An Act That Changed History

Dear Friend,

I'm posting comments by our friend Salim Munayer (MUSALAHA), who suggests that crimes need to be addressed, then forgiven, if progress is to be made in relationships.

If you wish to read a study paper I did on the close connection between Joseph the son of Jacob and Jesus the son of Joseph, request it at , should you wish to see the parallels more closely than those mentioned by Salim.

It seems a travesty to talk about forgiveness. Yet, Joseph, the son of Jacob, had to learn to forgive those who betrayed him, trampled him under foot, sending him to Exile away from his own family and country. Yet, he learned it, extended it to his brothers and his people (and all nations) were eventually blessed.

Justice was sought in South Africa. It was won. Then the Truth and Reconciliation project was carried out by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Atrocities done to each to each other were addressed, confessed, forgiven, and the parties moved on.

Without addressing terrible wrongs, repenting, asking for forgiveness, extending it, and making amends, there will only be constant recriminations, bitterness and destruction. Yours for justice, love, forgiveness, and Shalom/Salaam. JRK

AN ACT THAT CHANGED HISTORY

Salim Munayer (MUSALAHA Director)

Dear friends,

Over the past several months we have been working to update some of the chapters in our curriculum of reconciliation.Some of the issues we have been researching further are the meeting of justice and reconciliation (there can be no reconciliation without justice, and no justice without reconciliation), and how forgiveness relates to the public and political spheres.I have been going through Donald Shriver, Jr.’s book An Ethic for Enemies: Forgiveness in Politics. While forgiveness sounds like a religious concept to many people, justice often does not, something that Shriver attributes to theologians.Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the most politically oriented contemporary theologians, has advocated for justice as a political virtue while downplaying the importance of forgiveness, relegating it to the sphere of sentimentalism, outside of realpolitik.Shriver argues for the importance of forgiveness in public discourse, avoiding the common misconception of forgiving as forgetting.Instead, he advocates the slogan “Remember and forgive.”[1]

When we turn to the Scriptures, we can easily find many examples and calls to forgiveness in the New Testament, but it is not as dominant a theme in the Old Testament.Shriver discusses the story of Joseph as a model for forgiveness, and we know that Joseph prefigures the Messiah . . . .

In the book of Exodus we look to God as the deliverer of a suffering people from the crimes of Pharaoh and the injustice he inflicted upon the people of Israel. But we overlook the story leading up to this – Joseph’s story in Egypt.The story of Joseph shows the great crimes that are behind the formation of the people of Israel, from prejudice, betrayal, and slavery.Featured in this story and twenty-five year old wound, we see fear, suspicion, guilt, judgmental truth, forbearance of revenge, empathy and compassion.[2]When Joseph reveals himself to his brothers and forgives them, he invites Jacob’s family to settle in Egypt.“A new nation has begun, but it could not begin until something decisive was done about evils that threatened the unity of a family apparently bent on destroying itself.That decisive something was a long-drawn-out process of forgiveness.”[3]Without reconciliation between Joseph and his brothers, the people of Israel might not exist. Joseph’s forgiveness gave birth to a nation, and it is this story of family unity that provides the background and context for the Exodus.

Like Joseph, Jesus left his favored position with the father and became as a slave, suffering injustice.Jesus was also betrayed, and his obedience and forgiveness gave birth to the kingdom of God.

In our lives, we face injustices, fear, betrayal, and revenge.These need to be addressed, but we cannot move forward as nations and communities without the hope of forgiveness.If we take the example of Joseph and the commands of Jesus into consideration in our respective situations, it can heal our peoples and give birth to something new and exciting, just as it did in the story of Joseph and the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.As we address our contexts, we echo the words of the prophet Micah that may we seek to “do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.” And, many we follow Jesus’ example of obedience and forgiveness and bring a change to the course of our histories . . . .

