Barak’s “Red Line” Coalition

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July 13, 1999

Quotes from text:
“There are enough hawks in Israel’s emerging coalition — including perhaps Barak — to insure that no withdrawal from occupied south Lebanon is likely to be forthcoming without firm Syrian or international guarantees for Israel’s security”

“not a single party in Barak’s new political dispensation… is likely to challenge his “red lines” of no shared sovereignty in Jerusalem, no dismantling (but probable expansion) of settlements and no withdrawal to the 1967 borders. And there are a few — like Yisrael B’aliya and NRP — who will blanch at the prospect of a Palestinian statre, even if it is truncated and demilitarised.”

“The only parties in Israel who oppose that consensus are the three Arab lists which, between them, command 10 seats in the new Knesset. And it is because they oppose the consensus that they cannot be in an Israeli government”

Excerpts:
Despite — or perhaps because of — the onslaught on Lebanon, Israel’s prime minister elect Ehud Barak’s long toil to form a government appears slowly to bearing fruit. For the Arabs — as always with Israel — it is a mixed harvest.

The first coalition agreements were signed on 25 June within hours of Israeli warplanes returning to base from Lebanon. As widely predicted, the Russian Immigrant party, Yisrael B’aliyah, landed the Interior Ministry. Less widely predicted — and ominously for the Palestinians — the far right and pro-settler National Religious Party received the Housing Ministry, a post with inordinate powers to market lands and offer tenders for settlement construction in the occupied territories. Having wooed representatives of Israel’s “right” and “centre”,

…

Following a terse five minute meeting with Barak on 28 June, Sharon was “sorry to say the partnership [between One Israel and Likud] was not a partnership of truth”. It was certainly going to be an equal partnership if that was what Sharon had intended.

…

The apparent departure of Sharon and Likud from government undoubtedly will be greeted with sighs of relief by most of the Arab world. Yet it would be unwise to cheer too loudly. The removal of Likud will probably make things easier for Barak to resume negotiations with Syria from the “point they left off” in 1996 or, more precisely, from the different points each side think they left off. But there are enough hawks in Israel’s emerging coalition — including perhaps Barak — to ensure that no withdrawal from occupied south Lebanon is likely to be forthcoming without firm Syrian or international guarantees for Israel’s “security”.

As for Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority, this will be faced with an Israeli government that, unlike its Netanyahu predecessor, accurately reflects the Israeli consensus. This could mean the implementation of the 1998 Wye River agreement and a resumption of Oslo’s final status negotiations. But there is not a single party in Barak’s new political dispensation that is likely to challenge his “red lines” of no shared sovereignty in Jerusalem, no dismantling (but probable expansion) of settlements and no withdrawal to the 1967 borders. And there are a few — like Yisrael B’aliya and the NRP — who will blanch at the prospect of a Palestinian state, even if it is truncated and demilitarised.

The only parties in Israel who oppose that consensus are the three Arab lists which, between them, command 10 seats in the new Knesset. And it is because they oppose the consensus that they cannot be in an Israeli government….

Article researched, located and edited by IMRA – Independent Media Review and Analysis

America Too, Is Part of the Exile

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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July 13, 1999

Today we have interesting computer programs which can help us search for all kinds of things. One which is very helpful to Jews, is a calendar program which takes the solar calendar and co-ordinates it with the Jewish lunar calendar.

This way we can check out when our child’s bar mitzvah will come out, and we can go back and check to see the Hebrew date which fell on the day we were born.

I was experimenting with this program a while back and made an interesting discovery. I plugged in the date, July 4, 1776. I was amazed to find that in that year the Hebrew date was the 17th of Tamuz.

This date, on the Hebrew calendar, marks the beginning of a three week mourning period for the destruction of our holy Temple in Jerusalem. For two thousand years we Jews have marked this period as one of national mourning. On this day, when the mourning period begins, we all fast and contemplate this enormous tragedy to the Jewish People.

Thus, on the very day when the United States of America declared its independence from Great Britain, and became a sovereign nation, while the majority of the new American citizens were celebrating and feasting, the Jews were mourning and fasting. Clearly this fact was no coincidence. The symbolism is prophetic. On the surface it may have seemed that the establishment of the United States of America was an opportunity for the Jew to find acceptance and true freedom from religious oppression. Indeed, over the past two hundred and twenty-three years most Jews would declare that this country has proven itself to be the best thing that ever happened to the Jewish People during our long Exile.

This fact alone is reason to mourn. The Jewish people were never meant to find peace and tranquillity outside of her homeland. We were scattered to the four corners of the world as a punishment. We were destined to wander and never find contentment until, at long last, our Exile would end and we would come home to our country, the Land of Israel.

In every nation of our Exile, in every generation, we made the best of a bad situation and kept our Judaism intact. We prayed for the day when we would be able to come home, and never lost hope that the day would finally come.

It wasn’t hard to keep the dream of Zion alive in the ghettos, and under the many persecutions which we had to suffer. But in the Land of the free and the home of the brave we faced a challenge for which we were unprepared. We were permitted to live as we wished. Surely there was anti-Semitism here too, but it was easier to ignore and hide from than in most of our temporary homelands.

Because it was a nation of immigrants, there really was no such thing as a pure bred American. It thus became easy to cast aside those things which made us appear different from our neighbours and to blend in with them. We took upon ourselves a new culture and rejected at least those parts of our Judaism which made us different.

We forgot the blessing of Balaam, that we are destined to be a nation that stands alone, not to be reckoned among the nations of the world. No.

We would find a way to be like our neighbours, and to be accepted by them as equals. That was the new Jewish dream.

The United States of America is the most dangerous place in the world for the Jewish people. The dangers here are more subtle than in other places. The fact that Jews have been able to achieve financial and political success has created an illusion that is nearly impossible to shatter.

We have been taken in by this illusion. We live in beautiful homes, send our children to the best schools, drive new cars and enjoy all of the best technological advances of mankind. We never had it better. But do we ever stop for a minute to look at our children? Where do they get their values? How are they equipped to deal with the moral conflicts which face them as they grow up among the American Gentiles?

Chances are, aside from their friends at school, most of their values are learned from the television and movies they watch. The watered down version of Judaism that they are given has no substance for them. What kind of role models do they strive to emulate?

The President of the United States is certainly not the kind of role model any moral individual would want for his children. Yet he is there, and he does present such an image. No matter how high a standard of living we have in the United States, no amount of money can adequately insulate the Jew from the depraved foreign values being imparted to his children. Even among the religious Jewish segment of American culture, which tries to develop a strong barrier between themselves and the society around them, it is impossible to avoid exposure and contagion with the alien culture in which we are submerged.

Throughout our history there have been Jews who dealt with anti-Semitism in different ways. Some gave up their Judaism outright in the futile hope that this would gain them acceptance in the eyes of the Gentile.

Others tried to adjust their Judaism to make it less different than the religion of their neighbours. And a hardy few kept a low profile but adhered to their heritage with a passion. Those are the ones who survived over the centuries. We can see all of these mechanisms at work in the United States as well.

Many have outrightly rejected their heritage. They married out of the faith and changed their names. Others re wrote our Torah and made Judaism easier for the goyim to accept. But, even with the strongest of our people, those who did not give in and who have kept their Judaism strong and proud, even these people cannot help but be affected by the warped society in which they live. Today there is only one guarantee for the survival of the Jewish People. Only by returning to our homeland and striving to rebuild, not only the Land, but the Jewish way of life, will be breathe true redemption into the dry bones of our Exiled people. We must seriously consider the very ominous implication of the fact that the birthday of the United States of America was a sad day for the Jewish People.

Let us understand that we have only one homeland. It is the Will of G-d that the Jewish People be gathered together in the Land He Promised our Father, Abraham, as an internal inheritance. Until 1948 it was extremely difficult to come home. But today, despite the many problems, at least it is under Jewish sovereignty and a modern nation. Today we have no excuse to remain in the cursed Exile which is destined to come to an end. We have no future outside our homeland.

We can wait for the Exile to spit us out or destroy us, or we can elect to come home now, with our pride and our possessions.

Interview with Rabbi Arik Asherman, director of the RABBIS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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June 15, 1999

Allan: Tell me a little about yourself.

