Doing this would require a lot of the new president's political capital. Despite the immense significance of Barack Obama's victory in terms of American history and politics, I do not think things have necessarily changed in terms of the balance of forces in Washington where Israel/Palestine issues are concerned. This balance of forces is and has long been an obstacle to progress toward ending occupation and settlement and achieving peace."
Are you disappointed with Israeli intellectuals and the peace camp?
"I respect what many Israeli groups and individuals do. However, their efforts are insufficient in light of the looming prospect of a permanent occupation and the continuation into the indefinite future of what exists today. This is a de facto one-state solution, wherein the State of Israel rules over the entirety of Mandatory Palestine and over more than 5 million Palestinians, most of whom have no rights at all in the polity that takes all the important decisions, the Israeli polity. Although the responsibility of Israel in this matter is paramount, the efforts of Palestinians and of outsiders have been insufficient as well, and we will all be affected by such an outcome, so we all have an urgent responsibility to act. More immediately, targeting a civilian population of 1.5 million people of the Gaza Strip with hunger, deprivation and effective imprisonment, whatever the nature of their leaders, is criminal and is a violation of international law, as are all attacks on civilian populations, Jewish or Arab - something I have said repeatedly in talks here. That people, whether in Tel Aviv, Ramallah, the Arab countries, or the capitals of the world, can remain silent while Gazans are punished on this scale is beyond belief."
What have you learned from the political-media affair in regard to your relations with Obama?
"It proved once again that to be of Palestinian origin and to be publicly opposed to the occupation and critical of U.S. policy is grounds for public defamation as a 'terrorist.' It attests to the survival of McCarthyite tendencies in the U.S. media and politics. It also reaffirmed that Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians specifically are still the 'other' in American society. A higher percentage of Arab-Americans voted for Obama than any other ethnic group besides African-Americans, and they voted in record numbers too, I believe, and yet they are still pushed aside, almost literally. For instance, two Arab-American women in hijab were removed from the camera's gaze at one of Obama's rallies during the election. Obama did not visit one mosque or Arab community center throughout the entire two-year campaign, and he never mentioned Arab- or Muslim-Americans in his speeches. Whatever may have been the 'strategic' political reasons for these actions, they show the kind of atmosphere we in the U.S. live in.
"This situation is linked to the problematic notion that it is acceptable to create a U.S. Middle East policy which caters to Israel - and specifically to the Israeli right - and to the concerns of powerful forces like the Israel lobby that are allied to the Israeli right, but hardly at all to Arab- and Muslim-Americans. Such a policy is based on the opinions, 'expertise' and allegiances of Washington insiders who are not knowledgeable about all the complex realities of the region, and are mainly sensitive to Israeli concerns. Just as an Obama administration aspires to reflect the entire country in all its diversity, so should its Middle East policy-making reflect a comprehensive set of interests and concerns, and not just one narrow range of them."
Do you believe that J-street and Arab-American peaceniks can contain AIPAC and Jewish right-wing organizations?
"They appear to have begun to make some headway. They need to convince American politicians, Democrats in particular, that where Israel and Palestine are concerned, leaders of the main institutions of the American Jewish establishment, notably AIPAC, do not represent the views of the majority of the American Jewish community. In fact, the hawkish views of most of these leaders are far closer to those of the 24 percent of that community who voted for McCain than they are to the 76 percent who voted for Obama.
"Arab-Americans of course have a long way to go before they have significant influence, although this is already beginning on the local level in some states. This is still largely a first-generation immigrant community, although more and more of the young have been born, brought up, and educated in the U.S., and will play a much larger political role than their elders. Part of the problem is that the range of opinions that is permissible in the United States is far narrower than those voiced in politics and the media in Israel, or anywhere else. And the general level of ignorance in the U.S. about Middle Eastern realities, in part due to the unceasing propaganda bombardment, is higher than any place in the world."
As an historian - why did Oslo fail and why does it look like our conflict is reaching a final deadlock?
"Oslo was doomed to fail for several reasons. It was never an agreement between equals, granting statehood and self-determination to the Palestinians, nor was it intended to allow that outcome, Palestinian illusions about it notwithstanding. It did not deal with the key issues between the two sides - Jerusalem, refugees, land, borders, sovereignty and water - and failed to halt settlement or end the occupation. It was an agreement that in effect allowed one side to continue eating the pie that the two were supposed to negotiate over dividing. Indeed, the decade of negotiations that began with Madrid saw a doubling of the settler population, the implementation of plans to parcel up the West Bank into cantons, and the consecration and strengthening of the occupation regime. The 2000 intifada then gave [former Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon a chance to accelerate those already ongoing processes.
