MCC Palestine Prayer Request
24 March 2006
Dear Friends,
As many of you have already heard, Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) members Harmeet Singh Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember have been freed safely in Baghdad. We rejoice and are thankful to the answer to a prayer that we know has been many of yours for the past four months.
Details are still coming in, but this is what is known so far:
*All three men are in relatively good condition.
*They were freed in an intelligence-led operation spearheaded by British troops.
*The operation to free the captives was based on information from a man captured by U.S. forces only three hours earlier.
*None of the captors were present, no shots were fired and no one was injured.
Here are the developing stories from some major news outlets:
Associated Press: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060323/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_hostages_freed;_ylt=AmrYJlNlfLdrPyYD.FIWHq2s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--
BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4836218.stm
Al-Jazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A6EF4A10-6F22-481B-B558-A19F4D845638.htm
New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/international/middleeast/23cnd-hostages.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1143176400&en=1c7c1b639dfdc5a6&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin
Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1737660,00.html
Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/23/AR2006032300223.html
Below is the statement released from CPT as well as a piece written recently from a Mennonite minister from Pennsylvania responding to criticisms leveled against CPT.
Thank you all for your faithful prayers and actions. We would ask that you continue to keep James, Harmeet, and Norman, the family of Tom Fox who was found murdered earlier this month, and all those still being held or detained in Iraq or anywhere else in the world in your thoughts and prayers today.
Peace,
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
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http://www.cpt.org/
CPT Statement: CPTers Freed
Doug Pritchard and Carol Rose
23 March 2006
Our hearts are filled with joy today as we heard that Harmeet Singh Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember have been freed safely in Baghdad. Christian Peacemaker Teams rejoices with their families and friends at the expectation of their return to their loved ones and community. Together we have endured uncertainty, hope, fear, grief and now joy during the four months since they were abducted in Baghdad. We rejoice in the return of Harmeet Sooden. He has been willing to put his life on the line to promote justice in Iraq and Palestine as a young man newly committed to active peacemaking. We rejoice in the return of Jim Loney. He has cared for the marginalized and oppressed since childhood, and his gentle, passionate spirit has been an inspiration to people near and far. We rejoice in the return of Norman Kember. He is a faithful man, an elder and mentor to many in his 50 years of peacemaking, a man prepared to pay the cost. We remember with tears Tom Fox, whose body was found in Baghdad on March 9, 2006, after three months of captivity with his fellow peacemakers. We had longed for the day when all four men would be released together. Our gladness today is made bittersweet by the fact that Tom is not alive to join in the celebration. However, we are confident that his spirit is very much present in each reunion. Harmeet, Jim and Norman and Tom were in Iraq to learn of the struggles facing the people in that country. They went, motivated by a passion for justice and peace to live out a nonviolent alternative in a nation wracked by armed conflict. They knew that their only protection was in the power of the love of God and of their Iraqi and international co-workers. We believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq. The occupation must end.Today, in the face of this joyful news, our faith compels us to love our enemies even when they have committed acts which caused great hardship to our friends and sorrow to their families. In the spirit of the prophetic nonviolence that motivated Jim, Norman, Harmeet and Tom to go to Iraq, we refuse to yield to a spirit of vengeance. We give thanks for the compassionate God who granted our friends courage and who sustained their spirits over the past months. We pray for strength and courage for ourselves so that, together, we can continue the nonviolent struggle for justice and peace. Throughout these difficult months, we have been heartened by messages of concern for our four colleagues from all over the world. We have been especially moved by the gracious outpouring of support from Muslim brothers and sisters in the Middle East, Europe, and North America. That support continues to come to us day after day. We pray that Christians throughout the world will, in the same spirit, call for justice and for respect for the human rights of the thousands of Iraqis who are being detained illegally by the U.S. and British forces occupying Iraq. During these past months, we have tasted of the pain that has been the daily bread of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Why have our loved ones been taken? Where are they being held? Under what conditions? How are they? Will they be released? When? With Tom’s death, we felt the grief of losing a beloved friend. Today, we rejoice that our friends Harmeet, Jim and Norman have been freed safely. We continue to pray for a swift and joyful homecoming for the many Iraqis and internationals who long to be reunited with their families. We renew our commitment to work for an end to the war and the occupation of Iraq as a way to continue the witness of Tom Fox. We trust in God’s compassionate love to show us the way.
Living through the many emotions of this day, we remain committed to the words of Jim Loney, who wrote:
"With God’s abiding kindness, we will love even our enemies.
With the love of Christ, we will resist all evil.
With God’s unending faithfulness, we will work to build the beloved community."
Addenda
23 March 2006
We have been so overwhelmed and overjoyed to have Jim, Harmeet and Norman freed, that we have not adequately thanked the people involved with freeing them, nor remembered those still in captivity. So we offer these paragraphs as the first of several addenda:
We are grateful to the soldiers who risked their lives to free Jim, Norman and Harmeet. As peacemakers who hold firm to our commitment to nonviolence, we are also deeply grateful that they fired no shots to free our colleagues. We are thankful to all the people who gave of themselves sacrificially to free Jim, Norman, Harmeet and Tom over the last four months, and those supporters who prayed and wept for our brothers in captivity, for their loved ones and for us, their co-workers. We will continue to lift Jill Carroll up in our prayers for her safe return. In addition, we will continue to advocate for the human rights of Iraqi detainees and assert their right to due process in a just legal system.
Doug Pritchard and Carol Rose are co-directors of Christian Peacemaker Teams.
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http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/opinion/14128328.htm
A Christian Peacemaker Team member sets the record straight
Rev. David B. Miller
18 March 2006
I was in the city of Hebron in the West Bank in late November, part of a 10-person delegation sponsored by Christian Peacemaker Teams, when the chilling word came that four CPT members -- Tom Fox, James Loney, Harmeet Singh Sooden and Norman Kember -- had been abducted in Baghdad by a previously unknown group, the Swords of Righteousness Brigade. The world now knows that Fox, a Quaker from Virginia serving with CPT, was executed by his captors.
Cal Thomas decided to write about Fox's tragic death and offer his assessment of Christian Peacemaker Teams in his syndicated column published Wednesday in the Centre Daily Times. The people and motivations Thomas described were alien to what I know of CPT and those who serve with the organization.
Allow me, at this moment of grief, to set the record straight.
Thomas wrote, "That the 'peace activists' believed their brand of Christianity would trump the fanatical Muslims who regarded them as infidels and worthy of death ..."
CPT has functioned in Iraq since 2002, beginning several months prior to the U.S.-led invasion. Its work and motives have been closely watched by its Iraqi neighbors.
Seeing in CPT's approach a hope for the future of Iraqi society, in January 2005 a group of Iraqi Muslims asked if CPT would be willing to meet with them and train them for similar work. This was the beginning of the Muslim Peacemaker Team (MPT), which is seeking by nonviolent means to heal the wounds and mistrust between Sunni, Shia and Kurdish Iraqis.
CPT members and MPT members work together on a number of joint projects, including rebuilding work in the devastated city of Fallujah.
Thomas wrote, "It is also tragic because the likelihood that the presence of Fox and his colleagues would change the attitude or behavior of their captors was zero to none."
CPT members are not blind idealists. They have peered more deeply and honestly into the abyss of evil and understand the cycle of violence better than most people I know. They understand the risks involved in entering a place of violent conflict.
When Margaret Hassan, head of Care International's operations in Iraq for 12 years, was kidnapped and later killed, Fox wrote a statement of conviction that included these words: "If I am ever called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice in love of enemy, I trust that God will give me the grace to do so."
Team members did not go to Iraq to be kidnapped, but to help create, by nonviolent means, conditions of trust and hope that might thwart the cycle of violence and retribution.
CPT's motto, "Reducing Violence by Getting in the Way," has a twofold meaning -- team members "get in the way" by seeking to follow the example of Christ, who followed a path of nonviolent confrontation with evil; they "get in the way" by willingly placing themselves between those who are caught in the spiral of violence.
In Iraq and elsewhere, they have had an impact far beyond their ridiculously small numbers. They have on numerous occasions been protected by their Iraqi neighbors and friends for whom they have been a source of hope.
Thomas wrote, "Peace happens when evil is vanquished."
Many Christian Peacemaker Team members might agree with this statement on the surface. They categorically reject, however, the means Thomas would employ to this end.
Evil is not vanquished by violence. The vision and mission of CPT is grounded in the life and teachings of Jesus. He taught that evil is not overcome with evil, but with good. Those who would follow him in the world are called upon to "love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them." These were not abstractions but a clear, embodied example.
Roots of today's conflict can be traced, in part, to a Christian church that, in the Middle Ages, explained away the clear instructions of its Lord, embraced the sword as a means to end, and embarked on a lethal campaign of crusades that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Jews.
Thomas wrote, "The theology of Christian Peacemaker Teams is as wrong as its politics."
If, for Thomas, commitment to obedience to the life and teachings of Jesus, even to the point of being willing to lay down one's life for another, is bad theology, he thereby judges the first 300 years of Christianity as the persistent practice of "wrong theology." It was not until gaining legal status in the Roman empire that the Christian church en masse abandoned the way of nonviolence.
Thomas appears to espouse a theology that reduces the Sermon on the Mount to nothing more than a foil to lead us to grace, one that explains away Jesus' clear instructions that his followers were called to take up the cross and follow him in the way of self-giving love, and one that reduces love of enemy to a disembodied abstraction.
Thomas wrote, "(E)vil cannot be accommodated. Evil must be defeated if peace on Earth is to exist. That Fox and his colleagues could not, or would not see this, is most tragic of all."
Thomas here serves as a propagandist for the logic of holy war. In Thomas' world view, "the other" is not someone who may carry out evil actions, but the embodiment of evil itself.
Groups (nations) that adhere to such a theology or political philosophy safeguard themselves against the "messiness" of self-criticism and easily project on their "enemy" their own motives and violence. From such a position, they easily justify whatever means they deem necessary to overcome their enemy.
Such a view corrupts the individual or nation who holds it, for it leads to the easy minimizing of such things as hundreds of dead women and children as collateral damage, to destroying a city in order to save it, and to explaining away the systematic torture and abuse of prisoners as the fault of a few bad apples.
The rule of law -- such as the Geneva Conventions -- are set aside as untenable, because the current conflict is unique. The result is a willful blindness and escalation of violence.
The question that founded Christian Peacemaker Teams in the 1980s and continues to compel those who serve with CPT is this: What would happen if Christians devoted the same discipline and self-sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war? It is a question that takes them back to their source, not as an abstract religion, but as a way to be risked and followed in the world.
The Rev. David B. Miller is pastor of University Mennonite Church in State College. In November 2005, he traveled to Israel and the West Bank with Christian Peacemaker Teams.
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http://www.cpt.org/iraq/response/thomasresponse.htm
A CPTer Responds to Cal Thomas
Kathy Kern
20 March 2006
I am writing as a grieving colleague of Tom Fox in response to Cal Thomas' March 15 column, "Tragedy of a Peace Activist." Thomas, I believe, harbors mistaken assumptions about nonviolent movements, Christian Peacemaker Teams and Tom. 1) He says that we thought our "brand" of Christianity would "trump" fanatical Muslims. We never went into Iraq with that goal. We sought to deter violence where we could, and tell stories about ordinary Iraqi Christians and Muslims that were not making the news here. We released the report of U.S. military abuses of Iraqi detainees three months before the Abu Ghraib photos hit the media. We also worked with Iraqi human rights advocates in the development of a Muslim Peacemaker Teams. 2) Thomas' comment about peace movements rarely mobilizing to oppose dictators is historically inaccurate. Nonviolent movements in Tibet and Burma, the Philippines, Latin America and Soviet Bloc countries have courageously challenged dictatorships. CPTers and their supporters who are U.S. citizens (We have offices in Chicago and Toronto) do take a special interest in what the U.S. government is doing in the rest of the world, because it uses U.S. tax dollars to support oppressive regimes. Like Israeli and South African human rights advocates, we challenge our government when it is committing abuses that democratic societies should not tolerate; we want our government to behave as though the rest of the world is entitled to the same civil rights that U.S. citizens have. 3) Thomas' story about Charles Brown implies that CPT has had a close relationship with the Iraqi government. We intentionally work at a grassroots level on all our projects because we do not wish to be affiliated with or give allegiance to any government besides the Kingdom of God. (And many of us American CPTers were decrying Saddam Hussein’s vile dictatorship back when our government was giving him military aid.) 4) We do not believe that "evil people will be nice to us if we are nice to them." We do believe that Jesus meant what he said when he told his followers, "But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked." (Luke 6:35) Christian Peacemaker Teams agrees with Cal Thomas on at least one point: "Evil cannot be accommodated. Evil must be defeated if peace on Earth is to exist." We strive with all our might to fight the Evil that says it is acceptable to bomb and torture people, that some lives are worth more than others, that we can ignore what Jesus said about treating "the least of these" as we would treat Him. In 2004, Tom wrote about confronting Evil like this: "I have visual references and written models of CPTers standing firm against the overt aggression of an army, be it regular or paramilitary. But how do you stand firm against a car-bomber or a kidnapper? Clearly the soldier disconnected from God needs to have me fight. Just as clearly the terrorist disconnected from God needs to have me flee. Both are willing to kill me using different means to achieve he same end--that end being to increase the parasitic power of Satan within God's good creation. "It seems easier somehow to confront anger within my heart than it is to confront fear. But if Jesus and Gandhi are right then I am not to give in to either. I am to stand firm against the kidnapper as I am to stand firm against the soldier. Does that mean I walk into a raging battle to confront the soldiers? Does that mean I walk the streets of Baghdad with a sign saying "American for the Taking?" No to both counts. But if Jesus and Gandhi are right, then I am asked to risk my life, and if I lose it to be as forgiving as they were when murdered by the forces of Satan. "Standing firm is a struggle, but I'm willing to keep working at it."
