Images That Shock
In The Guardian (United Kingdom),
Special Report October 25, 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,2198515,00.html
Occasionally the mask slips and unpalatable truths emerge. The Guardian has filmed rare scenes inside Hamas-controlled Gaza which the various players in the unfolding tragedy of the Middle East would rather we did not see - Hamas beating up Fatah dissenters, Palestinian doctors forced by their Fatah paymasters to go on strike or forfeit their salaries, the militants who log on to Google Earth to search for Israeli targets for their Qassam rockets. The images, now on the Guardian's website, affront our concept of right and wrong, but they serve our understanding of what is going on.
Gaza is a wound that is being left to fester. Fatah, Israel, the US and the international community have different motives for leaving half of the Palestinian people to rot in this prison, but they are all, for the moment, united in their attempt to isolate Hamas. What these films show is not a Gazan population turning against the gunmen who took the enclave over by force in June, but its opposite - the hatred that the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is incurring among his own people.
The Palestinian schism has been regarded not as an impediment to peace, but an opportunity for it. The brief but brutal civil war between Fatah and Hamas (in which atrocities and human rights abuses were, and still are, being committed by both sides, as a report by Amnesty International on Tuesday showed) provoked a reawakening of interest in Mr Abbas. Funds and prisoners were released, guns and training provided. The theory was that by isolating the one group that refuses to recognise Israel an opportunity was being created to get a deal with the other group that does.
This is not how it is turning out. Expectations for the forthcoming peace conference in Annapolis in Maryland are rapidly being lowered. It is no longer being called a conference, but a meeting and it may now be put back to December. The star guest, Saudi Arabia, looks less, not more likely, to turn up. Mr Abbas wants as much detail as he can extract about the future contours of a Palestinian state. The Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert wants as little detail as possible in the final declaration.
What this situation demands is a strong Palestinian leader, rather than a pliant one. Strength comes from authority and Mr Abbas is in danger of losing his among his own people by tightening the screw on Gaza. One of the few levers the Fatah-controlled emergency government in Ramallah has over what happens in Gaza is paying the wages of government workers. And yet when it pulls those levers, the consequences are disastrous.
Attempting to steer funds away from Hamas's hands is one thing, but paying people on the condition they do not turn up for work just looks like an attempt to stop any government working. As it is, Mr Abbas's writ does not even run the length of the West Bank. If his title of president is to mean anything, it is that he represents all the Palestinian people and not just that part which Israel believes it can deal with. At some point, a deal with Hamas has to be struck and a new power-sharing government created. This task may be distasteful for Fatah, but it cannot be put off indefinitely. Otherwise Mr Abbas becomes the hostage of a process that makes him weaker still.
Time is not on anyone's side. The bitter memories of the second intifada which followed the collapse of Camp David seven years ago are still fresh. But the risk of failure at Annapolis is not just one of spurring another round in the conflict.
The longer the two-state solution stays on the drawing board unbuilt, the less Palestinians will believe in the scheme. This is not about tunnels, land swaps, or the status of Jerusalem, but the concept that a Jewish and a Palestinian state can ever coexist in the same space. If that idea withers, not only do the Palestinians not get the state they deserve, but that part of Israel that believed it would ever live in peace with its neighbours dies too.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Strength of Israeli Lobby Affirmed
Follow the Leader
The Open Secret About the Israel Lobby
By PAUL FINDLEY
There is an open secret in Washington. I learned it well during my 22-year tenure as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
All members swear to serve the interests of the United States, but there is an unwritten and overwhelming exception: The interests of one small foreign country almost always trump U.S. interests. That nation, of course, is Israel.
Both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue give priority to Israel over America. Those on Capitol Hill are pre-primed to roar approval for Israeli actions whether right or wrong, instead of at least fussing first and then caving. The White House sometimes puts up a modest and ineffective show of resistance before it follows Israel's lead.
In 2002, President Bush publicly ordered Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to end a bloody, destructive rampage through the Palestinian West Bank. He wilted just as publicly when he received curt word from Sharon that Israeli troops would not withdraw and would continue their military operations. A few days later President Bush invited Sharon to the White House where he saluted him as a "man of peace."
I had similar experiences in the House of Representatives. On several occasions, colleagues told me privately that they admired what I was trying to do in Middle East policy reform but could not risk pro-Israel protest back home by supporting my positions.
The pro-Israel lobby is not one organization orchestrating U.S. Middle East policy from a backroom in Washington. Nor is it entirely Jewish. It consists of scores of groups -- large and small -- that work at various levels. The largest, most professional, and most effective is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Many pro-Israel lobby groups belong to the Christian Right.
The recently released book, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," co-authored by distinguished professors John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard, offers hope for constructive change. It details the damage to U.S. national interests caused by the lobby for Israel. These brave professors render a great service to America, but their theme, expressed in a published study paper a year ago, is already under heavy, vitriolic attack.
They are unjustly accused of anti-Semitism, the ultimate instrument of intimidation employed by the lobby. A common problem: Under pressure, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs withdrew an invitation for the authors to speak about their book. Council president Marshall Bouton explained ruefully that the invitation posed "a political problem" and a need "to protect the institution" from those who would be angry if the authors appeared.
I know what it is like to be targeted in this way. In the last years of my long service in Congress, I spoke out, making many of the points now presented in the Mearsheimer-Walt book. In 1980, my opponent charged me with anti-Semitism, and money poured into his campaign fund from every state in the Union. I prevailed that year but two years later lost by a narrow margin. In 1984, Sen. Charles Percy, then chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and an occasional critic of Israel, was defeated. Leaders of the Israel lobby claimed credit for defeating both Percy and me, claims that strengthened lobby influence in the years that followed.
The result is that Members of Congress today loudly reward Israel as it violates international law and peace agreements, lures America into costly wars, and subjects millions of Palestinians under its rule to apartheid-like conditions because they are not Jewish.
It is time to call politicians to account for their undying allegiance to a foreign state. Let the Mearsheimer-Walt book be a clarion that bestirs the American people to political action and finally brings fundamental change to both Capitol Hill and the White House.
Citizen participation in public policy development is a hallmark of our proud democracy. But the pro-Israel groups subvert democracy when they engage in smear campaigns that intimidate and silence critics. America badly needs a civilized discussion of the damaging role of Israel in U.S. policy formulation.
Paul Findley represented Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives for 22 years. He is the author of They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront the Israel Lobby.
http://www.counterpunch.org/findley10162007.html
The Open Secret About the Israel Lobby
By PAUL FINDLEY
There is an open secret in Washington. I learned it well during my 22-year tenure as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
All members swear to serve the interests of the United States, but there is an unwritten and overwhelming exception: The interests of one small foreign country almost always trump U.S. interests. That nation, of course, is Israel.