Asherman: Sure, my name is Rabbi Arik Asherman. I’m the executive director of Rabbi’s for Human Rights. I also, on a part time basis am the Rabbi for Kibbutz Yahel in the Arava. I’m originally from the United States, born in Eerie, Pennsylvania. I have an under-grad degree from Harvard in 1981, sociology… rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion from 1989. I’m married to Rabbi Anot Ramon, who’s the first Israeli woman ever to become a rabbi. It’s an intermarriage of sorts, I’m a reform rabbi and she’s a conservative rabbi. And as of now we’re the only rabbinic couple in Israel. And we have a little baby, Adi, whose now about eleven and a half weeks old. Alright, so that’s our story.

Allan: When did you come to Israel?

Asherman: I’ve been here off and on since the early ’80s. In 81, 83 I worked for a program called interns for peace which is a committee work program for promoting coexistence between Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis. I did my first year of rabbinical school back here in ’86-’87 for a community work program… that’s also when I met my wife. From then on pretty much back every summer and officially made Aliya in ’94.

Allan: In the U.S were you politically active at all?

Asherman: Yeah. It depends on what period. In my university days I was particularly active in the struggle against apartheid. There was a very intense movement on campuses, particularly on Harvard, to push for universities to dis-invest from corporations doing business in South Africa… In my years in rabbinical school I did also in… for five years as a rabbi out in California. A lot of that time I was very involved with issues dealing with homeless and this kind of thing. And a lot of other things here and there. A lot of other things. I went a couple of times to Russia to work with, former Soviet Union, to work with congregations there. A lot of things over the years.

Allan: Tell me about Rabbis for Human Rights.

Asherman: Rabbis for Human Rights was founded just a little… it was ten years ago December, during Intifada when many people felt, this is the age of the orders to break bones and this kind of thing to put down the Intifada, and many people who by no means considered themselves left wing felt we’d gone over some form of red line. And that there needed to be a Jewish rabbinic response to what was happening. And when our founder, Rabbi David Foreman, wrote an open letter saying “Why is it that all we ever hear from the Jewish, the religious establishment in this country is about Shabbat observance and Kashrut… keeping kosher. As important as those things are where are the Abraham Joshua Heschels?” I don’t know if that name means something to you or not but… Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was a scholar but also an activist. “Where are the Abraham Joshua Heschels in this country speaking to the burning moral issues of our times, of our day?” And that struck a cord with a number of people. Today we are ninety some rabbis and some rabbinic students. We are the only rabbinic organization in this country, to the best of my knowledge, where reform, orthodox and reconstructionist rabbis coexist. And we work on a number of issues. We champion universal human rights and interfaith understanding. And human rights, that’s whether we’re talking about Jewish Israelis or foreign workers or Palestinians. So we work on a number of issues ranging from the Israeli health care system to the whole issue of home demolitions, Palestinian home demolitions. We work with lobbying Knesset, we work with the media, we do direct action, civil disobedience. We work in a number of different ways.

Allan: Anything else?

Asherman: We also work on educational projects… going to schools working with teachers, with students, talking about Judaism and human rights. Another project where we’re working with the Kibbutz teachers on Oranim to create a Talmudic style commentary to the Declaration of Independence.

Allan: Did Rabbis for Human Rights, when first created, immediately have connections with Palestinians?

Asherman: I wasn’t around at the time but, yes, I think some of our… pretty much immediately, yes. At the time it was so unusual for rabbis to be concerned with universal human rights that we worked a lot with groups like B’tselem… because in advertising an issue all we had to do was show up and pay a visit and that was news because its so unusual for rabbis to be concerned about these kinds of things…

Allan: Today, the PA exists as a governing authority, does Rabbis for Human Rights deal with the PA or any of its subcommittees?

Asherman: Not to a great deal. We had a meeting with Arafat in 1995, October of 1995. And a year or so ago our chair person participated in a… as a representative with other organizations that went to meet with Arafat. We… the Palestinian organizations we tend to work with may have connections with the PA but they tend to be independent. They are just the people we work better with, found more of a common language with. The other thing is that as rabbis our primary audience is Jews. So that certainly when we met with Arafat we expressed some of our concerns about human rights issues in the West Bank. Same thing when we… sometimes when Palestinian human rights activists have been arrested we expressed our concern one way or the other. But, basically because our audience is Israeli Jews we haven’t spent so much time dialoguing or whatever with Palestinian bodies in that way.

Allan: Is that a question of protecting the organizations image?

Asherman: The opposite. Many people on the right say “Why don’t you criticize the PA for this, that, and the other thing?” We say “When we’ve had the opportunity we’ve expressed our opinions.” But our audience is Jews. Secondly… its not a matter of image. If there was some project… Our job is to be dealing with human rights abuses done by Jews not done by Palestinians. By no means do we say there aren’t human rights abuses being perpetrated by Palestinians. But when we have an opportunity, we certainly make our opinion known; we’ve always done that. In terms of just working cooperatively with PA bodies… as I said, to the extent that we work with Palestinian organizations they tend to be organizations which are also a little bit more distant from the PA. But that’s not really a policy or anything like that.

Allan: What would you like the relationship with the PA to be?

Asherman: Well I’d like it to be cooperative. Listen, if the ideal situation was that we could call them up and say we’re concerned about the death penalty, we’re concerned about what’s happening here; and maybe they’d have an open ear. Or alternatively there are issues, for example, like the whole issue of home demolitions. We feel that there’s a lot more the PA could be doing. You know, for example, I would think it would be in the Palestinian national interest to have a fund so that anyone whose home was demolished would have the money to start rebuilding. And often representatives of the PA don’t even show up when homes are demolished. So, those things I would definitely like to see them to do. I’d like to have an open dialogue with where they’d be interested in some of the things we see on the ground.

Allan: What topics were discussed in the 1995 meeting with Arafat?

Asherman: Basically we talked about… first of all praised Arafat for his courage to enter into a peace process, courage to continue with the peace process. Then we spoke about MIAs, Israeli MIAs… And then we talked in general about the concerns about human rights abuses in the Palestinian Authority. His reaction basically… he spent a lot of time talking about all the plots to kill him. And basically said “You Israelis, on the one hand you want me to stop terrorism, to fight terrorism, on the other hand you want me to observe human rights and you can’t have both and I’m here to fight terrorism… “

Allan: Moving on, I briefly wanted to discuss Palestinian refugees. It is my understanding that the policy of UNWRA is to keep Palestinians within refugee camps. I was curious as to your reaction.

Asherman: I don’t know if its just UNWRA. Historically the Arab world has wanted to use refugees as a political weapon, propaganda weapon. So, because of this… because of that… yeah, refugees have stayed in camps. That is certainly true. I’m not totally, I’m not totally up on what is happening most recently but that is the historical reality. Once again, there’s… it’s a question of mandate and whether we as rabbis that is an issue that we need to be working on. You know, there’s a terrible… there’s a very interesting phenomena, I find it very often in some of the comments I get, not from serious people but more often from not serious people that want to be critical of what we’re doing, which says “You say you’re interested in human rights so why aren’t you doing x, y, and z?” I mean, that’s like going to a housing rights group and saying why aren’t you worrying about health care. There’s an infinite amount of issues that people could work on, and somehow the implication is you’re not really serious if you’re not working on this, or it means you’re not really objective or something like this. But it’s a… Knei Britsute, as we say the tradition, it’s bench reed. It’s a misleading kind of thing so that as I said we… it’s… you ask for example about UNWRA or something it’s not a question of whether or not there’s something wrong going on, it’s a question of… I’m here on a three quarter time position. We’ve got another quarter time staff person. We see our primary mandate as speaking to the Jewish people as rabbis. So, you know, I would feel we were being one sided if all we did was be concerned about Israeli oppression of Palestinians but the answer from what I see as our mandate is not to be dealing with what UNWRA is doing or what the PA is doing but rather to deal with issues such as health cares for Israelis which is an issue of what [the] Israeli government is doing to Israeli Jews, as well as all Israeli citizens, for example. That’s the way that I believe is the proper way, as opposed to balancing ourselves by finding international or Palestinian organizations that are also oppressing Palestinians.

Allan: Then, is it (dealing only with Israeli abuses of human rights) a policy based on lack of time?

Asherman: No, it’s a number of things. A, Our mandate as rabbis is to speak to the Jews, it’s not to speak to international bodies or to the Palestinians. So, once again, when there’s a need to do so, or when there’s an opportunity to do so. For example when we were invited to speak to Arafat it would have been wrong for us go and speak with Arafat and not bring up some of our human rights concerns as a human rights organization if we’re already… but, but, if I’m looking to balance our activities, I would balance them by looking at issues by looking at issues where Jews are oppressing Jews to balance the activities were we look at where Jews are oppressing Palestinians as opposed to balancing by looking for where Palestinians are oppressing Palestinians. Do you see what I’m saying?

