Dear Friend,
I'll be giving more details from Deb Reich's new book: NO MORE ENEMIES, but first this from the Musalaha director, Salim Munayer. Pray for peace and reconcilation; learning each other's narrative and working for rapproachment. JRK
The Urgency of Reconciliation
by Salim Munayer
As Israeli and Palestinian believers, we usually focus on our theological differences, but we are unaware of the greater political and societal differences. Recently, I was speaking with one of my colleagues from the Hebrew University, a professor who has done a lot of work on bringing Israelis and Palestinians together. We were discussing the different challenges that these sort of inter-group meetings face, and the lack of hope that people have in the prospect of reconciliation. This led us to talk about the new report by Sammy Smooha, a professor of sociology at Haifa University and one of Israel’s preeminent scholars of Israeli-Palestinian relations, especially within the State of Israel. He recently published a report through the United States Institute of Peace, called Arab-Jewish Relations in Israel, Alienation and Rapprochement[1]. It is an informed look at the shift in attitudes over the past few decades, as well as the current situation, and suggests a number of policy changes that should be made to help reconciliation as we go forward.
Smooha first points out that Israeli society is fragmented on a number of different levels. He writes, “Israel is a deeply divided society. The division between Arab and Jewish citizens is reflected in institutions; culture; national identity; socioeconomic status; and stances on the character of the state, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and other fundamental issues.”[2] Furthermore, Palestinian-Israelis,
[R]eject Zionism, the de facto state ideology of Israel. They see Zionism, the Jewish movement of national liberation, as colonialist and racist, and they denigrate the Jews’ fundamental Zionist collective identity. The Jews, meanwhile, do not see themselves as colonial settlers but rather as the genuine proprietors of the Land of Israel, from which they were historically exiled and to which they rightfully returned to find alien Arabs in possession . . . Both sides reject the most cherished values of the other.[3]
This division is important, because the Palestinians in Israel make up a very significant minority; one in six Israeli citizens are Arab, and they make up around 17 per cent of the total population (excluding the Palestinian Territories). Smooha explains that there are two different theories on the Arab-Jewish relations within Israel, mutual alienation and mutual rapprochement. The mutual alienation theory states that the two communities are on a violent collision course, while the mutual rapprochement theory claims that they are in the process of adjusting to each other. He then looks at the period from 1996 to 2010 and discusses some of the developments that took place, in light of these two theories. “By either account,” he writes, “any account in fact, this was a lost decade for Arab-Jewish coexistence. The situation has worsened and bodes badly for the future of their relations.”[4]
For example, Smooha discusses the collapse of the Oslo accords and the beginning of the Second Intifada, as well as the October Events in 2000, when Israeli police killed thirteen Palestinian-Israelis in protests that took place across the country. Smooha also looks at the steep rise in popularity of right wing political parties such as Yisrael Betenu, and the proposed measures to require loyalty oaths, and to criminalize participation in Nakba Day memorial ceremonies. Although these measures were not passed, they affected Arab-Jewish relations within Israel and indicate the level of animosity between the two communities. Among Palestinian-Israelis, the voting rate has dropped from 75 per cent in 1999 to 53 per cent in 2009, and contains an element of boycott that demonstrates a withdrawal from Israeli society. The Palestinian-Israelis that do vote have increasingly supported Arab parties that advocate a bi-national state that would no longer be Jewish.[5] Smooha also includes the results of his survey on attitudes towards reconciliation, and they do not paint a rosy picture. 43 per cent of Palestinian Israelis are not ready to have a Jewish neighbor, and 50 per cent of Jewish Israelis are not ready to have an Arab neighbor.[6] All of these trends represent a growing hostility between these two communities.
For Smooha, real progress will only be made when a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is found, and when Palestinian-Israelis are integrated into mainstream Israeli society. Unfortunately, no progress was made on either of these fronts in the past decade. In spite of this lack of progress, however, Smooha is optimistic. He sides with the mutual rapprochement theory, and believes that we can still reach coexistence and reconciliation, but only if we are willing to work for it. If nothing is done to bring about change, the only result will be further alienation, destruction and violence. We cannot afford to “postpone change until peace is concluded,” we must “take steps immediately to improve Arab-Jewish coexistence” if we are to “preclude further deterioration that might impede peace.”[7]
This is encouraging, and serves as an affirmation of those who work for reconciliation. But it is also a warning. As believers, we are by no means immune to the destructive traits that mark our respective communities, and all of the factors that have further entrenched the divisions in the past decade have also affected us. We may disagree on how to go about reaching reconciliation, but we do still have hope for an improvement of our relations, and we have our shared faith in the Messiah who calls us to dwell in unity as brothers and sisters. If nothing is done to restore the relationships that have been damaged, there are dark days ahead, and this is why it is crucial that we allow God to use us as an instrument of his peace. We are called to be peacemakers, and stand against division, hatred, and violence with love.
Salim J. Munayer, Ph.D., is director of Musalaha, a ministry of reconciliation.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Palestinian Statehood Long Overdue
Dear Friend,
Saliba Sarsar and Hussein Ibish give words to be heeded. Prof. Sarsar is a former colleague of mine when I was in New Jersey, a native of East Jerusalem, a Christian Palestinian, a Vice President at the University of Monmouth.
Mr. Ibish was Communications Director for the ADC (American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee), has a PhD from U. Mass and is a Sr Research Fellow at the ATFP (American Task Force on Palestine).
It is an extraordinarily perceptive piece on the need for "progress" on the "Two-State" solution. (Disclosure: I've given up on the Two-State solution long ago, and think the "equal rights" movement is a better route to take). But for all that, these two men clearly make the case for action in a prudent, persistent way. It raises many questions but seeks to clarify the issues.
Read it, ponder it, and pass it on as it contributes significantly to the discussion. The longstanding conflict is a microcosm of US Middle East policy.
I'm planning on going back there next year. Let's go together. jrk
The Long Overdue State of Palestine
Hussein Ibish and Saliba Sarsar
The Huffington Post (Opinion)
July 18, 2011 - 12:00am
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hussein-ibish-phd/state-of-palestine_b_901442.html
With the independence of the new Republic of South Sudan, the world is again reminded that states are created on the basis of local, regional and international necessity. At least two decades of international action, as well as a long, bitter and bloody conflict produced the independence of the south, a state that has been already welcomed by the international community, the African Union, the United Nations, and has been invited to join the Arab League.
South Sudan is only the latest newly-created state in the international community. In recent decades numerous new countries have come into existence, arising out of the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, the split between the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the secession of Eritrea from Ethiopia, and so forth. Yet more than 60 years after its existence was envisaged by the UN partition plan for Palestine, more than 40 years after its creation was implied in the UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, and almost 20 years since the Oslo Accords led the whole world to expect that Palestine would, soon, enjoy independence, there is still no Palestinian state.
It's hard to overestimate the strategic, political and cultural damage this failure to secure Palestinian independence is having on the Middle East as a region, and, indeed, throughout the globe. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the ongoing occupation that began in 1967 is completely disproportionate to its geographical and demographic size because of the profound emotional, ideological, religious and symbolic investment people throughout the world have made in it. Passions run high far beyond Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, and it's no exaggeration to describe the conflict and the occupation as a cancer on the body politic of the global community.
The bottom line is this: in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea -- what has been the de facto Israeli state since 1967 -- there are approximately equal numbers, about 6 million of both, of Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Muslims and Christians. One group has a state, citizenship, self-determination and independence. A small group of Palestinians, about 1 million, are citizens of Israel but subject to significant forms of discrimination. But the large majority of Palestinians live in the occupied territories without citizenship or enfranchisement of any kind, self-determination or independence, and are subject to the arbitrary and typically abusive rule of a foreign military. Moreover, they have watched as their land is steadily colonized by Israeli settlements, which are both a violation of international law and a human rights abuse against those living under occupation according to the Fourth Geneva Convention. Nowhere in the world is there any comparable level of separate and unequal as there is under Israeli rule in the occupied Palestinian territories.
David Ben-Gurion, who was Israel's prime minister twice, during 1948-1953 and 1955-1963, respectively, eloquently spoke in 1945 of the Jewish yearning for national validation and self-determination. He stated, "We are a people without a State and, therefore, a people without credentials, without recognition, without representation, without the privileges of a nation, without the means of self-defense, and without any say in our fate." These might easily be the words of a Palestinian leader in 2011.
Two years later, on November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 181, recommending the partition of Palestine into two separate states, one Jewish and one Arab, with the Jerusalem-Bethlehem area to be placed under special international protection, administered by the United Nations. However, the UN Security Council failed to implement Resolution 181, and as soon as the British Mandate was terminated, Jewish leaders declared the establishment of Israel, leading to the intervention by five Arab armies in what was already a raging communal civil war in Palestine. This conflict left Israel in de facto possession of not the 55 percent of mandatory Palestine envisaged in the partition resolution, but 78 percent, which are now generally regarded as the internationally accepted borders of Israel.
Sixty-three years later, and following seven wars, the displacement of over a million Palestinian refugees during the 1948 and 1967 wars (who now number more than four million), two Palestinian intifadas, and countless dead and wounded, Israel remains a nation at war and in fear, and Palestinian national aspirations remain totally unfulfilled. Israeli settlements continue to be built at an alarming pace, with 200 already constructed, and the half-million Jewish Israeli colonists living in them are squeezing Palestinians into ever smaller areas of the West Bank and Jerusalem, and denying them access to water and other resources.