Both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue give priority to Israel over America. Those on Capitol Hill are pre-primed to roar approval for Israeli actions whether right or wrong, instead of at least fussing first and then caving. The White House sometimes puts up a modest and ineffective show of resistance before it follows Israel's lead.
In 2002, President Bush publicly ordered Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to end a bloody, destructive rampage through the Palestinian West Bank. He wilted just as publicly when he received curt word from Sharon that Israeli troops would not withdraw and would continue their military operations. A few days later President Bush invited Sharon to the White House where he saluted him as a "man of peace."
I had similar experiences in the House of Representatives. On several occasions, colleagues told me privately that they admired what I was trying to do in Middle East policy reform but could not risk pro-Israel protest back home by supporting my positions.
The pro-Israel lobby is not one organization orchestrating U.S. Middle East policy from a backroom in Washington. Nor is it entirely Jewish. It consists of scores of groups -- large and small -- that work at various levels. The largest, most professional, and most effective is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Many pro-Israel lobby groups belong to the Christian Right.
The recently released book, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," co-authored by distinguished professors John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard, offers hope for constructive change. It details the damage to U.S. national interests caused by the lobby for Israel. These brave professors render a great service to America, but their theme, expressed in a published study paper a year ago, is already under heavy, vitriolic attack.
They are unjustly accused of anti-Semitism, the ultimate instrument of intimidation employed by the lobby. A common problem: Under pressure, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs withdrew an invitation for the authors to speak about their book. Council president Marshall Bouton explained ruefully that the invitation posed "a political problem" and a need "to protect the institution" from those who would be angry if the authors appeared.
I know what it is like to be targeted in this way. In the last years of my long service in Congress, I spoke out, making many of the points now presented in the Mearsheimer-Walt book. In 1980, my opponent charged me with anti-Semitism, and money poured into his campaign fund from every state in the Union. I prevailed that year but two years later lost by a narrow margin. In 1984, Sen. Charles Percy, then chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and an occasional critic of Israel, was defeated. Leaders of the Israel lobby claimed credit for defeating both Percy and me, claims that strengthened lobby influence in the years that followed.
The result is that Members of Congress today loudly reward Israel as it violates international law and peace agreements, lures America into costly wars, and subjects millions of Palestinians under its rule to apartheid-like conditions because they are not Jewish.
It is time to call politicians to account for their undying allegiance to a foreign state. Let the Mearsheimer-Walt book be a clarion that bestirs the American people to political action and finally brings fundamental change to both Capitol Hill and the White House.
Citizen participation in public policy development is a hallmark of our proud democracy. But the pro-Israel groups subvert democracy when they engage in smear campaigns that intimidate and silence critics. America badly needs a civilized discussion of the damaging role of Israel in U.S. policy formulation.
Paul Findley represented Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives for 22 years. He is the author of They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront the Israel Lobby.
http://www.counterpunch.org/findley10162007.html
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Two Narratives: Another Example
Here is another stark example of the competing narratives in Palestine/Israel. It would not be difficult for readers to this blog to find articles sympathetic to the "Palestinian narrative".
I'm including this complete story, whose last paragraph puts in stark relief what might be called the "Settler/Security narrative".
Can both "narratives" be true? Is there a way to bridge these two narratives? That is the question of civiilization that requires answers, in my view (JRK). Pay close attention. What are you and I doing to build bridges between the chasm, instead of more fences? Here is the article. Thank you Doug Dicks for reading that "liberal" newspaper, Haaretz.
Rights group: Steep rise in violence against Hebron Palestinians
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
Ha'aretz -- Friday - October 19,2007
Violent attacks and against Palestinian residents of Hebron, carried out by both settlers and security forces, have risen sharply over recent months, according to a report published by Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.
The report maintains that the rise in violence and violations of human rights of the Palestinian residents began in March, when Jewish settlers began living in a disputed house in Hebron after several years of negotiating with the Palestinian owners.
The settlers maintain that they own the property, while the Palestinian residents of the city claim the deal was a scam.
Moves to evict the settlers have so far been unsuccessful. Since then, B'Tselem reports, dozens of assaults against Palestinian residents of the area have been documented, which include the hurling of garbage and bottles filled with urine at them, urinating from the house toward them, spitting, threats and verbal abuse.
According to the report, these assaults are carried out in plain view during daylight hours with police officers and soldiers standing by. The report adds that violence toward Palestinians perpetrated by Israeli security forces has also increased since the settlers began occupying the disputed house.
In addition, B'Tselem reports, new roadblocks have been erected in the area and severe travel restrictions have been imposed on the Palestinian population. The report lists some 30 incidents involving settlers, and some 10 attacks carried out by security personnel.
The Jewish community in Hebron responded to the damning report, saying "the report published by the left-wing is full of lies. The true facts reveal that the aggressor in this situation is in fact the Palestinian side. More incidents of Arab violence against Jews are recorded in one week than in all the seven months surveyed in the left's overblown report. Extreme left-wing activists encourage the Arab violence, and initiate it. The main culprits of the violence and disturbance of peace in Hebron are the terrorist organizations brought here by the extreme left and the enormous amount of weapons they have been given. A Jewish presence in Hebron does not destabilize the peace; in fact it contributes to it."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/914867.html
I'm including this complete story, whose last paragraph puts in stark relief what might be called the "Settler/Security narrative".
Can both "narratives" be true? Is there a way to bridge these two narratives? That is the question of civiilization that requires answers, in my view (JRK). Pay close attention. What are you and I doing to build bridges between the chasm, instead of more fences? Here is the article. Thank you Doug Dicks for reading that "liberal" newspaper, Haaretz.
Rights group: Steep rise in violence against Hebron Palestinians
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
Ha'aretz -- Friday - October 19,2007
Violent attacks and against Palestinian residents of Hebron, carried out by both settlers and security forces, have risen sharply over recent months, according to a report published by Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.
The report maintains that the rise in violence and violations of human rights of the Palestinian residents began in March, when Jewish settlers began living in a disputed house in Hebron after several years of negotiating with the Palestinian owners.
The settlers maintain that they own the property, while the Palestinian residents of the city claim the deal was a scam.
Moves to evict the settlers have so far been unsuccessful. Since then, B'Tselem reports, dozens of assaults against Palestinian residents of the area have been documented, which include the hurling of garbage and bottles filled with urine at them, urinating from the house toward them, spitting, threats and verbal abuse.