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http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20060314-095241-4308r.htm
Tragedy of a peace activist
Cal Thomas15 March 2006
The death of "peace activist" Tom Fox, and the threatened execution of the three others held with him in Iraq, is doubly tragic.
It is tragic whenever an innocent person is murdered. It is also tragic because the likelihood that the presence of Fox and his colleagues would change the attitude or behavior of their captors was zero to none. That the "peace activists" believed their brand of Christianity would trump the fanatical Muslims who regarded them as infidels and worthy of death meant Fox and the others would either be used for propaganda purposes by the enemies of freedom, or made to sacrifice their lives like animals on an ancient altar in the furtherance of the fanatics' dream of a theocratic state. In this instance they were used for both.
The activists' motive was exposed in a statement from Christian Peacemaker Teams, under whose auspices Fox and the others traveled to Iraq. Spokeswoman Jessica Phillips said, "We believe that the root cause of the abduction of our colleagues is the U.S.- and British-led invasion and occupation of Iraq."
Strange thing about these peace movements: they rarely mobilize to oppose the killing, torture and imprisonment practiced by dictators. It is only when their own country attempts to end the oppression that the activists become active against America, not the initiators of evil. Peace, like happiness, is a byproduct, not a goal that can be unilaterally attained. Peace happens when evil is vanquished.
The theology of Christian Peacemaker Teams is as wrong as its politics. The statement about Fox's death claimed he had a "firm opposition to all oppression and the recognition of God in everyone." Perhaps if Christian Peacemaker Teams had gone to Iraq during Saddam Hussein's murderous regime, or to China while Mao Tse-tung was slaughtering millions, or to Moscow while Josef Stalin practiced genocide on his people, or to any number of other capitals of carnage, they might be taken more seriously, though under those regimes they might have disappeared much quicker. Was God "in" these mass murderers, or was it Lucifer?
A far more credible and compelling insight about peace activism and its consequences comes from Charles M. Brown, who was 19 when he fought in Operation Desert Storm, a conflict that repelled Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. When Mr. Brown returned home, he worked in homeless shelters operated by liberal Catholic Worker activists and gravitated toward their position against U.N. sanctions imposed on Iraq for failing to comply with its promises to cease hostilities.
Mr. Brown says he traveled to Iraq in 1998 to see the effects of sanctions. He says he made two speaking tours of college campuses to denounce sanctions. When he tried to return to Iraq with a Chicago group called "Voices in the Wilderness," Mr. Brown says he was told by Iraqi government officials he could not speak about Saddam's "horrendous human-rights record, [his] involvement with weapons of mass destruction [or] the dictatorial nature of the regime. We were allowed to speak only of one thing: the deprivations suffered by ordinary Iraqis under the sanctions regime."
Mr. Brown says he realized this was pure Ba'ath Party propaganda: "As I came to see this as a complicity and collaboration with one of the most abusive dictatorships in the world, I tried to get the rest of my group to acknowledge that our close relationship with the regime damaged our credibility. I failed to persuade them, so I quit." His "Confessions of an Anti-Sanctions Activist," published in the summer 2003 issue of Middle East Quarterly, is sober reading for people who believe the United States is the problem and that evil people will be nice to us if we are nice to them.
It is too bad Tom Fox and his three colleagues did not have an epiphany similar to that of Charles Brown.
Peace "activism" may make its practitioners feel good, or validate their belief they are doing the will of God. But evil cannot be accommodated. Evil must be defeated if peace on Earth is to exist. That Fox and his colleagues could not, or would not see this, is most tragic of all. Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist.
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Friday, March 24
Tuesday, March 14
MCC Palestine Prayer Request - 14 March 2006
MCC Palestine Prayer Request
14 March 2006
Dear Friends,
As many of you already know, the body of Tom Fox was found in Baghdad late last week. Tom was one of four Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) members abducted last November.
Tom Fox, age 54, from Clearbrook, Virginia, was a dedicated father of two children. For the past two years, Mr. Fox had worked with CPT in partnership with Iraqi human rights organizations to promote peace. Mr. Fox had been faithful in the observance of Quaker practice for 22 years. While in Iraq, he sought a more complete understanding of Islamic cultural richness. He was committed to telling the truth to U.S. citizens about the horrors of war and its effects on ordinary Iraqi civilians and families as a result of U.S. policies and practices. Mr. Fox was an accomplished musician. He played the bass clarinet and the recorder and loved to cook. He has also worked as a professional grocer. Mr. Fox devoted much of his time to working with children. He has served as an adult leader of youth programs and worked at a Quaker camp for youth. He facilitated young people's participation in opposing war and violence. Mr. Fox was a quiet and peaceful man, respectful of everyone, who believed that "there is that of God in every person" which is why work for peace was so important to him.
Below is a statement by CPT as well as CPT Iraq's statement of conviction and Tom's reflection "Why are we here?" For more information, please visit http://www.cpt.org/
Please pray for the family of Tom Fox, for James, Harmeet, and Norman, who are still being held in Iraq, and for all of those suffering as a result of occupation.
Peace,
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee - Palestine
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http://www.cpt.org/iraq/response/06-10-03statement.htm
CPT Release: We Mourn the Loss of Tom Fox
10 March 2006
In grief we tremble before God who wraps us with compassion. The death of our beloved colleague and friend pierces us with pain. Tom Fox’s body was found in Baghdad yesterday.
Christian Peacemaker Teams extends our deep and heartfelt condolences to the family and community of Tom Fox, with whom we have traveled so closely in these days of crisis.
We mourn the loss of Tom Fox who combined a lightness of spirit, a firm opposition to all oppression, and the recognition of God in everyone.
We renew our plea for the safe release of Harmeet Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember. Each of our teammates has responded to Jesus’ prophetic call to live out a nonviolent alternative to the cycle of violence and revenge.
In response to Tom’s passing, we ask that everyone set aside inclinations to vilify or demonize others, no matter what they have done. In Tom’s own words: "We reject violence to punish anyone. We ask that there be no retaliation on relatives or property. We forgive those who consider us their enemies. We hope that in loving both friends and enemies and by intervening nonviolently to aid those who are systematically oppressed, we can contribute in some small way to transforming this volatile situation.”
Even as we grieve the loss of our beloved colleague, we stand in the light of his strong witness to the power of love and the courage of nonviolence. That light reveals the way out of fear and grief and war.
Through these days of crisis, Christian Peacemaker Teams has been surrounded and upheld by a great outpouring of compassion: messages of support, acts of mercy, prayers, and public actions offered by the most senior religious councils and by school children, by political leaders and by those organizing for justice and human rights, by friends in distant nations and by strangers near at hand. These words and actions sustain us. While one of our teammates is lost to us, the strength of this outpouring is not lost to God’s movement for just peace among all peoples.
At the forefront of that support are strong and courageous actions from Muslim brothers and sisters throughout the world for which we are profoundly grateful. Their graciousness inspires us to continue working for the day when Christians speak up as boldly for the human rights of thousands Iraqis still detained illegally by the United States and United Kingdom.
Such an outpouring of action for justice and peace would be a fitting memorial for Tom. Let us all join our voices on behalf of those who continue to suffer under occupation, whose loved ones have been killed or are missing. In so doing, we may hasten the day when both those who are wrongly detained and those who bear arms will return safely to their homes. In such a peace we will find solace for our grief.
Despite the tragedy of this day, we remain committed to put into practice these words of Jim Loney: “With the waging of war, we will not comply. With the help of God’s grace, we will struggle for justice. With God’s abiding kindness, we will love even our enemies.” We continue in hope for Jim, Harmeet and Norman’s safe return home safe.
Contact: Dr. Doug Pritchard, CPT Co-Director 416-423-5525 (Canada) and Rev. Carol Rose, CPT Co-Director, Kryss Chupp, 773-277-0253 (USA)
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http://www.cpt.org/iraq/response/iraq_team_statement_of_conviction.htm
CPT in Iraq Statement of Conviction
March 2005
We, members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in Iraq, are aware of the many risks both Iraqis and internationals currently face. However, we are convinced at this time that the risks, while significant, do not outweigh our purpose in remaining.
Many Iraqi friends and human rights workers have welcomed us as a non-violent, independent presence. During the previous year they asked us to tell their stories, since they could not easily be heard, nor could most flee to a safer country. We continue to act as a resource to connect citizens of Iraq with human rights organizations, both local and international, as well as accompanying them as they interact with multinational military personnel and Iraqi provisional government officials.
As a peacemaking team we need to cross boundaries, help soldiers and other armed actors be humane, and invite them to refuse unjust orders. We need to help preserve what is human in all of us and so offer glimpses of hope in a dark time.
We unequivocally reject kidnapping and hostage-taking. In such an event, CPT will attempt to communicate with the hostage-takers or their sponsors and work against journalists' inclination to vilify and demonize the offenders. We will try to understand the motives for these actions, and to articulate them, while maintaining a firm stance that such actions are wrong. If appropriate, CPT will work with diplomatic officials from our representative governments to avoid a violent outcome.
We reject the use of violent force to save our lives should we be kidnapped, held hostage, or caught in the middle of a violent conflict situation. We also reject violence to punish anyone who harms us. We ask for equal justice in the arrest and trial of anyone, soldier or civilian, who commits an act of violence, and we ask that there be no retaliation on their relatives or property. We forgive those who consider us their enemies. Therefore, any penalty should be in the spirit of restorative justice, rather than in the form of violent retribution.
We hope that in loving both friends and enemies and by intervening non-violently to aid those who are systematically oppressed, we can contribute in some small way to transforming this volatile situation.
(Signed)
Tom Fox, Springfield, VA
(plus other members of the CPT Iraq team)
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http://www.cpt.org/archives/2005/dec05/0007.html
CPTnet
2 December 2005
IRAQ: "Why are we here?"
Most recent reflection by Tom Fox,
[Note: The following reflection was written by Tom Fox the day before he was
abducted.]
The Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) Iraq team went through a discernment
process, seeking to identify aspects of our work here in Iraq that are
compelling enough to continue the project and comparing them with the costs
(financial, psychological, physical) that are also aspects of the project.
It was a healthy exercise, but it led me to a somewhat larger question: Why
are we here?
If I understand the message of God, his response to that question is that we
are to take part in the creation of the Peaceable Realm of God. Again, if I
understand the message of God, how we take part in the creation of this
realm is to love God with all our heart, our mind and our strength and to
love our neighbors and enemies as we love God and ourselves. In its
essential form, different aspects of love bring about the creation of the
realm.
I have read that the word in the Greek Bible that is translated as "love" is
the word "agape." Again, I have read that this word is best expressed as a
profound respect for all human beings simply for the fact that they are all
God's children. I would state that idea in a somewhat different way, as
"never thinking or doing anything that would dehumanize one of my fellow
human beings."
As I survey the landscape here in Iraq, dehumanization seems to be the
operative means of relating to each other. U.S. forces in their quest to
hunt down and kill "terrorists" are, as a result of this dehumanizing word,
not only killing "terrorists," but also killing innocent Iraqis: men, women
and children in the various towns and villages.
