Wahat al Salam ~ Neve Shalom is a shared Palestinian / Jewish village at the edge of Israel and Palestine build on international no-man's land. It exists since 30 years and apart from the village there is an Arabic / Hebrew du-national primary school, a conflict transformation centre and an interfaith centre. Almost all people in the village have Israeli citizenship, and they stand out amidst the crowd with their observations about the war in Gaza. All articles have been originally published on www.nswas.org Daniel of Daniels Counter Blog is affiliated to Wahat al Salam ~ Neve Shalom through the British Friends (www.oasisofpeaceuk.org) and hence these articles are republished here for my British readers. I know that BF-WASNS is in need of supporters and helpers, so anyone who feels they like to do a little more get in contact with the British Friends or any of the other regional friends
Canada Denmark France Germany Italy Netherlands Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom USAInformation is also valiable in the following languages
العربية • Dansk • Deutsch • English • Español • Esperanto
français • עברית • italiano • Nederlands • 日本語 • Svensk •
You can’t eradicate a people’s will for national rights
Tuesday 30 December 2008, by Abdessalam Najjar
Israel’s leaders are trying to persuade Israelis and the rest of the world that the main problem is “the Hamas government of Gaza”. If only we can eradicate Hamas, we will eradicate the conflict. The same claims were made many years ago with regard to the PLO. Today, the PLO has almost ceased to exist, and certainly does not operate against Israel. However, the conflict is still alive, kicking and claiming victims – today, more on the Palestinian side. Instead of the PLO we have Hamas. Experience shows that if Hamas will be eradicated, there will still be no end to the conflict.
The attempt to reduce the Israeli – Palestinian conflict to the problem of the blockade on Gaza and retaliation by Kassam missiles is misleading and mendacious. The main conflict is between those who are today enclosed in Gaza, in the West Bank and in refugee camps in the Arab countries – those who were evacuated and who fled from their settlements and homes in 1948 – and between those who took control of their lands. As long as there is no agreement between the two sides, the conflict will continue to claim victims. The intoxication of military force will not bring about a solution. The side that is militarily strong is weak in values. Even the halting of the Kassams will not end the conflict. A continuation of the conflict means the continuation of suffering on both sides. Just as there was no agreement before the Kassam, there will be no agreement after it. Just as there was no agreement before the Hamas, there will be no agreement after it. As long as there is no agreement, the conflict will be dealt with through violent means. The violence of the Israeli army today in Gaza will give legitimacy for violent acts from Palestinian factions against Israel. It will be hard for me to condemn Palestinian violence against Israel, even if those who are injured are innocent.
The main fruit of the military operation in Gaza is political capital gained by the incumbent Israeli political leadership. Barak will make a comeback. Tsipi Livneh and the rest will augment their chances to sit in the next government. And the Israelis will feel good: “We got even with them.” This is leadership of the cheapest kind, which is unable to deal with challenges and provide its people with security, welfare and prosperity.
A perusal of the Arab news media reporting from Gaza shows mostly shocking images, rather than words. Gradually the international news media is beginning to broadcast the horror. In Arab media, after this shock, the dominant voice is to break all contact with Israel and Israelis, to close all Israeli diplomatic missions, and boycott any world power that maintains contact with Israel. The Arab world is vociferous, angry, and demonstrative in its support for the citizens of Gaza. As a bi-product, this brings support for Hamas. The dominant voice is militant, in counterpoint to Israeli militancy. Precisely those who have supported negotiations and dialogue with Israel are now leading the demonstrations. From this wave of demonstrations is emerging calls to join in a worldwide violent struggle against Israel. These calls promise “an earthquake”. The primary speakers in the media are of those in the resistance committees. The street is speaking of “mukawama” – resistance. It is true that demonstrations and declarations will not mobilize warplanes or stop missiles, but they will ensure a strong support for uncompromising voices. The attempt to resolve the campaign on the battlefield will complicate things further, and push further away the chances for a resolution by agreement.
Israeli citizens will pay the price for supporting their leaders in this war! I am dismayed to utter a sentence that echoes in reverse the declarations of those who justify the offensive on Gaza, and hope that the strong emotions I feel do not injure my humanity.
It is possible to eradicate persons, possible to eradicate their ability to fight back, but it is not possible to eradicate the will of the Palestinian people for national rights.
Originally published on nswas.org
Enough from the men!