Salim J. Munayer and the Musalaha Staff

Avnery Hits a Homerun

Dear Friend,

The only thing I would add to this moving piece by Uri Avnery is that we don't just need a lot more joint public gatherings between Israelis and Palestinians. Our region needs more LOCAL efforts to be in honest relationship, of Israelis and Palestinians crossing cultural, geographic and human boundaries. Each of which can lead to more PUBLIC expressions of our common humanity.

Bereaved Families (Family Forum) has long led the way in forging shared bonds of grief, grief that harnesses action against the mindless perpetuation of conflict and the on-going cycle of violence that seems endles (JRK for FPI).

In Praise of Emotion
Uri Avnery

April 20, 2013 (Gush Shalom)

IT WAS a moving experience. Moments that spoke not only to the mind, but also – and foremost – to the heart.

Last Sunday, on the eve of Israel’s Remembrance Day for the fallen in our wars, I was invited to an event organized by the activist group Combatants for Peace and the Forum of Israeli and Palestinian Bereaved Parents.

The first surprise was that it took place at all. In the general atmosphere of discouragement of the Israeli peace camp after the recent elections, when almost no one dared even to mention the word peace, such an event was heartening.

The second surprise was its size. It took place in one of the biggest halls in the country, Hangar 10 in Tel-Aviv’s fair grounds. It holds more than 2000 seats. A quarter of an hour before the starting time, attendance was depressingly sparse. Half an hour later, it was choke full. (Whatever the many virtues of the peace camp, punctuality is not among them.)

The third surprise was the composition of the audience. There were quite a lot of white-haired old-timers, including myself, but the great majority was composed of young people, at least half of them young women. Energetic, matter-of-fact youngsters, very Israeli.

I felt as if I was in a relay race. My generation passing the baton on to the next. The race continues.

BUT THE outstanding feature of the event was, of course, its content. Israelis and Palestinians were mourning together for their dead sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, victims of the conflict and wars, occupation and resistance (a.k.a. terror.)

An Arab villager spoke quietly of his daughter, killed by a soldier on her way to school. A Jewish mother spoke of her soldier son, killed in one of the wars. All in a subdued voice. Without pathos. Some spoke Hebrew, some Arabic.

They spoke of their first reaction after their loss, the feelings of hatred, the thirst for revenge. And then the slow change of heart. The understanding that the parents on the other side, the Enemy, felt exactly like them, that their loss, their mourning, their bereavement was exactly as their own.

For years now, bereaved parents of both sides have been meeting regularly to find solace in each other's company. Among all the peace groups acting in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they are, perhaps, the most heart-lifting.

IT WAS not easy for the Arab partners to get to this meeting. At first, they were denied permission by the army to enter Israel. Gabi Lasky, the indomitable advocate of many peace groups (including Gush Shalom), had to threaten with an application to the Supreme Court, just to obtain a limited concession: 45 Palestinians from the West Bank were allowed to attend.

(It is a routine measure of the occupation: before every Jewish holiday the West Bank is completely cut off from Israel – except for the settlers, of course. This is how most Palestinians become acquainted with Jewish holidays.)

What was so special about the event was that the Israeli-Arab fraternization took place on a purely human level, without political speeches, without the slogans which have become, frankly, a bit stale.

For two hours, we were all engulfed by human emotions, by a profound feeling for each other. And it felt good.

I AM writing this to make a point that I feel very strongly about: the importance of emotions in the struggle for peace.

I am not a very emotional person myself. But I am acutely conscious of the place of emotions in the political struggle. I am proud of having coined the phrase “In politics, it is irrational to ignore the irrational.” Or, if you prefer, “in politics, it is rational to accept the irrational.”

This is a major weakness of the Israeli peace movement. It is exceedingly rational – indeed, perhaps too rational. We can easily prove that Israel needs peace, that without peace we are doomed to become an apartheid state, if not worse.

All over the world, leftists are more sober than rightists. When the leftists are propounding a logical argument for peace, reconciliation with former enemies, social equality and help for the disadvantaged, the rightists answer with a volley of emotional and irrational slogans.