Peace efforts such as the Oslo accords (1993); Wye River accord (1998); Camp David meeting (2000); Taba negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli delegations (2001); George Mitchell's proposal (2001); George Tenet's plan (2001); United Nations Resolution 1397, which affirmed a vision of a region where Palestine and Israel would live side by side within secure and recognized borders (2002); the Arab Peace Initiative adopted unanimously twice by the Arab League (2002); and the "roadmap" for peace adopted by the Quartet (2003); have all been creditable efforts to develop peace, but none have succeeded and thus far the agony and tragedy have simply continued.
Years of conflict and insecurity, narratives of exclusion and pain, and incompatible visions of the future, let alone understandings of the past, have created a serious disconnect between Israelis and Palestinians. Each national community is caught up in its own tendentious and exclusive narratives: Israel using the past and the present to create the future; the Palestinians using the present to recreate the past in service of the future. Both are laboring under serious illusions.
Unfortunately, while US policy has emphasized that a two-state solution is imperative for American national interests, because of the "special relationship" between the two countries, in practice it remains steadfastly in Israel's corner, vetoing 26 UN Security Council draft resolutions on Palestine since July 1973. Domestic political considerations and a powerful American popular and elite consensus in support of Israel make pressuring that country in the normal diplomatic manner very difficult for an American president. Palestinians have hoped to be able to use the "special relationship" to help mollify Israeli concerns and reassure them that because of American participation, they are not taking any inordinate risks in entering into a peace agreement with the Palestinians. So far, this strategy, while theoretically promising, has yet to demonstrate much efficacy.
According to almost all opinion polls, most Palestinians and Israelis are in favor of a negotiated two-state solution, based on the 1967 borders, with agreed upon land swaps. Unfortunately, similarly large majorities do not believe it will happen and do not trust the other side's intentions. Unless President Barack Obama is able to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu to negotiate on the aforementioned parameters, then the Palestinians will be facing many more checkpoints and a stonewall of delay while the Israelis continue to seize more Palestinian land in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Unfortunately, many Palestinians and Israelis believe that Netanyahu has no interest in pursuing a negotiated solution along the lines that Palestinians would deem acceptable. And, even more unfortunately, his unenthusiastic approach to the peace process and insistent emphasis on security above all, including peace, has proven extremely popular in Israel and he leads an unlikely but extraordinarily stable coalition government. In other words, his default position of saying "no" to everything is serving his political interests, leaving him with few incentives to be more forthcoming.
However, as numerous Israelis with impeccable national security credentials, including some very strongly rooted in the political right, have been publicly stating in recent months, it is essential to Israel's national interest to help secure the creation of a viable, democratic and peaceful State of Palestine. While the Israeli occupation resulted from conditions of the 1960s or even earlier, the time for its ending has come. An independent, contiguous, and secure Palestine (democratic, pluralistic, non-militarized, and neutral) living in peace alongside Israel is, as an apparent consensus of Israeli national security experts appear to recognize, the only way to secure Israel's long-term safety and stability. The occupation is untenable, dangerous and, ultimately, self-destructive.
The Arab states, as well as the United States and Israel, strongly require the creation of a Palestinian state for their fundamental national interests. For too long the Palestinian question has been a volatile, destabilizing variable in regional politics, the source of conflict and tension, and a powerful tool in the hands of extremists of many different varieties. This understanding was most importantly expressed through the Arab Peace Initiative, but has also been repeatedly emphasized by Arab leaders across the region. King Abdullah II of Jordan, in his memoir, Our Last Best Chance: The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril, expressed "a sense of urgency, a conviction that the window for peace between Israel and the Palestinians is closing." We agree with him when he states, "Both sides have a moral responsibility to strive for peace... the alternative is more conflict and violence."
Every moment that is lost only benefits the proponents of extremism on all sides. Albeit a minority, they will continue to monopolize the political narrative and dictate the facts on the ground in the absence of peace. The moderates will lose heart and fade away in the smoke of violence and hate and the fog of deception.
Enlightened leadership not only leads and serves but finds like-minded followers as well, leaders in their own right, who would be eager to sustain positive change for the common good of both Palestinians and Israelis. It not only responds to constituencies, it creates them. The need for allies for peace and statehood is equally important as the need for such a consensus locally, regionally, and internationally.
What Ben Gurion envisioned for his people in 1945, all Palestinians have sought for decades. It is high time that the United States and the rest of the international community stood by them, not just rhetorically or in terms of development aid, but with practical, effective diplomatic efforts that ensure that the occupation will end, and that a Palestinian state alongside Israel will be created, recognized by the major powers of the world, and welcomed as a member state of the United Nations. Without a doubt this will require Israeli acquiescence as well, which means that negotiations are unavoidable and indispensable.
But the international community has an important role to play in laying the groundwork for such an agreement, making it crystal clear that it will accept no other outcome, applying both negative and positive pressure on both sides to make it happen, and doing everything possible to avoid any other outcome. Simply leaving it up to the parties, which are defined by the most extreme degree of power asymmetry imaginable, is not a viable option. International engagement, led by but not exclusive to the United States, is more indispensable now than ever. Especially given the role the international community played in the creation of Israel, it has a right and a responsibility to play a similar role in the creation of Palestine.
This is a delicate process, and we are not proposing an implausible and impracticable "imposition" of a solution on the parties by an international community that is unwilling and probably unable to take such steps. Nor are we suggesting that the Palestinian demand for full UN membership in September is likely to prove successful. Clearly a failed confrontation with the United States at the UN Security Council over the issue of statehood is not in anybody's interest, let alone the Palestinians. However, a greater role for the international community in resolving this exceptionally damaging and destabilizing ongoing conflict is essential. Palestinians can and should receive a major upgrade of their observer mission status from the General Assembly, and should be recognized on a bilateral basis by every state that is serious about Israeli-Palestinian peace.
There is much the international community can do to promote a two-state solution, particularly by clarifying its unshakable commitment to this outcome and its categorical refusal to accept any alternative. There is no longer any excuse for postponing or delaying such measures. They do not undermine Israeli-Palestinian negotiations; they support them insofar as they make the only reasonable, workable outcome far more likely and demonstrate that the world expects and will help the parties arrive at a two-state solution in the near future. The international community has made its commitment to Israel very clear since 1948. It must now move quickly to make its commitment to Palestine alongside Israel equally clear, especially to the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Saliba Sarsar and Hussein Ibish give words to be heeded. Prof. Sarsar is a former colleague of mine when I was in New Jersey, a native of East Jerusalem, a Christian Palestinian, a Vice President at the University of Monmouth.
Mr. Ibish was Communications Director for the ADC (American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee), has a PhD from U. Mass and is a Sr Research Fellow at the ATFP (American Task Force on Palestine).
It is an extraordinarily perceptive piece on the need for "progress" on the "Two-State" solution. (Disclosure: I've given up on the Two-State solution long ago, and think the "equal rights" movement is a better route to take). But for all that, these two men clearly make the case for action in a prudent, persistent way. It raises many questions but seeks to clarify the issues.
Read it, ponder it, and pass it on as it contributes significantly to the discussion. The longstanding conflict is a microcosm of US Middle East policy.
I'm planning on going back there next year. Let's go together. jrk
The Long Overdue State of Palestine
Hussein Ibish and Saliba Sarsar
The Huffington Post (Opinion)
July 18, 2011 - 12:00am
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hussein-ibish-phd/state-of-palestine_b_901442.html
With the independence of the new Republic of South Sudan, the world is again reminded that states are created on the basis of local, regional and international necessity. At least two decades of international action, as well as a long, bitter and bloody conflict produced the independence of the south, a state that has been already welcomed by the international community, the African Union, the United Nations, and has been invited to join the Arab League.
South Sudan is only the latest newly-created state in the international community. In recent decades numerous new countries have come into existence, arising out of the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, the split between the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the secession of Eritrea from Ethiopia, and so forth. Yet more than 60 years after its existence was envisaged by the UN partition plan for Palestine, more than 40 years after its creation was implied in the UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, and almost 20 years since the Oslo Accords led the whole world to expect that Palestine would, soon, enjoy independence, there is still no Palestinian state.
It's hard to overestimate the strategic, political and cultural damage this failure to secure Palestinian independence is having on the Middle East as a region, and, indeed, throughout the globe. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the ongoing occupation that began in 1967 is completely disproportionate to its geographical and demographic size because of the profound emotional, ideological, religious and symbolic investment people throughout the world have made in it. Passions run high far beyond Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, and it's no exaggeration to describe the conflict and the occupation as a cancer on the body politic of the global community.
The bottom line is this: in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea -- what has been the de facto Israeli state since 1967 -- there are approximately equal numbers, about 6 million of both, of Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Muslims and Christians. One group has a state, citizenship, self-determination and independence. A small group of Palestinians, about 1 million, are citizens of Israel but subject to significant forms of discrimination. But the large majority of Palestinians live in the occupied territories without citizenship or enfranchisement of any kind, self-determination or independence, and are subject to the arbitrary and typically abusive rule of a foreign military. Moreover, they have watched as their land is steadily colonized by Israeli settlements, which are both a violation of international law and a human rights abuse against those living under occupation according to the Fourth Geneva Convention. Nowhere in the world is there any comparable level of separate and unequal as there is under Israeli rule in the occupied Palestinian territories.