Monday 5 January 2009, by Maram Masarwi
The appalling scenes on television have left some of us dumbfounded. What is happening in Gaza is a human tragedy and a war crime beyond comprehension. Another killing campaign from Barak’s death factory: "Cast Lead." Evidently the stock of heroic phrases in the songs of the Maccabees was not enough for Barak, since he felt obliged to lay his pianist’s hands on a poem for children by Bialik, who is turning over in his grave at the crude brutality of using a classic children’s poem as the name for this bloody struggle. Such a gross incursion from the adult world – Cast Lead – into the innocent world of children is only one part of the masculine discourse that knows no boundaries, neither territorial nor national. Perhaps Barak was thinking about some particularly horrible revenge. If once they measured an eye for an eye, Barak, Olmert and Livni now weigh the lives of 300 Palestinians against the disruption of daily life among residents of southern Israel.
Indeed if we are dealing with a war, then once again the men are marching out in front, both on the battlefield and in the parade of commentators across our television screens. And once again the women - mothers and wives - are conspicuously absent from the decision-making process and banished from any chance of influencing the intolerable reality unfolding before us. We women are not bombing anyone from the skies above Gaza and we are certainly not launching missiles toward Sderot. Once again the furious male discourse from both sides is turning this conflict into a struggle between two groups of men, and succeeding in obscuring the cruel reality of conquest and the built-in division of labor between men and women in the Israeli and Palestinian national discourse.
Once again we are exposed to an approach whereby men are identified with the roles at the front line - requiring courage, rationality, and bold decision-making - while the women are identified with the roles at the rear, the home front roles, which disempower them politically and keep them firmly lodged in the private sphere. Female home front roles and male front line roles serve men, and insure that during wartime, too, they will retain control - and maybe this war is the one that will finally perpetuate that control. Yes, even as the cannons thunder and the planes bomb, it is incumbent upon us to protest the fact that the desire to insure control is what has nationalized, and indeed militarized, mothers’ wombs. The national territorial imperative requires that a woman sacrifice her sons. This teaches us that nationalism and cultural tradition may often prevent women from speaking out against tradition, against the nation.
Thus, as always in wartime, we tend to regress to an inability to crack open that male hegemony. A case in point is Livni’s pathetic attempt to sound more manly than Barak and Netanyahu so as to prove that she is "big enough" to do the job. So what is too big for Tzipi Livni, if not the fact that she as a woman is unable to resolve the "tough men’s problems" by speaking out in a saner and less impassioned voice? But elections being elections, one must go all the way, even at the price of a few hundred Palestinians.
During these apocalyptic and chaotic days of anxiety about the economy and defense, there is little point in clinging to the self-serving hope that the female discourse will be accepted. As women, numerically representing half the population of the world, we have an obligation to represent an alternative agenda that must be taken into account in the diplomatic and political decision-making process conducted by men or their surrogates. As women and mothers, we must work to change reality, coming from the alternative female agenda and discourse, striving unashamedly for the assimilation of compassion and inclusiveness, instead of the massacre taking place now in Gaza. Let us remember that women, who bring life into this world, should also protect life - even at the price of territorial concessions. So - how shall I put it, guys? - Enough already! More than enough.
Originally published on nswas.org-------
Dear friends,
I need to tell you about how we are living these days, and I suppose that on your side you also need to know.
Today is New Year’s Eve and in less than an hour we will be in 2009 - yet no one is in a mood to celebrate.
Last Saturday, our young people had invited the entire village to their club to celebrate the holidays of all three religions: Eid el Adha - the Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice), Hanukkah and Christmas. The kids were all prepared for a large and magnificent feast of the whole community of the village. It was the first time that the youth had taken this initiative, and we, the parents, were full of pride in anticipation of what they would do. And then came the news of the massive bombardment of the Gaza Strip and of its many victims. The youth of the village gathered to discuss what could be done in these circumstances. It was clear to everyone that this was not the time to celebrate, and they decided to invite the community for a discussion. So we gathered on Saturday evening at the club to share our feelings and our thoughts. Despite our concern about the upsurge in violence, about the many unnecessary victims in the Gaza Strip; despite the certainty that violence could only generate violence and despite our despair at all of this, there was a very special atmosphere on that night: We were more aware than ever what a meeting like this represented. In the midst of this difficult situation we found ourselves here together, Jews and Palestinians, youth and adults, while across the country nothing was heard from the two sides except words of hatred and incitement to war. We were there together to refuse this and to prove that it is possible to do things differently.