But masses of people are not moved by logic. They are moved by their feelings.

One expression of feelings – and a generator of feelings – is the language of songs. One can gauge the intensity of a movement by its melodies. Who can imagine the marches of Martin Luther King without “We shall overcome”? Who can think about the Irish struggle without its many beautiful songs? Or the October revolution without its host of rousing melodies?

The Israeli peace movement has produced one single song: a sad appeal of the dead to the living. Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated within minutes of singing it, its blood-stained text found on his body. But all the many writers and composers of the peace movement have not produced one single rousing anthem – while the hate-mongers can draw on a wealth of religious and nationalist hymns.

IT IS said that one does not have to like one's adversary in order to make peace with them. One makes peace with the enemy, as we all have declaimed hundreds of times. The enemy is the person you hate.

I have never quite believed in that, and the older I get, the less I do.

True, one cannot expect millions of people on both sides to love each other. But the core of peace-makers, the pioneers, cannot fulfill their tasks if there is not an element of mutual sympathy between them.

A certain type of Israeli peace activist does not accept this truism. Sometimes one has the feeling that they truly want peace – but not really with the Arabs. They love peace, because they love themselves. They stand before a mirror and tell themselves: Look how wonderful I am! How humane! How moral!

I remember how much animosity I aroused in certain progressive circles when I created our peace symbol: the crossed flags of Israel and Palestine. When one of us raised this emblem at a Peace Now demonstration in the late eighties, it caused a scandal. He was rudely asked to leave, and the movement publicly apologized.

To give an impetus to a real peace movement, you have to imbue it with the spirit of empathy for the other side. You must have a feeling for their humanity, their culture, their narrative, their aspirations, their fears, their hopes. And that applies, of course, to both sides.

Nothing can be more damaging to the chances of peace than the activity of fanatical pro-Israelis and pro-Palestinians abroad, who think that they are helping their preferred side by demonizing the other. You don’t make peace with demons.

FRATERNIZATION BETWEEN Palestinians and Israelis is a must. No peace movement can succeed without it.

And here we came to a painful paradox: the more this fraternization is needed, the less there is.

During the last few years, there has been a growing estrangement between the two sides. Yasser Arafat was very conscious of the need for contact, and did much to further it. (I constantly urged him to do more.) Since his death, this effort has receded.

On the Israeli side, peace efforts have become less and less popular. Fraternization takes place every week in Bil’in and on many other battlefields, but the major peace organizations are not too eager to meet.

On the Palestinian side there is a lot of resentment, a (justified) feeling that the Israeli peace movement has not delivered. Worse, that joint public meetings could be considered by the Palestinian masses as a form of “normalization” with Israel, something like collaboration with the enemy.

This must be changed. Only large-scale, public and heart-felt cooperation between the peace movements of the two sides can convince the public – on both sides – that peace is possible.

THESE THOUGHTS were running through my head as I listened to the simple words of Palestinians and Israelis in that big remembrance meeting.

It was all there: the spirit, the emotion, the empathy, the cooperation.

It was a human moment. That's how it all starts.

Muslims who Saved Jews During the Holocaust

Friend,
I've tried through the years to find stories that build bridges instead of walls between Israelis and Palestinians.
Thanks to Noushin Framke of the Isr/Pal Mission Network (PCUSA), we have this story from the BBC that gives stories of how Muslims helped Jews escape the horrors of the Nazi attempt at annihilating the Jews of Europe.
Click on this link and read it for yourself. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-22176928

Sharing Each Others' Narrative

Dear Friend,

Since my "hopeful" post soon after President Obama's visit, I'm having second thoughts -- and doubts. That our administration is in negotiations with the Israeli military to extend (and EXPAND) military support from 2017 to 2027, is a shot in the gut. (The 10 year, $30b package runs out in 2017).

Does anyone know if it will be stipulated that US laws respecting human rights are to be followed? Ugh!