It seems as if the first step down the road to violence is taken when I
dehumanize a person. That violence might stay within my thoughts or find its
way into the outer world and become expressed verbally, psychologically,
structurally or physically. As soon as I rob a fellow human being of his or
her humanity by sticking a dehumanizing label on them, I begin the process
that can have, as an end result, torture, injury and death.
"Why are we here?" We are here to root out all aspects of dehumanization
that exist within us. We are here to stand with those being dehumanized by
oppressors and stand firm against that dehumanization. We are here to stop
people, including ourselves, from dehumanizing any of God's children, no
matter how much they dehumanize their own souls.
___________________________________
14 March 2006
Dear Friends,
As many of you already know, the body of Tom Fox was found in Baghdad late last week. Tom was one of four Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) members abducted last November.
Tom Fox, age 54, from Clearbrook, Virginia, was a dedicated father of two children. For the past two years, Mr. Fox had worked with CPT in partnership with Iraqi human rights organizations to promote peace. Mr. Fox had been faithful in the observance of Quaker practice for 22 years. While in Iraq, he sought a more complete understanding of Islamic cultural richness. He was committed to telling the truth to U.S. citizens about the horrors of war and its effects on ordinary Iraqi civilians and families as a result of U.S. policies and practices. Mr. Fox was an accomplished musician. He played the bass clarinet and the recorder and loved to cook. He has also worked as a professional grocer. Mr. Fox devoted much of his time to working with children. He has served as an adult leader of youth programs and worked at a Quaker camp for youth. He facilitated young people's participation in opposing war and violence. Mr. Fox was a quiet and peaceful man, respectful of everyone, who believed that "there is that of God in every person" which is why work for peace was so important to him.
Below is a statement by CPT as well as CPT Iraq's statement of conviction and Tom's reflection "Why are we here?" For more information, please visit http://www.cpt.org/
Please pray for the family of Tom Fox, for James, Harmeet, and Norman, who are still being held in Iraq, and for all of those suffering as a result of occupation.
Peace,
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee - Palestine
___________________________________
http://www.cpt.org/iraq/response/06-10-03statement.htm
CPT Release: We Mourn the Loss of Tom Fox
10 March 2006
In grief we tremble before God who wraps us with compassion. The death of our beloved colleague and friend pierces us with pain. Tom Fox’s body was found in Baghdad yesterday.
Christian Peacemaker Teams extends our deep and heartfelt condolences to the family and community of Tom Fox, with whom we have traveled so closely in these days of crisis.
We mourn the loss of Tom Fox who combined a lightness of spirit, a firm opposition to all oppression, and the recognition of God in everyone.
We renew our plea for the safe release of Harmeet Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember. Each of our teammates has responded to Jesus’ prophetic call to live out a nonviolent alternative to the cycle of violence and revenge.
In response to Tom’s passing, we ask that everyone set aside inclinations to vilify or demonize others, no matter what they have done. In Tom’s own words: "We reject violence to punish anyone. We ask that there be no retaliation on relatives or property. We forgive those who consider us their enemies. We hope that in loving both friends and enemies and by intervening nonviolently to aid those who are systematically oppressed, we can contribute in some small way to transforming this volatile situation.”
Even as we grieve the loss of our beloved colleague, we stand in the light of his strong witness to the power of love and the courage of nonviolence. That light reveals the way out of fear and grief and war.
Through these days of crisis, Christian Peacemaker Teams has been surrounded and upheld by a great outpouring of compassion: messages of support, acts of mercy, prayers, and public actions offered by the most senior religious councils and by school children, by political leaders and by those organizing for justice and human rights, by friends in distant nations and by strangers near at hand. These words and actions sustain us. While one of our teammates is lost to us, the strength of this outpouring is not lost to God’s movement for just peace among all peoples.
At the forefront of that support are strong and courageous actions from Muslim brothers and sisters throughout the world for which we are profoundly grateful. Their graciousness inspires us to continue working for the day when Christians speak up as boldly for the human rights of thousands Iraqis still detained illegally by the United States and United Kingdom.
Such an outpouring of action for justice and peace would be a fitting memorial for Tom. Let us all join our voices on behalf of those who continue to suffer under occupation, whose loved ones have been killed or are missing. In so doing, we may hasten the day when both those who are wrongly detained and those who bear arms will return safely to their homes. In such a peace we will find solace for our grief.
Despite the tragedy of this day, we remain committed to put into practice these words of Jim Loney: “With the waging of war, we will not comply. With the help of God’s grace, we will struggle for justice. With God’s abiding kindness, we will love even our enemies.” We continue in hope for Jim, Harmeet and Norman’s safe return home safe.
Contact: Dr. Doug Pritchard, CPT Co-Director 416-423-5525 (Canada) and Rev. Carol Rose, CPT Co-Director, Kryss Chupp, 773-277-0253 (USA)
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http://www.cpt.org/iraq/response/iraq_team_statement_of_conviction.htm
CPT in Iraq Statement of Conviction
March 2005
We, members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in Iraq, are aware of the many risks both Iraqis and internationals currently face. However, we are convinced at this time that the risks, while significant, do not outweigh our purpose in remaining.
Many Iraqi friends and human rights workers have welcomed us as a non-violent, independent presence. During the previous year they asked us to tell their stories, since they could not easily be heard, nor could most flee to a safer country. We continue to act as a resource to connect citizens of Iraq with human rights organizations, both local and international, as well as accompanying them as they interact with multinational military personnel and Iraqi provisional government officials.
As a peacemaking team we need to cross boundaries, help soldiers and other armed actors be humane, and invite them to refuse unjust orders. We need to help preserve what is human in all of us and so offer glimpses of hope in a dark time.
We unequivocally reject kidnapping and hostage-taking. In such an event, CPT will attempt to communicate with the hostage-takers or their sponsors and work against journalists' inclination to vilify and demonize the offenders. We will try to understand the motives for these actions, and to articulate them, while maintaining a firm stance that such actions are wrong. If appropriate, CPT will work with diplomatic officials from our representative governments to avoid a violent outcome.
We reject the use of violent force to save our lives should we be kidnapped, held hostage, or caught in the middle of a violent conflict situation. We also reject violence to punish anyone who harms us. We ask for equal justice in the arrest and trial of anyone, soldier or civilian, who commits an act of violence, and we ask that there be no retaliation on their relatives or property. We forgive those who consider us their enemies. Therefore, any penalty should be in the spirit of restorative justice, rather than in the form of violent retribution.
We hope that in loving both friends and enemies and by intervening non-violently to aid those who are systematically oppressed, we can contribute in some small way to transforming this volatile situation.
(Signed)
Tom Fox, Springfield, VA
(plus other members of the CPT Iraq team)
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http://www.cpt.org/archives/2005/dec05/0007.html
CPTnet
2 December 2005
IRAQ: "Why are we here?"
Most recent reflection by Tom Fox,
[Note: The following reflection was written by Tom Fox the day before he was
abducted.]
The Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) Iraq team went through a discernment
process, seeking to identify aspects of our work here in Iraq that are
compelling enough to continue the project and comparing them with the costs
(financial, psychological, physical) that are also aspects of the project.
It was a healthy exercise, but it led me to a somewhat larger question: Why
are we here?
If I understand the message of God, his response to that question is that we
are to take part in the creation of the Peaceable Realm of God. Again, if I
understand the message of God, how we take part in the creation of this
realm is to love God with all our heart, our mind and our strength and to
love our neighbors and enemies as we love God and ourselves. In its
essential form, different aspects of love bring about the creation of the
realm.
I have read that the word in the Greek Bible that is translated as "love" is
the word "agape." Again, I have read that this word is best expressed as a
profound respect for all human beings simply for the fact that they are all
God's children. I would state that idea in a somewhat different way, as
"never thinking or doing anything that would dehumanize one of my fellow
human beings."
As I survey the landscape here in Iraq, dehumanization seems to be the
operative means of relating to each other. U.S. forces in their quest to
hunt down and kill "terrorists" are, as a result of this dehumanizing word,
not only killing "terrorists," but also killing innocent Iraqis: men, women
and children in the various towns and villages.
It seems as if the first step down the road to violence is taken when I
dehumanize a person. That violence might stay within my thoughts or find its
way into the outer world and become expressed verbally, psychologically,
structurally or physically. As soon as I rob a fellow human being of his or
her humanity by sticking a dehumanizing label on them, I begin the process
that can have, as an end result, torture, injury and death.
"Why are we here?" We are here to root out all aspects of dehumanization
that exist within us. We are here to stand with those being dehumanized by
oppressors and stand firm against that dehumanization. We are here to stop
people, including ourselves, from dehumanizing any of God's children, no
matter how much they dehumanize their own souls.
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Monday, March 6
MCC Palestine Update #119
MCC Palestine Update #119
6 March 2006
Standing in Bardalah
There is much that has not changed over the years in the village of Bardalah in the northern Jordan Valley of the West Bank. The Palestinian residents of this village continue to live very close to the land, depending largely on agriculture for their subsistence.
Recently, Mennonite Central Committee along with Catholic Relief Services (http://www.crs.org/) partnered with the Palestinian Hydrology Group (http://www.phg.org/index1.html) in a hydrology project in this small Palestinian village. Bardalah sits on about 400 dunams (4 dunams = 1 acre) of land and is home to about 2700 Palestinians. They have there own school and a medical clinic and rely on the land for much of their livelihood. Growing fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, cauliflower, and squash can be challenging in the climate of the Jordan Valley. That is why projects such as these go a long way.
This project in particular saw the building of 4 cement pools in Bardalah. These pools, which will collect rainwater in the winter season and store water in the summer, will supply water to 60 dunams of farmland, benefiting 90 farmers. In addition to the pools, 500 meters of new irrigation pipes were installed as part of the project. This is the third phase of a joint hydrology project to provide emergency assistance to Palestinian farmers affected by the separation wall. It has included projects in Bardalah’s neighboring village of ‘Ein el-Beida, in the northern Jordan Valley, and in the West Bank village of Jayyus where the separation wall has cut off over three hundred families from their farm lands, having a serious economic impact on this village that relies heavily on agriculture.
Palestinian livelihoods continue to be devastated in the process as more land is being expropriated for the construction of this 430-mile / 700-km separation barrier that has little to do with security and terrorism, built not on the internationally recognized boundary referred to as the “Green Line” but instead on Palestinian land, cutting deeply into the West Bank (“Under the Guise of Security: Routing the Separation Barrier to Enable Israeli Settlement Expansion in the West Bank,”
http://www.btselem.org/english/Publications/summaries/
200512_Under_the_Guise_of_Security.asp; “B’Tselem: Fence route directly linked to plan for settlement expansion,’” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/685938.html).
When the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank began in 1967, the Israeli military began to dismantle and prohibit the water well pumping facilities the villagers of Bardalah depended on for their agricultural development, leaving them only with the option to buy water from Israeli water companies. Israeli policy of time and supply constraints on the water supplied to these communities has made it very difficult for farmers to irrigate their fields. These pools will help farmers to not need to buy as much water from Israel, providing them with free access to water for their lands.
Though this story of occupation and dispossession is unfortunately also something that has not changed over the years, neither has Palestinian resistance to this injustice.
Between 1976 and 1988, MCC was engaged in a rural development program that focused on protecting Palestinian land and water rights, both of which were under attack from the Israeli occupation. “In the context of aggressive Israeli policies of confiscating Palestinian land for settlements and weakening the Palestinian agricultural sector,” MCC worker Ibrahim Matar described the objectives of this program as “to develop the land and water resources, increase food production, increase income, self-reliance and steadfastness of the farming communities on their land. These objectives are intended to counter the policies of the authorities of land seizures, dispossession, displacement and impoverishment” (See Alain Epp Weaver and Sonia K. Weaver, Salt & Sign: Mennonite Central Committee in Palestine, 1949-1999 (MCC, 1999), 56)
Only recently, five families in Bardalah were dispossessed, expelled from the homes they lived in for 40 years.
As continues to be the case now, the lack of an adequate water supply for farming was due not simply to the limited amount of available groundwater and spring water, but also to the Israeli military refusal to allow Palestinian farmers permission to drill wells.
The village of Bardalah was the sight of one of the first projects in this program, mainly due to their outdated irrigation methods, and to the fact that their lands were under threat of confiscation from nearby settlements. In addition to introducing drip irrigation methods and providing material at a cheaper cost, MCC also conducted training for farmers in how to fit and maintain drip systems, distributing the necessary tools so that farmers could be self-sufficient in the assembly and repair of pipes (Salt & Sign, 57).