According to the report, these assaults are carried out in plain view during daylight hours with police officers and soldiers standing by. The report adds that violence toward Palestinians perpetrated by Israeli security forces has also increased since the settlers began occupying the disputed house.
In addition, B'Tselem reports, new roadblocks have been erected in the area and severe travel restrictions have been imposed on the Palestinian population. The report lists some 30 incidents involving settlers, and some 10 attacks carried out by security personnel.
The Jewish community in Hebron responded to the damning report, saying "the report published by the left-wing is full of lies. The true facts reveal that the aggressor in this situation is in fact the Palestinian side. More incidents of Arab violence against Jews are recorded in one week than in all the seven months surveyed in the left's overblown report. Extreme left-wing activists encourage the Arab violence, and initiate it. The main culprits of the violence and disturbance of peace in Hebron are the terrorist organizations brought here by the extreme left and the enormous amount of weapons they have been given. A Jewish presence in Hebron does not destabilize the peace; in fact it contributes to it."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/914867.html
Friday, October 19, 2007
Uri Avnery, Again: a History Lesson
Clash of Civilizations?
The Mother of All Pretexts
By URI AVNERY
When I hear mention of the "Clash of Civilizations" I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.
To laugh, because it is such a silly notion.
To cry, because it is liable to cause untold disasters.
To cry even more, because our leaders are exploiting this slogan as a pretext for sabotaging any possibility of an Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. It is just one more in a long line of pretexts.
Why was the Zionist movement in need of excuses to justify the way it treated the Palestinian people?
At its birth, it was an idealistic movement. It laid great weight on its moral basis. Not just in order to convince the world, but above all in order to set its own conscience at rest.
From early childhood we learned about the pioneers, many of them sons and daughters of well-to-do and well-educated families, who left behind a comfortable life in Europe in order to start a new life in a far-away and--by the standards of the time--primitive country. Here, in a savage climate they were not used to, often hungry and sick, they performed bone-breaking physical labor under a brutal sun.
For that, they needed an absolute belief in the rightness of their cause. Not only did they believe in the need to save the Jews of Europe from persecution and pogroms, but also in the creation of a society so just as never seen before, an egalitarian society that would be a model for the entire world. Leo Tolstoy was no less important for them than Theodor Herzl. The kibbutz and the moshav were symbols of the whole enterprise.
But this idealistic movement aimed at settling in a country inhabited by another people. How to bridge this contradiction between its sublime ideals and the fact that their realization necessitated the expulsion of the people of the land?
The easiest way was to repress the problem altogether, ignoring its very existence: the land, we told ourselves, was empty, there was no people living here at all. That was the justification that served as a bridge over the moral abyss.
Only one of the Founding Fathers of the Zionist movement was courageous enough to call a spade a spade. Ze'ev Jabotinsky wrote as early as 80 years ago that it was impossible to deceive the Palestinian people (whose existence he recognized) and to buy their consent to the Zionist aspirations. We are white settlers colonizing the land of the native people, he said, and there is no chance whatsoever that the natives will resign themselves to this voluntarily. They will resist violently, like all the native peoples in the European colonies. Therefore we need an "Iron Wall" to protect the Zionist enterprise.
When Jabotinsky was told that his approach was immoral, he replied that the Jews were trying to save themselves from the disaster threatening them in Europe, and, therefore, their morality trumped the morality of the Arabs in Palestine.
Most Zionists were not prepared to accept this force-oriented approach. They searched fervently for a moral justification they could live with.
Thus started the long quest for justifications--with each pretext supplanting the previous one, according to the changing spiritual fashions in the world.
* * *
THE FIRST justification was precisely the one mocked by Jabotinsky: we were actually coming to benefit the Arabs. We shall redeem them from their primitive living conditions, from ignorance and disease. We shall teach them modern methods of agriculture and bring them advanced medicine. Everything--except employment, because we needed every job for the Jews we were bringing here, which we were transforming from ghetto-Jews into a people of workers and tillers of the soil.
When the ungrateful Arabs went on to resist our grand project, in spite of all the benefits we were supposedly bringing them, we found a Marxist justification: It's not the Arabs who oppose us, but only the "effendis". The rich Arabs, the great landowners, are afraid that the glowing example of the egalitarian Hebrew community would attract the exploited Arab proletariat and cause them to rise against their oppressors.
That, too, did not work for long, perhaps because the Arabs saw how the Zionists bought the land from those very same "effendis" and drove out the tenants who had been cultivating it for generations.
The rise of the Nazis in Europe brought masses of Jews to the country. The Arab public saw how the land was being withdrawn from under their feet, and started a rebellion against the British and the Jews in 1936. Why, the Arabs asked, should they pay for the persecution of the Jews by the Europeans? But the Arab Revolt gave us a new justification: the Arabs support the Nazis. And indeed, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, was photographed sitting next to Hitler. Some people "discovered" that the Mufti was the real instigator of the Holocaust. (Years later it was revealed that Hitler had detested the Mufti, who had no influence whatsoever over the Nazis.)
World War II came to an end, to be followed by the 1948 war. Half of the vanquished Palestinian people became refugees. That did not trouble the Zionist conscience, because everybody knew: They ran away of their own free will. Their leaders had called upon them to leave their homes, to return later with the victorious Arab armies. True, no evidence was ever found to support this absurd claim, but it has sufficed to soothe our conscience to this day.
It may be asked: why were the refugees not allowed to come back to their homes once the war was over? Well, it was they who in 1947 rejected the UN partition plan and started the war. If because of this they lost 78% of their country, they have only themselves to blame.
Then came the Cold War. We were, of course, on the side of the "Free World", while the great Arab leader, Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, got his weapons from the Soviet bloc. (True, in the 1948 war the Soviet arms flowed to us, but that's not important.) It was quite clear: No use talking with the Arabs, because they support Communist tyranny.
But the Soviet bloc collapsed. "The terrorist organization called PLO", as Menachem Begin used to call it, recognized Israel and signed the Oslo agreement. A new justification had to be found for our unwillingness to give back the occupied territories to the Palestinian people.
The salvation came from America: a professor named Samuel Huntington wrote a book about the "Clash of Civilizations". And so we found the mother of all pretexts.
* * *
THE ARCH-ENEMY, according to this theory, is Islam. Western Civilization, Judeo-Christian, liberal, democratic, tolerant, is under attacked from the Islamic monster, fanatical, terrorist, murderous.
Islam is murderous by nature. Actually, "Muslim" and "terrorist" are synonymous. Every Muslim is a terrorist, every terrorist a Muslim.