David Ben-Gurion, who was Israel's prime minister twice, during 1948-1953 and 1955-1963, respectively, eloquently spoke in 1945 of the Jewish yearning for national validation and self-determination. He stated, "We are a people without a State and, therefore, a people without credentials, without recognition, without representation, without the privileges of a nation, without the means of self-defense, and without any say in our fate." These might easily be the words of a Palestinian leader in 2011.
Two years later, on November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 181, recommending the partition of Palestine into two separate states, one Jewish and one Arab, with the Jerusalem-Bethlehem area to be placed under special international protection, administered by the United Nations. However, the UN Security Council failed to implement Resolution 181, and as soon as the British Mandate was terminated, Jewish leaders declared the establishment of Israel, leading to the intervention by five Arab armies in what was already a raging communal civil war in Palestine. This conflict left Israel in de facto possession of not the 55 percent of mandatory Palestine envisaged in the partition resolution, but 78 percent, which are now generally regarded as the internationally accepted borders of Israel.
Sixty-three years later, and following seven wars, the displacement of over a million Palestinian refugees during the 1948 and 1967 wars (who now number more than four million), two Palestinian intifadas, and countless dead and wounded, Israel remains a nation at war and in fear, and Palestinian national aspirations remain totally unfulfilled. Israeli settlements continue to be built at an alarming pace, with 200 already constructed, and the half-million Jewish Israeli colonists living in them are squeezing Palestinians into ever smaller areas of the West Bank and Jerusalem, and denying them access to water and other resources.
Peace efforts such as the Oslo accords (1993); Wye River accord (1998); Camp David meeting (2000); Taba negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli delegations (2001); George Mitchell's proposal (2001); George Tenet's plan (2001); United Nations Resolution 1397, which affirmed a vision of a region where Palestine and Israel would live side by side within secure and recognized borders (2002); the Arab Peace Initiative adopted unanimously twice by the Arab League (2002); and the "roadmap" for peace adopted by the Quartet (2003); have all been creditable efforts to develop peace, but none have succeeded and thus far the agony and tragedy have simply continued.
Years of conflict and insecurity, narratives of exclusion and pain, and incompatible visions of the future, let alone understandings of the past, have created a serious disconnect between Israelis and Palestinians. Each national community is caught up in its own tendentious and exclusive narratives: Israel using the past and the present to create the future; the Palestinians using the present to recreate the past in service of the future. Both are laboring under serious illusions.
Unfortunately, while US policy has emphasized that a two-state solution is imperative for American national interests, because of the "special relationship" between the two countries, in practice it remains steadfastly in Israel's corner, vetoing 26 UN Security Council draft resolutions on Palestine since July 1973. Domestic political considerations and a powerful American popular and elite consensus in support of Israel make pressuring that country in the normal diplomatic manner very difficult for an American president. Palestinians have hoped to be able to use the "special relationship" to help mollify Israeli concerns and reassure them that because of American participation, they are not taking any inordinate risks in entering into a peace agreement with the Palestinians. So far, this strategy, while theoretically promising, has yet to demonstrate much efficacy.
According to almost all opinion polls, most Palestinians and Israelis are in favor of a negotiated two-state solution, based on the 1967 borders, with agreed upon land swaps. Unfortunately, similarly large majorities do not believe it will happen and do not trust the other side's intentions. Unless President Barack Obama is able to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu to negotiate on the aforementioned parameters, then the Palestinians will be facing many more checkpoints and a stonewall of delay while the Israelis continue to seize more Palestinian land in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Unfortunately, many Palestinians and Israelis believe that Netanyahu has no interest in pursuing a negotiated solution along the lines that Palestinians would deem acceptable. And, even more unfortunately, his unenthusiastic approach to the peace process and insistent emphasis on security above all, including peace, has proven extremely popular in Israel and he leads an unlikely but extraordinarily stable coalition government. In other words, his default position of saying "no" to everything is serving his political interests, leaving him with few incentives to be more forthcoming.
However, as numerous Israelis with impeccable national security credentials, including some very strongly rooted in the political right, have been publicly stating in recent months, it is essential to Israel's national interest to help secure the creation of a viable, democratic and peaceful State of Palestine. While the Israeli occupation resulted from conditions of the 1960s or even earlier, the time for its ending has come. An independent, contiguous, and secure Palestine (democratic, pluralistic, non-militarized, and neutral) living in peace alongside Israel is, as an apparent consensus of Israeli national security experts appear to recognize, the only way to secure Israel's long-term safety and stability. The occupation is untenable, dangerous and, ultimately, self-destructive.
The Arab states, as well as the United States and Israel, strongly require the creation of a Palestinian state for their fundamental national interests. For too long the Palestinian question has been a volatile, destabilizing variable in regional politics, the source of conflict and tension, and a powerful tool in the hands of extremists of many different varieties. This understanding was most importantly expressed through the Arab Peace Initiative, but has also been repeatedly emphasized by Arab leaders across the region. King Abdullah II of Jordan, in his memoir, Our Last Best Chance: The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril, expressed "a sense of urgency, a conviction that the window for peace between Israel and the Palestinians is closing." We agree with him when he states, "Both sides have a moral responsibility to strive for peace... the alternative is more conflict and violence."
Every moment that is lost only benefits the proponents of extremism on all sides. Albeit a minority, they will continue to monopolize the political narrative and dictate the facts on the ground in the absence of peace. The moderates will lose heart and fade away in the smoke of violence and hate and the fog of deception.
Enlightened leadership not only leads and serves but finds like-minded followers as well, leaders in their own right, who would be eager to sustain positive change for the common good of both Palestinians and Israelis. It not only responds to constituencies, it creates them. The need for allies for peace and statehood is equally important as the need for such a consensus locally, regionally, and internationally.
What Ben Gurion envisioned for his people in 1945, all Palestinians have sought for decades. It is high time that the United States and the rest of the international community stood by them, not just rhetorically or in terms of development aid, but with practical, effective diplomatic efforts that ensure that the occupation will end, and that a Palestinian state alongside Israel will be created, recognized by the major powers of the world, and welcomed as a member state of the United Nations. Without a doubt this will require Israeli acquiescence as well, which means that negotiations are unavoidable and indispensable.
But the international community has an important role to play in laying the groundwork for such an agreement, making it crystal clear that it will accept no other outcome, applying both negative and positive pressure on both sides to make it happen, and doing everything possible to avoid any other outcome. Simply leaving it up to the parties, which are defined by the most extreme degree of power asymmetry imaginable, is not a viable option. International engagement, led by but not exclusive to the United States, is more indispensable now than ever. Especially given the role the international community played in the creation of Israel, it has a right and a responsibility to play a similar role in the creation of Palestine.
This is a delicate process, and we are not proposing an implausible and impracticable "imposition" of a solution on the parties by an international community that is unwilling and probably unable to take such steps. Nor are we suggesting that the Palestinian demand for full UN membership in September is likely to prove successful. Clearly a failed confrontation with the United States at the UN Security Council over the issue of statehood is not in anybody's interest, let alone the Palestinians. However, a greater role for the international community in resolving this exceptionally damaging and destabilizing ongoing conflict is essential. Palestinians can and should receive a major upgrade of their observer mission status from the General Assembly, and should be recognized on a bilateral basis by every state that is serious about Israeli-Palestinian peace.
There is much the international community can do to promote a two-state solution, particularly by clarifying its unshakable commitment to this outcome and its categorical refusal to accept any alternative. There is no longer any excuse for postponing or delaying such measures. They do not undermine Israeli-Palestinian negotiations; they support them insofar as they make the only reasonable, workable outcome far more likely and demonstrate that the world expects and will help the parties arrive at a two-state solution in the near future. The international community has made its commitment to Israel very clear since 1948. It must now move quickly to make its commitment to Palestine alongside Israel equally clear, especially to the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Aiming at "Equal Rights" (NOT "Statehood")
Dear Friend,
This article argues that a new generation of activists are rejecting the "old" leadership of warring factions (Fatah and HAMAS), and will be pressing (nonviolently) for "equal rights" in the land of Isr/Pal.
It looks to me like Rachel Shabi is on to the essence of this "new movement" that sees striving for Palestinian "statehood" as outdated and irrelevant to "facts on the ground". Civil rights for Palestinians in the land of Israelis and Palestinians sounds more like Martin Luther King Jr and the civil rights movement in the US.
Our "friend" Sami Awad (Holy Land Trust) is quoted at the bottom of the article. Please at least scan this piece. Your faithful servant, JRK
Palestine Lost
Rachel Shabi
Foreign Policy (Opinion)
July 13, 2011 - 12:00am
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/07/13/palestine_lost
Promises were made, and it looks like they'll be broken.
U.S. President Barack Obama said he believed a Palestinian state could be created by September 2011. Speaking to the U.N. General Assembly in September 2010, he laid down a challenge to formulate an agreement that would make it a reality.