Are there ANY restrictions on our aid? Or is it unconditional, and unquestioning? How does propping up the Likud administration bring the Occupation to an End?

Below is an encouraging indication of progressive Israelis and Palestinians shared each other's narrative, looking at how the Passover might apply to OTHERS who might be oppressed.

Thank you Christian Science Monitor for this story. JRK


At a West Bank seder, Jews commemorate a modern quest for freedom


For Jews living in the West Bank, a Passover seder is an opportunity to discuss how one of history's most famous liberation stories can apply to freedom struggles today.

By Rebecca Collard, Correspondent / April 2, 2013
Weekly Digital Edition


As Jews around the world gathered to celebrate Passover, a holiday commemorating the ancient Hebrews' liberation from enslavement in the land of Egypt, a small group have joined together in the Palestinian city of Ramallah. Here the seder, or Passover meal, is being done a bit differently.

Eight Jews and Palestinians have gathered to read from several alternative Haggadahs – the ritual text read during the meal – which emphasize the need for equality and liberation for all people. In addition to the standard symbolic fare on the seder plate is an orange to represent gender equality and olives to show solidarity with Palestinians.

“The main message of Passover is that we, as Jews, are free,” says a Jewish Canadian who asked to be called Josh because his Israeli work visa does not allow him to live in Ramallah. “It’s taking this message of freedom, which is the main theme of the seder – freedom from slavery of the Israelites in Egypt – and applying that freedom story to other people.”

At the meal, Josh reads from an alternative Haggadah: “For slavery to be truly over – for a people to be truly free – we must know we can feed ourselves and our children today, tomorrow and into future generations. In Palestine, olive groves provide that security."

Palestinian olive trees are sometimes scorched by Israeli settlers or bulldozed by the Israeli army.

“When olive groves are destroyed, the past and future is destroyed,” Josh continues. “We eat an olive to make real our understanding of what it means each time a bulldozer ploughs up a grove. Without the taste of olives, there will be no taste of freedom.”

An awakening

Josh says he learned his support for Israel alongside Jewish culture and religious practice. By the time he was in high school, his backing was so staunch that he asked his cousin, who had immigrated to Israel, to send him an Israeli flag. He hung it in his family's living room – a symbol of his connection to a country he had never visited.

After graduating from high school, Josh began reading critical literature on conflicts in Latin America and decided he should seek an alternative perspective on Israel. At the same time he signed up for a popular, free 10-day trip to Israel with a program called Birthright.

He says that as he traveled around Israel with a group of other young Canadian Jews, he read about what he wasn't being shown. He began seeing parallels between the struggles of indigenous movements like the Zapatistas in Mexico and Palestinians.

"I came back really confused. I had a lot questions," says Josh. Eventually, he says his ability to defend Israel diminished.

He now lives in Ramallah, where he is working on a research project that studies the effects the Israeli military occupation has on the health and well-being of Palestinians.

For most Jews, the idea of visiting the Palestinians territories seems dangerous, or at least unnecessary. But Josh is not entirely alone. At least 20 foreign Jews live in or work in the West Bank. The numbers fluctuate throughout the year, with some just volunteering or studying over the summer and others living for years at time.

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM), one of the most active and hardline pro-Palestinian groups, also attracts large number of Jewish volunteers who make a temporary home in the west Bank while volunteering. ISM was founded by two Palestinians, an Israeli, and an American Jew named Adam Shapiro, who was recently denied entry to Israel because he has a 10-year ban on entering the country after being arrested in the West Bank during a previous visit.

“There have always been Jewish people in the organization,” says Aaron Gregory, a British-South African who volunteers with ISM. “Compared to 30 years ago, young people’s ability to feel a connection with Israel is less, when every couple of days they see Israel’s bad behavior in the occupied [Palestinian] territories.”

Gregory says in the last month alone there have been at least six Jewish volunteers. The organization has a high turnover rate and the percentage of Jewish volunteers fluctuates.