Had it not been for these efforts, not only would Bardalah have faced the serious danger of running out of water for agriculture, Ibrahim Matar believed that their land also would have been expropriated. “The Israeli settlement of Meholah, for example, had made moves on the lands of Bardalah village. With the support of MCC, Bardalah villagers were able to surround the settlement with fields supplied by drip irrigation systems, stymieing land confiscation” (Salt & Sign, 57-58).
And to this day, despite the destructive effect of Israeli army tanks driving through the farmland of Bardalah, 3 km of drip irrigation line installed with the support of MCC in the mid-1970’s continues to function.
In this context, the seemingly mundane tasks of farming become a form of resistance.
***
In addition to the threat of settlement expansion in the Jordan Valley, today there is also the impact of the separation barrier to the north that has also served to maintain the Palestinian experience of dispossession by expropriating more Palestinian land (“The Eastern Wall: Closing the circle of our ghettoization,” http://stopthewall.org/analysisandfeatures/1042.shtml; “Palestinians stand up against expulsion from Jordan Valley,” http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/1101.shtml).
Israeli colonization and annexation of the Jordan Valley has been made clearer in several recent reports (“Israel cuts off eastern West Bank from rest of West Bank,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/681938.html; “Israel excludes Palestinians from fertile valley,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1709278,00.html; “Israel ‘has annexed Jordan Valley and shut out Palestinians,’” http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
article345298.ece; “Israel has de facto annexed the Jordan Valley,” http://www.btselem.org/English/Settlements/20060213_
Annexation_of_the_Jordan_Valley.asp)
In fact, these intentions have been recently reiterated by Israeli acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who has stated that Israel will soon move to define its international borders to include the major Israeli settlement blocs illegally built on occupied Palestinian territory as well as the whole of the Jordan Valley (“Olmert vows to set final borders,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4709834.stm; “Olmert: Next Knesset must determine Israel's final borders,”
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/682351.html; “Israel unveils plan to encircle Palestinian state,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1705021,00.html; “Report: Olmert would keep 3 settlement blocs, Jordan Valley,” http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/679959.html).
Interestingly, Israel is one of the only states in the world without defined international borders. But Israel’s moves to define its borders is happening unilaterally, without consideration for the Palestinians it will effect, and in violation of the international communities call—laid out most recently in the “Road Map”—not to take any unilateral steps that would impact a final solution. However, there is nothing new with this agenda, as it is in line with Ariel Sharon’s vision of “maximum territory, minimum Arabs.” (“Maximum Territory, Minimum Arabs,” http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=11389; “The Paradox of Jerusalem,” http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=7697&CategoryId=5; “The Road to Bantustan,” http://miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=2718&CategoryId=5).
Such a move only reflects the reality of the “facts on the ground” already established by illegal Israeli colonies and the illegal separation wall. The construction of the wall itself has been a unilateral move by an occupying power in violation of international law, not a negotiated or agreed upon “border” between two sovereign states. Unfortunately, this wall along with the annexation of the Jordan Valley will become the de facto border of a Palestinian “state” composed of about 7 to 11 isolated “reservations” on roughly 40 to 50 percent of the West Bank, completely surrounded by Israel.
***
Indeed, much has not changed over the years for the people of Bardalah. And the witness that Mennonite Central Committee has borne over the years has become part of that story—a story of ongoing occupation and dispossession accompanied by ongoing resistance to injustice and persistent hope for a better future. May the future of Mennonite Central Committee in Palestine continue to bear witness to a commitment to resist injustice for the “least of these” (Matthew 25).
‘From the Desert May Bloom Justice and Peace’ – A Meditation for Lent
There are traditionally forty days in Lent which are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance. The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigor during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbor). The theme of justice defines the status of these relationships.
We would like to leave you with a meditation and a prayer as we begin this lenten season. May it also be a challenge as we move through these days of prayer, repentance, fasting, almsgiving, and abstinence.
‘From the desert may bloom justice and peace’ - a meditation for Lent (http://www.christianaid.org.uk/worship/403lent/reflection.htm)
Help us, Lord, to face our demons, our powers, as you faced yours. You were a man of power who could change stones to bread, conquer kingdoms and fall from the Temple roof without harm. You spent forty days searching for the way to use your powers for the coming of the Father's Reign of Peace, Justice and Holiness.
Help us to use our baptismal powers in the same way. Help us to use our anger at injustice in ways that will effect change, get things done and give witness in word and deed to the Reign you so ardently desired. Help us to use our lust not to abuse or exploit but rather to discover what are our deeper hungers and thirsts so that from the desert may bloom justice and peace.
Help us to overcome our sloth so that from indifference we may turn to deep concern for others who suffer and die because there is no one to turn the stones of hunger into bread, to build a society founded on justice and solidarity and to practise true religion which defends the widow and orphan and gives shelter to the stranger.
Peace to you all,
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· “Fears of new Israeli settlement as wall completed around Bethlehem,” OpenBethlehem.org, 28 February 2006
· Aluf Benn, “Olmert to seek int'l support for West Bank withdrawal,” Haaretz, 5 March 2006
· John Petrovato, “Waiting for the Palestinian Gandhi,” Palestine Chronicle, 1 March 2006
· Daoud Kuttab, “Arab peoples’ right to choose,” The Jerusalem Post, 26 February 2006
· Paul Oestreicher, “Israel's policies are feeding the cancer of anti-semitism,” The Guardian, 20 February 2006
· Gideon Levy, “As the Hamas team laughs,” Haaretz, 19 February 2006
· Amira Hass, “In Ze’evi’s footsteps,” Haaretz, 15 February 2006
· Amira Hass, “Israel cuts off eastern West Bank from rest of West Bank,” Haaretz, 13 February 2006
· Gideon Levy, “Enlightenment in Eli,” Haaretz, 12 February 2006
· Moshe Behar, “Singling out the Palestinians? Reciprocal demands are the key to peace,” The Electronic Intifada, 11 February 2006
· Chris McGreal, “Israel unveils plan to encircle Palestinian state,” The Guardian, 8 February 2006
· Omar Barghouti, “Israeli Apartheid: Time for the South African Treatment,” PACBI.org, 28 January 2006
· Alison Weir, “Anatomy of a Cover-Up: When a Mother Gets Killed Does She Make a Sound?” IMEMC.org, 27 January 2006
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Open Bethlehem
Fears of new Israeli settlement as wall completed around Bethlehem
28 February 2006
The final section of Israel’s wall separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem will be completed in a matter of days.
The wall around Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem will not only sever the connection between the region’s most holy Christian sites, but will also herald the creation of a new ‘fact on the ground’ - an illegal Jewish settlement which will be home to some of Israel’s most extremist religious groups.
The ultra-orthodox Kever Rahel Fund announced last year that it intended to build about 400 apartments at the site. This week their work has begun. Settlers are planning to move into houses around the tomb as soon as the wall is completed.
Bethlehem’s population fears that town will become another Hebron– where Jewish extremists have expelled Palestinians from their homes and with the support of the Israeli army, intimidate and harass the local population. Hebron was once the busiest shopping town in the region, but is now a ghost town. Christian Peacemaker Teams have a permanent presence there to monitor and report abuses by the army and settlers on local people.
A former member of the Israeli parliament, Hanan Porat, was quoted today in Israeli newspaper Haaretz : "With the help of God we are progressing toward maintaining a permanent Jewish presence and a fixed yeshiva in Rachel's Tomb, as Rabbi Kook [religious Zionist fundamentalist] urged, and bringing Israelis back to where they belong."
Please read more at http://www.openbethlehem.org
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Haaretz
Olmert to seek int'l support for West Bank withdrawal
Aluf Benn
5 March 2006
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is planning to enlist international support for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from parts of the West Bank, if he wins the elections. Olmert believes that the first objective of the next government will be to create a supportive international environment for implementing Israel's national goals: setting its borders and ensuring a Jewish majority.
Olmert will try to persuade the American administration and the key players in the international community that unless Hamas alters its positions, they must support a unilateral Israeli move to determine the border in the West Bank. In his view, Israel has managed to muster broad international support for the conditions it imposed on the Hamas government, and this must be kept up until after the elections. Only then will it begin to promote the unilateral initiative.
Since the Hamas victory in the Palestinian legislative elections, Olmert has been referring less and less to the "road map" peace plan. Some of his advisers told him to stick with that plan, which enjoys American support and is accepted in the international community as the basis for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. But Olmert thinks he would make a fool of himself were he to continue talking about the road map, as though the political circumstances had not changed following the Palestinian polls…
Olmert thinks that besides the blocs, Israel should control the Jordan Valley and Jewish holy sites. The senior sources ventured that the American administration would refuse to give Israel guarantees on the matter of Jerusalem, considered the most sensitive topic in any permanent agreement.
The defense establishment is in favor of a unilateral move that would include completing the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip and another pullout in the West Bank.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/690007.html
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Palestine Chronicle
Waiting for the Palestinian Gandhi
John Petrovato
1 March 2006
I offer two examples of these invisible Gandhis who I have personally met: Ghassan Andoni and Sherif Omar.
During a recent lecture at the University of Oregon, Yuval Rabin, son of the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was asked if he believed that a Palestinian leader would emerge promoting peace with Israel. Rabin expressed skepticism: "We can't wait 300 to 400 decades waiting for the Palestinian Gandhi to emerge". By making this statement Yuval Rabin reiterates the often-repeated sentiments that "there is no Palestinian Gandhi" nor are Palestinians inclined to be peaceful and utilize nonviolence as a tactic for their grievances. Palestinians, it is believed, have instead chosen violence and terror to try to achieve their aims.
But have Palestinians really forsaken nonviolence? Have commentators around the world really forgotten the popular nonviolent uprising they celebrated during the first Intifada? And what of the Israeli occupation of Palestine? Why is occupation not seen as a form of violence?
Palestinians have utilized myriad techniques of nonviolent resistance including strikes, boycotts, tax revolts and peaceful demonstrations. While the second Intifada has been pocked with more incidences of violence, nonviolence is still utilized to a great degree. Indeed, not a week goes by where Palestinians have not organized major nonviolent demonstrations. Just this week, for instance, there have been nonviolent protests in Bal’ein, Beit Sira, and Aaboud villages west of Ramallah. All these villages, and dozens of others, have had peace protests regularly over the past year. But like past protests, the protests this week (against the seizure of Palestinian lands for the building of the "separation wall") were met with violence by the Israeli military. The military fired rubber coated metal bullets (real bullets with a very thin rubber membrane) that injured a half a dozen people, fired tear gas and physically assaulted and detained 15 men. Of course, Americans never hear of peaceful demonstrations that are brutally repressed. Not only are protesters fired upon with rubber coated metal bullets and tear gas, they are beaten with clubs, dragged, chained to their vehicles, and arrested. The ignorance of the American public to both the nonviolent protests and the violet responses of the Israeli government must be largely blamed on the media.
How and why are such wide scale practices of nonviolence invisible?…
In response to the question: "why is there not a Palestinian Gandhi?" we must ultimately blame the Western media for distorting real events on the ground, for not providing context for reports that are made, and for irresponsibly misleading the pubic. These are serious issues of life and death and the media’s failure to adequately represent the situation must be seen as criminal. Rather than ask, "why is there not a Palestinian Gandhi?", we should consider the question posed by the Palestinian human rights activist, Arjan El Fassed: "why is there not an Israeli De Klerk?"
Please read more at http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=030106210355
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The Jerusalem Post
Arab peoples' right to choose
Daoud Kuttab
26 February 2006
I have been and continue to be an enthusiastic supporter of President Bush's (and anybody else's) mission to spread democracy. I would argue, as President Bush has done, that this is the most natural yearning of all peoples. My problem is that the US and its lead regional ally seem to stop short of their zeal for democracy once the result doesn't please them…
On the other hand, the US and its allies must approach Hamas's victory with an open mind and without looking at this Islamic group strictly from the point of view of right-wing Israelis.
To begin with, as a Palestinian Christian I must confess that I am not excited about the success of Hamas on the social as well as the national level. But I would not for a moment agree to deny it the opportunity to govern our people.
During the month since its election, the general mood among almost all my friends who would never dream of voting for Hamas has been total support for it to govern. In fact, since its election many have been discovering the depth of the problems and corruption that have dogged Palestinian society for some time.
For this reason, attempts to punish our people through denying us the taxes Israel collects for the Palestinian Authority, or the small grants from USAID earmarked for the Palestinian people, are completely unfair and unacceptable. Compared to the billions of dollars American taxpayers transfer to Israel (in military and civilian aid), allowing it to perpetuate the conflict, the small grants to Palestinians are nothing more than small change.