That same deadline was set by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad for his state-building plan, which was intended to create the institutions for a viable Palestinian state.
But U.S.-brokered negotiations have been a miserable failure, and September is now fast approaching. Palestinian leaders have declared their intention to push for recognition in the U.N. General Assembly, where they can expect overwhelming support. The United States is expected to block the move in the Security Council -- and, of course, Israel will not alter its policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip because of a U.N. resolution.
Now, with the Palestinian dream of statehood stymied at every turn, a new generation of activists are adopting fresh tactics to win their rights.
"September is a moment of truth for us," says Diana Alzeer, a 23-year-old social activist from Ramallah who cites the revolution in Egypt as inspiration. "We see that a dictatorship of over 30 years was gone in two weeks. So why not for Palestinians?"
Alzeer is part of a network of global Palestinian activists that form the "March15" movement -- named for the date when thousands took to the streets of Gaza, the West Bank and Jersualem to call for Fatah and Hamas, the two dominant Palestinian parties, to end their bitter division. But the movement also proves that the Palestinian street is growing disillusioned with its long-dominant political factions. "That's the big difference now," says Alzeer. "We are not led by parties. Most of us don't belong to any."
March15 is a loose network of young, social media-friendly activists organizing globally and injecting new life into the Palestinian popular struggle. Healing political divisions is one step on the path of creating a united, non-violent protest movement, they believe. Another goal on that same path, some activists say, is to resuscitate the PLO's legislative body, the Palestinian National Council -- and allow all Palestinians, regardless of geography, to elect representatives. And for some, the idea of pursuing a Palestinian state through asymmetric negotiation with Israel is simply outdated.
"What's the use of state if you can't have the political rights that go with it?" asks Fadi Quran, a 23-year-old coordinator of Palestinian youth groups in Ramallah. "The demands of the new movement that is slowly but surely beginning to surface are freedom, justice and dignity -- that both Palestinians and Israelis should have the same opportunities and the same rights, as equals."
This year also marks the 20-year mark of the start of the peace process between Palestinians and Israelis in Madrid in 1991 and led to the landmark Oslo Accords -- a process that, in all that time, has yielded few results. Those Palestinians who have grown up in the "Oslo years" have grown deeply cynical as the peace process faltered and failed to deliver. And Obama's spectacular climb-down last year over Israel enforcing a freeze on settlement expansion was, for many, the final nail in the coffin of a negotiated solution.
Young Palestinians now see more hope in the democracy movements sweeping the region, and draw parallels in their opposition to corrupt, unrepresentative politics and a stifling lack of opportunity. "This whole generation in the Arab world is more educated and its main goal has been to break away from the older generation and create something new for themselves," Quran says.
This sentiment is borne out in public opinion surveys. Though Palestinian national sentiment is notoriously difficult to measure, the Norwegian research firm FAFO recently found that Palestinians believed corruption had increased significantly over the past three years. What's more, FAFO discovered that support for both Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh have slumped in 2011.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian push for statehood at the United Nations may not get many cheers on the ground. Quran argued that, even if successful, a U.N. statehood seal would be no more than a moral victory. "There will be no full sovereignty, no contiguous land, no Palestinian control over large swathes of the Palestinian population -- nothing that you need to be state," he says. "If there is a huge fuss and a declaration of statehood, a lot of Palestinians will say it is a big joke and that we are sick of people playing with our destiny."
The shift among some protesters, from statehood to equal rights, has also put women center-stage. They are increasingly leading the Friday afternoon marches against the Israeli separation barrier and Jewish settlements in the West Bank. A small group of active Palestinian women focused on such protests say they take regular inquiries from new female activists, inspired by images of young Palestinian women facing down Israeli soldiers. They also explain that they earned their protest stripes during the March 15 demonstrations in Ramallah, when they formed human shields around male activists, taking the blows from security officials who at first attacked, later defended, and finally joined them
"These are guys who would usually never listen to a woman and her opinions but now they are with us, working together," says Lina, a 27-year-old woman from East Jerusalem.
For her, it's all in line with the new goals of the movement. "It is about complete, dynamic change, rather than the same people running the system," she says. "This is not about territory any more, but about rights -- and the same rights for women."
Already, this movement has altered the format of Palestinian protest movements. On May 15, March15 was involved with coordinating border protests of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Syria, linking those to simultaneous demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza. The striking display of unified protest marked Nakba Day, the Palestinian commemoration of their displacement in the war that created Israel.
At least 14 people were killed and hundreds injured as Israeli forces opened fire on these mass protests - Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas declared a three-day mourning period for those killed. But the March15 movement had made its mark. As Nazareth-based journalist Jonathan Cook pointed out in an article for The National, "the scenes of Palestinian defiance on Israel's borders will fuel the imaginations of Palestinians everywhere."
Quran argues that the unity of the protest movement is an antidote to the current politics of division. "We thought it would take longer to convince Palestinian youth from different locations around the world to get together," he says. "But all we had to do was get in touch with them."
Activists predict more change is coming. "Non-violent protest won't be political activities or just about the [Israeli separation] wall or settlements," says Sami Awad, director of the Holy Land trust, a Bethlehem-based, non-profit organisation that works on Palestinian community building. "We want to expose the inequalities that Palestinians face -- from water distribution to education to movement and freedom of worship."
This is not about giving up on Palestinian statehood entirely, but rather a strategic decision to put it on pause. "Until the equal rights of Palestinians are recognised, we will not be able to find a political solution," says Awad. "For now, that can wait."
This article argues that a new generation of activists are rejecting the "old" leadership of warring factions (Fatah and HAMAS), and will be pressing (nonviolently) for "equal rights" in the land of Isr/Pal.
It looks to me like Rachel Shabi is on to the essence of this "new movement" that sees striving for Palestinian "statehood" as outdated and irrelevant to "facts on the ground". Civil rights for Palestinians in the land of Israelis and Palestinians sounds more like Martin Luther King Jr and the civil rights movement in the US.
Our "friend" Sami Awad (Holy Land Trust) is quoted at the bottom of the article. Please at least scan this piece. Your faithful servant, JRK
Palestine Lost
Rachel Shabi
Foreign Policy (Opinion)
July 13, 2011 - 12:00am
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/07/13/palestine_lost
Promises were made, and it looks like they'll be broken.
U.S. President Barack Obama said he believed a Palestinian state could be created by September 2011. Speaking to the U.N. General Assembly in September 2010, he laid down a challenge to formulate an agreement that would make it a reality.
That same deadline was set by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad for his state-building plan, which was intended to create the institutions for a viable Palestinian state.
But U.S.-brokered negotiations have been a miserable failure, and September is now fast approaching. Palestinian leaders have declared their intention to push for recognition in the U.N. General Assembly, where they can expect overwhelming support. The United States is expected to block the move in the Security Council -- and, of course, Israel will not alter its policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip because of a U.N. resolution.
Now, with the Palestinian dream of statehood stymied at every turn, a new generation of activists are adopting fresh tactics to win their rights.
"September is a moment of truth for us," says Diana Alzeer, a 23-year-old social activist from Ramallah who cites the revolution in Egypt as inspiration. "We see that a dictatorship of over 30 years was gone in two weeks. So why not for Palestinians?"
Alzeer is part of a network of global Palestinian activists that form the "March15" movement -- named for the date when thousands took to the streets of Gaza, the West Bank and Jersualem to call for Fatah and Hamas, the two dominant Palestinian parties, to end their bitter division. But the movement also proves that the Palestinian street is growing disillusioned with its long-dominant political factions. "That's the big difference now," says Alzeer. "We are not led by parties. Most of us don't belong to any."
March15 is a loose network of young, social media-friendly activists organizing globally and injecting new life into the Palestinian popular struggle. Healing political divisions is one step on the path of creating a united, non-violent protest movement, they believe. Another goal on that same path, some activists say, is to resuscitate the PLO's legislative body, the Palestinian National Council -- and allow all Palestinians, regardless of geography, to elect representatives. And for some, the idea of pursuing a Palestinian state through asymmetric negotiation with Israel is simply outdated.
"What's the use of state if you can't have the political rights that go with it?" asks Fadi Quran, a 23-year-old coordinator of Palestinian youth groups in Ramallah. "The demands of the new movement that is slowly but surely beginning to surface are freedom, justice and dignity -- that both Palestinians and Israelis should have the same opportunities and the same rights, as equals."
This year also marks the 20-year mark of the start of the peace process between Palestinians and Israelis in Madrid in 1991 and led to the landmark Oslo Accords -- a process that, in all that time, has yielded few results. Those Palestinians who have grown up in the "Oslo years" have grown deeply cynical as the peace process faltered and failed to deliver. And Obama's spectacular climb-down last year over Israel enforcing a freeze on settlement expansion was, for many, the final nail in the coffin of a negotiated solution.
Young Palestinians now see more hope in the democracy movements sweeping the region, and draw parallels in their opposition to corrupt, unrepresentative politics and a stifling lack of opportunity. "This whole generation in the Arab world is more educated and its main goal has been to break away from the older generation and create something new for themselves," Quran says.