A sceptic might ask: How did it happen that the wonderful Western culture gave birth to the Inquisition, the pogroms, the burning of witches, the annihilation of the Native Americans, the Holocaust, the ethnic cleansings and other atrocities without number--but that was in the past. Now Western culture is the embodiment of freedom and progress.
Professor Huntington was not thinking about us in particular. His task was to satisfy a peculiar American craving: the American empire always needs a virtual, world-embracing enemy, a single enemy which includes all the opponents of the United States around the world. The Communists delivered the goods--the whole world was divided between Good Guys (the Americans and their supporters) and Bad Guys (the Commies). Everybody who opposed American interests was automatically a Communist--Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Salvador Allende in Chile, Fidel Castro in Cuba, while the masters of Apartheid, the death squads of Augusto Pinochet and the secret police of the Shah of Iran belonged, like us, to the Free World.
When the Communist empire collapsed, America was suddenly left without a world-wide enemy. This vacuum has now been filled by the Muslims-Terrorists. Not only Osama bin Laden, but also the Chechnyan freedom fighters, the angry North-African youth of the Paris banlieus, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the insurgents in the Philippines.
Thus the American world view rearranged itself: a good world (Western Civilization) and a bad world (Islamic civilization).
Diplomats still take care to make a distinction between "radical Islamists" and "moderate Muslims", but that is only for appearances' sake. Between ourselves, we know of course that they are all Osama bin Ladens. They are all the same.
This way, a huge part of the world, composed of manifold and very different countries, and a great religion, with many different and even opposing tendencies (like Christianity, like Judaism), which has given the world unmatched scientific and cultural treasures, is thrown into one and the same pot.
* * *
THIS WORLD VIEW is tailored for us. Indeed, the world of the clashing civilizations is, for us, the best of all possible worlds.
The struggle between Israel and the Palestinians is no longer a conflict between the Zionist movement, which came to settle in this country, and the Palestinian people, which inhabited it. No, it has been from the very beginning a part of a world-wide struggle which does not stem from our aspirations and actions. The assault of terrorist Islam on the Western world did not start because of us. Our conscience can be entirely clean--we are among the good guys of this world.
This is now the line of argument of official Israel: the Palestinians elected Hamas, a murderous Islamic movement. (If it didn't exist, it would have to be invented--and indeed, some people assert it was created from the start by our secret service.)
Hamas is terroristic, and so is Hizbullah. Perhaps Mahmoud Abbas is not a terrorist himself, but he is weak and Hamas is about to take sole control over all Palestinian territories. So we cannot talk with them. We have no partner. Actually, we cannot possibly have a partner, because we belong to Western Civilization, which Islam wants to eradicate.
* * *
IN HIS 1896 book "Der Judenstaat", Theodor Herzl, the official Israeli "Prophet of the State", prophesied this development, too.
This is what he wrote in 1896: "For Europe we shall constitute (in Palestine) a part of the wall against Asia, we shall serve as a vanguard of culture against barbarism."
Herzl was thinking of a metaphoric wall, but in the meantime we have put up a very real one. For many, this is not just a Separation Wall between Israel and Palestine. It is a part of the world-wide wall between the West and Islam, the front-line of the Clash of Civilizations.
Beyond the wall there are not men, women and children, not a conquered and oppressed Palestinian population, not choked towns and villages like Abu-Dis, a-Ram, Bil'in and Qalqilia.
No, beyond the wall there are a billion terrorists, multitudes of blood-thirsty Muslims, who have only one desire in life: to throw us into the sea, simply because we are Jews, part of Judeo-Christian Civilization.
With an official position like that--who is there to talk to? What is there to talk about? What is the point of meeting in Annapolis or anywhere else?
And what is left to us to do--to cry or to laugh?
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.
http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery10162007.html
The Mother of All Pretexts
By URI AVNERY
When I hear mention of the "Clash of Civilizations" I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.
To laugh, because it is such a silly notion.
To cry, because it is liable to cause untold disasters.
To cry even more, because our leaders are exploiting this slogan as a pretext for sabotaging any possibility of an Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. It is just one more in a long line of pretexts.
Why was the Zionist movement in need of excuses to justify the way it treated the Palestinian people?
At its birth, it was an idealistic movement. It laid great weight on its moral basis. Not just in order to convince the world, but above all in order to set its own conscience at rest.
From early childhood we learned about the pioneers, many of them sons and daughters of well-to-do and well-educated families, who left behind a comfortable life in Europe in order to start a new life in a far-away and--by the standards of the time--primitive country. Here, in a savage climate they were not used to, often hungry and sick, they performed bone-breaking physical labor under a brutal sun.
For that, they needed an absolute belief in the rightness of their cause. Not only did they believe in the need to save the Jews of Europe from persecution and pogroms, but also in the creation of a society so just as never seen before, an egalitarian society that would be a model for the entire world. Leo Tolstoy was no less important for them than Theodor Herzl. The kibbutz and the moshav were symbols of the whole enterprise.
But this idealistic movement aimed at settling in a country inhabited by another people. How to bridge this contradiction between its sublime ideals and the fact that their realization necessitated the expulsion of the people of the land?
The easiest way was to repress the problem altogether, ignoring its very existence: the land, we told ourselves, was empty, there was no people living here at all. That was the justification that served as a bridge over the moral abyss.
Only one of the Founding Fathers of the Zionist movement was courageous enough to call a spade a spade. Ze'ev Jabotinsky wrote as early as 80 years ago that it was impossible to deceive the Palestinian people (whose existence he recognized) and to buy their consent to the Zionist aspirations. We are white settlers colonizing the land of the native people, he said, and there is no chance whatsoever that the natives will resign themselves to this voluntarily. They will resist violently, like all the native peoples in the European colonies. Therefore we need an "Iron Wall" to protect the Zionist enterprise.
When Jabotinsky was told that his approach was immoral, he replied that the Jews were trying to save themselves from the disaster threatening them in Europe, and, therefore, their morality trumped the morality of the Arabs in Palestine.
Most Zionists were not prepared to accept this force-oriented approach. They searched fervently for a moral justification they could live with.
Thus started the long quest for justifications--with each pretext supplanting the previous one, according to the changing spiritual fashions in the world.
* * *
THE FIRST justification was precisely the one mocked by Jabotinsky: we were actually coming to benefit the Arabs. We shall redeem them from their primitive living conditions, from ignorance and disease. We shall teach them modern methods of agriculture and bring them advanced medicine. Everything--except employment, because we needed every job for the Jews we were bringing here, which we were transforming from ghetto-Jews into a people of workers and tillers of the soil.