"There is no such thing as 'final' in history. The current situation is inherently unstable, with intolerable pressure being put on the Palestinians. This pressure will sooner or later produce a reaction, unless it is relieved. The Palestinian national movement is currently in eclipse, as has happened before. Who can say what will come next, but the past 60 years have shown that Palestinian society, whether the part that remained behind in the Jewish state in 1948, or that currently under occupation, or that in the diaspora, has shown enormous vitality and a remarkable capacity to re-knit itself and resist enormous pressure. Look at the Palestinians in Lebanon, who have suffered and suffer more than any segment of Palestinian society, except the people of Gaza. In spite of the serial atrocities committed against them, the multiple external foes they have faced, and the many terrible mistakes and failures of the political leadership, like the Gazans they manage to maintain their social cohesion in conditions of indescribable difficulty."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043689.html
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The Thanksgiving Spirit: A Welcome, Gratitude, Mutual Service
Thanksgiving in the Holy Land - Grace and 4 Questions
By Bradley Burston
Ha'aretz -- Tuesday - November 25, 2008
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1040527.html
TEL AVIV - I have a need to say grace this Thanksgiving night, but I'm not ready.
There are American Jews - especially those, like me, who grew up as the youngest in their family, and thus were forced, year after year, to recite the Four Questions at Passover - who may look at Thanksgiving as a Seder without the embarrassment.
Now that I am grown, though, and living thousands of miles from that home, I find myself asking questions about Thanksgiving. And about how and why one says grace.
This morning my wife asked the most important one. It is a question which, in the act of asking, says grace:
"What would this land look like, if we were really thankful for what we have?"
We were on the highway to Tel Aviv, where she works as a nurse for Africans who fled their homes in grave peril and found shelter, for the moment at least, in Israel.
It is not difficult, in that clinic, to understand the story of the first Thanksgiving. There are people seeking refuge in a strange land. Some of the inhabitants, who do not know nor easily understand the refugees, elect to help them survive.
It is in a place like this, that what appears to be a simple question, can shed a world of light.
The answer, I suspect, is that if we were truly thankful for what we have, then what we would have here, is peace.
But I'm not ready to accept that, just yet.
You can feel it drain out of you in this place, your ability to feel blessed, to feel grateful. It is one of the ways that the land devours its inhabitants. History has been cruel to everyone here, Jews and Arabs in particular, displacing them, oppressing them, disenfranchising them, putting them to flight, putting them to death. Compelling them to fixate on a partly imagined past and a partly impossible future. Robbing them of their ability to live in the present, to see what they do have, to give thanks.
As an experiment, walking around the mixed Arab-Jewish town of Jaffa outside the clinic, I told people the story of the first Thanksgiving. The reactions of both Arabs and Jews were strikingly similar. "So the Indians helped these white people, then the whites turned around and annihilated them?"
Both sides identified with the Native Americans, welcoming at heart, ripped off and murdered for their trouble.
It makes you wonder. What would this land look like, if they had been welcoming to us, and if we had been - if we were - welcoming to them?
We can know, if nothing else, that we would spend much more of our resources teaching children how to make a better life for themselves and others, and much less teaching them how to clean and operate a rifle.
We can know, also, that we would spend much more of our time and trouble producing clean water, for example, and worthwhile workplaces, rather than finding ways to claim and fight over the dwindling resources we have left.
There's a reason, I believe, that Thanksgiving takes place in a season of transition, with the brief, heartbreaking natural artistry of leaves catching the colors of fire just before they dry and fall. There's a lesson, also, in the fact that in the Holy Land, the autumn is our only true spring. It is when the rain comes, and restores new life to the burned-brown vegetation, dead as winter, that summer leaves behind.
What would this place look like, if instead of craving what the others have, people truly appreciated what they themselves possess?
They might realize that compromise, rather than ferocity, is a part of God's work. And a large part of being fully human.
If we could get past the endless, the irresolvable debates over who was here first, who are the true natives, who has done more injustice to the other, perhaps we could better value life and each other.
There are children right here with nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep - if we really appreciated what we have, wouldn't we help them?
We, all of us, waste their resources of intellect, youth, life itself, in lethal obsession over the other half of this place, allowing the conflict to keep help from reaching the needy in their midst.
Why, in the end, is this Thanksgiving night different from all other nights?