This sentiment is borne out in public opinion surveys. Though Palestinian national sentiment is notoriously difficult to measure, the Norwegian research firm FAFO recently found that Palestinians believed corruption had increased significantly over the past three years. What's more, FAFO discovered that support for both Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh have slumped in 2011.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian push for statehood at the United Nations may not get many cheers on the ground. Quran argued that, even if successful, a U.N. statehood seal would be no more than a moral victory. "There will be no full sovereignty, no contiguous land, no Palestinian control over large swathes of the Palestinian population -- nothing that you need to be state," he says. "If there is a huge fuss and a declaration of statehood, a lot of Palestinians will say it is a big joke and that we are sick of people playing with our destiny."
The shift among some protesters, from statehood to equal rights, has also put women center-stage. They are increasingly leading the Friday afternoon marches against the Israeli separation barrier and Jewish settlements in the West Bank. A small group of active Palestinian women focused on such protests say they take regular inquiries from new female activists, inspired by images of young Palestinian women facing down Israeli soldiers. They also explain that they earned their protest stripes during the March 15 demonstrations in Ramallah, when they formed human shields around male activists, taking the blows from security officials who at first attacked, later defended, and finally joined them
"These are guys who would usually never listen to a woman and her opinions but now they are with us, working together," says Lina, a 27-year-old woman from East Jerusalem.
For her, it's all in line with the new goals of the movement. "It is about complete, dynamic change, rather than the same people running the system," she says. "This is not about territory any more, but about rights -- and the same rights for women."
Already, this movement has altered the format of Palestinian protest movements. On May 15, March15 was involved with coordinating border protests of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Syria, linking those to simultaneous demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza. The striking display of unified protest marked Nakba Day, the Palestinian commemoration of their displacement in the war that created Israel.
At least 14 people were killed and hundreds injured as Israeli forces opened fire on these mass protests - Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas declared a three-day mourning period for those killed. But the March15 movement had made its mark. As Nazareth-based journalist Jonathan Cook pointed out in an article for The National, "the scenes of Palestinian defiance on Israel's borders will fuel the imaginations of Palestinians everywhere."
Quran argues that the unity of the protest movement is an antidote to the current politics of division. "We thought it would take longer to convince Palestinian youth from different locations around the world to get together," he says. "But all we had to do was get in touch with them."
Activists predict more change is coming. "Non-violent protest won't be political activities or just about the [Israeli separation] wall or settlements," says Sami Awad, director of the Holy Land trust, a Bethlehem-based, non-profit organisation that works on Palestinian community building. "We want to expose the inequalities that Palestinians face -- from water distribution to education to movement and freedom of worship."
This is not about giving up on Palestinian statehood entirely, but rather a strategic decision to put it on pause. "Until the equal rights of Palestinians are recognised, we will not be able to find a political solution," says Awad. "For now, that can wait."
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Haaretz Editorial
Dear Friend,
The editorial speaks for "progressive" Israelis who want a change from the direction being given by the present Likud leadership.
Likud continues to demonize Palestinians, denying their legitimate aspirations for national identity.
Many of us sense the time for a "Two-State" solution has long past. But some keep beating a "Dead Horse". (As in this editorial)
Is resurrection possible after death? For people of hope, life after death is possible. But . . . it means a change; life-change. Attitude change. A new mind-set.
Perhaps the tide is changing. Add your voice to the need for meeting "The Other" at least half way. JRK
Israel should learn the lessons of Sudan
The UN proved its ability to resolve bloody conflicts with South Sudanese independence. Sudan's partition plan, which was passed by a democratic referendum and supported by the international community, proved that a peaceful solution can be found, even for the most bitter conflicts.
Haaretz Editorial
The city of Juba was joyous yesterday. Thousands of inhabitants of the world's 193rd country, the Republic of South Sudan, celebrated its independence in the presence of the United Nations secretary general and numerous other leaders - including its former enemy, the president of North Sudan, Omar al-Bashir. They cheered at the sound of the newest national anthem on Earth and the unfurling of the flag of the world's youngest nation.
South Sudan's independence was bought by great bloodshed. After 50 years of civil wars, which cost the lives of some two million Sudanese, the time came to partition the north and the south. Yesterday's celebrations could not hide the serious problems of the new country: One out of seven babies will not reach its fifth birthday, and between one and four million South Sudanese might be deported from the north. How will oil profits be divided between the north and the south? What will South Sudan, one of the poorest and most corrupt regions in the world, do with the money - will it continue to spend it on its army or devote it to solving its social problems? How will the debts of the two countries - a total of $38 billion - be divided? And how will the south find an outlet to the sea?
But yesterday was a time for worldwide celebration: The United Nations proved its ability, in a rare instance, to resolve bloody conflicts. Sudan's partition plan, which was passed by a democratic referendum and supported by the international community, proved that a peaceful solution can be found, even for the most bitter conflicts. The involvement of the United Nations was the critical factor in resolving the conflict.
Israel should learn the lessons of Sudan. Not only should it join the expected general recognition of the new country; it should realize that the division into two countries backed by the international community is the only way to solve a bloody conflict like the one between the Israelis and the Palestinians. While Israel is fighting a harsh and needless battle against UN recognition of a Palestinian state, it should look to Sudan and draw the conclusion that a diplomatic plan that wins the support of the United Nations and most of the world, could be the best plan for Israel, too. After South Sudan became the 193rd country, it may be hoped that if Palestine becomes the 194th, it will be with the support of its neighbor, Israel.
The editorial speaks for "progressive" Israelis who want a change from the direction being given by the present Likud leadership.
Likud continues to demonize Palestinians, denying their legitimate aspirations for national identity.
Many of us sense the time for a "Two-State" solution has long past. But some keep beating a "Dead Horse". (As in this editorial)
Is resurrection possible after death? For people of hope, life after death is possible. But . . . it means a change; life-change. Attitude change. A new mind-set.
Perhaps the tide is changing. Add your voice to the need for meeting "The Other" at least half way. JRK
Israel should learn the lessons of Sudan
The UN proved its ability to resolve bloody conflicts with South Sudanese independence. Sudan's partition plan, which was passed by a democratic referendum and supported by the international community, proved that a peaceful solution can be found, even for the most bitter conflicts.
Haaretz Editorial
The city of Juba was joyous yesterday. Thousands of inhabitants of the world's 193rd country, the Republic of South Sudan, celebrated its independence in the presence of the United Nations secretary general and numerous other leaders - including its former enemy, the president of North Sudan, Omar al-Bashir. They cheered at the sound of the newest national anthem on Earth and the unfurling of the flag of the world's youngest nation.
South Sudan's independence was bought by great bloodshed. After 50 years of civil wars, which cost the lives of some two million Sudanese, the time came to partition the north and the south. Yesterday's celebrations could not hide the serious problems of the new country: One out of seven babies will not reach its fifth birthday, and between one and four million South Sudanese might be deported from the north. How will oil profits be divided between the north and the south? What will South Sudan, one of the poorest and most corrupt regions in the world, do with the money - will it continue to spend it on its army or devote it to solving its social problems? How will the debts of the two countries - a total of $38 billion - be divided? And how will the south find an outlet to the sea?
But yesterday was a time for worldwide celebration: The United Nations proved its ability, in a rare instance, to resolve bloody conflicts. Sudan's partition plan, which was passed by a democratic referendum and supported by the international community, proved that a peaceful solution can be found, even for the most bitter conflicts. The involvement of the United Nations was the critical factor in resolving the conflict.
Israel should learn the lessons of Sudan. Not only should it join the expected general recognition of the new country; it should realize that the division into two countries backed by the international community is the only way to solve a bloody conflict like the one between the Israelis and the Palestinians. While Israel is fighting a harsh and needless battle against UN recognition of a Palestinian state, it should look to Sudan and draw the conclusion that a diplomatic plan that wins the support of the United Nations and most of the world, could be the best plan for Israel, too. After South Sudan became the 193rd country, it may be hoped that if Palestine becomes the 194th, it will be with the support of its neighbor, Israel.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Palestinians Redefine their National Struggle
Dear Friend,
It's about nonviolent, active resistance to the occupation. Very unsettling (if you'll pardon the pun) to the Israelis, who don't know what to do when confronted by lots of people with no weapons except their bodies and a Cause: for enfranchisement.
Palestinians seek to redefine national struggle
Raymond G. Helmick, Nazir Khaja
Arab News (Opinion)
June 26, 2011 - 12:00am
http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article462116.ece
Young Palestinians, fascinated by the Arab Spring, have demonstrated recently in ways that ignore the contest of parties within their own community and seek simply freedom, justice, dignity and equality. Their movement is still small, only a couple of hundred demonstrators, determinedly nonviolent in their demand, gathered, but of course they were immediately flooded with tear gas and worse by the Israelis, who understand how vital it is for them to provoke nonviolent protesters into throwing that first stone.
The movement deserves to gain wings, and is the epitome of innocence and fresh hope, worthy of the dynamic that is flowing throughout the Arab world. Yet the most important development in their world is the pact between Fatah and Hamas (brokered by the Egyptians). That is pre-condition to any effective move by Palestinians. It is endangered now by the difficulty of agreeing on the makeup of the government of technocrats to which both have already subscribed. This comes upon the plate of both Khaled Meshaal and Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas refuses to accept continuation of Salam Fayyad as prime minister.