When the ungrateful Arabs went on to resist our grand project, in spite of all the benefits we were supposedly bringing them, we found a Marxist justification: It's not the Arabs who oppose us, but only the "effendis". The rich Arabs, the great landowners, are afraid that the glowing example of the egalitarian Hebrew community would attract the exploited Arab proletariat and cause them to rise against their oppressors.
That, too, did not work for long, perhaps because the Arabs saw how the Zionists bought the land from those very same "effendis" and drove out the tenants who had been cultivating it for generations.
The rise of the Nazis in Europe brought masses of Jews to the country. The Arab public saw how the land was being withdrawn from under their feet, and started a rebellion against the British and the Jews in 1936. Why, the Arabs asked, should they pay for the persecution of the Jews by the Europeans? But the Arab Revolt gave us a new justification: the Arabs support the Nazis. And indeed, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, was photographed sitting next to Hitler. Some people "discovered" that the Mufti was the real instigator of the Holocaust. (Years later it was revealed that Hitler had detested the Mufti, who had no influence whatsoever over the Nazis.)
World War II came to an end, to be followed by the 1948 war. Half of the vanquished Palestinian people became refugees. That did not trouble the Zionist conscience, because everybody knew: They ran away of their own free will. Their leaders had called upon them to leave their homes, to return later with the victorious Arab armies. True, no evidence was ever found to support this absurd claim, but it has sufficed to soothe our conscience to this day.
It may be asked: why were the refugees not allowed to come back to their homes once the war was over? Well, it was they who in 1947 rejected the UN partition plan and started the war. If because of this they lost 78% of their country, they have only themselves to blame.
Then came the Cold War. We were, of course, on the side of the "Free World", while the great Arab leader, Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, got his weapons from the Soviet bloc. (True, in the 1948 war the Soviet arms flowed to us, but that's not important.) It was quite clear: No use talking with the Arabs, because they support Communist tyranny.
But the Soviet bloc collapsed. "The terrorist organization called PLO", as Menachem Begin used to call it, recognized Israel and signed the Oslo agreement. A new justification had to be found for our unwillingness to give back the occupied territories to the Palestinian people.
The salvation came from America: a professor named Samuel Huntington wrote a book about the "Clash of Civilizations". And so we found the mother of all pretexts.
* * *
THE ARCH-ENEMY, according to this theory, is Islam. Western Civilization, Judeo-Christian, liberal, democratic, tolerant, is under attacked from the Islamic monster, fanatical, terrorist, murderous.
Islam is murderous by nature. Actually, "Muslim" and "terrorist" are synonymous. Every Muslim is a terrorist, every terrorist a Muslim.
A sceptic might ask: How did it happen that the wonderful Western culture gave birth to the Inquisition, the pogroms, the burning of witches, the annihilation of the Native Americans, the Holocaust, the ethnic cleansings and other atrocities without number--but that was in the past. Now Western culture is the embodiment of freedom and progress.
Professor Huntington was not thinking about us in particular. His task was to satisfy a peculiar American craving: the American empire always needs a virtual, world-embracing enemy, a single enemy which includes all the opponents of the United States around the world. The Communists delivered the goods--the whole world was divided between Good Guys (the Americans and their supporters) and Bad Guys (the Commies). Everybody who opposed American interests was automatically a Communist--Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Salvador Allende in Chile, Fidel Castro in Cuba, while the masters of Apartheid, the death squads of Augusto Pinochet and the secret police of the Shah of Iran belonged, like us, to the Free World.
When the Communist empire collapsed, America was suddenly left without a world-wide enemy. This vacuum has now been filled by the Muslims-Terrorists. Not only Osama bin Laden, but also the Chechnyan freedom fighters, the angry North-African youth of the Paris banlieus, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the insurgents in the Philippines.
Thus the American world view rearranged itself: a good world (Western Civilization) and a bad world (Islamic civilization).
Diplomats still take care to make a distinction between "radical Islamists" and "moderate Muslims", but that is only for appearances' sake. Between ourselves, we know of course that they are all Osama bin Ladens. They are all the same.
This way, a huge part of the world, composed of manifold and very different countries, and a great religion, with many different and even opposing tendencies (like Christianity, like Judaism), which has given the world unmatched scientific and cultural treasures, is thrown into one and the same pot.
* * *
THIS WORLD VIEW is tailored for us. Indeed, the world of the clashing civilizations is, for us, the best of all possible worlds.
The struggle between Israel and the Palestinians is no longer a conflict between the Zionist movement, which came to settle in this country, and the Palestinian people, which inhabited it. No, it has been from the very beginning a part of a world-wide struggle which does not stem from our aspirations and actions. The assault of terrorist Islam on the Western world did not start because of us. Our conscience can be entirely clean--we are among the good guys of this world.
This is now the line of argument of official Israel: the Palestinians elected Hamas, a murderous Islamic movement. (If it didn't exist, it would have to be invented--and indeed, some people assert it was created from the start by our secret service.)
Hamas is terroristic, and so is Hizbullah. Perhaps Mahmoud Abbas is not a terrorist himself, but he is weak and Hamas is about to take sole control over all Palestinian territories. So we cannot talk with them. We have no partner. Actually, we cannot possibly have a partner, because we belong to Western Civilization, which Islam wants to eradicate.
* * *
IN HIS 1896 book "Der Judenstaat", Theodor Herzl, the official Israeli "Prophet of the State", prophesied this development, too.
This is what he wrote in 1896: "For Europe we shall constitute (in Palestine) a part of the wall against Asia, we shall serve as a vanguard of culture against barbarism."
Herzl was thinking of a metaphoric wall, but in the meantime we have put up a very real one. For many, this is not just a Separation Wall between Israel and Palestine. It is a part of the world-wide wall between the West and Islam, the front-line of the Clash of Civilizations.
Beyond the wall there are not men, women and children, not a conquered and oppressed Palestinian population, not choked towns and villages like Abu-Dis, a-Ram, Bil'in and Qalqilia.
No, beyond the wall there are a billion terrorists, multitudes of blood-thirsty Muslims, who have only one desire in life: to throw us into the sea, simply because we are Jews, part of Judeo-Christian Civilization.
With an official position like that--who is there to talk to? What is there to talk about? What is the point of meeting in Annapolis or anywhere else?
And what is left to us to do--to cry or to laugh?
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.
http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery10162007.html
Monday, October 15, 2007
Call it What it Is!
