Helena Cobban is in Israel and Palestine...

Jerusalem's Apartheid Wall

I have read several accounts of the effect of this Wall on the daily life of the people of Aizariyeh and Abu Dis. Also, in the northern West Bank, where some parts of the Wall were completed a number of months ago, enclosing whole populations in steel-and-concrete pens. Somehow, I found that seeing the physicality of it, its sheer size, and the way it cuts right through the heart of urban areas (and through the lives of these areas' people) right here around Jerusalem was particularly sickening. The shortsightedness, as well as the brutality, of the whole project made me very sad indeed. Fifteen years ago, when the Berlin Wall came down, the whole world (except, perhaps, for a few diehard Stalinists somewhere) rejoiced . Chunks of that Wall were collected and sold as treasured mementos of that fine day. I bet you can still buy one on e-bay, if you want. The Berlin Wall had sliced through the heart of that city for 28 years by that point. I am sure that whether it takes 28 years, or longer--or, as I dearly hope, considerably less than that--this Wall too will come to an end. So I have a suggestion: why can't we just skip the intervening years of seperation, privation, pauperization, and sorrow, and just start chipping chunks off the unerected sections of this Wall right now and start selling them on e-bay? Plus, of course, take down the sections that have already gone up. And everybody starts treating their fellow-humans-- on both sides of this terrible line-- with a basic amount of simple human respect?? No, I'm not an impossible dreamer. It happened in South Africa. Hallelujah! So yes, it certainly can happen here.

[more]

Great experiences; limbo nonetheless

But one of the most interesting stories Ghassan told me was that on Monday night--the very night before I turned up on his doorstep-- he, B, and a number of their other friends had been to what he thought was the only showing to date in Ramallah of Polanski's movie "The Pianist". "It was very interesting," he said. "We could learn much more about what the Jews had been through there in Poland. And of course there were so many parallels with our own situation here. When they showed the scenes of the Germans starting to put up the wall around the ghetto, you could hear a lot of gasps of recognition and surprise." So how was the public reaction to the showing of the movie? "A handful of people, at the end, started arguing loudly: 'Why are they showing this movie here?' It seems they didn't know beforehand that it was about the Holocaust. But they were only a minority. Most people said nothing, but seemed glad that they had gone to it." I wish I'd been there. I also wish I could go to a showing of "The Pianist" in Israel and see the reaction to it there., Ghassan, who follows Israeli press and culture fairly closely, said his impression was that many Israelis didn't like the movie because it portrayed the Jews as passive victims. I also wonder whether it might not unnerve them because of the many parallels--in the many scenes of the concentration phase of the Shoah, though not of course [yet] the extermination phase (which is only alluded to and prefigured in the movie, quite richly, but not directly represented)-- between the fate of Europe's Jews under Nazi rule and the fate their own government has been imposing on the Palestinians.

[more]

One of the Palestinians Helena was visiting had, some years before, visited a Holacaust museum and had written an interesting piece from the perspective of a Palestinian discovering the Holacaust. Very interesting. It ends with...

A Palestinian at Yad Vashem

The way the Jews honor their dead at Yad Vashem, could be a lesson to Palestinians to create their own memorials. But when Palestinians come round to creating their own memorials, I hope that these memorials would be different in at least two aspects: without using the suffering of the people for begging material and political support and without instilling even more hatred towards others. No real and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians will ever take root by falsifying history. Israelis and Jews everywhere have to undergo a serious re-education process for what they did to the Palestinians. They have to learn the facts and recognize their responsibility. And not withstanding what compromises the leaders on both sides agree upon, Palestinians cannot forgive without an Israeli recognition of what they did to the Palestinians. It is perhaps the historic role of the Palestinians to help Zionist Israelis and Jews everywhere to get rid of their entrenched racist and anti-other attidues. Israel can never become a normal country, accepted by the entire world, without Palestinian absolution, just as the Jews did with Germany.