Allan: Yes… Would a more appropriate name for the organization then be, Rabbis Against Jewish Violators of Human Rights?

Asherman: I mean… that’s a rhetorical question… I mean… that’s a rhetorical question, it’s like does your name have to… You could also say should we be Rabbis for Human Rights who are currently working on the Jali, on Israeli health care, on this, this, this, to explain why we’re not working on… as I said we’re working on health care but not working on improving income tax. The reality is, we do dialogues with rabbis who live in the West Bank, we do dialogues with all kinds of groups. It’s only the totally non-serious people that even bring those things up. I mean… I mean people with different views than ours but are serious don’t bring those kinds of things up because it’s so not important. Now… in terms of, in terms or our image the thing that does concern me more is that there aren’t enough people that realize we also work for Jewish human rights and this kind of stuff. And there are people who think all we do is work for Palestinians. That is something of greater concern to me than these other things… that are only brought up by people who are doing it for the sake of argument and aren’t very serious.

Allan: Let me ask you one more question, before we change topics. Do you believe the human rights abuses of today are more prevalent in concern to Palestinian against Palestinian or Jew against Palestinian?

Asherman: I don’t really know how to answer that. I never try to quantify it. And it’s also, sometimes not so easy to sort out for example, we’re starting a new project, we’re concerned about health care in the territories. Now, on the one hand, as today 90 percent of Palestinians are, their health care is being managed by the PA, not by Israel. So, if you look at problems in health care the primary address today is the PA. On the other hand you can argue… but this after 30 years of neglect by Israeli authorities that didn’t develop the infrastructure, that didn’t develop the hospitals and left things in a mess. And on the third hand, what was there before then? And how much did Jordan or anybody else invest in health care in the territories? Maybe in another couple of months I’ll be… after we’ve finished the research stage it’ll be an interested test case for the question you’re bringing up. I would say… Most Palestinians will tell you, many Palestinians will tell you, that in some ways, I don’t know about the PA, but other Arab countries had a very… at least as responsible as Israel for many of the problems that they’re in today. Once again, as a rabbi, as a Jew, as an Israeli, the question is how important is that? In other words, if you were to say that 90 percent of the problems of the Palestinians are caused by Palestinians or other Arabs and ten percent by Israel, I as an Israeli religious Jew would still be terribly concerned about that ten percent. And it doesn’t matter to me if that was 10 percent or 15 percent or 75 percent, what is more important to me in terms of how we define our agenda is the seriousness of the problem as opposed to other problems we could be working on. In other words, in other words, if someone said to mean, “The problem of the Israeli government is giving all kinds of educational resources to North Tel Aviv and not to development towns is a much more acute problem than demolition of Palestinian homes.” That to me… so let’s talk about that. Have we miss set our priorities because we’re not really looking at the most serious human rights issues? And if you can tell me that A, that it’s a more acute problem, and B that it’s more systematic, and C that… there’s nobody else working on that problem, that would be something I would take to our board and say “Maybe our priorities aren’t straight.” But the issue of what percentage of the problems the Palestinians are by Israelis and what are by Palestinians… it wouldn’t make sense to be a factor. The only other thing I can say… is that our board decision is that we must always have a balance in terms of being… we must being working on something… because there is a balance… it’s true that we are working today on more things concerning Palestinian society than Israeli society, but there must be something we working on that’s dealing with Israeli society… The image projected by the vast majority of… of religious Jews in this country today, it wasn’t always that way but that’s the current situation today for all kinds of reasons we could get in to, is a very inwardly focussed lack of concern for the non-Jew. And many secular Israelis also interpret that as being the true face of Israel because that’s what they… it’s the dominant image. I’m not saying that all religious Jews are that way because that certainly wouldn’t be true to make a blanket statement. But that’s the predominant image. And therefore, therefore, it would always be important for us to make a statement that we, as religious Jews, are concerned not only with Jews but also with non Jews. But on the other hand, you know it’s the old statement by Hillel, “If I’m not for myself than who am I, If I’m only for myself what am I?” So… obviously… The other option of being concerned only about the other would also be wrong. So we try to always being working on projects that deal with each of those…

Allan: Do you coordinate activities with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions?

Asherman: The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions is a umbrella organization and with different individuals and organizations more or less formally represented. And yes, we see ourselves as a part of that coalition.

Allan: How do you feel about civil disobedience?

Asherman: In general I think there are times when that’s the right course of action. For example, there are a lot of things that groups… you know in the U.S, you hear people crying gevult about the religious right and mixing religion with politics. You hear people talking about the orthodox parties here, religion and politics. I have a problem with some of that criticism. I disagree with the religious right in the States or a lot of the policies of the orthodox parties in this country on the issues, and certainly when it, on anything that has to do with coercion. But for me to say that you shouldn’t mix religion and politics… that’s what I do too. I do what I do because of my thing… My problem wasn’t that the idea that somebody, based on their beliefs is willing to engage in civil disobedience… Obviously, in a democratic society if you engage in civil disobedience you must also be willing to pay the price for your beliefs. In fact, many people engage in civil disobedience, if you look at the theory of civil disobedience historically and around the world, even welcome that because it gives you the chance to challenge those things which are legal in the society you’re part of and which you think are wrong. And, you know, so that’s another aspect of civil disobedience. And maybe, I’m just talking a little bit associatively now, but to bring up another thing, is you also heard this whole thing… “How can religious parties or establishments challenge the supreme courts?” Now, I also find there are problems where there are decisions of the supreme court which I think were mistaken. The fact that the supreme court consistently uphold home demolitions, or torture, I think is awful. So, one thing it would be hypocritical for me to say that automatically that someone who dares to criticize a decision of the supreme court to say that’s out of bounds in a democratic society; that’s not the problem. The problem is when you say, “We don’t recognize legitimacy of that institution,” you incite against that institution… and the line can be a very fine line but there is a distinction between those two things.

Allan: Has the Israeli government done anything to help the house demolition issue?

Asherman: Well, good question. After, there was a tremendous amount of Israeli and international pressure on the, after last summer around the demolition and then our public rebuilding and the re-demolition of the house of al-Shwarme house in Anata. As a result of that fact the civil administration floated a trial balloon. Which apparently was adopted because also it’s been in the Prime Minster’s office it’s been the states policy of retroactively legalizing seven hundred homes. The problem is we’ve never been to get guidelines in terms of which homes are in this and which aren’t. No one has been able to receive a list of whose homes have been retroactively legalized. So, I don’t know, have they really done anything or not? It’s a very good question. I can tell you that in the Jerusalem area… with the civil administration, for pretty much from October from February, we stopped rebuilding homes and during that period we… all kinds of negotiations with the civil administration on particular cases, kind of an attempt at constructive engagement. One of the reasons that we went back to rebuilding was a feeling that we were just being carried along for a ride and, taken for a ride, and that nothing was happening. In fact, we just recently got, finally, detailed written answer to all the specific questions we asked about specific families and things. And this was after we met with the head of the civil administration and talked about what his principles were and being invited by him to bring up issues that seemed to violate the principles that he was saying they worked according to. So we brought up all these specific cases and every one was white washed one way or the other. Now in Jerusalem, there seems to be a more serious attempt at constructive engagement. So, for example, there a number of the different communities which, the Palestinian villages, which have been absorbed by the Jerusalem municipality, that have been working on agreements with the municipality whereby homes would not be demolished while the communities are preparing new zoning plans. One of… there’s a whole system of, legal system, which leads up to the bottom line in this catch 22 situation which is it’s virtually impossible for a Palestinian to get a legal permit, a legal building permit, and then when they have no choice but to build there house is legal tender to demolition. There’s almost always a legal justification. In other words, so it’s a question in the narrow sense of the word, the demolition is legal even if it’s not just or moral. And even if you were to step back and look at the pattern you would have to say is the whole thing legal at all. Not to mention international law or Jewish law, but within Israeli law, in a narrow sense it’s legal. One of those things… wide tracks of land are zoned as green land or agricultural land or open land and not to be built on. And so, a place like, Isuweia, some 70-80 percent of their land has been expropriated since 1967 and of the remaining, over a quarter of it has been zoned as land you can’t build on. I mean there’s a real problem here. But some of these communities work with city planners, with architects to do rezoning. And there has been some willingness of the municipality to play ball and have unwritten understandings, although for example, in Jabu Vkaver there were a couple of homes, and they had an agreement like this, demolished three weeks ago. But that was really a problem because there was overlapping responsibilities between the interior ministry and the municipality itself. The interior ministry had never been signed on to this unwritten understanding and that’s what we’re trying to do now. So that might be, to answer your question, might develop into a model of more constructive engagement where the government authority does agree to look for constructive solutions. Our policy is not against planning. It’s in everybody’s interest to have decent planning. My problem is that we don’t have true partisan or non-partisan fair play, we have a politically motivated catch 22 system. I’ve had Likud members in the Knesset… and found some people that are open to this… I tell people you can be in favor of the greater land of Israel, the medium land of Israel, or the small land of Israel… So, and some of these people are receptive. And what I always say, this should be above politics. It’s not an issue of right or left or government or opposition. It’s an issue of human rights, things that should be above politics. And what I try to tell folks is that… there needs to be a fair set of principles which are the same whether you’re Jewish or Palestinian, or whatever that for a reasonable price that people know they can apply for a permit according to a fair set of principles and that their application will be accepted or denied according to those principles. There probably are some people that are building their homes places where they shouldn’t be getting permits. But when you have a situation when nobody’s getting permits, then you’re not talking about a fair equally applied set of principles, which is what’s necessary.