Colonization And A Mediator's Bias
Remain The Death Knells Of Peace
Editorial
Daily Star (Lebanon)
October 15, 2007
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in the Middle East over the weekend to try and prod the parties into attending the planned Arab-Israeli gathering in Annapolis next month.
Her arrival coincided with the 13th anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded to the late Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, and to Shimon Peres. The Oslo Accords that Arafat, Rabin and Peres signed in 1993 were a breakthrough in their day; but they never achieved their promise. The process they unleashed ultimately collapsed in bitter fighting and the construction of the separation wall that Israel has erected, largely on Palestinian land.
It is worth recalling why the peace process that has comprised so many attempts since Madrid in 1991 has failed, and warfare has resumed its status as the constant condition of Arab-Israeli interaction. Many will argue over the main reasons for this sad fact. One element that cannot be ignored, and might be the number one reason for war's triumph over peace, is the continued Israeli insistence on expropriating and colonizing Palestinian land that was occupied in 1967.
The incompatibility of peace-making with colonization should be abundantly clear by now.That is why Rice should recognize - or some honest person in Washington should tell her - that her statement Sunday about Israel's latest land grab of Palestinian territory east of Occupied Jerusalem was glaringly at odds with her stated mission of promoting peace.
Asked about Israel's latest confiscation of Palestinian land, she replied: "The point that I will be making is that we have to be very careful as we are trying to move toward the establishment of a Palestinian state about actions and statements that erode confidence in the parties' commitment to a two-state solutionactions and statements that erode confidence in the parties' commitment to a two-state solution."
Say what, Condi? We have to be careful about statements that "erode confidence?" Is this all the US secretary of state can say about the most persistent and conspicuous colonial endeavor in the world? Does she really expect anyone to take her seriously as an impartial mediator when she shows herself and her country to be so blatantly sympathetic to Israel? She should come out and say flatly that expropriating occupied lands is explicitly against UN resolutions that are the basis for peacemaking attempts. If she cannot say that because it will upset the Israelis, or their friends in Washington, she should consider dropping her entire charade, because it will end like the Oslo and many other failed peace-making meetings.
If the mediator has no self-respect anchored in genuine impartiality, he or she will not be taken seriously, which is precisely what is happening today. Nobel prizes awarded many years ago remind us of the courage needed to make peace, but also of the dishonesty and partiality that destroys otherwise noble peacemaking endeavors.
Remain The Death Knells Of Peace
Editorial
Daily Star (Lebanon)
October 15, 2007
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in the Middle East over the weekend to try and prod the parties into attending the planned Arab-Israeli gathering in Annapolis next month.
Her arrival coincided with the 13th anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded to the late Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, and to Shimon Peres. The Oslo Accords that Arafat, Rabin and Peres signed in 1993 were a breakthrough in their day; but they never achieved their promise. The process they unleashed ultimately collapsed in bitter fighting and the construction of the separation wall that Israel has erected, largely on Palestinian land.
It is worth recalling why the peace process that has comprised so many attempts since Madrid in 1991 has failed, and warfare has resumed its status as the constant condition of Arab-Israeli interaction. Many will argue over the main reasons for this sad fact. One element that cannot be ignored, and might be the number one reason for war's triumph over peace, is the continued Israeli insistence on expropriating and colonizing Palestinian land that was occupied in 1967.
The incompatibility of peace-making with colonization should be abundantly clear by now.That is why Rice should recognize - or some honest person in Washington should tell her - that her statement Sunday about Israel's latest land grab of Palestinian territory east of Occupied Jerusalem was glaringly at odds with her stated mission of promoting peace.
Asked about Israel's latest confiscation of Palestinian land, she replied: "The point that I will be making is that we have to be very careful as we are trying to move toward the establishment of a Palestinian state about actions and statements that erode confidence in the parties' commitment to a two-state solutionactions and statements that erode confidence in the parties' commitment to a two-state solution."
Say what, Condi? We have to be careful about statements that "erode confidence?" Is this all the US secretary of state can say about the most persistent and conspicuous colonial endeavor in the world? Does she really expect anyone to take her seriously as an impartial mediator when she shows herself and her country to be so blatantly sympathetic to Israel? She should come out and say flatly that expropriating occupied lands is explicitly against UN resolutions that are the basis for peacemaking attempts. If she cannot say that because it will upset the Israelis, or their friends in Washington, she should consider dropping her entire charade, because it will end like the Oslo and many other failed peace-making meetings.
If the mediator has no self-respect anchored in genuine impartiality, he or she will not be taken seriously, which is precisely what is happening today. Nobel prizes awarded many years ago remind us of the courage needed to make peace, but also of the dishonesty and partiality that destroys otherwise noble peacemaking endeavors.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
An Affront to Christian/Muslim Relations
Christian Activist Killed In Gaza
By Ibrahim Barzak
In The Associated Press
October 9, 2007
A prominent Palestinian Christian activist was found dead on a Gaza City street Sunday, sending a shudder of fear through a tiny Christian community feeling increasingly insecure since the Islamic Hamas seized control last summer.
The body of Rami Khader Ayyad, the 32-year-old director of Gaza's only Christian bookstore, bore a visible gunshot wound to the head, and an official at Gaza's Shifa Hospital said he was also stabbed numerous times. Ayyad had been missing since Saturday afternoon.
Ayyad regularly received anonymous death threats from angry people who accused him of missionary work, a rarity among Gaza's Christians. His store, which is associated with a Christian group called the Palestinian Bible Society, was firebombed in April.
"We feel Rami was killed for his Christian faith," said Simon Azazian, a spokesman at the Bible Society's head office in Jerusalem.
About 3,200 Christians live in Gaza among 1.4 million Muslims, and the Christian community has grown uneasy since Hamas routed forces of the secular Fatah movement and seized control of the coastal strip in June. During the takeover, vandals ransacked a Roman Catholic convent and an adjacent school, breaking crosses and smashing the face of a ceramic Jesus.
Ayyad had been increasingly worried about threats on his store, Azazian said.
On Friday, he noticed that he was being followed by a car with no license plates. Ayyad called his family Saturday afternoon to tell them he had been abducted but would be freed later in the evening, said Azazian. Police were notified, but his body was found the next morning.
Ayyad left two young children and a pregnant wife.
In recent months, shadowy Islamic groups have carried out dozens of attacks on Internet cafes, music shops and other targets associated with the West.
Some of the attacks, though not the one against Ayyad's bookstore, have been claimed by a little-known extremist Islamic group calling itself the Swords of Justice. Hamas has vehemently denied involvement in any of the violence.