That is entirely understandable, given his history, of having replaced, by appointment, a duly elected government, and even having imprisoned elected Hamas representatives. There was massive Israeli and American pressure behind that. He is, however, the technocrat, not a man of either party, and a highly-competent technocrat, someone whose talents are genuinely important. To have him dumped and disgraced would be a humiliation to Abbas, and it is a basic rule in any such agreement as that between Fatah and Hamas that neither side should be humiliated. Accepting him as prime minister would equally be humiliation for Hamas, and unacceptable. The compromise could well be that someone else — a nonparty technocrat — be made prime minister. The Palestinians have plenty of highly educated and talented people on hand, and Fayyad could be made something like minister of development, with authority to do exactly as he has been doing in the creation of functioning institutions.
The Israelis will in fact fight tooth and nail, and successfully, to avert the single unitary state. One need have no sympathy whatever for the ambition to make Israel the “Jewish state” in the sense the Israeli far-right gives it, a state that is only for Jews and yields no equality to its non-Jewish citizens. But one can remain committed to an Israel that is the guarantee of the safety of Jews from the perils that have confronted them for millennia.
Perhaps the unitary state would be that guarantee, since Muslims were for centuries the haven for Jews from the atrocities committed against them by the Christian world, but there is a lot of fear and hatred to be overcome as a result of the last century’s behavior toward Palestinians, and we should expect that fear, on the part of a panicked Israeli public, would win. It may well be that a confederated state could result when those fears and the hatred have been stilled but that could only be later.
What could work now? It is time to recognize that none of the external parties — US, the Arabs, the rest of the Quartet — will do anything to help the Palestinians. That happens to mean, also, that they will do nothing to hold the Israelis back from a course that can only do them grievous harm. Israelis, if they continue on this course, will lose in a spectacular way, but that will be too late for the Palestinians. Many of us had high hopes from Barack Obama, but he has been vanquished once again by Netanyahu when he spoke to the joint houses of the American Congress, which acted as if it were his wholly owned subsidiary. If Obama moves again, it will only be after an election. The Palestinians are on their own.
No Palestinian government can have any legitimacy if it is not a movement of resistance to the occupation. The only effective resistance will be a full mobilization of the people to nonviolence, to a total noncooperation with any aspect of the occupation. No prison works without some degree of cooperation between prisoners and jailers, and that cooperation can be denied. Some say that the Fatah and Hamas leaders, looking instead to the UN for help, are afraid that a genuine popular movement of this sort would detract from their own authority.
That would be so only if they do not lead it. Any and all violence on the part of Palestinians is poison, and their own undoing. The pact between Hamas and Fatah is indispensable if any such campaign were to be mounted, but it would be successful. The people would suffer from a violent Israeli response to it — the Israeli response would be first and foremost an effort to provoke the Palestinians to go over to violence, as they did so successfully at the start of the Second Intifada, and it would take strong organization for the people to resist that provocation tactic — but they would win. Israelis, faced with that kind of nonviolent utter disruption of their lives would find themselves in the position of a Hosni Mubarak, unable to cope with it and forced to back down. They would still refuse to enter the unitary state, but their only alternative response would be to concede a real Palestinian state — granted that, once that existed and the traumas had been overcome, the two states might very civilly come to a confederation. We can respond with delight that young Palestinians have caught the essence of the Arab Spring, the commitment to freedom, justice, dignity and equality. Now it needs some structure to connect it with the realities that face them.
It's about nonviolent, active resistance to the occupation. Very unsettling (if you'll pardon the pun) to the Israelis, who don't know what to do when confronted by lots of people with no weapons except their bodies and a Cause: for enfranchisement.
Palestinians seek to redefine national struggle
Raymond G. Helmick, Nazir Khaja
Arab News (Opinion)
June 26, 2011 - 12:00am
http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article462116.ece
Young Palestinians, fascinated by the Arab Spring, have demonstrated recently in ways that ignore the contest of parties within their own community and seek simply freedom, justice, dignity and equality. Their movement is still small, only a couple of hundred demonstrators, determinedly nonviolent in their demand, gathered, but of course they were immediately flooded with tear gas and worse by the Israelis, who understand how vital it is for them to provoke nonviolent protesters into throwing that first stone.
The movement deserves to gain wings, and is the epitome of innocence and fresh hope, worthy of the dynamic that is flowing throughout the Arab world. Yet the most important development in their world is the pact between Fatah and Hamas (brokered by the Egyptians). That is pre-condition to any effective move by Palestinians. It is endangered now by the difficulty of agreeing on the makeup of the government of technocrats to which both have already subscribed. This comes upon the plate of both Khaled Meshaal and Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas refuses to accept continuation of Salam Fayyad as prime minister.
That is entirely understandable, given his history, of having replaced, by appointment, a duly elected government, and even having imprisoned elected Hamas representatives. There was massive Israeli and American pressure behind that. He is, however, the technocrat, not a man of either party, and a highly-competent technocrat, someone whose talents are genuinely important. To have him dumped and disgraced would be a humiliation to Abbas, and it is a basic rule in any such agreement as that between Fatah and Hamas that neither side should be humiliated. Accepting him as prime minister would equally be humiliation for Hamas, and unacceptable. The compromise could well be that someone else — a nonparty technocrat — be made prime minister. The Palestinians have plenty of highly educated and talented people on hand, and Fayyad could be made something like minister of development, with authority to do exactly as he has been doing in the creation of functioning institutions.
The Israelis will in fact fight tooth and nail, and successfully, to avert the single unitary state. One need have no sympathy whatever for the ambition to make Israel the “Jewish state” in the sense the Israeli far-right gives it, a state that is only for Jews and yields no equality to its non-Jewish citizens. But one can remain committed to an Israel that is the guarantee of the safety of Jews from the perils that have confronted them for millennia.
Perhaps the unitary state would be that guarantee, since Muslims were for centuries the haven for Jews from the atrocities committed against them by the Christian world, but there is a lot of fear and hatred to be overcome as a result of the last century’s behavior toward Palestinians, and we should expect that fear, on the part of a panicked Israeli public, would win. It may well be that a confederated state could result when those fears and the hatred have been stilled but that could only be later.
What could work now? It is time to recognize that none of the external parties — US, the Arabs, the rest of the Quartet — will do anything to help the Palestinians. That happens to mean, also, that they will do nothing to hold the Israelis back from a course that can only do them grievous harm. Israelis, if they continue on this course, will lose in a spectacular way, but that will be too late for the Palestinians. Many of us had high hopes from Barack Obama, but he has been vanquished once again by Netanyahu when he spoke to the joint houses of the American Congress, which acted as if it were his wholly owned subsidiary. If Obama moves again, it will only be after an election. The Palestinians are on their own.
No Palestinian government can have any legitimacy if it is not a movement of resistance to the occupation. The only effective resistance will be a full mobilization of the people to nonviolence, to a total noncooperation with any aspect of the occupation. No prison works without some degree of cooperation between prisoners and jailers, and that cooperation can be denied. Some say that the Fatah and Hamas leaders, looking instead to the UN for help, are afraid that a genuine popular movement of this sort would detract from their own authority.
That would be so only if they do not lead it. Any and all violence on the part of Palestinians is poison, and their own undoing. The pact between Hamas and Fatah is indispensable if any such campaign were to be mounted, but it would be successful. The people would suffer from a violent Israeli response to it — the Israeli response would be first and foremost an effort to provoke the Palestinians to go over to violence, as they did so successfully at the start of the Second Intifada, and it would take strong organization for the people to resist that provocation tactic — but they would win. Israelis, faced with that kind of nonviolent utter disruption of their lives would find themselves in the position of a Hosni Mubarak, unable to cope with it and forced to back down. They would still refuse to enter the unitary state, but their only alternative response would be to concede a real Palestinian state — granted that, once that existed and the traumas had been overcome, the two states might very civilly come to a confederation. We can respond with delight that young Palestinians have caught the essence of the Arab Spring, the commitment to freedom, justice, dignity and equality. Now it needs some structure to connect it with the realities that face them.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Hussein Ibish on Nonviolent Tactics
Dear Friend,
Hussein Ibish has a strong point in how Palestinians strategize for "liberation".
The IDF (Israeli Defense Force) has no strategy against unarmed protesters, except to physically harm them.
They keep equating nonviolent protesters with "violence". In truth, nonviolent protesters expose the violent center of the occupation forces.
Read on. JRK
Nonviolence, a Palestinian path to liberation
Hussein Ibish
NOW Lebanon (Opinion)
June 28, 2011 - 12:00am
http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=286401
At the end of last week in the West Bank village of Bilin, an important principle was decisively demonstrated: Palestinian nonviolence can achieve real results in resisting the Israeli occupation.
After almost a decade, Bilin protests against Israel’s gruesome West Bank separation barrier has finally produced a substantial rerouting of the wall, giving villagers access to a significant portion of their confiscated land. The greater part remains seized or inaccessible, and protesters vow that their struggle is far from over.
There are several important lessons to be learned from this significant achievement.