Allan: Does Rabbis for Human Rights affiliate with any Jewish organizations?

Asherman: There’s no official connection with any Jewish organization. There are rabbis who are members or Rabbis for Human Rights who are affiliated with or even work with some of those organizations. But there’s no official connection.

Allan: Could you name some of these individuals?

Asherman: Sure, one of our founding members was Rabbi David Rosen who today is the director of the Israel operations for the ADL. He actually, when he accepted the position as director, he stepped down from our board, but he’s still a member… I think he felt that as a… that in some ways it wasn’t appropriate… And I know that he’s continued sometimes on our behalf sometimes in the name of ADL on issues that we have common concerns, to write letters. Two examples I can give you are when there was an issue in January when the Greek Orthodox Christian community from Yaffo went to the courts because the rabbi from Bat Yam was going to withdraw the kashrut certificate from the place that allowed them to have their New Years celebration. Or just now, we were a… because the chief kaddi of Israel asked us to look into case of a mosque in Ashkelon which, its sanctity is not being respected… by the city of Ashkelon. And when I spoke with the municipality they sent me a letter which was a response to a letter written by Rabbi Rosen so I assume… he probably decided to write and express concern about that.

Allan: Today is Yom Yerushaliyim, how do you feel as a Jew and a rabbi knowing that you can freely go to the Old City, to the Kotel, and pray?

Asherman: I want to answer that in… I want to expand the scope of your question a little bit. Last year in particular, for Israel’s fiftieth anniversary there was a… and here I’m talking as an individual not as director of Rabbis for Human Rights because these are things that as an organization we don’t take positions on, necessarily. Especially around the fiftieth anniversary we had all our huge celebrations and there was this whole parallel thing where commemorating fifty years of El Nakba, the catastrophe. And, I know some people that were so wrapped up in El Nakba, Jews, that they couldn’t celebrate our fiftieth anniversary. To me, that is to become terribly estranged, to cut yourself off from your own roots. And… Yom Yerushaliyim… I think its which we legitimately celebrate. So the question is, is there any model within our tradition to celebrate and yet remember the pain of others, and somehow remember what we’re celebrating is the same thing that is a catastrophe for somebody else? I think we’ve got a couple models in our tradition. First of all in Mseked Tanit, which tells us a lot about rain and lack of rain. There’s this whole thing about… the rain which for us is a, for the farmer is a blessing, is a disaster for the person whose roof gets blown off. Or even, more importantly, look at Pesach. On Pesach we celebrate with great joy our liberation from Egypt. Any yet we recite the plagues and take out the ten drops because our joy cannot be complete when, even if there was no way around it, other people suffered as part and parcel of our liberation. On the seventh day of Pesach, which is the day according to our tradition the day that we actually crossed the Red Sea, we only do a partial hallel, every other day of Pesach we do a the full hallel, the joyous songs that we chant on many of our holidays. So, we have a perfect model. To suggest that we should stop to celebrate or be joyful about our liberation from Egypt because Egyptians died and suffered… it would be crazy. But yet Hazall had the greatness of spirit to be able to incorporate within our celebration the fact that we can’t forget the pain of others. And so what I think about Yom Yerushaliyim, I don’t want to stop celebrating Yom Yerushaliyim, that is an important joyful day for me, but at the same time… it would be wrong for me to forget that it’s El Nakba for other people…

Allan: Does Rabbis for Human Rights have a formal relationship with the CPT?

Asherman: No formal relationship with them, we cooperate with them where it’s appropriate. Once again… I always hear from folks like David Bedein that, “How can you have any connection with these anti-Semitic folks?”, and this kind of stuff. But… sometimes I find them naive (the CPT), some of them I have occasionally found a little bit of, at least latent, anti-Semitism to my understanding. But the question is on the issues and on which issues… we don’t have any formal relationship with them, we don’t work with them on everything but things like home demolitions are things we incorporate on.

Allan: In what way have you noticed “latent anti-Semitism”?

Asherman: Well… there are some of them. Their international director is great and he’s here and has a deep understanding how we feel as Jews and the role for American Christians in a situation like this… But… every once in awhile some of the people that come here, there are always people coming in and out, rotating, you know, I’ve heard stuff, basically [they] try to see this whole situation as a black and white situation as oppressed and oppressors. But… you know, it would be almost unethical to reprint a statement like that out of context….

End of Transcription

As the tape reached its end Rabbi Asherman continued to speak of the dilemma of reprinting his statement concerning the CPT and his fear of being taken out of context and misunderstood. It was explained to Rabbi Asherman that his statement would be transcribed and nothing would be written which he did not in fact state.

I suggested that the interview come to an end as I did not wish to continue without the aid and security of the tape recorder. Asherman agreed although one more question was asked concerning the position of Rabbis for Human Rights on the issue of the Orient House. Asherman explained that while certain members of Rabbis for Human Rights may attend demonstrations the organization takes no official stance.

The remainder of the time spent with Rabbi Asherman focussed on his concern of what was to come of his tape recorded words, primarily those concerning the CPT. It was, at this point, explained to Rabbi Asherman that unless otherwise stated his statements were considered on the record and suitable for publishing. Again Asherman expressed concern over his CPT related statements and requested that he be sent an advance copy of the interview prior to its publishing. It was made clear to Asherman that standard journalistic practice allows for only the editor to review a story or interview before its ultimate publishing. Asherman consented to this, courtesies were exchanged and the interview came to a formal conclusion.

Journalist Pressured not to Report Jewish Dimension of Balkan War

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

June 1, 1999

Budapest, Hungary – I’m a journalist and a Jew, but it was only recently that I became a Jewish journalist.

Not by choice, mind you. It was thrust upon me. And larded with Jewish guilt, no less.

Curiously enough, it all began with Kosovo conflict.

This two-month war has spawned a number of large-type headlines: the first NATO attack on a sovereign state; the first mass exodus of refugees in Europe since the Holocaust; and the first post-Cold War standoff between Russia and America.

But far from front pages is a story that is perhaps only of interest to Jewish audiences – the possible demise of two more Jewish communities in the Balkans.

As bombs rain down on Yugoslavia, Serb forces continue to kill, loot and expel ethnic Albanians from their homes. The refugees pour over the border into Macedonia (among other places) and threaten to tip the country’s own delicate ethnic balance.

All the instability has Jews in both states considering flight to safer havens.

Sounds pretty straightforward, no? Who wouldn’t want to get the heck out – especially if you had the connections to do so?

Now here’s the rub. Despite traditionally friendly relations with their countrymen, these Jews fear their exodus may be denounced by their neighbors as a “betrayal” of the nation. That would unleash anti-Semitism, which would further discourage these Jews from ever returning home. In reporting on their fate for the NY-based Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), I have been torn by the following issue: present “the facts” and “the truth” of their plight, or assume a partisan role that feels, to me, like something bordering on complicity.

Is my first obligation to you, the reader, or to the safety of these small, nervous Jewish communities? For in this case, the two objectives are incompatible, even diametrically opposed.

My father, of course, had some wisdom to share. Quoting my deceased grandmother, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor, he emailed me: “Do nothing that might harm a single hair on any Jew’s head.”