Two of my daughters daughters participated last summer in workshops organized by two U.S. organizations engaged in meetings between Palestinian and Israeli youth. They made new friends with whom they are still in contact today. Last Sunday, my daughter told me that her friend in [the West Bank city of] Ramallah faced incomprehension from her circle, who could see no reason to have a friend in Israel, when everyone is demonstrating against Israel. On the other hand, a Jewish friend asked how she managed with the Palestinian part of her identity. [1]
As we do not have a high school in NSWAS, most of our village youth are studying at a high school located some miles to our south.
Today, I was at work and my children were at school, despite warnings of missiles in its vicinity. At 9:30 my cell phone rang. It was May, my eldest daughter, and she said, ’Mom, you can see on the Internet where the missiles have fallen. We heard a strong boom near here...”
“May, where are you?" I want to make sure they are safe. May reassures me: - - "Mom, yes, everything is fine, but there goes the siren again. We are in the classroom and we are staying next to the wall, as they advise..."
Thoughts are turning over in my head. What now? Go and pick them up from school? What if missiles fall while we are on the way back? Only yesterday a woman was killed in Ashdod when she left her car to protect herself from a missile... I am filled with panic and helplessness. I don’t know what it is best to do in this situation. We could be struck anywhere. I call my second daughter. She is very excited: “Mom, the missile fell a few hundred meters away from our school...” Actually, she doesn’t seem panicked, but rather troubled by what is happening. I hear a noise behind her and it’s the voice of the school principal coming over the P.A. system, trying to reassure the students. I think of my youngest daughter. Since rockets fell in the area, she is very concerned at the prospect of having to go to the shelter with her class. She fears being involved in disagreements. When I finally get her on the line, she seems okay. She tells me that it’s the fear and the tears of her friends that bother her most. They live in the area that is most exposed, and their nerves are on edge because of the shooting of recent days. She says she tries to console her friends who are crying and panicked.
Shortly afterwards, the children tell me they are being sent home and the school will remain closed until further notice.
I cannot really calm myself until the children inform me that they have arrived home. Neve Shalom / Wahat al-Salam is out of range of the missiles. That is why my daughters have brought a whole troop of friends who live in the south and have suffered from the firing of the rockets in recent days. They will be able to spend a quiet night with us.
My thoughts move to Gaza which is being more heavily bombarded than with these rockets. Where will Palestinian girls on that side flee to?
It is so absurd this war. Ultimately we will still need to negotiate and reach an agreement. So why not do it before all this destruction?
If only a tiny fraction of the money that we are investing now in this war was invested in work for peace! We are breaking our heads to find enough money to pay the salaries of our peace workers for the coming month - while others do all this damage with their bombs and missiles!
I wish you all, with all my heart, a good and peaceful New Year,
Shalom, Salam from our Neve Shalom / Wahat al-Salam,
Evi.
(originally published in German)
---------
Shiv’a in Gaza: December 2008
Thursday 1 January 2009, by Deb Reich
My heart has been broken so many times, writes Alice Walker somewhere, that it feels like an open suitcase with the wind blowing through it. But maybe, she muses, hearts are made to be broken, and what is required of us is simply a steadfast acknowledgment: Open up and let the wind blow through; that’s what hearts are for.
If so, Gaza 2008 is good cardiac training.
I am an American-Israeli Jewish woman of 60 living now in an Arab town in Israel and working for Jewish-Palestinian-Arab-Israeli reconciliation. I have two friends in Gaza and I will tell you how we came to be acquainted.
The first step was simply refusing to be enemies. There are thousands of Palestinians and Jews like me, in the Middle East and worldwide, who refuse to be enemies. We rarely make the headlines in your local paper, but we are here. One day we will prevail - not over anyone, but with everyone together. We are creating a new reality together and the paradigm, sooner or later, will shift decisively. Meantime, people needlessly bleed and suffer and die and mourn; the scenarios are endless but the outcomes are identical: death, injury, pain. What distinguishes Gazan suffering at the moment is that the noncombatants have nowhere to run to. The borders are sealed. The bombs fall. The world watches.