'A light unto the nations'

Gregory says that while not all Jewish volunteers are open about their religious background, those who are have been welcomed by the Palestinian communities they work in.

Alana Alpert, now a rabbinical student in Boston, came to the West Bank to volunteer with Palestinian farmers last year. She grew up in a conservative Jewish family in California's San Fernando Valley. Both her parents are Jewish educators. She describes her family members as “active and committed” – not just to their faith, but also in their support for Israel.

But when she went to college at the University of California in Santa Cruz, she started what she calls her “unlearning process.” Most of her fellow organizers in workers' rights, racial justice, and environmental movements had starkly different views on Israel.

“I thought there was a blind spot,” says Alpert, “But then I started to think maybe I had the blind spot.”

A number of encounters with activists and Palestinians over the next few years drastically changed they way she saw the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She remembers the first time she experienced tear gas, fired by Israeli soldiers at protesters in the West Bank village.

“We were supposed to be a light unto the nations. Jews weren’t capable of doing the same kind of things that other people do. And I remember that feeling coming back very strongly [...] My eyes were burning. It was so painful,” recalls Albert. “And I just kept thinking, ‘nice Jewish boys wouldn’t do this’."

Josh, who regularly hosts other foreign Jews in his Ramallah home so that he can show them another side of this conflict, says the problem is most Jews abroad lack knowledge and understanding of life in the West Bank and Gaza. Their perspective quickly changes when they see the reality on the ground.

“I’m a proud Jew, but I don’t think that being proud Jews has anything to do with supporting Israel,” says Josh, explaining that he feels like Jews and Jewish organizations who criticize Israel are ostracized.

“In the mainstream Jewish community now in North America, you don’t have to really believe in God or go to synagogue, but you do have to support Israel, or you’re out.”


There is no PEACE without JUSTICE; there is no justice without LOVE.

Will Israelis and Palestinians Seize This Moment?

Dear Friend,

There is a lot of fall-out over the Obama/Kerry visits to I/P. There is much uncertainty whether reactionary forces (Israel First, uber alles; Hamas's call for ALL the land to be Palestinian) will continue to rule. Or, whether reconciling forces (hearing Palestinian calls for justice, sharing the land and equality) are in the ascendancy.

You know where I'm coming from (my assessment paper. See the previous post!)

In that spirit, Fareed Zakaria writes a guest op-ed in yesterday's Washington Post that raises the question of whether Israel (and the Palestinians) will seize the moment, and work for reconciliation with "the other". I think it is true, Obama is appealing to the conscience of the Israeli public to make a difference. He's put it right out there in public, urging "progress".

It is easy to be pessimistic and think things will stay the same (or get worse, much worse; and anyone can point to all kinds of signs about how BAD it is).

It is still in the hands of the next generations to transcend the old boundaries, the past fears, the "all or nothing" mentality on both sides. Give and take has not been part of the vocabulary in I/P. Will there be actions that bridge huge chasms? During this Holy Week, Christians know what an appeal to "conscience" yields: a judicial lynching. But, as our black brothers and sisters say, "It's Friday, but Sunday's comin'". Yours for peace and justice, (and in HOPE), JRK


Obama appeals to Israel's conscience


By Fareed Zakaria,
Mar 27, 2013 11:01 PM EDT
The Washington Post, Published: March 27

As a piece of rhetoric, Barack Obama’s speech to college students in Jerusalem was a triumph. He finally convinced Israel and its supporters that “HE GETS US,” as one of them e-mailed me. “In his Kishkas [gut], he gets us!” But Obama also spoke more bluntly about Israel’s occupation and the case for a Palestinian state than any U.S. president has in the past. Oratory aside, Obama has recognized and employed the strongest — and perhaps only — path toward peace and a Palestinian state: an appeal to Israel’s conscience.