So, journalistic credos be damned!

But as a committed, career journalist, the choice isn’t so clear-cut. For five years I’ve been a freelancer based in Budapest, writing mostly for, among others, JTA and the Christian Science Monitor. (Quite a tandem, religiously speaking.)

But the events of March 24 shattered my illusion of neutral observation – environmental conditioning notwithstanding. On that day, NATO launched airstrikes against Yugoslavia. In turn, Serbs accelerated their ethnic cleansing of Albanians from the southern province of Kosovo.

And within hours, busloads of Yugoslav Jews were on the road to Budapest, 250 miles north. They’d been invited by the Hungarian Jewish community, a plan that was kept hush-hush. I only learned of it days later, after JTA, informed by other sources, ran a short bulletin on its newswire. Now JTA wanted me to follow up with a feature story.

On Monday morning, March 29, I walked to the local Jewish community center, a couple blocks away from my apartment in downtown Budapest. Overnight, the airy, newly renovated center had been transformed into a hostel. And instead of its normal quiet – until dozens of Holocaust survivors stroll in for their afternoon card games – the place was bustling with 150 or so Jewish youth and older women, speaking Serbo-Croatian.

The din didn’t last long.

When the crowd saw me approaching with pen and notepad, they became edgy and suspicious. I asked to be de-briefed by the local representative of the Joint Distribution Committee – which was offering assistance to the newcomers – and by the Yugoslav group’s appointed spokeswoman.

And soon, the stonewalling began.

After a few general details of the situation, the Joint rep, normally a media-friendly type, suggested we wait a few hours until “we” received clearance from headquarters in New York. Then I could go ahead with my story. I politely informed him that, regardless, I would be writing an article that day.

Next came the spokeswoman, who is also head of the Jewish women’s organization back in Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital. From the outset, she insisted that her contingent not be referred to (and consequently stigmatized) as “refugees.” They were, she said, officially “tourists,” and wished to be described as such. (Later, a second Joint official suggested I refer to them with the awkward phrase “bombing escapees.”) I wondered aloud about the definition of refugee: one who seeks refuge, no? And this group certainly fit the bill – here they were, welcome and safe in serene Budapest; meanwhile, back home, family and friends were tormented each night by air-raid sirens and bone-rattling bombs.

I told the spokeswoman that frankly, I’d have trouble playing along with the “tourist” euphemism. But her reasoning was clear: Nationalists could easily twist and sensationalize the news of their departure, and portray them as “traitors.”

And that, of course, would make life more miserable for the 3,000 Jews remaining in Yugoslavia. This, after all, is a totalitarian state where media is so tightly controlled – and libel and slander are alien concepts. Once you’ve been branded a traitor, there’s little hope of defending yourself.

Still, I wondered if this woman wasn’t being just a bit overly paranoid. “They’ll read what we’re saying,” she said, through the Yugoslav Embassy in DC.

I scoffed: if it were in the New York Times or Washington Post, sure. But why would any Yugoslav read JTA?

Besides, I thought, who could blame someone for leaving? Any other Yugoslav citizen would do the same – especially if they had the cash or connections. (Indeed, tens of thousands of Serbs are camped out in Hungary’s hotels, and Serbo-Croatian can be heard throughout Budapest’s streets and cafes.) The real reason for the spokeswoman’s anxiety, then, is that Jews – especially those in Eastern Europe – know better than anyone that in a flash, anti-Semitism can rear its ugly head. Anytime, anywhere. Yugoslav and Macedonian Jewry, like so many of their European counterparts, were decimated by the Holocaust. (It must be noted, however, the deed was not carried out by homegrown fascists).

Then came four decades of repressive Communism: the public was conditioned to never challenge authority, or else pay a price – like unemployment, prison or even death.

That’s why the president of the Yugoslav Jewish community, himself a Holocaust survivor, instructed this spokeswoman not to utter a single politically oriented comment while abroad.

So the more I probed, the more nervous she became. She didn’t want her name used. Then she wanted to retract much of what she’d already told me. Soon, a crowd formed around us; from all sides I was being pressured not to write anything at all.

I tried to explain my predicament.

How could I act as if I had not seen these people? Their very reaction – their fear of exposure – convinced me this was even more of a “story.” How could I conceal the fact there were Jews in the world who felt endangered? Moreover – and from a practical, but purely competitive standpoint – I’d just learned from someone in the crowd that the Israeli and Hungarian media had also gotten whiff of their exodus.

Their story would get out one way or another, I told them.

Understandably, the Jews surrounding me were unsympathetic to my cause. After all, this was their life I was writing about. And here I was, upset about mere journalistic principles.

“As a Jew,” they pleaded, “you have certain responsibilities.”

They were right, of course. But I didn’t like it. Deflated, I managed a couple more half-hearted interviews (names and identities withheld, of course) and headed home.

I still had an article to write. My thoughts raced as I outlined how I’d word it. As soon as I got home, I fired off an elaborate email to my editors, describing the pickle I was in. (They would later tell me to proceed, but cautiously.)

And then I wrote. Among other points, I danced around the “refugee” vs. “tourist” distinction; touched on their anxiety about the loyalty issue; and went to great lengths to illustrate the Jewish community’s fondness for Yugoslavia and their desire to return home soon.

No lies, mind you. Just a case of emphasizing certain angles, downplaying others. It was an article I could live with.

The only slip up – in the eyes of the Yugoslav Jews and Joint officials who read it later – was to quote an unnamed young woman as saying “Milosevic is a jerk” among her comments.

Too political, I was told later. Too dangerous.

Over the next couple of weeks, I wondered how the Jews in Macedonia were holding up. I’d visited them a year and a half earlier, and was impressed with how actively this small, tight-knit community – officially 190 members – was in preserving its identity, history and traditions.

However, early on in the Kosovo crisis, JTA had reported that eight university-age men from the community had fled to neighboring Sofia, Bulgaria. (Not true, I was later told.) And I’d been reading in the papers how the influx of Kosovo Albanians was exacerbating relations between the Macedonian majority and its own large, restive population of ethnic Albanians.

When I finally met Macedonia’s Jews a few days later, in mid-April, it was deja vu all over again. I’ll spare you all the details, but it was more linguistic acrobatics. I was free to ask them anything, they said, but they wouldn’t tell me everything. Again, the truth was too risky – it might rile the neighbors.

My meeting with community leaders was two hours of cat and mouse: I chiseled away for nuggets of information; they responded diplomatically, with grand but bland statements like “Jews have always shared the fate of the Macedonians.” Later, someone finally stumbled and admitted that the Bulgarian Jews in Sofia – like the Hungarian Jews in Budapest – had offered some sort of escape route, just in case.

Today, it seems that offer may come in handy. Most people I spoke with during my week in Macedonia – Macedonians, Albanians, Jews and others – predicted that their country, too, was ripe for civil war. Tomorrow, perhaps, or in 10 years.

So that’s what I wrote for JTA.

What, then, are the lessons learned from these two experiences?

I still wrestle with the moral dimensions of the question: does publishing the truth serve the greater good? I think it does. Certainly, heeding grandma’s words, I don’t want to be the cause of harm to any hair on any head.

But in this case, writing that everything is honky-dory within Yugoslavia and Macedonia – for Jews or any other minority – only misleads the outside world. And sadly, it is the outside world that will be needed to resolve these conflict.

After living in Central Europe for six years, I’ve learned close-up about this Jewish tendency to avoid “making waves.” Yet it’s a hopeless Catch-22. A synagogue is vandalized, or a politician says something anti-Semitic. Rather than speak up — for fear of making it worse — they suffer in silence. Which means no one knows there’s a problem, so it happens again. I’d wager that if a reporter had asked the Hungarian Jews (my favorite example, for familial reasons), how they were doing in early 1944, I’d bet they would have responded — on the record — with an enthusiastic “Fine. No problem.”

Within a few months, of course, half a million were dead.

Today must be different.

Writing about the dilemma Yugoslav Jews face today – as of this writing, up to 500 have made their way to Budapest; some are considering aliya to Israel – has helped mobilize numerous international Jewish groups.

But more importantly, it illustrates the precarious situation confronting all minorities in the Balkans.

These conflicts are not simply about ethnic hatred between Serbs and Albanians, or Macedonians and Albanians. It is more the overall lack of respect for human rights, and a general lack of democratic tradition, culture and institutions.

Which is what spurred Western intervention in the first place – and will, hopefully, continue to do so in the future.