First, the protests have been successful precisely because they are, and only to the extent that they have been, nonviolent. Israel and its supporters have no answer to Palestinian nonviolent resistance to an abusive occupation, except the accusation that it is, in fact, violent. While sometimes the protests have degenerated into stone-throwing by youths, and have often been met by force by the Israeli occupation forces, in fact the demonstrations have been overwhelmingly nonviolent. This is what has given them their power.
To extend and replicate this effective nonviolent approach, serious discipline will have to be developed and maintained to ensure it continues even in the face of military repression. Nonviolence is one of the most powerful weapons of resistance against occupation.
Second, the protests are all the more powerful when their objections are firmly rooted in international, and even where possible Israeli, law. In 2004 the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion that the route of Israel’s separation barrier, which is not along its own border but cuts deeply into occupied territory, was unlawful and a human rights violation. In 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the portion of the barrier in Bilin had to be rerouted.
Both of these important legal findings were consequences of the nonviolent confrontation with what is plainly unlawful human rights abuse against ordinary Palestinian villagers under occupation. Nonviolent protests prick the conscience of the world, and of Israelis. They also disarm the logic of the occupation and the settlements as forward defenses in an existential struggle by Israel, revealing them to be in their essence, instead, a system of discipline and control by a foreign army over millions of subjugated people.
Third, nonviolent protests are not an end in themselves, but have to be part of a broader Palestinian national strategy. The fact that some significant Palestinian national leaders, especially Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, have supported and participated in the protests demonstrates a convergence between grassroots, bottom-up organization addressing local issues and top-down leadership that deals with national ones.
Fayyad’s rousing speech at last Friday’s protest—in which he spoke of the slow but inevitable victory of nonviolence, how it is a crucial tool in ending the occupation, and that when Palestinians confront occupation with nonviolence “the whole world is with us”—demonstrates the potential for such a convergence. Combined with state-building, boycotts carefully targeted against the occupation but not Israel per se, and well-calculated diplomacy, Palestinian nonviolence should be an essential part of a successful national liberation strategy.
Contrast this powerful and genuine grassroots approach with the transparent and cynical effort by the Syrian government to encourage protests on June 5 at the armistice lines between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. This area is one of the most tightly controlled border regions in the world, and has been under virtual lockdown by the Syrian military for decades. With the Assad regime in deep trouble at home, suddenly protesters were welcome to come and go freely, and apparently encouraged to confront Israeli troops.
At least 20 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces, an overreaction and excessive use of force that typifies Israel’s approach to what it regards as its frontiers, whether those approaching it are armed or not. The death toll was predictable, predicted and entirely avoidable. Indeed, all Lebanese factions agreed a repetition of the violence along the Lebanon-Israel border on May 15 was unacceptable, and that area, by contrast, remained entirely calm on June 5.
If the goal of the June 5 Golan Heights protests was to embarrass Israel or touch the conscience of Israelis and the whole world, it did not succeed for many reasons: above all the unavoidable perception that the Syrian government was hoping to distract attention from its own killing of nonviolent protesters in cities throughout Syria. In fact, unlike the West Bank protests, the Golan protests achieved nothing.
This was only underscored in the following days by the killing of 20 Palestinians at the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus by a radical Palestinian faction aligned with the Syrian regime.
When the dust settled in early June, dozens of Palestinians lay dead while Israel and Syria were stripped of the ability to point fingers at each other for shooting unarmed people. And between these two events, the Syrian regime lost the ability to play the “Palestinian card” in its struggle to hold onto power.
While cynical exploitation by desperate Arab dictatorships is the last thing the Palestinian cause needs, nonviolent protests such as those at Bilin have proven their efficacy. They offer not only the best way of resisting the occupation but also, as the part of a broader strategy, a real path to national liberation.
Hussein Ibish has a strong point in how Palestinians strategize for "liberation".
The IDF (Israeli Defense Force) has no strategy against unarmed protesters, except to physically harm them.
They keep equating nonviolent protesters with "violence". In truth, nonviolent protesters expose the violent center of the occupation forces.
Read on. JRK
Nonviolence, a Palestinian path to liberation
Hussein Ibish
NOW Lebanon (Opinion)
June 28, 2011 - 12:00am
http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=286401
At the end of last week in the West Bank village of Bilin, an important principle was decisively demonstrated: Palestinian nonviolence can achieve real results in resisting the Israeli occupation.
After almost a decade, Bilin protests against Israel’s gruesome West Bank separation barrier has finally produced a substantial rerouting of the wall, giving villagers access to a significant portion of their confiscated land. The greater part remains seized or inaccessible, and protesters vow that their struggle is far from over.
There are several important lessons to be learned from this significant achievement.
First, the protests have been successful precisely because they are, and only to the extent that they have been, nonviolent. Israel and its supporters have no answer to Palestinian nonviolent resistance to an abusive occupation, except the accusation that it is, in fact, violent. While sometimes the protests have degenerated into stone-throwing by youths, and have often been met by force by the Israeli occupation forces, in fact the demonstrations have been overwhelmingly nonviolent. This is what has given them their power.
To extend and replicate this effective nonviolent approach, serious discipline will have to be developed and maintained to ensure it continues even in the face of military repression. Nonviolence is one of the most powerful weapons of resistance against occupation.
Second, the protests are all the more powerful when their objections are firmly rooted in international, and even where possible Israeli, law. In 2004 the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion that the route of Israel’s separation barrier, which is not along its own border but cuts deeply into occupied territory, was unlawful and a human rights violation. In 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the portion of the barrier in Bilin had to be rerouted.
Both of these important legal findings were consequences of the nonviolent confrontation with what is plainly unlawful human rights abuse against ordinary Palestinian villagers under occupation. Nonviolent protests prick the conscience of the world, and of Israelis. They also disarm the logic of the occupation and the settlements as forward defenses in an existential struggle by Israel, revealing them to be in their essence, instead, a system of discipline and control by a foreign army over millions of subjugated people.
Third, nonviolent protests are not an end in themselves, but have to be part of a broader Palestinian national strategy. The fact that some significant Palestinian national leaders, especially Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, have supported and participated in the protests demonstrates a convergence between grassroots, bottom-up organization addressing local issues and top-down leadership that deals with national ones.
Fayyad’s rousing speech at last Friday’s protest—in which he spoke of the slow but inevitable victory of nonviolence, how it is a crucial tool in ending the occupation, and that when Palestinians confront occupation with nonviolence “the whole world is with us”—demonstrates the potential for such a convergence. Combined with state-building, boycotts carefully targeted against the occupation but not Israel per se, and well-calculated diplomacy, Palestinian nonviolence should be an essential part of a successful national liberation strategy.
Contrast this powerful and genuine grassroots approach with the transparent and cynical effort by the Syrian government to encourage protests on June 5 at the armistice lines between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. This area is one of the most tightly controlled border regions in the world, and has been under virtual lockdown by the Syrian military for decades. With the Assad regime in deep trouble at home, suddenly protesters were welcome to come and go freely, and apparently encouraged to confront Israeli troops.
At least 20 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces, an overreaction and excessive use of force that typifies Israel’s approach to what it regards as its frontiers, whether those approaching it are armed or not. The death toll was predictable, predicted and entirely avoidable. Indeed, all Lebanese factions agreed a repetition of the violence along the Lebanon-Israel border on May 15 was unacceptable, and that area, by contrast, remained entirely calm on June 5.
If the goal of the June 5 Golan Heights protests was to embarrass Israel or touch the conscience of Israelis and the whole world, it did not succeed for many reasons: above all the unavoidable perception that the Syrian government was hoping to distract attention from its own killing of nonviolent protesters in cities throughout Syria. In fact, unlike the West Bank protests, the Golan protests achieved nothing.
This was only underscored in the following days by the killing of 20 Palestinians at the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus by a radical Palestinian faction aligned with the Syrian regime.
When the dust settled in early June, dozens of Palestinians lay dead while Israel and Syria were stripped of the ability to point fingers at each other for shooting unarmed people. And between these two events, the Syrian regime lost the ability to play the “Palestinian card” in its struggle to hold onto power.
While cynical exploitation by desperate Arab dictatorships is the last thing the Palestinian cause needs, nonviolent protests such as those at Bilin have proven their efficacy. They offer not only the best way of resisting the occupation but also, as the part of a broader strategy, a real path to national liberation.
Friday, July 1, 2011
The Urgency of Reconciliation
Dear Friend,
Salim Munayer and MUSALAHA, are working for reconcilation between Palestinian-Israelis (20%), Israelis and Palestinians. It isn't just whose working for "peace and security" outside the bounds (undefined as they are), it's what's happening among the inhabitants of the land, which includes 20 - 25% of the population that is Palestinian Israeli.
The stakes are high, expectations are low, convictions/conflicts seem cemented into place.
The hard-pack allows no seeds of peace to be planted and grow to fruition.
We cannot stop our praying for change; change for better relationships; especially inside the country of Israel/Palestine. JRK
The Urgency of Reconciliation
As Israeli and Palestinian believers, we usually focus on our theological differences, but we are unaware of the greater political and societal differences. Recently, I was speaking with one of my colleagues from the Hebrew University, a professor who has done a lot of work on bringing Israelis and Palestinians together. We were discussing the different challenges that these sort of inter-group meetings face, and the lack of hope that people have in the prospect of reconciliation. This led us to talk about the new report by Sammy Smooha, a professor of Sociology at Haifa University, and one of Israel’s preeminent scholars of Israeli-Palestinian relations, especially within the State of Israel. He recently published a report through the United States Institute of Peace, called Arab-Jewish Relations in Israel, Alienation and Rapprochement. It is an informed look at the shift in attitudes over the past few decades, as well as the current situation, and suggests a number of policy changes that should be made to help reconciliation as we go forward.