For 40 years, those who have tried to push Israel toward making concessions have pointed to dangers and threats. Israel is surrounded by enemies, the argument goes, and the only way to ease that hostility is to give the Palestinians a state. Palestinian terrorism will make daily life in Israel unbearable, another variant explained, and Israel will have to settle this problem politically. These assumptions undergirded the peace process and Obama’s approach in his first term.


The argument reflected reality in the 1980s and 1990s, when Israel faced an array of powerful Arab states with large armies — Iraq, Syria — formally dedicated to its destruction. The Soviet Union backed these regimes with cash and arms and ceaselessly drummed up international opposition to the Jewish state. Israelis lived with constant Palestinian terror, which created a siege mentality within the country.

The situation today, however, is transformed in every sense. The Soviet Union is dead. Iraq and Syria have been sidelined as foes. The Arab world is in upheaval, which produces great uncertainty but has also weakened every Arab country. They all are focused on internal issues of power, legitimacy and survival. The last thing any of them can afford is a confrontation with the country that has become the region’s dominant power.

The data underscore this. Israel’s per capita gross domestic product is now nine times that of Egypt, according to the International Monetary Fund’s most recent figures; six times that of Jordan; and nearly three times that of Turkey. It is almost 50 percentgreater than Saudi Arabia’s per capita GDP. Israeli military expenditures are larger than those of all its neighbors combined, and then there are its technological and qualitative superiorities and its alliance with the world’s dominant military power. Israel’s highly effective counterterrorism methods, including the wall separating Palestinians and Israelis and the “iron dome,” which increasingly shields Israelis from missiles, have largely made Palestinian terrorism something that is worried about and planned against but not actually experienced by most Israelis.

Even the much-discussed “demographic threat” is a threat only if Israel sees it as such — something the country’s new breed of politicians, such as Naftali Bennett, have cynically grasped. After all, Israel has ruled millions of Palestinians without offering them citizenship or a state for 40 years. There is no tipping point at which this becomes logistically or technically unsustainable. Walls, roads and checkpoints would work for 4 million Palestinians just as they do for 3 million.

In a sense, both hard-line supporters of Israel and advocates of peace have clung to the notion of the Jewish state as deeply vulnerable. For Likudniks, this demonstrated that Israel was at risk and needed constant support. For peaceniks, it proved that peace was a vital necessity.

But Israel’s strength and security are changing the country’s outlook. Don’t look only at the tough talk coming from the new right. As columnist and author Ari Shavit notes, the country has turned its attention from survival to social, political and economic justice. (January’s election results confirmed this trend.) And while these seem, at first, domestic affairs, they will ultimately lead to a concern for justice in a broader sense and for the rights of Palestinians.

Obama’s speech appealed to this aspect of Israel’s psyche and grounded it deeply in Jewish values: “Israel is rooted not just in history and tradition but also in the idea that a people deserve to be free in a land of their own.” Then, applying that idea to Israel’s longtime adversaries, he said: “Look at the world through [Palestinian] eyes. It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of their own. Living their entire lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements not just of those young people but their parents, their grandparents, every single day.”

Having tried pressure, threats and tough talk, Obama has settled on a new strategy: appealing to Israel as a liberal democracy and to its people’s sense of conscience and character. In the long run, this is the most likely path to peace and a Palestinian state.
--

There is no PEACE without JUSTICE; there is no justice without LOVE.

FPI Comment on Obama's I/P Visit

Dear Friend,
Here are my thoughts on the visit by the U.S. President to I/P. It also comes as an attachment. JRK

FPI director John Kleinheksel on the President’s Visit to Israel/Palestine (March, 2013)

I What happened? There was much to like about President Obama’s visit to friends and foreigners in Israel/Palestine, March 20-23, 2013. Yet, many questions remain to be answered.