The author, a New Jersey native, can be emailed at michaeljjordan@csi.com , tel/fax (+36-1) 332-1640.

Why Ehud Barak Did Not Visit the Etzion Settlements

By

David Bedein

-

May 18, 1999

On Thursday, May 13, 1999, Ehud Barak had scheduled to the Etzion communities, south of Bethlehem, a settlement area that had once been thought to lie within Israel’s national consensus.

However, on Sunday, May 9th, Barak met with a delegation of the Israeli Communist and Arab Nationalist political parties, both of whom favor the forceable expulsion of ALL Jews from ALL areas taken by Israel in 1967.

At his meeting, Barak requested and received the endorsement of the Israeli Communist and Arab Nationalist political parties.

On May 10th, Barak announced that Labor, Meretz, and Israeli Communist and the Arab Nationalist political parties would formally organize “joint” May 17th election day campaign committee to bring out the vote.

Meretz platform also calls for withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and for the dismantling of their Jewish communities.

As a first gesture to his new political coalition, Barak announced the cancellation of his planned visit to the Etzion bloc of settlements.

The Israel Broadasting Authority reported that the reason for Barak’s cancellation of his visit was due to threats to “explode his visit”. I checked with every Israeli reporter. None had heard of any such “threats”.

“Threats” were not the reason for the cancellation of Barak’s visit.

Ten people carrying signs would never deter an Israeli politician from going anywhere, and there is no evidence any threat issued from the Etzion residents at any time against Barak.

It should be noted that former Deputy Foreign Minister Yose Beillin, now running alongside Barak, declared in a taped briefing at the Israel Foreign Ministry on December 8, 1993 that all residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza who decided to remain within their settlements would be forced to live under the rule of the Palestinian Authority. That tape remains on my desk.

If there was ever a doubt as to Barak’s policy and attitude to the Jewish communities of Judea, Samaria and Katif, that doubt was removed yesterday.

The Revival of UN Resolution #181

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

May 18, 1999

Resolution 181’s Revival

In the May 9, 1999, edition of Al-Ayyam, Journalist Tawfiq Abu Bakr reported on the Palestinian Central Council meetings that discussed Palestinian measures on May 4th 1999:

“Minister Nabil Sha’ath [Palestinian Minister for Planning and International Cooperation] said… that the President of Finland told the Palestinian delegation [that accompanied Arafat in his recent international tour] about his experience in South Africa, which had the Mandate over Namibia. The Finnish President was the head of the international team that received the land from South Africa and then transferred it to the State of Namibia. He said he was ready to fill a similar role in Palestine, despite the relatively different details and circumstances. Finland will [take its turn as] President of the EU on July 1st, 1999. Their [the EU’s] demand for a consolidation of the sovereignty will break through and escalate after the Israeli elections and after there is a new government in Israel.

[Sha’ath further stated] that throughout the Palestinian international diplomatic campaign, it was emphasized that the declaration of a state was a natural right of the Palestinian people, on the basis of UN General Assembly [UNGA] Resolution 181, the Partition Resolution [of 1947], which recognized the existence of two states in Palestine. The Jewish state was established in reality, while the Palestinian state was not. The condition for the existence of the Jewish state was [and still is internationally and in accordance with the resolutions of international legitimacy] related to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Many [at the Central Council] talked about the possibility of reviving the international talks about Resolution 181, which was mentioned three times in the council’s final statement_ The mere reference to the Resolution terrifies the Israelis, and especially when it comes from European countries, which threw the first political bomb in their letter to Israel regarding Jerusalem. In this letter, they announced that they still do not recognize the new situation in Jerusalem, both east and west, since Resolution 181 is still the legitimate basis for Jerusalem.

Israeli diplomacy faced great confusion when they bluntly declared that they did not recognize the 1947 UNGA Resolution 181, claiming that the other side, the ‘Arab side,’ did not recognize this Resolution back then and that the circumstances have changed since. Palestinian and Arab diplomacy’s task is to take advantage of this provocation regarding the Resolutions of international legitimacy that can only be canceled by the UNGA itself and by a two thirds majority. That was the case with the decision to cancel the UNGA 1975 Resolution that deemed Zionism a racist movement. This Resolution was canceled in 1991, as an Israeli precondition before going to the Madrid Conference. However, in this case the cancellation was done by the same institution that accepted the Resolution in the first place and by a two-thirds majority, organized by Washington. In those days, the US managed to do so, of course.

The moderate Palestinians are optimists, maybe out of their historical perspective, and because they trust that intelligence and realism, supported by the acceptance and development of international positions, may turn the Israeli government into [the ones] who stubbornly reject the international legitimacy and challenge the international decisions. In this respect, it may constitute one way or another, a repetition of the Kosovo experience, whose lessons those brothers [the moderate Palestinians] called to examine carefully. The EU accepted the Resolution in favor of military intervention in Kosovo the same day it affirmed the letter known in Palestinian circles as the ‘Berlin Declaration…’

These brothers believe that there is a new international trend, whose foundations were molded in Kosovo, of military intervention in order to solve international problems, with no connection to the UN and its frameworks. [They add that] this inclination will not be in Israel’s favor for both the medium and long terms.

Nobody speaks of military intervention against Israel in the foreseeable future, since it is still a strategic ally of the US, but such an intervention can be multifaceted. In addition, the international changes continue and nothing is constant in the world except for the fact that it is constantly changing. What seemed to be inconceivable a decade ago, became reality today; what seems inconceivable today and is referred to as ‘thinking the unthinkable’ may become reality in the future…

The Jewish state, although armed to the teeth with all kinds of [weapons of] destruction – its people are afraid of the future and its political parties harvest votes all the time by creating fear of tomorrow. The limited concessions they presented are not the result of the balance of power, since the Israelis, due to their military superiority, are capable of not withdrawing from a single inch of land. However, they, or at least some of them, want to protect themselves from the fears and surprises of ‘tomorrow’ using ‘the concessions of the today…’

These are the main characteristics of the position of the ‘moderate Palestinians,’ a position that won at the end…”

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Materials may only be cited with proper attribution.

Letter to the World from a reporter in Jerusalem, June 1967

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

May 18, 1999

The Westinghouse Radio correspondent in Israel in 1967 – the first foreign correspondent to report Israel’s capture of the Temple Mount during the 1967 war, when he was stationed on the roof of the Histadrut building on Strauss Street in Jerusalem, peering through his binoculars and reporting the greatest story of his long journalist career. Whartman recently suffered a stroke and now resides in a nursing home a few blocks from where he made that report.

I am not a creature from another planet, as you seem to believe. I am a Jerusalemite – like yourselves, a man of flesh and blood. I am a citizen of my city, an integral part of my people.

I have a few things to get off my chest. Because I am not a diplomat, I do not have to mince words. I do not have to please you, or even persuade you. I owe you nothing. You did not build this city; you did not live in it; you did not defend it when they came to destroy it. And we will be damned if we will let you take it away.

There was a Jerusalem before there was a New York. When Berlin, Moscow, London, and Paris were miasmal forest and swamp, there was a thriving Jewish community here. It gave something to the world which you nations have rejected ever since you established yourselves-a humane moral code.

Here the prophets walked, their words flashing like forked lightning. Here a people who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, fought off waves of heathen would-be conquerors, bled and died on the battlements, hurled themselves into the flames of their burning Temple rather than surrender, and when finally overwhelmed by sheer numbers and led away into captivity, swore that before they forgot Jerusalem, they would see their tongues cleave to their palates, their right arms wither.

For two pain-filled millennia, while we were your unwelcome guests, we prayed daily to return to this city. Three times a day we petitioned the Almighty: Gather us from the four corners of the world, bring us upright to our land; return in mercy to Jerusalem, Thy city, and dwell in it as Thou promised.” On every Yom Kippur and Passover, we fervently voiced the hope that next year would find us in Jerusalem.

Your inquisitions, pogroms, expulsions, the ghettos into which you jammed us, your forced baptisms, your quota systems, your genteel anti-Semitism, and the final unspeakable horror, the holocaust (and worse, your terrifying disinterest in it)- all these have not broken us. They may have sapped what little moral strength you still possessed, but they forged us into steel. Do you think that you can break us now after all we have been through? Do you really believe that after Dachau and Auschwitz we are frightened by your threats of blockades and sanctions? We have been to Hell and back- a Hell of your making. What more could you possibly have in your arsenal that could scare us? I have watched this city bombarded twice by nations calling themselves civilized. In 1948, while you looked on apathetically, I saw women and children blown to smithereens, after we agreed to your request to inter- nationalize the city. It was a deadly combination that did the job. British officers, Arab gunners, and American made cannons. And then the savage sacking of the Old City the willful slaughter, the wanton destruction of every synagogue and religious school; the desecration of Jewish cemeteries; the sale by a ghoulish government of tombstones for building materials, for poultry runs, army camps- even latrines. And you never said a word.