International humanitarian law lays down that the Israeli occupiers should ensure all the public needs of the people under occupation. By denying Palestinians the freedom to move people and goods, by blocking financial support, the Israeli action can be described as a declaration of war against the Palestinian people.
Please read more at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1139395494945&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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The Guardian
Israel's policies are feeding the cancer of anti-semitism
Paul Oestreicher
20 February 2006
The chief rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, is right. His reaction to the Anglican synod's call for sanctions against Israel is understandable. Hatred of Judaism - now commonly called anti-semitism - is a virus that has infected Christendom for two millennia. It continues to stalk the world despite its most virulent outbreak in Nazi Germany. It should not be left untreated. For too many it remains the unlearned lesson of the Holocaust. It should haunt decent Christians for generations to come.
The German pope knows that particularly well and is on the battle lines against it. On this issue, nothing divides him from the Archbishop of Canterbury and most other church leaders. If, as some now think, today's Jews are the Muslims - hatred transferred - that simply means there is a battle to maintain our common humanity on more than one front. All collective hatreds poison the body politic.
I say this as the child of a German Jewish-born father who escaped in time. His mother did not. I say it as a half-Jewish German child chased around a British playground in the second world war and taunted with "he's not just a German, he's a Jew". A double insult. But I say this too as a Christian priest who shares the historic guilt of all the churches. All Christians share a bloody inheritance.
If I feel all that in my guts and know it in my head, I cannot stand by and watch the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - one of the world's most dangerous outbreaks of collective hatred - as a dispassionate onlooker. I cannot listen calmly when an Iranian president talks of wiping out Israel. Jewish fears go deep. They are not irrational. But I cannot listen calmly either when a great many citizens of Israel think and speak of Palestinians in the way a great many Germans thought and spoke about Jews when I was one of them and had to flee…
But the main objective of my writing today, is to nail the lie that to reject Zionism as it practised today is in effect to be anti-semitic, to be an inheritor of Hitler's racism. That argument, with the Holocaust in the background, is nothing other than moral blackmail. It is highly effective. It condemns many to silence who fear to be thought anti-semitic. They are often the very opposite. They are often people whose heart bleeds at Israel's betrayal of its true heritage.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,1713545,00.html
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Haaretz
As the Hamas team laughs
Gideon Levy
19 February 2006
The Hamas team had not laughed so much in a long time. The team, headed by the prime minister's advisor Dov Weissglas and including the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, the director of the Shin Bet and senior generals and officials, convened for a discussion with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on ways to respond to the Hamas election victory. Everyone agreed on the need to impose an economic siege on the Palestinian Authority, and Weissglas, as usual, provided the punch line: "It's like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won't die," the advisor joked, and the participants reportedly rolled with laughter. And, indeed, why not break into laughter and relax when hearing such a successful joke? If Weissglas tells the joke to his friend Condoleezza Rice, she would surely laugh too.
But Weissglas' wisecrack was in particularly poor taste. Like the thunder of laughter it elicited, it again revealed the extent to which Israel's intoxication with power drives it crazy and completely distorts its morality. With a single joke, the successful attorney and hedonist from Lilenblum Street, Tel Aviv demonstrated the chilling heartlessness that has spread throughout the top echelon of Israel's society and politics. While masses of Palestinians are living in inhumane conditions, with horrifying levels of unemployment and poverty that are unknown in Israel, humiliated and incarcerated under our responsibility and culpability, the top military and political brass share a hearty laugh a moment before deciding to impose an economic siege that will be even more brutal than the one until now.
The proposal to put hungry people on a diet is accepted here without shock, without public criticism; even if only said in jest, it is incomparably worse than the Danish caricature. It reflects a widespread mood that will usher in cruel, practical measures. If until now one could argue that Israel primarily demonstrated insensitivity to the suffering of the other and closed its eyes (especially the stronger classes, busy with their lives of plenty) while a complete nation was groaning only a few kilometers away, now Israel is also making jokes at the expense of the other's suffering.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/684258.html
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Haaretz
In Ze'evi's footsteps
Amira Hass
15 February 2006
The Oslo architects designated most of the eastern West Bank as Area C (full Israeli control), which is off-limits to Palestinian development. Only the settlements were allowed to develop, thanks primarily to the theft and exploitation of Palestinian water sources. A military training zone, where the IDF has conducted exercises ever since it conquered the West Bank, occupies 475 square kilometers of the valley and impairs the traditional lifestyle of thousands of semi-nomadic or Bedouin shepherds in the area. These shepherds are frequently turned out of their tents or forbidden to graze their sheep on these expanses or to raise a little wheat and produce for food.
At one time the explanation was that this is a firing range; once it was an issue of illegal construction. Just last Thursday, civil administration personnel demolished the tents, tin huts and sheepfolds of some 20 agricultural families in five different places in the valley. It is clear what scares the Israeli planners: A significant portion of the Palestinian communities in the valley turned from seasonal extensions of villages in the northern West Bank into permanent communities in the middle of the last century. Jews are encouraged to settle in the valley, but every conceivable method is used to deter Palestinians from doing so.
Preventing development and halting a long-standing natural process of construction and population expansion is a form of emptying out. But over the last few months, this effort expanded to include active measures: From time to time, soldiers come during the night and remove to the other side of the checkpoint those who live or work in the valley but whose official address is elsewhere. In the morning, these people return via the hills, evading the soldiers, taking the risk of stepping on a dud artillery shell.
And in October, people were given another reason to become fed up with life in the valley: Palestinian farmers were prevented from selling their produce to Israeli farmers at the nearest border crossing between the valley and Israel. Instead of traveling five kilometers, they were forced to travel 50, to a distant cargo terminal (Jalameh), and to wait endlessly at the internal checkpoints, knowing that a large portion of their vegetables would be spoiled by the sun and the bumping around. Knowing that there would be no reward for their labor.
The army swears that these prohibitions bear no relation to the politicians' declarations that the valley will remain in Israel's hands forever. But in practice, they are helping to empty it of Palestinians, in preparation for its official annexation to Israel.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/682885.html
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Haaretz
Israel cuts off eastern West Bank from rest of West Bank
Amira Hass
13 February 2006
While the international community busied itself with the disengagement from the Gaza Strip last summer, Israel completed another cut-off process, which went unnoticed: Israel completed cutting off the eastern sector of the West Bank from the remainder of the West Bank in 2005.
Some 2,000,000 Palestinians, residents of the West Bank, are prohibited from entering the area, which constitutes around one-third of the West Bank, and includes the Jordan Valley, the area of the Dead Sea shoreline and the eastern slopes of the West Bank mountains.
Military sources told Haaretz that the moves have been "security measures" adopted by the Israel Defense Forces, and have no connection to any political intentions whatsoever.
Restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley were imposed at the start of the intifada, and were gradually expanded. But the sweeping prohibition regarding entry into the area by Palestinians was imposed, in fact, after security responsibility in Jericho was given back to the Palestinians on March 16, 2005.
At the time, Palestinian sources say, Palestinian travelers coming across the Allenby Bridge (the West Bank's only direct link overseas) were banned from passing through the Jordan Valley even if they were heading to the northern West Bank and the villages adjacent to the valley's checkpoints. Instead, the travelers are required to go through Jericho, and from there, the road is long and filled with checkpoints and delays.
In addition to affecting others, the prohibition also applies to thousands of residents of towns and villages in the northern West Bank, like Tubas and Tamun, most of whose lands are in the Jordan Valley, and some of whose residents have been living there for many years. The residents of the Jordan Valley villages are tied to the northern West Bank villages through family connections, joint land ownership, work, schooling, and medical and social services.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/681938.html
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Haaretz
Enlightenment in Eli
Gideon Levy
12 February 2006
The head of the Shin Bet, Yuval Diskin, suddenly emerged from the shadows and revealed the main principles of his worldview. Revealed? Not exactly. Diskin did not intend to reveal his views to all of us. He spoke confidentially before students at the premilitary academy at the Eli settlement. Thanks to Channel 10, which obtained a recording of the event, the remarks were given public exposure.
Channel 10's news department deserves praise for the achievement. Diskin deserves to be denounced. First, because of the venue: Why do the students of Rabbi Eli Sadan deserve to hear what is withheld from the rest of the public? Why is the settlers' academy more worthy than us? Would Diskin speak with such openness before left-wing activists or residents of Umm al-Fahm? Why in heaven's name in Eli of all places, which was born in sin and exists in sin? Diskin chose to speak at a place that nurtures the wild weeds of the settlers - perhaps to placate them, perhaps to flatter them.
The content of his remarks also raises serious questions. Diskin said some forthright and bold things that were sharply critical. But he said them as if he has no part in shaping the reality. Diskin is not a neutral observer looking at reality. He is one of those responsible for the way reality looks. Thus, in effect, he broadened the borders of the useless concept "shooting and crying." Now we also have "depriving and crying" and "erring and crying."
This applies, for example, to his remarks about the deprivation the Arabs of Israel suffer: "If we take an Israeli Arab from Umm al-Fahm with an Israeli identity card and a Jew who is arrested, I don't identify equality in the way the system treats him. The discrimination is much more in favor of the Jews than the Arabs." Putting aside his ineloquent language, we can ask: Who exactly is this "system" that deprives the Arabs? Who is responsible for the fact that an arrested "Noam" is treated differently than an arrested "Naim?" We are not only talking about interrogation rooms. There is no organization more responsible for the deprivation of the Arab citizens of the state - because of "security" excuses that are generally groundless - than the Shin Bet that Diskin heads. When they are humiliated at the airports, when security guards deny them access to various events only because of their origin, when they are not allowed to receive jobs at state institutions and government companies, and when they are charged with serious security offenses that turn out in court to be of minor import, the Shin Bet is responsible for this.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=681518&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sb
SubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
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The Electronic Intifada
Singling out the Palestinians? Reciprocal demands are the key to peace
Moshe Behar
11 February 2006
SDEROT -- In and around Israel's "capital of the Qassam rockets," where I teach, the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections has left Israelis as divided as always. While some think that it can be a positive development - as Hamas is probably the sole Palestinian party capable of delivering on a binding Israeli-Palestinian agreement - others deem this wishful thinking and believe the existing Israeli-Palestinian gridlock will continue for years to come. A recent poll reflects this ambivalence with 48% of Israelis favoring a dialogue with Hamas and 43% against.
Amid this internal Israeli debate, the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations - the so-called Middle East Quartet - delivered an insufficiently helpful message. Erroneously convinced that they had 'lined up in solidarity' with us, Israeli Jews, the Quartet lost no time declaring that Hamas "must be committed to nonviolence, recognize Israel and accept the previous agreements and commitments."
Appropriate as these words may or may not be, even entering students in Sderot understand that any political tango takes two to succeed and that singling out Hamas for special treatment is certain to benefit neither Israelis nor Palestinians in this troubled land. Why, therefore, has the Quartet never declared that "Israel must be committed to nonviolence, recognize a Palestinian state and accept the previous agreements and commitments"?
Self-proclaimed "pro-Israeli" individuals are likely to label this proposition preposterous; yet the honest among them must recall two empirical facts. First, an examination of the pattern of "violence" of the past five years reveals that the Palestinian-Israeli ratio of deaths stands at 4:1. Thus, ending this violence depends as much on Israel's compliance with the Quartet's terms as with the Palestinians…
If the Quartet - or anyone else for that matter - genuinely cares for the wellbeing of us, Israelis and Palestinians, they should cease playing the game of lopsided demands. For any hope to bring us nearer to a just and peaceful settlement, reciprocal demands should be made not just on the democratically elected representatives of the stateless occupied society, but also on those of the occupying state. Ultimately, that would be the most pro-Israel stance of all. And if there would be no peace in Beit Hanoun, there certainly wouldn't be peace in Sderot as well and vice versa.
Please read more at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4482.shtml
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The Guardian
Israel unveils plan to encircle Palestinian state
Chris McGreal
8 February 2006
The acting Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said yesterday that he plans to annex the Jordan Valley and major Jewish settlement blocks to Israel in drawing new borders, according to a television station that recorded an interview with him yesterday.
In Mr Olmert's first policy statement since he succeeded Ariel Sharon last month, Channel 2 television said that he made clear he intends to carry through his predecessor's vision of creating an emasculated Palestinian state on Israel's terms.