Because, before we eat, even before we say grace, we stop to think. We stop in order to notice what God's work really is. To appreciate the ways in which it gives us life, sustains us, and has brought us to this night.
We stop to be reminded that these gifts of sustenance are to enable God's work. And to be reminded that everyone in this world is, in fact, God's work.
Tonight, together, we bless the glory in the miracle of the most ordinary. It took countless impossible coincidences of heritage and survival and geography, and faith amid blackness, and people doing God's work for its own sake, to allow us to come together this night, and to give us the power and the wisdom and the gratitude, despite everything, to be able to listen for the stirrings of peace in the word ...
Amen
By Bradley Burston
Ha'aretz -- Tuesday - November 25, 2008
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1040527.html
TEL AVIV - I have a need to say grace this Thanksgiving night, but I'm not ready.
There are American Jews - especially those, like me, who grew up as the youngest in their family, and thus were forced, year after year, to recite the Four Questions at Passover - who may look at Thanksgiving as a Seder without the embarrassment.
Now that I am grown, though, and living thousands of miles from that home, I find myself asking questions about Thanksgiving. And about how and why one says grace.
This morning my wife asked the most important one. It is a question which, in the act of asking, says grace:
"What would this land look like, if we were really thankful for what we have?"
We were on the highway to Tel Aviv, where she works as a nurse for Africans who fled their homes in grave peril and found shelter, for the moment at least, in Israel.
It is not difficult, in that clinic, to understand the story of the first Thanksgiving. There are people seeking refuge in a strange land. Some of the inhabitants, who do not know nor easily understand the refugees, elect to help them survive.
It is in a place like this, that what appears to be a simple question, can shed a world of light.
The answer, I suspect, is that if we were truly thankful for what we have, then what we would have here, is peace.
But I'm not ready to accept that, just yet.
You can feel it drain out of you in this place, your ability to feel blessed, to feel grateful. It is one of the ways that the land devours its inhabitants. History has been cruel to everyone here, Jews and Arabs in particular, displacing them, oppressing them, disenfranchising them, putting them to flight, putting them to death. Compelling them to fixate on a partly imagined past and a partly impossible future. Robbing them of their ability to live in the present, to see what they do have, to give thanks.
As an experiment, walking around the mixed Arab-Jewish town of Jaffa outside the clinic, I told people the story of the first Thanksgiving. The reactions of both Arabs and Jews were strikingly similar. "So the Indians helped these white people, then the whites turned around and annihilated them?"
Both sides identified with the Native Americans, welcoming at heart, ripped off and murdered for their trouble.
It makes you wonder. What would this land look like, if they had been welcoming to us, and if we had been - if we were - welcoming to them?
We can know, if nothing else, that we would spend much more of our resources teaching children how to make a better life for themselves and others, and much less teaching them how to clean and operate a rifle.
We can know, also, that we would spend much more of our time and trouble producing clean water, for example, and worthwhile workplaces, rather than finding ways to claim and fight over the dwindling resources we have left.
There's a reason, I believe, that Thanksgiving takes place in a season of transition, with the brief, heartbreaking natural artistry of leaves catching the colors of fire just before they dry and fall. There's a lesson, also, in the fact that in the Holy Land, the autumn is our only true spring. It is when the rain comes, and restores new life to the burned-brown vegetation, dead as winter, that summer leaves behind.
What would this place look like, if instead of craving what the others have, people truly appreciated what they themselves possess?
They might realize that compromise, rather than ferocity, is a part of God's work. And a large part of being fully human.
If we could get past the endless, the irresolvable debates over who was here first, who are the true natives, who has done more injustice to the other, perhaps we could better value life and each other.
There are children right here with nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep - if we really appreciated what we have, wouldn't we help them?
We, all of us, waste their resources of intellect, youth, life itself, in lethal obsession over the other half of this place, allowing the conflict to keep help from reaching the needy in their midst.
Why, in the end, is this Thanksgiving night different from all other nights?
Because, before we eat, even before we say grace, we stop to think. We stop in order to notice what God's work really is. To appreciate the ways in which it gives us life, sustains us, and has brought us to this night.
We stop to be reminded that these gifts of sustenance are to enable God's work. And to be reminded that everyone in this world is, in fact, God's work.
Tonight, together, we bless the glory in the miracle of the most ordinary. It took countless impossible coincidences of heritage and survival and geography, and faith amid blackness, and people doing God's work for its own sake, to allow us to come together this night, and to give us the power and the wisdom and the gratitude, despite everything, to be able to listen for the stirrings of peace in the word ...
Amen
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