You never breathed the slightest protest when the Jordanians shut off the holiest of our places, the Western Wall, in violation of the pledges they had made after the war- a war they waged, incidentally, against the decision of the UN. Not a murmur came from you whenever the legionnaires in their spiked helmets casually opened fire upon our citizens from behind the walls.

Your hearts bled when Berlin came under siege. You rushed your airlift “to save the gallant Berliners”. But you did not send one ounce of food when Jews starved in besieged Jerusalem. You thundered against the wall which the East Germans ran through the middle of the German capital- but not one peep out of you about that other wall, the one that tore through the heart of Jerusalem.

And when that same thing happened 20 years later, and the Arabs unleashed a savage, unprovoked bombardment of the Holy City again, did any of you do anything? The only time you came to life was when the city was at last reunited. Then you wrung your hands and spoke loftily of “justice” and need for the “Christian” quality of turning the other cheek.

The truth is-and you know it deep inside your gut- you would prefer the city to be destroyed rather than have it governed by Jews. No matter how diplomatically you phrase it, the age old prejudices seep out of every word.

If our return to the city has tied your theology in knots, perhaps you had better reexamine your catechisms. After what we have been through, we are not passively going to accommodate ourselves to the twisted idea that we are to suffer eternal homelessness until we accept your savior.

For the first time since the year 70 there is now complete religious freedom for all in Jerusalem. For the first time since the Romans put a torch to the Temple everyone has equal rights. (You prefer to have some more equal than others.) We loathe the sword – but it was you who forced us to take it up. We crave peace – but we are not going back to the peace of 1948 as you would like us to.

We are home. It has a lovely sound for a nation you have willed to wander over the face of the globe. We are not leaving. We are redeeming the pledge made by our forefathers: Jerusalem is being rebuilt. “Next year” and the year after, and after, and after, until the end of time- “in Jerusalem!”

Arafat-appointed Cleric Delivers a Sermon at Al Aksa Mosque

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

May 18, 1999

“… What interests us as Moslems is the Moslem religious edict concerning the Palestinian problem. Our position is firm and will not change. All of Moslem Palestine remains one indivisible unit that cannot be partitioned. There is no difference between Haifa and Nablus, between Lod and Ramallah or between Jerusalem and Nazareth, since the land of Palestine is holy land that is the exclusive property of all Moslems from the East and from the West. No one has the right to relinquish it nor to divide it. The liberation of Palestine is the obligation of all the nations of Islam and not only incumbent upon the Palestinian nation alone… Allah must give a victory to our fighters for Jihad (Holy War).”

Yosuf Abu Snenah, Arafat-appointed cleric delivered these words at Al Aksa Mosque, in Jerusalem, to thousands of Moslem worshippers on Friday, April 30, 1999.

Film taken by a Palestinian TV crew, with transcription provided by Palestinian Media Watch.

Official Fatah Website: Clinton Letter Not Balfour Declaration – 181 & 194 Basis

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

May 18, 1999

The following editoral from the official Fatah website www.fateh.org/e_editor/99/300499.htm has several important statements:

1. The Clinton letter is not a ‘Balfour Declaration’.

2. Rather than 242 and 338, the PLO will base future demands on 181 (the partition line that puts Beersheva and many other areas in a Palestinian state) and 194 (return of the 1948 refugees to within Israel)

Complete unedited text:

Extending the Central Council Session: Preparing for the Declaration of Statehood

President Clintons letter to President Arafat played an important role in lessening Palestinian determination to declare a state on May 4. Although only the parts of the letter which had been published in newspapers were read to members of the Central Council, still the Council members saw in Clintons words a certain significance. As Israeli prime ministerial candidate Ehud Barak commented, the letter amounts to a Palestinian counterpart of the Balfour Declaration, issued on November 2, 1917, under the name of then British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, and promising a national home for the Jews in Palestine. Balfours declaration — in essence a promise to deliver land by someone who did not own the land, thereby ousting from it an entire people who had lived there for generations — was followed by material support from the British during the Mandate years.

However, it is a mistake to liken Clintons letter to the Balfour Declaration, for in his letter, Clinton ignores the Palestinians right to self-determination, and refers instead vaguely to the right of Palestinians to live freely on their land. In fact, Clintons letter leaves the future of the Palestinian people right smack in the hands of the Zionists who have been occupying it militarily, who themselves offer no more than an even more amorphous autonomy in the land of Greater Israel. In no respect does the letter add to the words Clinton spoke in Gaza, where, in his eyes, presumably, the Palestinian people are already living freely on their land — locked up day and night, unable to leave even the overcrowded portions of Gaza left to them, packed for more than 50 years, now, into refugee camps, cut off from other parts of Palestine, without work or the means to go find work. If this is what President Clinton means by living freely on their land, then we want no part of his promise to us.

We fear that in calling for a one-year extension of the Oslo negotiations, Clinton is deceiving himself. For certain, he is not deceiving us. It is true that Clinton stood by the Palestinian team during the Wye River negotiations, an enterprise which led to eventual imposition on the Palestinian side of an agreement which, even if it had been implemented, was hardly fair to us. But of course the Wye Memorandum was not implemented: it did not find favor with the fundamentalist Zionist ideology which Netenyahus government represents. The Wye Memorandum included a mechanism for implementing UN Resolutions 242 and 383, both so vital to Palestinian rights and interests; therefore, it was not implemented, even though Clinton was considered the chief guarantor of the agreement. Meanwhile, ironically, Netenyahu tries to insult Clinton by labeling him a supporter of Palestinian rights.

Speculation that the coming Israeli elections may bring down Netenyahus government may be off the mark. Furthermore, the one-year extension Clinton calls for cannot achieve the necessary results. Its possible that Netenyahu has succeeded in convincing the Israeli public that he is the man to vote for, that he is a man who does not cave in under US pressure. Not only this, but the Israeli public may believe Netenyahu when he boasts that the Clinton letter was written in coordination with Israeli staff members, betting on the notion that a year from now, Clinton will be too weak to handle the Palestinian issue, even if he wants to. Justice for the Palestinian people is not expected to figure large on the agenda of the Democratic Party in the next presidential election. Rather, at that time, Democrats will have their hands full simply trying to make sure that Al Gore becomes the next US president. And as is well known, Al Gore is more sympathetic to Israelis than to Palestinians.

In some of his actions, including in coming to Gaza, Clinton has shown some understanding of our cause, it is true. He is besieged, however, by Congress and by his own administration, both of which have proved to be fully committed to the right-wing grab-every-hilltop settler mentality which holds sway in Israel. The US government, sadly, is showing itself to be far closer to the Likud than to any peace-loving Israelis who long for long-term stability, achieved by means of a just peace, in the Middle East.

In the light of all that has been said, the Central Councils decision obviously represents but a temporary way out of a problem what will remain, regardless of who wins the Israeli elections. If Netenyahu wins the elections, the result will be a direct confrontation between Palestinians and the Israeli state. The Central Council will have to set into motion the committees it has established. The committees need to demonstrate that Palestinians are serious when we speak of independence. One of these, the National Unity Committee, is especially important. It is composed of all political affiliations, national and Islamic, and given the attendance of both Hamas and Jihad at the Central Councils meeting in which the decision was taken not to declare a state on May 4, its work takes on a special significance. The state we are building is, after all, a state for all the Palestinian people, where political plurality and the sovereignty of law are enjoyed by all citizens. Our state, which is now in the process of being constructed, requires collective work by all of us, to liberate the rest of our land and to ensure full sovereignty over it.The arrogant policies of Netenyahu, who aims to impose his hegemony on Palestinians, cannot be confronted without solid national unity.