If the Jewish state were to annex all of the Jordan Valley, which is dotted with small settlements, it would leave a future Palestinian state on the West Bank entirely surrounded by Israel and without a direct link to neighbouring countries.
The interview was to be broadcast late last night. Channel 2's political affairs reporter, Nissim Mishal, told Army radio that Mr Olmert, who is favourite to win next month's general election, also plans further unilateral withdrawals similar to the settler pullout from Gaza last summer.
"He talked about Israel having to maintain a Jewish majority in the state of Israel, meaning that we have to create a new border, what is called final borders. He knows that we can't negotiate with Hamas. So the only conclusion that can be derived from this is that, in order to reach final borders, Israel will have to carry out additional [unilateral] withdrawals," said Mishal.
Mr Olmert said he intends to annex the three main settlement blocks of Ariel, Gush Etzion and Maale Adumim as well as the Jordan Valley, the TV station said…
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1705021,00.html
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PACBI.org
Israeli Apartheid: Time for the South African Treatment
Omar Barghouti
28 January 2006
By now, most Palestinians recognize Israel’s entrenched system of colonialism, racism and denial of basic human rights as a form of apartheid. In fact, Palestinians are far from alone in holding this view of Israel; leading South African intellectuals, politicians and human rights advocates subscribe to the same school of thought. For instance, in an article in the Guardian tellingly entitled “Apartheid in the Holy Land,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote:
“I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. […] Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon?”[1]
In fact, many Jews have not forgotten. Inside Israel, some Jewish politicians and journalists have made clear analogies between Israel and South Africa. Roman Bronfman, Chair of the Democratic Choice faction in the Yahad party, criticized what he termed “an apartheid regime in the occupied territories,” adding, “The policy of apartheid has also infiltrated sovereign Israel, and discriminates daily against Israeli Arabs and other minorities. The struggle against such a fascist viewpoint is the job of every humanist.”[2]
Esther Levitan, the Jewish grandmother once condemned to indefinite solitary confinement without trial in apartheid South Africa for her activism in the ANC, admitted in an interview with Ha’aretz that she considered Israel appallingly racist, saying: “Israelis have this loathsome hatred of Arabs that makes me sick. […] They will create a worse apartheid here.”[3]
What could have stirred all this moral indignation, one may wonder? The following representative samples of Israeli oppression of the three main parts of the Palestinian people (under occupation, in exile and in Israel) may help answer this question.
Please read more at http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=123_0_1_0_C
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International Middle East Media Center
Anatomy of a Cover-Up: When a Mother Gets Killed Does She Make a Sound?
Alison Weir
27 January 2006
Why don't Americans Know what's going on in Israel/Palestine?
The answer is unclear at this point, but some disturbing patterns are beginning to emerge. They implicate some of our major news media, and, perhaps most of all, the Associated Press, the oldest and largest wire service in the world. Most American editors and journalists have no idea what is occurring under their watch. To date, there is little indication that they care.
Before dawn on January 15th, an Israeli special forces unit killed a Palestinian mother and her 24-year-old son in their home. The mother had three bullets in her; the son 15. The Israeli soldiers also shot and wounded the woman's husband and four other family members: young women were shot in the pelvis and chest, young men in the foot, chest, torso, liver. The firing lasted over an hour. Then the Israeli squad shot at an arriving ambulance and prevented it for 45 minutes from tending to the dying, bleeding family.
It was all the result of a "misunderstanding," as the Israeli press put it.
The Israeli special forces commandos, invading a Palestinian village, had mistakenly taken a man standing guard in his home against vandalism for a resistance fighter. At first the Israeli military claimed that the now-dead man had shot at them, but before long the soldiers admitted that they had fired first. They saw the man cock his gun, they explain. The soldiers say, and at least some witnesses concur, that after they killed the man, someone from inside the house returned their fire. The soldiers claim that they then continued to shoot, but that their firing was "precise and limited." The husband says that even when he yelled at them to stop, that his wife and son were dead, the onslaught continued for at least an hour. None of the Israeli soldiers were killed or wounded…
That day and since, the US press has carried long news stories on Israel/Palestine. Yet, almost none of the reports have mentioned the above incident. The Boston Globe seems to have missed it entirely, as did the Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Constitution, the Baltimore Sun, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, a multitude of other papers across the country, and, it appears, every mainstream American television and radio network.
Please read more at http://www.imemc.org/content/view/16309/1/
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6 March 2006
Standing in Bardalah
There is much that has not changed over the years in the village of Bardalah in the northern Jordan Valley of the West Bank. The Palestinian residents of this village continue to live very close to the land, depending largely on agriculture for their subsistence.
Recently, Mennonite Central Committee along with Catholic Relief Services (http://www.crs.org/) partnered with the Palestinian Hydrology Group (http://www.phg.org/index1.html) in a hydrology project in this small Palestinian village. Bardalah sits on about 400 dunams (4 dunams = 1 acre) of land and is home to about 2700 Palestinians. They have there own school and a medical clinic and rely on the land for much of their livelihood. Growing fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, cauliflower, and squash can be challenging in the climate of the Jordan Valley. That is why projects such as these go a long way.
This project in particular saw the building of 4 cement pools in Bardalah. These pools, which will collect rainwater in the winter season and store water in the summer, will supply water to 60 dunams of farmland, benefiting 90 farmers. In addition to the pools, 500 meters of new irrigation pipes were installed as part of the project. This is the third phase of a joint hydrology project to provide emergency assistance to Palestinian farmers affected by the separation wall. It has included projects in Bardalah’s neighboring village of ‘Ein el-Beida, in the northern Jordan Valley, and in the West Bank village of Jayyus where the separation wall has cut off over three hundred families from their farm lands, having a serious economic impact on this village that relies heavily on agriculture.
Palestinian livelihoods continue to be devastated in the process as more land is being expropriated for the construction of this 430-mile / 700-km separation barrier that has little to do with security and terrorism, built not on the internationally recognized boundary referred to as the “Green Line” but instead on Palestinian land, cutting deeply into the West Bank (“Under the Guise of Security: Routing the Separation Barrier to Enable Israeli Settlement Expansion in the West Bank,”
http://www.btselem.org/english/Publications/summaries/
200512_Under_the_Guise_of_Security.asp; “B’Tselem: Fence route directly linked to plan for settlement expansion,’” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/685938.html).
When the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank began in 1967, the Israeli military began to dismantle and prohibit the water well pumping facilities the villagers of Bardalah depended on for their agricultural development, leaving them only with the option to buy water from Israeli water companies. Israeli policy of time and supply constraints on the water supplied to these communities has made it very difficult for farmers to irrigate their fields. These pools will help farmers to not need to buy as much water from Israel, providing them with free access to water for their lands.
Though this story of occupation and dispossession is unfortunately also something that has not changed over the years, neither has Palestinian resistance to this injustice.
Between 1976 and 1988, MCC was engaged in a rural development program that focused on protecting Palestinian land and water rights, both of which were under attack from the Israeli occupation. “In the context of aggressive Israeli policies of confiscating Palestinian land for settlements and weakening the Palestinian agricultural sector,” MCC worker Ibrahim Matar described the objectives of this program as “to develop the land and water resources, increase food production, increase income, self-reliance and steadfastness of the farming communities on their land. These objectives are intended to counter the policies of the authorities of land seizures, dispossession, displacement and impoverishment” (See Alain Epp Weaver and Sonia K. Weaver, Salt & Sign: Mennonite Central Committee in Palestine, 1949-1999 (MCC, 1999), 56)
Only recently, five families in Bardalah were dispossessed, expelled from the homes they lived in for 40 years.
As continues to be the case now, the lack of an adequate water supply for farming was due not simply to the limited amount of available groundwater and spring water, but also to the Israeli military refusal to allow Palestinian farmers permission to drill wells.
The village of Bardalah was the sight of one of the first projects in this program, mainly due to their outdated irrigation methods, and to the fact that their lands were under threat of confiscation from nearby settlements. In addition to introducing drip irrigation methods and providing material at a cheaper cost, MCC also conducted training for farmers in how to fit and maintain drip systems, distributing the necessary tools so that farmers could be self-sufficient in the assembly and repair of pipes (Salt & Sign, 57).
Had it not been for these efforts, not only would Bardalah have faced the serious danger of running out of water for agriculture, Ibrahim Matar believed that their land also would have been expropriated. “The Israeli settlement of Meholah, for example, had made moves on the lands of Bardalah village. With the support of MCC, Bardalah villagers were able to surround the settlement with fields supplied by drip irrigation systems, stymieing land confiscation” (Salt & Sign, 57-58).
And to this day, despite the destructive effect of Israeli army tanks driving through the farmland of Bardalah, 3 km of drip irrigation line installed with the support of MCC in the mid-1970’s continues to function.
In this context, the seemingly mundane tasks of farming become a form of resistance.
***
In addition to the threat of settlement expansion in the Jordan Valley, today there is also the impact of the separation barrier to the north that has also served to maintain the Palestinian experience of dispossession by expropriating more Palestinian land (“The Eastern Wall: Closing the circle of our ghettoization,” http://stopthewall.org/analysisandfeatures/1042.shtml; “Palestinians stand up against expulsion from Jordan Valley,” http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/1101.shtml).
Israeli colonization and annexation of the Jordan Valley has been made clearer in several recent reports (“Israel cuts off eastern West Bank from rest of West Bank,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/681938.html; “Israel excludes Palestinians from fertile valley,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1709278,00.html; “Israel ‘has annexed Jordan Valley and shut out Palestinians,’” http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/
article345298.ece; “Israel has de facto annexed the Jordan Valley,” http://www.btselem.org/English/Settlements/20060213_
Annexation_of_the_Jordan_Valley.asp)
In fact, these intentions have been recently reiterated by Israeli acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who has stated that Israel will soon move to define its international borders to include the major Israeli settlement blocs illegally built on occupied Palestinian territory as well as the whole of the Jordan Valley (“Olmert vows to set final borders,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4709834.stm; “Olmert: Next Knesset must determine Israel's final borders,”
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/682351.html; “Israel unveils plan to encircle Palestinian state,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1705021,00.html; “Report: Olmert would keep 3 settlement blocs, Jordan Valley,” http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/679959.html).
Interestingly, Israel is one of the only states in the world without defined international borders. But Israel’s moves to define its borders is happening unilaterally, without consideration for the Palestinians it will effect, and in violation of the international communities call—laid out most recently in the “Road Map”—not to take any unilateral steps that would impact a final solution. However, there is nothing new with this agenda, as it is in line with Ariel Sharon’s vision of “maximum territory, minimum Arabs.” (“Maximum Territory, Minimum Arabs,” http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=11389; “The Paradox of Jerusalem,” http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=7697&CategoryId=5; “The Road to Bantustan,” http://miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=2718&CategoryId=5).
Such a move only reflects the reality of the “facts on the ground” already established by illegal Israeli colonies and the illegal separation wall. The construction of the wall itself has been a unilateral move by an occupying power in violation of international law, not a negotiated or agreed upon “border” between two sovereign states. Unfortunately, this wall along with the annexation of the Jordan Valley will become the de facto border of a Palestinian “state” composed of about 7 to 11 isolated “reservations” on roughly 40 to 50 percent of the West Bank, completely surrounded by Israel.
***
Indeed, much has not changed over the years for the people of Bardalah. And the witness that Mennonite Central Committee has borne over the years has become part of that story—a story of ongoing occupation and dispossession accompanied by ongoing resistance to injustice and persistent hope for a better future. May the future of Mennonite Central Committee in Palestine continue to bear witness to a commitment to resist injustice for the “least of these” (Matthew 25).
‘From the Desert May Bloom Justice and Peace’ – A Meditation for Lent
There are traditionally forty days in Lent which are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance. The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigor during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbor). The theme of justice defines the status of these relationships.
We would like to leave you with a meditation and a prayer as we begin this lenten season. May it also be a challenge as we move through these days of prayer, repentance, fasting, almsgiving, and abstinence.
‘From the desert may bloom justice and peace’ - a meditation for Lent (http://www.christianaid.org.uk/worship/403lent/reflection.htm)
Help us, Lord, to face our demons, our powers, as you faced yours. You were a man of power who could change stones to bread, conquer kingdoms and fall from the Temple roof without harm. You spent forty days searching for the way to use your powers for the coming of the Father's Reign of Peace, Justice and Holiness.
Help us to use our baptismal powers in the same way. Help us to use our anger at injustice in ways that will effect change, get things done and give witness in word and deed to the Reign you so ardently desired. Help us to use our lust not to abuse or exploit but rather to discover what are our deeper hungers and thirsts so that from the desert may bloom justice and peace.