Christian activists said they feared the death would disrupt their quiet but uneasy relationship with the Muslim majority.
"He paid his life for his faith, for his dignity, and the dignity of the Bible and Jesus Christ," said Issa, a 24-year-old Christian who came to pay his respects at Ayyad's home. "I am terrified and cannot believe this has happened in Gaza," said Issa, declining to give his last name because of the tense atmosphere.
Expressing a common sentiment among Christian mourners, he stopped short of blaming Hamas, saying only that the "enemy of God, love, justice and Jesus" was behind the crime.
"It's too early to talk about the motive of this crime, which might be dangerous," said Hussam Tawil, a Palestinian lawmaker who represents Gaza's Christians.
Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of Gaza's Hamas government, expressed "great sadness" over Ayyad's death and said he ordered an investigation.
"I stress the strong relations between Christians and Muslims in the Palestinian arena," he said. "We are part of the same nation ... and we are not going to allow anyone to sabotage this historical relationship."
By Ibrahim Barzak
In The Associated Press
October 9, 2007
A prominent Palestinian Christian activist was found dead on a Gaza City street Sunday, sending a shudder of fear through a tiny Christian community feeling increasingly insecure since the Islamic Hamas seized control last summer.
The body of Rami Khader Ayyad, the 32-year-old director of Gaza's only Christian bookstore, bore a visible gunshot wound to the head, and an official at Gaza's Shifa Hospital said he was also stabbed numerous times. Ayyad had been missing since Saturday afternoon.
Ayyad regularly received anonymous death threats from angry people who accused him of missionary work, a rarity among Gaza's Christians. His store, which is associated with a Christian group called the Palestinian Bible Society, was firebombed in April.
"We feel Rami was killed for his Christian faith," said Simon Azazian, a spokesman at the Bible Society's head office in Jerusalem.
About 3,200 Christians live in Gaza among 1.4 million Muslims, and the Christian community has grown uneasy since Hamas routed forces of the secular Fatah movement and seized control of the coastal strip in June. During the takeover, vandals ransacked a Roman Catholic convent and an adjacent school, breaking crosses and smashing the face of a ceramic Jesus.
Ayyad had been increasingly worried about threats on his store, Azazian said.
On Friday, he noticed that he was being followed by a car with no license plates. Ayyad called his family Saturday afternoon to tell them he had been abducted but would be freed later in the evening, said Azazian. Police were notified, but his body was found the next morning.
Ayyad left two young children and a pregnant wife.
In recent months, shadowy Islamic groups have carried out dozens of attacks on Internet cafes, music shops and other targets associated with the West.
Some of the attacks, though not the one against Ayyad's bookstore, have been claimed by a little-known extremist Islamic group calling itself the Swords of Justice. Hamas has vehemently denied involvement in any of the violence.
Christian activists said they feared the death would disrupt their quiet but uneasy relationship with the Muslim majority.
"He paid his life for his faith, for his dignity, and the dignity of the Bible and Jesus Christ," said Issa, a 24-year-old Christian who came to pay his respects at Ayyad's home. "I am terrified and cannot believe this has happened in Gaza," said Issa, declining to give his last name because of the tense atmosphere.
Expressing a common sentiment among Christian mourners, he stopped short of blaming Hamas, saying only that the "enemy of God, love, justice and Jesus" was behind the crime.
"It's too early to talk about the motive of this crime, which might be dangerous," said Hussam Tawil, a Palestinian lawmaker who represents Gaza's Christians.
Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of Gaza's Hamas government, expressed "great sadness" over Ayyad's death and said he ordered an investigation.
"I stress the strong relations between Christians and Muslims in the Palestinian arena," he said. "We are part of the same nation ... and we are not going to allow anyone to sabotage this historical relationship."
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Listen to the "Other's" Story!
On Stage In Jerusalem, Jewish And Arab Audiences Hear The Other Side Of The Story – In Their Own Language
By Ilene Prusher
In The Christian Science Monitor
October 5, 2007
The characters: six Jerusalemites. The setting: the embattled city claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians. The point: to get people listening to narratives they didn't think they wanted to hear.
Jerusalem Stories is a series of dramatic monologues that are being performed in Jewish and Arab parts of the city, in Hebrew and in Arabic, with the aim of challenging audiences to empathize with the other side – or the "enemy," as many here would say.
On stage are stories representative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the point of being cliché: A Palestinian man expresses anger over the Israeli army's killing of his nephew, an Israeli mother grieves for her teenage son killed in a Palestinian attack.
But the stories are told in a way that cuts through prejudice and hate. Director of Jerusalem Stories, Carol Grosman, chose two Israeli actors to do all six parts for Hebrew-speaking audiences to bring them face-to-face with the narratives in their own language. Palestinian actors performed for Arab audiences in their mother tongue.
It's having the intended effect, says Mohammad Thaher, the project's Palestinian director. "The issue is that for the first time ever, they're seeing something that is about the suffering of the [other] side, and it's a shock for them. People like to hear something about their own suffering and they're not used to getting beyond that. Suddenly they feel for the other, and sometimes it makes people a little bit angry."
The Jerusalem Stories project, which includes performances as well as educational programs and workshops aimed at fostering better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians, is the labor of several years of work by Ms. Grosman, an American who came to Jerusalem and decided to use her background in drama and storytelling as a way to get people to start really listening to the other side.
After collecting some 70 in-depth profiles of people who live in Jerusalem and recording the story of how the conflict affects them, Grosman chose six that seemed to capture some of the most essential and painful elements of life here – and largely, how they cope with the suffering they endure at the hands of the "other."
The debut series of performances in East and West Jerusalem has proven powerful and phenomenal. Now Grosman and Mr. Thaher are deciding where to take the show next. High on the list: Israeli and Palestinian schools, international audiences, and perhaps in the US, where Grosman studied storytelling as a tool of conflict resolution.
It's a journey, she says, that began 15 years ago when she attended a conflict resolution program in Jerusalem. "I saw how exposing audiences to real people and their narratives just opens them up, and their horizons widen," she explains. "So I started to play with getting groups together to tell their narratives." This included bringing together Jewish and African-American groups in the US, as well as groups of young Bosnians and Croats at the Seeds of Peace camp in Maine.
The journey led her to do a master's degree in conflict resolution at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia – hardly a typical path for a Jewish girl. An Orthodox rabbi, she says, recommended she study there.
"The Mennonites talk about, 'Let's have a listen and learn.' The value of humility is very strong," she explains. "The attitude is, I need to listen, I need to learn. It's a humble stance."