Meanwhile, the Central Council appreciated greatly the Berlin Statement of support issued simultaneously with the Clinton letter by the European Economic Community, because the EEC document unequivocably emphasized the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. Although the statement urged that actual statehood be postponed for one year to give negotiators the chance to overcome current difficulties, establishment of the state is not conceived as contingent on the settlement of these difficulties. The Berlin Statement, rather, accords to Palestinians the right of statehood within a years time, subject to veto by no other state. The statement, we realize, was the result of consensus among parties which had different positions on statehood. Some countries, for instance, already deal with Palestine as a state; others assure us they are ready to recognize Palestine as a state at any time statehood is declare.

Consensus was also evident in the action of the Central Council when it voted to postpone the declaration of statehood until after the Israeli elections. Unanimity exists among all Palestinians on the goal of statehood. There was, however, some difference of opinion among Central Council members on the wisdom of postponing the declaration. However, all parties emphasized the importance of continuing the internal dialogue and of participating in the committees set up by the Central Council. In its deliberations, the Central Council expresses the thinking of the PLOs National Council and the Executive Committee, which represents the central government of the Palestinian people.

Although the statement of the Central Council reflects Palestinian willingness to continue the process of negotiating for peace, all decisions have been made within revised terms of reference. It is on the basis of these that progress can be made in two directions: first, toward true Palestinian independence and the actualization of full Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza; and second, toward resolution of the remaining interim issues. UN Resolutions 181 and 194, which predate the Oslo Agreements, now form the frame of reference within which all Palestinian parties will make future decisions. Palestinians will now act on the basis of these and all UN resolutions relating to the Palestinian issue. The parties which are able to act on the basis of these resolutions are the PLO Central Council and the PLO Executive Committee, which must be activated full-time to supervise the work of the ministries and other institutions.

The one-year extension which was required of the Central Council by both Europe and the United States has led to a continuation of the Council sessions, as a method of postponing the vote on the declaration of statehood, in line with the Arabic proverb which says that avoiding danger can be sometimes better than reaching for advantage. Any future benefits for Palestinians should be studied well, so that the Palestinian people understand their value and work for them wholeheartedly. For the Central Council to meet the peoples expectations, it must use each hour of this month to ensure that the committees set up by the Council are engaged in taking practical steps toward independence and sovereignty rather than in discussing theoretical considerations.

The legal basis for statehood has been strengthened by these recent developments, but it requires further work in the political, economic, diplomatic realms. It requires also securing the daily needs of our citizens to show the people the benefits of statehood, and to promote a climate of equality, justice and the sovereignty of law, so that every citizen will have for him or herself a glimpse of the reality to come.

Revolution until victory!

Palestinian Reflections on the Kosovo Crisis

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

May 18, 1999

As a Palestinian who was born a quarter of a century after and spared the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948 that galvanized Palestine and sent most of our Palestinian people then fleeing to nearby later-hostile Arab countries, I have often wondered what it must have been like to be there and witness it all. Surely, I have read numerous books about Palestinian history, heard the endless recitals of refugee stories by many including some of my relatives, and witnessed the rare video footage that showed Palestinians boarded unto trucks and sent away to be, or at least as the Zionists then erroneously hoped, forgotten. I was often told stories by my father, who himself escaped when he was five years old with his family from their ancestral Lod, about how they escaped on foot and had to survive on UN rations for a while until they, as a fortunate few, where able to settle outside the refugee camps.

Today, I do not have to tax my imagination trying to reconstruct the scenes in my mind, or the horrors and sense of loss the Palestinians went through then. Mass Media has provided us all with similar images from the ongoing Kosovo crisis. And I emphasize images here since some of the real motives behind the US led NATO shelling of Yugoslavia and the fact that the evacuation of ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo was pre-determined and expected by the NATO Allies and the Clinton administration are hidden from us. A number of seasoned journalists, intellectuals, and observers have pointed to European, mainly German, territorial expansion plans for the area of former Yugoslavia, and to certainly the fateful mistake of trying to settle deep historical problems by force. The pictures of and stories about Kosovar Albanians being terrorized to leave their homes – by means of fire, force, murder, and rape – are not different at all form the account about Zionist gangs that evacuated three quarter of a million Palestinians within a year from their homes. Incidentally, one of the who did this was General-turned -“Peace-Maker” Yitzhak Rabin who was personally responsible for driving out 40,000 Palestinians from Lod and Ramla in 1948. Also, they too are losing everything they ever owned as they run for their lives, again as the Palestinians did 51 years ago. The Kosovo Albanians are demographically similar to the Palestinians refugees then as mainly rural, traditional Muslims. They are, as the Palestinians then and now, without real leadership and institutions.

There are legitimate comparisons that can be made between Kosovo crisis today and Palestine of 1948. The Serbs’ religious and historic claim to Kosovo is similar to modern-day Israel’s religious and historical to the historical land of Palestine, but certainly no excuse or reason, in my opinion, for cleansing another people that has been there for hundreds of years. The real sick motive behind it of course is to create an ethnically-homogenous society. Another impressive similarity is, as the Kosovars will soon discover, the number of parties and the countries that are involved in this crisis and are promising help to the refugees which, I believe, will never go in their efforts far beyond giving food, refugee camps, and maybe for the lucky ones, resettlement in other friendly countries. One could safely assume, given the evidence of the Serbian pre-determined mindset to evacuate the Albanians out of Kosovo, the NATO’s awareness of that and its preparations to receive refugees at the borders a while before the bombing began and the talk about partition of Kosovo and resettlement of ousted Krajina Serbian refugees in their, hint at a future not-too-pleasant for the Albanians. Does not that sound sadly similar to the 1930’s and 40’s Zionist plan “Dalt” to evacuate Arabs out of Palestine? What about the UN Partition Plan of 1947 which aimed at dividing Palestine into Arab and Jewish states? What about Britain’s and the UN’s utter failure to remedy the situation in Palestine peacefully and its looking-the-other-way when it came to Zionist armament? What about the resettlement of European Jews, who escaped the horrors of anti-Semitism and Hitler, in their place? And finally, what about Israel’s insistence first that there are no Palestinians and its till today continual main-stream deferment ideologically and politically of discussing the problem of the Palestinian refugees’ and their descendants’ just and fair claim to recognition, compensation, and apology? How ironic that Israel have admitted to date 104 Albanian refugees while still stubbornly refuses to deal with and discuss the refugee problem it has created of 4 million Palestinians who have lost everything to become wanderers or persona non grata, referred to by Israel’s revisionist historians as Israel’s original sin. Perhaps that is why Israel’s Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon at first decided to oppose NATO’s bombing campaign of Yugoslavia for fear of applying the same criteria on Israel in the future. It could be a manifestation of his own insecurity as a long-time proponent of the transfer solution, which calls for driving out the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza to Jordan to establish a state there.

It is unfortunate that after a century of war and destruction the “civilized world” as the NATO/West loves to call itself, has failed to bring about a civilized resolution of a potentially explosive crisis in an area that witnessed the start of both World War I & II. The solution for NATO leaders seems to be bomb, bomb, and bomb. The Kosovo crisis has so far caused the ire of other countries and threatens to drag on longer. Already there is talk about calling 33, 000 more US troops an NATO plans to continue bombing for months to come, in the meantime certain segments in the Russian society are expressing their anger against the US and pressuring their government for action. Perhaps this crisis will be settled temporarily with the partition of Kosovo and resettlement of some of the Albanian refugees in neighboring countries. That, again, is a temporary solution since partition and displacement of original inhabitants has never been a fair and just solution as we can derive from post-1948 Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Arab-Israeli wars, and the continuous sham of the “peace process”. To quote the words of the journalist Christopher Hitchens writing recently in The Nation Magazine (4/17/99- 5/3/99):

“Somewhere at the back of NATO’s mind there is a project for the partition and amputation of Kosovo, and nobody who has studied the partitions of Ireland, India, Cyprus, Palestine and Bosnia can believe for an instant that partition can be accomplished without ethnic cleansing_ Of course, all partitions lead to further wars and further partitions.”

No one can safely predict what the outcome of this crisis will be. But for now at least, the Kosovo Albanians, although receiving exceptional media coverage, have joined the list of the twentieth century’s most dispossessed and displaced peoples: the Jews, the Armenians, the Kurds and the Palestinians.

Omar Qourah, a Palestinian, is a graduate student at American University in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at Omar@MiddleEast.Org .

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The Revival of UN Resolution #181

Letter to the World from a reporter in Jerusalem, June 1967

Arafat-appointed Cleric Delivers a Sermon at Al Aksa Mosque

Official Fatah Website: Clinton Letter Not Balfour Declaration – 181 & 194 Basis

Palestinian Reflections on the Kosovo Crisis

Column from the Director