I’m reminded of the contest between Sun and Wind, as to which of them could get the Traveler to shed his coat. “Watch me get it done,” boasted Wind, as he blew harder and harder. But the more Wind blew, the tighter the Traveler wrapped her overcoat around her. “Let me show you how,” spoke Sun, turning up the heat. The Traveler began loosening her coat. Sun’s warmth persisted until the Traveler finally shed her protective coat.

Obama has come to the Middle East both as Wind and Sun. When he first came (June, 2009) to Cairo, Egypt, to reset U.S./Arab relationships, his coming as Sun to Arabs was perceived as a gale-force Wind in the face of the Israelis. Consequently his insistence on a settlement freeze (from a distance) was perceived as a preference for Palestinians (and a nail in the coffin of Jewish State legitimacy).

So now, at the outset of his 2nd term, he goes in person to Jerusalem to reassure the Israeli leadership that he is fully supportive of the “Jewish State”. “Trust me”, he said, “You can now take risks for peace with their Palestinian neighbors”. But he doesn’t make this case to the Knesset, (the Israeli Parliament). Instead he goes to representatives of the newer generations of mostly Jewish, but some Muslim and Christian young people, at the Jerusalem Convention Center. He strongly encourages the more than 2,000, to build bridges to one another and bring about grass root changes that will have to be taken into account by reluctant “politicians”.

Call it a charm offensive or a visit to repair frayed U.S./Israeli relations, but hear him inviting the younger generation to compose new music to replace the discordant jangle so offensive right now. “You can transcend the deadly stalemate of the past years (and decades)”.

“Put yourselves in Palestinian shoes”, said he. They desire what you want for Israelis: A State of their own, a stake in an open economy, homes and education and the dignity of full citizenship.

He said these things right there in Jerusalem, the heart of the Jewish state, and from his own heart; the very things he would not be permitted to speak in Washington D. C. lest he be run out of town as an Anti-Semitic bigot. He came in person, not demanding, but appealing.

So, he clearly laid out the substantive issues (“Justice” for Palestinians, “security” for Israelis) as an insider “friend”, not an outsider “enemy”, urging youths to take actions for engagement.

II Of course, questions remain. Lots of them:

1) Will the settlers persist in their drive to colonize all the land?

2) Will the Palestinians doubt his sincerity in pressing for an independent, autonomous Palestinian state?

3) Is the Two-State option even alive, or must Palestinians press for full equality in a One-Jewish-Palestinian State.

4) Will a way be found to begin indispensable negotiations?

But the main question it seems to me is simply this:

5) Given the President’s virtual unconditional pledge of support to the existing Jewish State, why would Israel change course by meaningful engagement with Palestinian aspirations (for “Ending the Occupation”)? Why would the new Israeli administration be willing to move toward a true “Two-State” solution to the “conflict”, given the new strength of the settler movement in the new administration? [“Conflict? What conflict? We Israelis have things going our way. The US is “at our back” so it’s ‘business as usual’. Let the Palestinians continue to eat the crumbs falling from our table”.]

Obama: “It is in your long-term self-interest to diffuse the unrelenting resentment against the ‘Occupation’ (Yes! He actually used the term, much to the dismay of the Israeli right wing!)

Will Israel listen? Will the Arab Palestinians listen? Will bridge-building relationships deepen and bear fruit, or will rejectionist extremists from both sides reinforce the fences that block human interaction (and lead to violent carnage)?

Will the President’s visit be perceived as the Wind in your face, reinforcing intransigence, or as the Sun on your back, to bring about a thaw in frosty relationships on all sides? The newer generations of Arabs and Israelis will bring about a new Israel/Palestinian “Spring”. Participants take notice. Don’t miss out!

John Kleinheksel, “Friends of Palestinians and Israelis” (FPI)

There is no PEACE without JUSTICE; there is no justice without LOVE.

Abolish the Occupation!

Dear Friend,
Bradley Burston is an Israeli. A radical Israeli, willing to think the unthinkable, and then talk out loud about it; and write about it.

Below is his latest insight into I/P after watching LINCOLN, the Hollywood blockbuster movie, there in Israel.