[more]

Liberating America From Israel

Nine-eleven would not have occurred if the U.S. government had refused to help Israel humiliate and destroy Palestinian society. Few express this conclusion publicly, but many believe it is the truth. I believe the catastrophe could have been prevented if any U.S. president during the past 35 years had had the courage and wisdom to suspend all U.S. aid until Israel withdrew from the Arab land seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

[more]

Sharon's Favorite Senator

It is not often that we get to hold our elected representatives accountable. And so, I was very happy for the chance when Oregon Senator Ron Wyden recently made a public appearance in Klamath Falls. Wyden fielded questions and generally impressed me as a thoughtful, caring, and articulate individual, that is, until I questioned him about the Mideast--at which point Wyden dissembled and intelligence went flying out the window.

[more]

Israel: The Threat from Within

It is extremely unlikely that the US will reengage seriously in the peace process and press for the implementation of the roadmap, or finally take a clear position on the territorial issue prior to the forthcoming presidential election, or anytime soon thereafter. It is therefore hard to imagine what will prevent a descent into chaos in the occupied territories, where the writ of the Palestinian Authority is giving way to the anarchy of criminal gangs and of local warlords. The complete collapse of the Palestinian Authority, which may be imminent, would very probably rule out the two-state option, for there would be no central authority capable of delivering a Palestinian commitment to—much less the implementation of—the terms of any Israeli–Palestinian peace accord. Unless Israelis are willing to preserve their majority status by imposing a South African–style apartheid regime, or to complete the transfer begun in 1948, as Morris believes they will— policies one hopes a majority of Israelis will never accept—it is only a matter of time before the emerging majority of Arabs in Greater Israel will reshape the country's national identity. That would be a tragedy of historic proportions for the Zionist enterprise and for the Jewish people. What will make the tragedy doubly painful is that it will be happening at a time when changes in the Arab world and beyond (i.e. the Saudi initiative of 2002, the removal of Saddam Hussein, Syrian isolation, Libya's amazing opening to Israel and removal of its WMD program, and the opening of Iran's nuclear facilities to international inspection) are removing virtually every strategic security threat that for so long endangered Israel's existence. That existence is now threatened by the greed of the settlers and the political blindness of Israel's leaders.

[more]

Hitting the wall
By Gideon Levy
Along the route of the mighty `Jerusalem envelope,' just before its completion.

Failed predictions
By Amira Hass

By the middle of 2003 the planners of the route of the fence had full backing - from the political system, from the print and the electronic media, from the street and from key figures in the Israeli peace camp. The idea of the fence, without going into detail, offered people frightened by the suicide terror attacks a hope that their personal security was achievable with no connection to any political solution. It offered a refuge from the disturbing knowledge that Israel is evading an offer of a sustainable political, humane, rational solution that the Palestinians can accept. The military plan to build elevated bridges and sunken roads between the enclaves is a bone thrown to international public opinion and another vain solution offered to the Israelis that diverts attention from the essence. The planners of the route that harms the Palestinians are doing this on behalf of the state of Israel, which almost unhindered has built in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip a regime of Jewish superiority that inevitably violates the rights of the Palestinian individual and collective. Key parts of Israeli society have become blind to the damage, and the occupation regime is as much taken for granted as the sunrise in the east.

[more]

These are the Generations of Mankind
by Aron Trauring

The real threat to the survival of the Jewish people is insularity. The Talmud says: "if you want to know what the law is go to the marketplace." In other words, it is the behavior of the people that establishes what is normative. Most Jews marry gentiles, no matter what the Jewish establishment says or does. By seeing this behavior as a threat rather than an opportunity, the Jewish people are condemning our culture to being shared by an ever-shrinking remnant. Instead of pushing people away by acting superior and exclusive, shouldn't the Jewish people welcome anyone who cares to share with us? And this insularity is also the source of the rebirth of Bar Kokhba's zealous nationalism. Once again the Jewish people are being led to a national disaster by the followers of Akiva's values. What Jewish value can be more important than Ben Azzai's: "These are the generations of mankind?" It is this value that is being trampelled daily in our war against the Palestinians. It is this value which all those who oppose this war, are trying to uphold. It is this value which is the key to Jewish survival.

[more]