Smooha first points out that Israeli society is fragmented on a number of different levels. He writes, “Israel is a deeply divided society. The division between Arab and Jewish citizens is reflected in institutions; culture; national identity; socioeconomic status; and stances on the character of the state, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and other fundamental issues. Furthermore, Palestinian-Israelis, [R]eject Zionism, the de facto state ideology of Israel. They see Zionism, the Jewish movement of national liberation, as colonialist and racist, and they denigrate the Jews’ fundamental Zionist collective identity. The Jews, meanwhile, do not see themselves as colonial settlers but rather as the genuine proprietors of the Land of Israel, from which they were historically exiled and to which they rightfully returned to find alien Arabs in possession . . . Both sides reject the most cherished values of the other.
This division is important, because the Palestinians in Israel make up a very significant minority; one in six Israeli citizens are Arab, and they make up around 17 per cent of the total population (excluding the Palestinian Territories). Smooha explains that there are two different theories on the Arab-Jewish relations within Israel, mutual alienation and mutual rapprochement. The mutual alienation theory states that the two communities are on a violent collision course, while the mutual rapprochement theory claims that they are in the process of adjusting to each other. He then looks at the period from 1996 to 2010 and discusses some of the developments that took place, in light of these two theories. “By either account,” he writes, “any account in fact, this was a lost decade for Arab-Jewish coexistence. The situation has worsened and bodes badly for the future of their relations."
For example, Smooha discusses the collapse of the Oslo accords and the beginning of the Second Intifada, as well as the October Events in 2000, when Israeli police killed thirteen Palestinian-Israelis in protests that took place across the country. Smooha also looks at the steep rise in popularity of right wing political parties such as Yisrael Betenu, and the proposed measures to require loyalty oaths, and to criminalize participation in Nakba Day memorial ceremonies. Although these measures were not passed, they affected Arab-Jewish relations within Israel and indicate the level of animosity between the two communities. Among Palestinian-Israelis, the voting rate has dropped from 75 per cent in 1999 to 53 per cent in 2009, and contains an element of boycott that demonstrates a withdrawal from Israeli society. The Palestinian-Israelis that do vote have increasingly supported Arab parties that advocate a bi-national state that would no longer be Jewish. Smooha also includes the results of his survey on attitudes towards reconciliation, and they do not paint a rosy picture. 43 per cent of Palestinian Israelis are not ready to have a Jewish neighbor, and 50 per cent of Jewish Israelis are not ready to have an Arab neighbor. All of these trends represent a growing hostility between these two communities.
For Smooha, real progress will only be made when a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is found, and when Palestinian-Israelis are integrated into mainstream Israeli society. Unfortunately, no progress was made on either of these fronts in the past decade. In spite of this lack of progress, however, Smooha is optimistic. He sides with the mutual rapprochement theory, and believes that we can still reach coexistence and reconciliation, but only if we are willing to work for it. If nothing is done to bring about change, the only result will be further alienation, destruction and violence. We cannot afford to “postpone change until peace is concluded,” we must “take steps immediately to improve Arab-Jewish coexistence” if we are to “preclude further deterioration that might impede peace.”
This is encouraging, and serves as an affirmation of Musalaha’s work. But it is also a warning. As believers, we are by no means immune to the destructive traits that mark our respective communities, and all of the factors that have further entrenched the divisions in the past decade have also affected us. We may disagree on how to go about reaching reconciliation, but we do still have hope for an improvement of our relations, and we have our shared faith in the Messiah who calls us to dwell in unity as brothers and sisters. If nothing is done to restore the relationships that have been damaged, there are dark days ahead, and this is why it is crucial that we allow God to use us as an instrument of his peace. We are called to be peacemakers, and stand against division, hatred and violence with love.
Salim J. Munayer
Musalaha Director
Salim Munayer and MUSALAHA, are working for reconcilation between Palestinian-Israelis (20%), Israelis and Palestinians. It isn't just whose working for "peace and security" outside the bounds (undefined as they are), it's what's happening among the inhabitants of the land, which includes 20 - 25% of the population that is Palestinian Israeli.
The stakes are high, expectations are low, convictions/conflicts seem cemented into place.
The hard-pack allows no seeds of peace to be planted and grow to fruition.
We cannot stop our praying for change; change for better relationships; especially inside the country of Israel/Palestine. JRK
The Urgency of Reconciliation
As Israeli and Palestinian believers, we usually focus on our theological differences, but we are unaware of the greater political and societal differences. Recently, I was speaking with one of my colleagues from the Hebrew University, a professor who has done a lot of work on bringing Israelis and Palestinians together. We were discussing the different challenges that these sort of inter-group meetings face, and the lack of hope that people have in the prospect of reconciliation. This led us to talk about the new report by Sammy Smooha, a professor of Sociology at Haifa University, and one of Israel’s preeminent scholars of Israeli-Palestinian relations, especially within the State of Israel. He recently published a report through the United States Institute of Peace, called Arab-Jewish Relations in Israel, Alienation and Rapprochement. It is an informed look at the shift in attitudes over the past few decades, as well as the current situation, and suggests a number of policy changes that should be made to help reconciliation as we go forward.
Smooha first points out that Israeli society is fragmented on a number of different levels. He writes, “Israel is a deeply divided society. The division between Arab and Jewish citizens is reflected in institutions; culture; national identity; socioeconomic status; and stances on the character of the state, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and other fundamental issues. Furthermore, Palestinian-Israelis, [R]eject Zionism, the de facto state ideology of Israel. They see Zionism, the Jewish movement of national liberation, as colonialist and racist, and they denigrate the Jews’ fundamental Zionist collective identity. The Jews, meanwhile, do not see themselves as colonial settlers but rather as the genuine proprietors of the Land of Israel, from which they were historically exiled and to which they rightfully returned to find alien Arabs in possession . . . Both sides reject the most cherished values of the other.
This division is important, because the Palestinians in Israel make up a very significant minority; one in six Israeli citizens are Arab, and they make up around 17 per cent of the total population (excluding the Palestinian Territories). Smooha explains that there are two different theories on the Arab-Jewish relations within Israel, mutual alienation and mutual rapprochement. The mutual alienation theory states that the two communities are on a violent collision course, while the mutual rapprochement theory claims that they are in the process of adjusting to each other. He then looks at the period from 1996 to 2010 and discusses some of the developments that took place, in light of these two theories. “By either account,” he writes, “any account in fact, this was a lost decade for Arab-Jewish coexistence. The situation has worsened and bodes badly for the future of their relations."
For example, Smooha discusses the collapse of the Oslo accords and the beginning of the Second Intifada, as well as the October Events in 2000, when Israeli police killed thirteen Palestinian-Israelis in protests that took place across the country. Smooha also looks at the steep rise in popularity of right wing political parties such as Yisrael Betenu, and the proposed measures to require loyalty oaths, and to criminalize participation in Nakba Day memorial ceremonies. Although these measures were not passed, they affected Arab-Jewish relations within Israel and indicate the level of animosity between the two communities. Among Palestinian-Israelis, the voting rate has dropped from 75 per cent in 1999 to 53 per cent in 2009, and contains an element of boycott that demonstrates a withdrawal from Israeli society. The Palestinian-Israelis that do vote have increasingly supported Arab parties that advocate a bi-national state that would no longer be Jewish. Smooha also includes the results of his survey on attitudes towards reconciliation, and they do not paint a rosy picture. 43 per cent of Palestinian Israelis are not ready to have a Jewish neighbor, and 50 per cent of Jewish Israelis are not ready to have an Arab neighbor. All of these trends represent a growing hostility between these two communities.
For Smooha, real progress will only be made when a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is found, and when Palestinian-Israelis are integrated into mainstream Israeli society. Unfortunately, no progress was made on either of these fronts in the past decade. In spite of this lack of progress, however, Smooha is optimistic. He sides with the mutual rapprochement theory, and believes that we can still reach coexistence and reconciliation, but only if we are willing to work for it. If nothing is done to bring about change, the only result will be further alienation, destruction and violence. We cannot afford to “postpone change until peace is concluded,” we must “take steps immediately to improve Arab-Jewish coexistence” if we are to “preclude further deterioration that might impede peace.”
This is encouraging, and serves as an affirmation of Musalaha’s work. But it is also a warning. As believers, we are by no means immune to the destructive traits that mark our respective communities, and all of the factors that have further entrenched the divisions in the past decade have also affected us. We may disagree on how to go about reaching reconciliation, but we do still have hope for an improvement of our relations, and we have our shared faith in the Messiah who calls us to dwell in unity as brothers and sisters. If nothing is done to restore the relationships that have been damaged, there are dark days ahead, and this is why it is crucial that we allow God to use us as an instrument of his peace. We are called to be peacemakers, and stand against division, hatred and violence with love.
Salim J. Munayer
Musalaha Director
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