* * *
In 2006, one of my several informally adopted children, business consultant and "business for peace" activist Sam Bahour of Al Bireh, Palestine, started an Arabic-English-Arabic translation service, AIM Word Factory. A key goal was to provide employment for underemployed Gazan translators. To have the honor of being one of the first customers and helping that great idea launch, I sent him, for translation into Arabic, an anti-war story I wrote many years ago called "Dudu in Heaven," about an Israeli woman who loses her brother in the 1967 Six-Day War. The translator in Gaza was a young professional named Maha M., and the shared literary mission led to some email exchanges, all conducted via Sam. "Maha says the story is too sad," Sam reported at one point. "She likes it very much, but she says you ought to write a happier one next time."
Not long ago, I discovered that Maha’s nephew Mohammed, 14, is the boy whom Sam has been helping for some years now in a very personal struggle with a rare inherited immune disease, CGD. Sam donates and helps raise money from private donors for Mo’s treatment and medication and has been successful in assisting Maha to get the necessary "permits" from Israel to enable her to accompany Mo for his treatment. Mo became a patient at the Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, an excellent Israeli facility near Tel Aviv. ("Everyone on the medical staff will go straight to heaven someday," says Sam.) Mo and Maha recently spent two and a half months at the hospital and the nearby Bet Hayeled, the hostel for sick children and their families on the hospital grounds; their "permits" do not permit them to leave the campus and their travel documents are deposited with the guard at the hospital entrance. This is the reality of Israel and Palestine, so far; the change we are struggling to midwife is not yet. In November, Mo underwent a bone marrow transplant at Tel Hashomer.
I only discovered that our Gaza-based translator of "Dudu in Heaven" was in Israel toward the end of their stay, early in December when Sam mentioned it by chance. I got organized fairly quickly and went to visit them, accompanied by Abdalla, the 22-year-old son of my landlord upstairs. I figured Mo would enjoy an Arabic-speaking visitor and Abdalla was happy to oblige. We invested in an enormous basket of chocolates - "the absolutely correct gift to bring to a Palestinian child in the hospital," according to Abdalla - chocolate being one of those things that evidently transcend cultures. Also for the young patient, Abdalla’s mom Faryal contributed some never-worn boy’s jeans and sweatshirts that her sister Shadya in New Jersey sent recently for Abdalla’s kid brother, who is too big to wear them. For Maha, I raided my bookshelf and selected Garrison Keillor’s anthology, "Good Poems for Hard Times," and a couple of other books I thought she might enjoy.
We drove to the hospital and found Maha and Mo and a parking space, and had a wonderful visit, everyone bonding instantly after the first hug. Maha is a writer-editor-translator type just like me, only a couple decades younger. She and Abdalla took a bunch of digital photographs and I prayed inwardly - even though some ghastly crisis in Gaza was already clearly imminent - that all four of us would be back together again one day soon for a reunion. Mo is a great kid: undersized, on account of the illness, but with a smile like a lighthouse and a passionate interest in airplanes. His dream to become an airline pilot someday is not the most realistic dream for a seriously ill Palestinian child from Gaza in 2008, but insofar as our dreams keep us going, maybe it’s very functional. The boys talked soccer and other guy topics and there was a lot of laughter. The chocolates were a big hit.
Abdalla was rather subdued afterwards and I saw that the experience had deeply affected him. We talked mostly of inconsequential things during the drive home.
* * *
Around the time of that visit in early December, after a battery of tests, Mo’s bone marrow transplant was declared a guarded success and he was discharged the week before Christmas to make room for the next young patient, despite the iffy situation in Gaza and the near-impossibility of obtaining "permits" to return to the hospital for the required twice-monthly follow-up treatment. There are never enough beds, apparently, for the sick children in this world.
Mo’s prospects soon took a dramatic turn for the worse with the Israeli assault on Gaza launched last week - two days after Christmas, on December 27, 2008. Not even the indomitable Sam Bahour can get a child out of Gaza right now. The date for Mo’s first post-op intravenous treatment at Tel Hashomer - December 30th - came and went. The treatments are - how shall I put it? - not optional. As I write this, cosy at my desk with a fresh cup of coffee and plenty of everything, Mo and Maha are sitting in Gaza in the dark, in the cold, with little fuel and no reliable supply of food and water, along with Mo’s parents and six siblings. Right about now, the family are surely thinking of Mo’s seventh sibling, Nora, who died four years ago of CGD at the age of 16, in a hospital in Egypt, before the doctors were able to diagnose her. Mo has a good chance to manage his illness, if only he can somehow get back to Tel Hashomer. I think of them sitting there, listening to the bombs whistle in flight and waiting for the planned Israeli ground assault, while tanks mass along the Gaza perimeter. In the lethal game of mindless violence and counter-violence playing out in Israel and Palestine lo, these many years, Mo and his family are innocent bystanders. His innocence will not get Mo to his IV treatments, however.