Help us to overcome our sloth so that from indifference we may turn to deep concern for others who suffer and die because there is no one to turn the stones of hunger into bread, to build a society founded on justice and solidarity and to practise true religion which defends the widow and orphan and gives shelter to the stranger.
Peace to you all,
Timothy and Christi Seidel
Peace Development Workers
Mennonite Central Committee – Palestine
Attachments and Links:
· “Fears of new Israeli settlement as wall completed around Bethlehem,” OpenBethlehem.org, 28 February 2006
· Aluf Benn, “Olmert to seek int'l support for West Bank withdrawal,” Haaretz, 5 March 2006
· John Petrovato, “Waiting for the Palestinian Gandhi,” Palestine Chronicle, 1 March 2006
· Daoud Kuttab, “Arab peoples’ right to choose,” The Jerusalem Post, 26 February 2006
· Paul Oestreicher, “Israel's policies are feeding the cancer of anti-semitism,” The Guardian, 20 February 2006
· Gideon Levy, “As the Hamas team laughs,” Haaretz, 19 February 2006
· Amira Hass, “In Ze’evi’s footsteps,” Haaretz, 15 February 2006
· Amira Hass, “Israel cuts off eastern West Bank from rest of West Bank,” Haaretz, 13 February 2006
· Gideon Levy, “Enlightenment in Eli,” Haaretz, 12 February 2006
· Moshe Behar, “Singling out the Palestinians? Reciprocal demands are the key to peace,” The Electronic Intifada, 11 February 2006
· Chris McGreal, “Israel unveils plan to encircle Palestinian state,” The Guardian, 8 February 2006
· Omar Barghouti, “Israeli Apartheid: Time for the South African Treatment,” PACBI.org, 28 January 2006
· Alison Weir, “Anatomy of a Cover-Up: When a Mother Gets Killed Does She Make a Sound?” IMEMC.org, 27 January 2006
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Open Bethlehem
Fears of new Israeli settlement as wall completed around Bethlehem
28 February 2006
The final section of Israel’s wall separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem will be completed in a matter of days.
The wall around Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem will not only sever the connection between the region’s most holy Christian sites, but will also herald the creation of a new ‘fact on the ground’ - an illegal Jewish settlement which will be home to some of Israel’s most extremist religious groups.
The ultra-orthodox Kever Rahel Fund announced last year that it intended to build about 400 apartments at the site. This week their work has begun. Settlers are planning to move into houses around the tomb as soon as the wall is completed.
Bethlehem’s population fears that town will become another Hebron– where Jewish extremists have expelled Palestinians from their homes and with the support of the Israeli army, intimidate and harass the local population. Hebron was once the busiest shopping town in the region, but is now a ghost town. Christian Peacemaker Teams have a permanent presence there to monitor and report abuses by the army and settlers on local people.
A former member of the Israeli parliament, Hanan Porat, was quoted today in Israeli newspaper Haaretz : "With the help of God we are progressing toward maintaining a permanent Jewish presence and a fixed yeshiva in Rachel's Tomb, as Rabbi Kook [religious Zionist fundamentalist] urged, and bringing Israelis back to where they belong."
Please read more at http://www.openbethlehem.org
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Haaretz
Olmert to seek int'l support for West Bank withdrawal
Aluf Benn
5 March 2006
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is planning to enlist international support for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from parts of the West Bank, if he wins the elections. Olmert believes that the first objective of the next government will be to create a supportive international environment for implementing Israel's national goals: setting its borders and ensuring a Jewish majority.
Olmert will try to persuade the American administration and the key players in the international community that unless Hamas alters its positions, they must support a unilateral Israeli move to determine the border in the West Bank. In his view, Israel has managed to muster broad international support for the conditions it imposed on the Hamas government, and this must be kept up until after the elections. Only then will it begin to promote the unilateral initiative.
Since the Hamas victory in the Palestinian legislative elections, Olmert has been referring less and less to the "road map" peace plan. Some of his advisers told him to stick with that plan, which enjoys American support and is accepted in the international community as the basis for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. But Olmert thinks he would make a fool of himself were he to continue talking about the road map, as though the political circumstances had not changed following the Palestinian polls…
Olmert thinks that besides the blocs, Israel should control the Jordan Valley and Jewish holy sites. The senior sources ventured that the American administration would refuse to give Israel guarantees on the matter of Jerusalem, considered the most sensitive topic in any permanent agreement.
The defense establishment is in favor of a unilateral move that would include completing the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip and another pullout in the West Bank.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/690007.html
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Palestine Chronicle
Waiting for the Palestinian Gandhi
John Petrovato
1 March 2006
I offer two examples of these invisible Gandhis who I have personally met: Ghassan Andoni and Sherif Omar.
During a recent lecture at the University of Oregon, Yuval Rabin, son of the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was asked if he believed that a Palestinian leader would emerge promoting peace with Israel. Rabin expressed skepticism: "We can't wait 300 to 400 decades waiting for the Palestinian Gandhi to emerge". By making this statement Yuval Rabin reiterates the often-repeated sentiments that "there is no Palestinian Gandhi" nor are Palestinians inclined to be peaceful and utilize nonviolence as a tactic for their grievances. Palestinians, it is believed, have instead chosen violence and terror to try to achieve their aims.
But have Palestinians really forsaken nonviolence? Have commentators around the world really forgotten the popular nonviolent uprising they celebrated during the first Intifada? And what of the Israeli occupation of Palestine? Why is occupation not seen as a form of violence?
Palestinians have utilized myriad techniques of nonviolent resistance including strikes, boycotts, tax revolts and peaceful demonstrations. While the second Intifada has been pocked with more incidences of violence, nonviolence is still utilized to a great degree. Indeed, not a week goes by where Palestinians have not organized major nonviolent demonstrations. Just this week, for instance, there have been nonviolent protests in Bal’ein, Beit Sira, and Aaboud villages west of Ramallah. All these villages, and dozens of others, have had peace protests regularly over the past year. But like past protests, the protests this week (against the seizure of Palestinian lands for the building of the "separation wall") were met with violence by the Israeli military. The military fired rubber coated metal bullets (real bullets with a very thin rubber membrane) that injured a half a dozen people, fired tear gas and physically assaulted and detained 15 men. Of course, Americans never hear of peaceful demonstrations that are brutally repressed. Not only are protesters fired upon with rubber coated metal bullets and tear gas, they are beaten with clubs, dragged, chained to their vehicles, and arrested. The ignorance of the American public to both the nonviolent protests and the violet responses of the Israeli government must be largely blamed on the media.
How and why are such wide scale practices of nonviolence invisible?…
In response to the question: "why is there not a Palestinian Gandhi?" we must ultimately blame the Western media for distorting real events on the ground, for not providing context for reports that are made, and for irresponsibly misleading the pubic. These are serious issues of life and death and the media’s failure to adequately represent the situation must be seen as criminal. Rather than ask, "why is there not a Palestinian Gandhi?", we should consider the question posed by the Palestinian human rights activist, Arjan El Fassed: "why is there not an Israeli De Klerk?"
Please read more at http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=030106210355
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The Jerusalem Post
Arab peoples' right to choose
Daoud Kuttab
26 February 2006
I have been and continue to be an enthusiastic supporter of President Bush's (and anybody else's) mission to spread democracy. I would argue, as President Bush has done, that this is the most natural yearning of all peoples. My problem is that the US and its lead regional ally seem to stop short of their zeal for democracy once the result doesn't please them…
On the other hand, the US and its allies must approach Hamas's victory with an open mind and without looking at this Islamic group strictly from the point of view of right-wing Israelis.
To begin with, as a Palestinian Christian I must confess that I am not excited about the success of Hamas on the social as well as the national level. But I would not for a moment agree to deny it the opportunity to govern our people.
During the month since its election, the general mood among almost all my friends who would never dream of voting for Hamas has been total support for it to govern. In fact, since its election many have been discovering the depth of the problems and corruption that have dogged Palestinian society for some time.
For this reason, attempts to punish our people through denying us the taxes Israel collects for the Palestinian Authority, or the small grants from USAID earmarked for the Palestinian people, are completely unfair and unacceptable. Compared to the billions of dollars American taxpayers transfer to Israel (in military and civilian aid), allowing it to perpetuate the conflict, the small grants to Palestinians are nothing more than small change.
International humanitarian law lays down that the Israeli occupiers should ensure all the public needs of the people under occupation. By denying Palestinians the freedom to move people and goods, by blocking financial support, the Israeli action can be described as a declaration of war against the Palestinian people.
Please read more at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1139395494945&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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The Guardian
Israel's policies are feeding the cancer of anti-semitism
Paul Oestreicher
20 February 2006
The chief rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, is right. His reaction to the Anglican synod's call for sanctions against Israel is understandable. Hatred of Judaism - now commonly called anti-semitism - is a virus that has infected Christendom for two millennia. It continues to stalk the world despite its most virulent outbreak in Nazi Germany. It should not be left untreated. For too many it remains the unlearned lesson of the Holocaust. It should haunt decent Christians for generations to come.
The German pope knows that particularly well and is on the battle lines against it. On this issue, nothing divides him from the Archbishop of Canterbury and most other church leaders. If, as some now think, today's Jews are the Muslims - hatred transferred - that simply means there is a battle to maintain our common humanity on more than one front. All collective hatreds poison the body politic.
I say this as the child of a German Jewish-born father who escaped in time. His mother did not. I say it as a half-Jewish German child chased around a British playground in the second world war and taunted with "he's not just a German, he's a Jew". A double insult. But I say this too as a Christian priest who shares the historic guilt of all the churches. All Christians share a bloody inheritance.
If I feel all that in my guts and know it in my head, I cannot stand by and watch the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - one of the world's most dangerous outbreaks of collective hatred - as a dispassionate onlooker. I cannot listen calmly when an Iranian president talks of wiping out Israel. Jewish fears go deep. They are not irrational. But I cannot listen calmly either when a great many citizens of Israel think and speak of Palestinians in the way a great many Germans thought and spoke about Jews when I was one of them and had to flee…
But the main objective of my writing today, is to nail the lie that to reject Zionism as it practised today is in effect to be anti-semitic, to be an inheritor of Hitler's racism. That argument, with the Holocaust in the background, is nothing other than moral blackmail. It is highly effective. It condemns many to silence who fear to be thought anti-semitic. They are often the very opposite. They are often people whose heart bleeds at Israel's betrayal of its true heritage.
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,1713545,00.html
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Haaretz
As the Hamas team laughs
Gideon Levy
19 February 2006
The Hamas team had not laughed so much in a long time. The team, headed by the prime minister's advisor Dov Weissglas and including the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, the director of the Shin Bet and senior generals and officials, convened for a discussion with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on ways to respond to the Hamas election victory. Everyone agreed on the need to impose an economic siege on the Palestinian Authority, and Weissglas, as usual, provided the punch line: "It's like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won't die," the advisor joked, and the participants reportedly rolled with laughter. And, indeed, why not break into laughter and relax when hearing such a successful joke? If Weissglas tells the joke to his friend Condoleezza Rice, she would surely laugh too.
But Weissglas' wisecrack was in particularly poor taste. Like the thunder of laughter it elicited, it again revealed the extent to which Israel's intoxication with power drives it crazy and completely distorts its morality. With a single joke, the successful attorney and hedonist from Lilenblum Street, Tel Aviv demonstrated the chilling heartlessness that has spread throughout the top echelon of Israel's society and politics. While masses of Palestinians are living in inhumane conditions, with horrifying levels of unemployment and poverty that are unknown in Israel, humiliated and incarcerated under our responsibility and culpability, the top military and political brass share a hearty laugh a moment before deciding to impose an economic siege that will be even more brutal than the one until now.
The proposal to put hungry people on a diet is accepted here without shock, without public criticism; even if only said in jest, it is incomparably worse than the Danish caricature. It reflects a widespread mood that will usher in cruel, practical measures. If until now one could argue that Israel primarily demonstrated insensitivity to the suffering of the other and closed its eyes (especially the stronger classes, busy with their lives of plenty) while a complete nation was groaning only a few kilometers away, now Israel is also making jokes at the expense of the other's suffering.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/684258.html
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Haaretz
In Ze'evi's footsteps
Amira Hass
15 February 2006
The Oslo architects designated most of the eastern West Bank as Area C (full Israeli control), which is off-limits to Palestinian development. Only the settlements were allowed to develop, thanks primarily to the theft and exploitation of Palestinian water sources. A military training zone, where the IDF has conducted exercises ever since it conquered the West Bank, occupies 475 square kilometers of the valley and impairs the traditional lifestyle of thousands of semi-nomadic or Bedouin shepherds in the area. These shepherds are frequently turned out of their tents or forbidden to graze their sheep on these expanses or to raise a little wheat and produce for food.