He comes to a startling conclusion. "I am an abolitionist" he says, wanting to end the slavery that is the destroying the Palestinian population.

Please read it. Send it to your friends. Advocate for real change in Ending the Occupation! Consider BDS (boycotts, divestment and sanctions).

As Lincoln abolished slavery, Israel must abolish occupation

By Bradley Burston, Haaretz, Feb.26, 2013

I realize now that I am an abolitionist and that occupation is slavery. I also realize that I need to pay more attention to Abraham Lincoln, in his ability to remind us all of the wisdom hidden in the obvious.

I've been hearing people say lately, that if they hear one more negative thing about Israel, it will drive them nuts.

I've heard this from people who hate Israel to death, from people who adore Israel all but uncritically, and from the group I belong to, people who love this place and find it maddening in every sense of the term, painful to love, painful to leave, terrifying in prospect, an indelible, at times miraculous shadow sewn to the soul.

In theory, a movie house ought to offer a certain escape from this. No such luck. When my wife and I took the bus to see "Lincoln" this week, the driver let us off at the stop closest to the theater: Rabin Square, site of the 1995 assassination and, although we didn't know it yet, a lens through which to understand the darkness of Abraham Lincoln, an America torn to catastrophe by slavery, and, most of all, ourselves.

I know something of American history. I know much about the Civil War. But for my wife and I, the two and a half hours we watched "Lincoln," were spent watching our Israel tear itself to death over how we relate to, or manage not to relate to, Palestinians as people.

Over and over, in the film's debates over slavery, an endless, unbearable war, and their interconnections, it was impossible not to see the parallels to Israeli society, politics, warfare, and daily life.

It was impossible not to see, in this theater across the street from Rabin Square, what one determined, inspiring, all-too-human leader, in cooperation with the vast majority of a nation, could accomplish for the sake of fundamental human justice - and the price that one fuming, armed extremist might make that leader pay for any success in moving forward.

Sometimes you have to look away from what you're overused to, in order to see it at all. Sometimes you need to be in some faraway dark place, for there to be light shed on your own.

I realize now why "apartheid" is too easy, too slick, too Madison Avenue a term, for what occupation truly is and does.

Occupation is slavery.

In the name of occupation, generation after generation of Palestinians have been treated as property. They can be moved at will, shackled at will, tortured at will, have their families separated at will. They can be denied the right to vote, to own property, to meet or speak to family and friends. They can be hounded or even shot dead by their masters, who claim their position by biblical right, and also use them to build and work on the plantations the toilers cannot themselves ever hope to own.

The masters dehumanize them, call them by the names of beasts.

The clergy of this Old South in the new West Bank, claiming God and the Bible, preach that it is permissible to rebel against the government, against the army, in order to protect the plantations and the sanctity of the institution of occupation.

The spokesman of this Old South, speaking to us across the secession lines, trade in fear of those under oppression, warning that they will take us over and kill us, if they are allowed to be free.

The day we went to see "Lincoln," headlines spoke of 15 Jewish youths nearly killing an Arab Israeli in Jaffa, bloodying his head and one eye with bottles and glass shards, sending him to hospital in serious condition. The victim was attacked as he re-filled his vehicle with water, in order to continue to clean their streets. His wife quoted the attackers as saying as they beat him, that Arabs were "trying to take over the country."

I realize now that I am an abolitionist. I realize how many, many people I know, people in that unnamed, largely unorganized group I belong to, are abolitionists as well, people for whom the central, the crucial, the overriding issue facing Israel and Israelis – and Jews the world over – is how to bring the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem to an end.

I realize now that I need to pay more attention to Abraham Lincoln, in his ability to remind us all – in our natural desire not to hear one more bad thing – of the wisdom hidden in the obvious.

"Those who deny freedom to others," he once said, "deserve it not for themselves."

And this: “Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”
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There is no PEACE without JUSTICE; there is no justice without LOVE.