Can you feel that wind blowing right through your heart?
* * *
While Abdalla and Mo were talking sports at the hostel that day in early December, Maha and I were chatting about the things women talk about. She told me about her shopping, at the minimarket on the hospital grounds, in preparation for their expected return to Gaza. "My sister-in-law told me to buy us a lot of candles," she remarked, "because, you know, there’s no electricity most of the time now." We contemplated this bleak picture together in silence for a few moments.
"So I asked the clerk at the shop to sell me some candles that will last a long time," Maha continued. "And he showed me these fat, tall ones that are encased in a solid glass container…" I could feel the hair lifting on the back of my neck. "He said they would burn for a week, so I bought a whole bunch of them," concluded Maha, oblivious, as I sat there, dumbstruck. She was describing the traditional Jewish shiv’a candle - the candle of bereavement lit by Jewish families all over the world for the seven days of mourning on the death of a loved one.
As this ghastly December drew to its grim close, Maha still had enough fuel left to run a small generator for an hour every day or two, so she could get online and do some emails or charge her mobile phone. I got an email saying they are OK ("bombs falling nearby but not on us, so far") and I sent my love and prayers for the family. As of New Year’s Eve, I knew they were still alive because I got an e-card from Maha yesterday. Her message said: Dear Deb, I wish you and your children a Happy New Year and a long, happy, healthy and successful life. May every day of the New Year glow with good cheer and happiness for you and your family… Love and best wishes, Maha.
Deb Reich is a writer and translator in Israel/Palestine, at debmail@alum.barnard.edu
Originally published on nswas.org
Gaza: Protest must be swift
Sunday 28 December 2008, by Howard Shippin
See online : Sign the petition!
Anyone who has witnessed the evolution of wars in this region (from ordinary Israelis and Palestinians to their leaders) knows that time is of the essence. The current Israeli offensive has been quick, efficient and brutal, with more Palestinians killed (according to the BBC) and more damage inflicted, than on any single day since the 1967 war. The purpose of this well-planned haste is not because the optimal weather is going to change, or because the Palestinians are going to magically re-group and go into attack mode. It is because the period of grace granted by Israel’s western patrons and sympathizers is going to expire soon.
The Israeli media is already giving more air-time to the evolving global mood than it is to images from the killing fields of Gaza. Demonstrations in Paris and London, hmm – not convincing – mainly Muslims. Public protest in Europe – yes, but they’re saying that both sides ought to stop the violence. A UN Security Council statement - sure but it was moderate and everyone knows that the US supports Israel’s right to defend itself. Similar reportage covered Israel’s media offensive, which is of a similar magnitude to its military offensive.
Both offensives are equally offensive to those who want a Middle East peace that is based on giving Palestinians and Israelis equal right to a sustainable future in this land – and lives that will not be torn apart at regular intervals.
Israel is currently using only a small part of what its generals would dearly love to throw at Gaza. Their pride in pinpoint accuracy (which is nevertheless skewering civilians) is not due to superfluous feelings of humanity but in order to stave off a counter-offensive of global opinion. I guess we should be thankful that the rich and powerful nations have any conscience at all, at least for locations north of Rwanda and Darfur.
The reason that the world counts to ten before complaining significantly during each of Israel’s offensives is a belief that a certain amount of controlled killing will buy a period of relative calm for a few months or years – until the next major conflagration. Everyone knows that such calm comes at the expense of addressing the root causes of the recurring violence, i.e. an ongoing humanitarian disaster in the backyard of a thriving, modern but ever hungrier nation.
Those who believe that violence, whether carefully controlled or operatic in scope is not helping to resolve the Middle East conflict should act now and not next Thursday. Every day of Israel’s blitzkrieg will destroy further lives, and the foundations of a future peace. Every day may add another ten years to a conflict that is already old and ripe enough for fixing.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.
Posts
2 comments:
Post a Comment