At one time the explanation was that this is a firing range; once it was an issue of illegal construction. Just last Thursday, civil administration personnel demolished the tents, tin huts and sheepfolds of some 20 agricultural families in five different places in the valley. It is clear what scares the Israeli planners: A significant portion of the Palestinian communities in the valley turned from seasonal extensions of villages in the northern West Bank into permanent communities in the middle of the last century. Jews are encouraged to settle in the valley, but every conceivable method is used to deter Palestinians from doing so.
Preventing development and halting a long-standing natural process of construction and population expansion is a form of emptying out. But over the last few months, this effort expanded to include active measures: From time to time, soldiers come during the night and remove to the other side of the checkpoint those who live or work in the valley but whose official address is elsewhere. In the morning, these people return via the hills, evading the soldiers, taking the risk of stepping on a dud artillery shell.
And in October, people were given another reason to become fed up with life in the valley: Palestinian farmers were prevented from selling their produce to Israeli farmers at the nearest border crossing between the valley and Israel. Instead of traveling five kilometers, they were forced to travel 50, to a distant cargo terminal (Jalameh), and to wait endlessly at the internal checkpoints, knowing that a large portion of their vegetables would be spoiled by the sun and the bumping around. Knowing that there would be no reward for their labor.
The army swears that these prohibitions bear no relation to the politicians' declarations that the valley will remain in Israel's hands forever. But in practice, they are helping to empty it of Palestinians, in preparation for its official annexation to Israel.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/682885.html
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Haaretz
Israel cuts off eastern West Bank from rest of West Bank
Amira Hass
13 February 2006
While the international community busied itself with the disengagement from the Gaza Strip last summer, Israel completed another cut-off process, which went unnoticed: Israel completed cutting off the eastern sector of the West Bank from the remainder of the West Bank in 2005.
Some 2,000,000 Palestinians, residents of the West Bank, are prohibited from entering the area, which constitutes around one-third of the West Bank, and includes the Jordan Valley, the area of the Dead Sea shoreline and the eastern slopes of the West Bank mountains.
Military sources told Haaretz that the moves have been "security measures" adopted by the Israel Defense Forces, and have no connection to any political intentions whatsoever.
Restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley were imposed at the start of the intifada, and were gradually expanded. But the sweeping prohibition regarding entry into the area by Palestinians was imposed, in fact, after security responsibility in Jericho was given back to the Palestinians on March 16, 2005.
At the time, Palestinian sources say, Palestinian travelers coming across the Allenby Bridge (the West Bank's only direct link overseas) were banned from passing through the Jordan Valley even if they were heading to the northern West Bank and the villages adjacent to the valley's checkpoints. Instead, the travelers are required to go through Jericho, and from there, the road is long and filled with checkpoints and delays.
In addition to affecting others, the prohibition also applies to thousands of residents of towns and villages in the northern West Bank, like Tubas and Tamun, most of whose lands are in the Jordan Valley, and some of whose residents have been living there for many years. The residents of the Jordan Valley villages are tied to the northern West Bank villages through family connections, joint land ownership, work, schooling, and medical and social services.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/681938.html
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Haaretz
Enlightenment in Eli
Gideon Levy
12 February 2006
The head of the Shin Bet, Yuval Diskin, suddenly emerged from the shadows and revealed the main principles of his worldview. Revealed? Not exactly. Diskin did not intend to reveal his views to all of us. He spoke confidentially before students at the premilitary academy at the Eli settlement. Thanks to Channel 10, which obtained a recording of the event, the remarks were given public exposure.
Channel 10's news department deserves praise for the achievement. Diskin deserves to be denounced. First, because of the venue: Why do the students of Rabbi Eli Sadan deserve to hear what is withheld from the rest of the public? Why is the settlers' academy more worthy than us? Would Diskin speak with such openness before left-wing activists or residents of Umm al-Fahm? Why in heaven's name in Eli of all places, which was born in sin and exists in sin? Diskin chose to speak at a place that nurtures the wild weeds of the settlers - perhaps to placate them, perhaps to flatter them.
The content of his remarks also raises serious questions. Diskin said some forthright and bold things that were sharply critical. But he said them as if he has no part in shaping the reality. Diskin is not a neutral observer looking at reality. He is one of those responsible for the way reality looks. Thus, in effect, he broadened the borders of the useless concept "shooting and crying." Now we also have "depriving and crying" and "erring and crying."
This applies, for example, to his remarks about the deprivation the Arabs of Israel suffer: "If we take an Israeli Arab from Umm al-Fahm with an Israeli identity card and a Jew who is arrested, I don't identify equality in the way the system treats him. The discrimination is much more in favor of the Jews than the Arabs." Putting aside his ineloquent language, we can ask: Who exactly is this "system" that deprives the Arabs? Who is responsible for the fact that an arrested "Noam" is treated differently than an arrested "Naim?" We are not only talking about interrogation rooms. There is no organization more responsible for the deprivation of the Arab citizens of the state - because of "security" excuses that are generally groundless - than the Shin Bet that Diskin heads. When they are humiliated at the airports, when security guards deny them access to various events only because of their origin, when they are not allowed to receive jobs at state institutions and government companies, and when they are charged with serious security offenses that turn out in court to be of minor import, the Shin Bet is responsible for this.
Please read more at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=681518&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sb
SubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
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The Electronic Intifada
Singling out the Palestinians? Reciprocal demands are the key to peace
Moshe Behar
11 February 2006
SDEROT -- In and around Israel's "capital of the Qassam rockets," where I teach, the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections has left Israelis as divided as always. While some think that it can be a positive development - as Hamas is probably the sole Palestinian party capable of delivering on a binding Israeli-Palestinian agreement - others deem this wishful thinking and believe the existing Israeli-Palestinian gridlock will continue for years to come. A recent poll reflects this ambivalence with 48% of Israelis favoring a dialogue with Hamas and 43% against.
Amid this internal Israeli debate, the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations - the so-called Middle East Quartet - delivered an insufficiently helpful message. Erroneously convinced that they had 'lined up in solidarity' with us, Israeli Jews, the Quartet lost no time declaring that Hamas "must be committed to nonviolence, recognize Israel and accept the previous agreements and commitments."
Appropriate as these words may or may not be, even entering students in Sderot understand that any political tango takes two to succeed and that singling out Hamas for special treatment is certain to benefit neither Israelis nor Palestinians in this troubled land. Why, therefore, has the Quartet never declared that "Israel must be committed to nonviolence, recognize a Palestinian state and accept the previous agreements and commitments"?
Self-proclaimed "pro-Israeli" individuals are likely to label this proposition preposterous; yet the honest among them must recall two empirical facts. First, an examination of the pattern of "violence" of the past five years reveals that the Palestinian-Israeli ratio of deaths stands at 4:1. Thus, ending this violence depends as much on Israel's compliance with the Quartet's terms as with the Palestinians…
If the Quartet - or anyone else for that matter - genuinely cares for the wellbeing of us, Israelis and Palestinians, they should cease playing the game of lopsided demands. For any hope to bring us nearer to a just and peaceful settlement, reciprocal demands should be made not just on the democratically elected representatives of the stateless occupied society, but also on those of the occupying state. Ultimately, that would be the most pro-Israel stance of all. And if there would be no peace in Beit Hanoun, there certainly wouldn't be peace in Sderot as well and vice versa.
Please read more at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4482.shtml
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The Guardian
Israel unveils plan to encircle Palestinian state
Chris McGreal
8 February 2006
The acting Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said yesterday that he plans to annex the Jordan Valley and major Jewish settlement blocks to Israel in drawing new borders, according to a television station that recorded an interview with him yesterday.
In Mr Olmert's first policy statement since he succeeded Ariel Sharon last month, Channel 2 television said that he made clear he intends to carry through his predecessor's vision of creating an emasculated Palestinian state on Israel's terms.
If the Jewish state were to annex all of the Jordan Valley, which is dotted with small settlements, it would leave a future Palestinian state on the West Bank entirely surrounded by Israel and without a direct link to neighbouring countries.
The interview was to be broadcast late last night. Channel 2's political affairs reporter, Nissim Mishal, told Army radio that Mr Olmert, who is favourite to win next month's general election, also plans further unilateral withdrawals similar to the settler pullout from Gaza last summer.
"He talked about Israel having to maintain a Jewish majority in the state of Israel, meaning that we have to create a new border, what is called final borders. He knows that we can't negotiate with Hamas. So the only conclusion that can be derived from this is that, in order to reach final borders, Israel will have to carry out additional [unilateral] withdrawals," said Mishal.
Mr Olmert said he intends to annex the three main settlement blocks of Ariel, Gush Etzion and Maale Adumim as well as the Jordan Valley, the TV station said…
Please read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1705021,00.html
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PACBI.org
Israeli Apartheid: Time for the South African Treatment
Omar Barghouti
28 January 2006
By now, most Palestinians recognize Israel’s entrenched system of colonialism, racism and denial of basic human rights as a form of apartheid. In fact, Palestinians are far from alone in holding this view of Israel; leading South African intellectuals, politicians and human rights advocates subscribe to the same school of thought. For instance, in an article in the Guardian tellingly entitled “Apartheid in the Holy Land,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote:
“I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. […] Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon?”[1]
In fact, many Jews have not forgotten. Inside Israel, some Jewish politicians and journalists have made clear analogies between Israel and South Africa. Roman Bronfman, Chair of the Democratic Choice faction in the Yahad party, criticized what he termed “an apartheid regime in the occupied territories,” adding, “The policy of apartheid has also infiltrated sovereign Israel, and discriminates daily against Israeli Arabs and other minorities. The struggle against such a fascist viewpoint is the job of every humanist.”[2]
Esther Levitan, the Jewish grandmother once condemned to indefinite solitary confinement without trial in apartheid South Africa for her activism in the ANC, admitted in an interview with Ha’aretz that she considered Israel appallingly racist, saying: “Israelis have this loathsome hatred of Arabs that makes me sick. […] They will create a worse apartheid here.”[3]
What could have stirred all this moral indignation, one may wonder? The following representative samples of Israeli oppression of the three main parts of the Palestinian people (under occupation, in exile and in Israel) may help answer this question.
Please read more at http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=123_0_1_0_C
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International Middle East Media Center
Anatomy of a Cover-Up: When a Mother Gets Killed Does She Make a Sound?
Alison Weir
27 January 2006
Why don't Americans Know what's going on in Israel/Palestine?
The answer is unclear at this point, but some disturbing patterns are beginning to emerge. They implicate some of our major news media, and, perhaps most of all, the Associated Press, the oldest and largest wire service in the world. Most American editors and journalists have no idea what is occurring under their watch. To date, there is little indication that they care.
Before dawn on January 15th, an Israeli special forces unit killed a Palestinian mother and her 24-year-old son in their home. The mother had three bullets in her; the son 15. The Israeli soldiers also shot and wounded the woman's husband and four other family members: young women were shot in the pelvis and chest, young men in the foot, chest, torso, liver. The firing lasted over an hour. Then the Israeli squad shot at an arriving ambulance and prevented it for 45 minutes from tending to the dying, bleeding family.
It was all the result of a "misunderstanding," as the Israeli press put it.
The Israeli special forces commandos, invading a Palestinian village, had mistakenly taken a man standing guard in his home against vandalism for a resistance fighter. At first the Israeli military claimed that the now-dead man had shot at them, but before long the soldiers admitted that they had fired first. They saw the man cock his gun, they explain. The soldiers say, and at least some witnesses concur, that after they killed the man, someone from inside the house returned their fire. The soldiers claim that they then continued to shoot, but that their firing was "precise and limited." The husband says that even when he yelled at them to stop, that his wife and son were dead, the onslaught continued for at least an hour. None of the Israeli soldiers were killed or wounded…
That day and since, the US press has carried long news stories on Israel/Palestine. Yet, almost none of the reports have mentioned the above incident. The Boston Globe seems to have missed it entirely, as did the Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Constitution, the Baltimore Sun, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, a multitude of other papers across the country, and, it appears, every mainstream American television and radio network.
Please read more at http://www.imemc.org/content/view/16309/1/
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