The approach she took was to get people to avoid encouraging people to talk about politics or their opinions, at least in a direct sense.
"When people start telling opinions, they clash. The personal story is a safe passage through the minefield. Opinions tend to create more conflict," she explains in a discussion in her small Jerusalem apartment, which is filled with pieces of the set of the previous night's performance. The accompanying multimedia exhibit, shown between changes of actors, includes evocative black-and-white portraits of Jerusalemites taken by photographer Lloyd Wolf.
"We have a vicarious experience in our imagination: We can see the street, we can see a young boy selling gum. Imagining is something very powerful," Grosman explains. "When you have an imagined life experience of the 'enemy other,' it's a powerful form of communication. It gets past defenses that people have. Often, when we hear a story, we identify with the narrator."
For that reason, the performances are currently done either entirely in Hebrew or entirely in Arabic – which means that so far, it doesn't bring people together.
"It seemed to me that we wanted to do this in native languages, so that we would not just attract the usual people who are left-wing or tolerant," she says. "We know that there are people who support Hamas who were at the performances in East Jerusalem." But at the same time, she says, it's brought criticism from people wondering why a project aimed at building understanding is keeping people in separate spaces.
"People have criticized us, saying 'Why aren't you bringing them together?' I say, there's a need to sit separately and hear it in your native language and feel safe," she says. "We're trying to attract people who aren't comfortable sitting together [as Israelis and Palestinians]. We're already pushing them with what they hear."
Eventually, says Thaher, the Palestinian director, they plan to have joint audiences to get people talking afterward.
The three-hour program includes an hour of facilitated discussion groups after viewing the performance, in which plenty of sparks have been flying – even in the all-Arab or all-Jewish audiences.
Thaher says that Palestinian audiences sometimes express resentment at being made to feel sympathy for the Israeli side, saying that the stories were slanted. Israeli audiences complain of the exact same thing, saying that the Palestinian stories were more compelling.
"But we think there is a balance," he says.
By Ilene Prusher
In The Christian Science Monitor
October 5, 2007
The characters: six Jerusalemites. The setting: the embattled city claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians. The point: to get people listening to narratives they didn't think they wanted to hear.
Jerusalem Stories is a series of dramatic monologues that are being performed in Jewish and Arab parts of the city, in Hebrew and in Arabic, with the aim of challenging audiences to empathize with the other side – or the "enemy," as many here would say.
On stage are stories representative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the point of being cliché: A Palestinian man expresses anger over the Israeli army's killing of his nephew, an Israeli mother grieves for her teenage son killed in a Palestinian attack.
But the stories are told in a way that cuts through prejudice and hate. Director of Jerusalem Stories, Carol Grosman, chose two Israeli actors to do all six parts for Hebrew-speaking audiences to bring them face-to-face with the narratives in their own language. Palestinian actors performed for Arab audiences in their mother tongue.
It's having the intended effect, says Mohammad Thaher, the project's Palestinian director. "The issue is that for the first time ever, they're seeing something that is about the suffering of the [other] side, and it's a shock for them. People like to hear something about their own suffering and they're not used to getting beyond that. Suddenly they feel for the other, and sometimes it makes people a little bit angry."
The Jerusalem Stories project, which includes performances as well as educational programs and workshops aimed at fostering better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians, is the labor of several years of work by Ms. Grosman, an American who came to Jerusalem and decided to use her background in drama and storytelling as a way to get people to start really listening to the other side.
After collecting some 70 in-depth profiles of people who live in Jerusalem and recording the story of how the conflict affects them, Grosman chose six that seemed to capture some of the most essential and painful elements of life here – and largely, how they cope with the suffering they endure at the hands of the "other."
The debut series of performances in East and West Jerusalem has proven powerful and phenomenal. Now Grosman and Mr. Thaher are deciding where to take the show next. High on the list: Israeli and Palestinian schools, international audiences, and perhaps in the US, where Grosman studied storytelling as a tool of conflict resolution.
It's a journey, she says, that began 15 years ago when she attended a conflict resolution program in Jerusalem. "I saw how exposing audiences to real people and their narratives just opens them up, and their horizons widen," she explains. "So I started to play with getting groups together to tell their narratives." This included bringing together Jewish and African-American groups in the US, as well as groups of young Bosnians and Croats at the Seeds of Peace camp in Maine.
The journey led her to do a master's degree in conflict resolution at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia – hardly a typical path for a Jewish girl. An Orthodox rabbi, she says, recommended she study there.
"The Mennonites talk about, 'Let's have a listen and learn.' The value of humility is very strong," she explains. "The attitude is, I need to listen, I need to learn. It's a humble stance."
The approach she took was to get people to avoid encouraging people to talk about politics or their opinions, at least in a direct sense.
"When people start telling opinions, they clash. The personal story is a safe passage through the minefield. Opinions tend to create more conflict," she explains in a discussion in her small Jerusalem apartment, which is filled with pieces of the set of the previous night's performance. The accompanying multimedia exhibit, shown between changes of actors, includes evocative black-and-white portraits of Jerusalemites taken by photographer Lloyd Wolf.
"We have a vicarious experience in our imagination: We can see the street, we can see a young boy selling gum. Imagining is something very powerful," Grosman explains. "When you have an imagined life experience of the 'enemy other,' it's a powerful form of communication. It gets past defenses that people have. Often, when we hear a story, we identify with the narrator."
For that reason, the performances are currently done either entirely in Hebrew or entirely in Arabic – which means that so far, it doesn't bring people together.
"It seemed to me that we wanted to do this in native languages, so that we would not just attract the usual people who are left-wing or tolerant," she says. "We know that there are people who support Hamas who were at the performances in East Jerusalem." But at the same time, she says, it's brought criticism from people wondering why a project aimed at building understanding is keeping people in separate spaces.
"People have criticized us, saying 'Why aren't you bringing them together?' I say, there's a need to sit separately and hear it in your native language and feel safe," she says. "We're trying to attract people who aren't comfortable sitting together [as Israelis and Palestinians]. We're already pushing them with what they hear."
Eventually, says Thaher, the Palestinian director, they plan to have joint audiences to get people talking afterward.
The three-hour program includes an hour of facilitated discussion groups after viewing the performance, in which plenty of sparks have been flying – even in the all-Arab or all-Jewish audiences.
Thaher says that Palestinian audiences sometimes express resentment at being made to feel sympathy for the Israeli side, saying that the stories were slanted. Israeli audiences complain of the exact same thing, saying that the Palestinian stories were more compelling.
"But we think there is a balance," he says.
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