Will the Obama administration ever be ready to act as an honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process? Another test seems to be looming.
The following resolution, introduced by 120 co-sponsors, is currently pending the UN Security Council:
Israeli settlements established in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and constitute a major obstacle to the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.
On its face its not a particularly controversial claim. It more or less echoes long-held US policy on Israeli settlements. But of course when it comes to the UN, nothing is ever that simple.
At this critical juncture, how the US chooses to cast its vote on a settlements resolution will have a defining effect on our standing as a broker in Middle East peace. But the impact of this vote will be felt well beyond the arena of Israeli-Palestinian deal-making – our seriousness as a guarantor of international law and international legitimacy is at stake.
America’s credibility in a crucial region of the world is on the line – a region in which hundreds of thousands of our troops are deployed and where we face the greatest threats and challenges to our security. This vote is an American national security interest vote par excellence. We urge you to do the right thing.
To be sure, the signators are not easily dismissible: they include former US Trade Representative and Council on Foreign Relations Chair Carla Hills, journalist and former New Republic editor Peter Beinart, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering, former Assistant Secretary of State James Dobbins, former Assistant Secretary of State Robert Pastor, former US Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci and former US Ambassador to Israel Edward “Ned” Walker, among others.
It’s easy to be cynical about the UN, but it will still be interesting to see how this saga plays out. As Alex Spillius recently pointed out in The Telegraph, it may be Obama’s last chance to present himself as a fair dealer in this region.
If history is any indication, the final vote on this resolution will not be forthcoming any time soon. We can surely expect months of wordsmithing and back room dealing, and public posturing. Still, it certainly seems that there’s a bit more riding on this particular UN resolution than usual.
What would MLK have to say about the war in Afghanistan if he was alive today? Astonishingly, the Pentagon suggests he would “recognize that we live in a complicated world” and that “our nation’s military should not and cannot lay down its arms.”
Whaaaaa?
In honor of MLK Day, please watch the clip above and send it on to everyone you know. Then read this post by Robert Greenwald to learn about what one of the “most important peacemakers in our nation’s history” would likely say about the longest war in American history:
King decried the awful willingness of his country to spend $500,000 per each killed enemy soldier in Vietnam while so many Americans struggled in poverty. Yet last year, a conservative figure for the amount we spent per killed enemy fighter in Afghanistan was roughly $20 million.
King spoke of the “monumental dissent” that arose around the Vietnam War. “Polls reveal that almost 15 million Americans explicitly oppose the war in Vietnam,” he said. But today, 63 percent of Americans oppose the Afghanistan War, and when you do the math, that’s 196 million people, give or take the margin of error.
Dr. King also spoke of the “demonic, destructive suction tube” yanking resources and lives out of the fight to get Americans on their feet. That tube is still demonic and destructive: we’ve spent more than $360 billion on this war so far and it will cost us roughly $3 billion per week in the coming year. Add to that the 10,000 people, including about 500 U.S. troops and countless civilians who died last year alone, and you can see exactly what he’s talking about. The hope of our getting out of this abysmal economic vice is burning on the roadsides of Afghanistan every day we refuse to start bringing troops home.
No, it’s safe to say that Dr. King would not regard any conflict that killed 10,000 people in a year as a humanitarian exercise. Nor would he “understand” how a nation in the grip of an economic meltdown like this one could again throw lives and resources away for almost a decade. It’s safe to say that he would move beyond the “prophesying of smooth patriotism” and stand up to end this war that’s not making us safer and that’s not worth the cost.
Muslims protect and greet Orthodox Christians leaving the church where Alexandria bomb blast took place. (Photo: REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih)
An important and inspiring report out of Egypt. From AhramOnline:
Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.
From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.
“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the “human shield” idea.
Among those shields were movie stars Adel Imam and Yousra, popular preacher Amr Khaled, the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak, and thousands of citizens who have said they consider the attack one on Egypt as a whole.
Sorry to see that this story has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media. It seems to have been broken by the Egyptian press, but other than a report on WaPo’s online edition, I could only see it covered via the blogosphere.
What else is new? When it comes to Islam, it seems, the actions of an extremist minority is considered newsworthy while the courage of the Muslim majority flies right off the radar screen.
JRC Israel/Palestine Study Tour Participants 12/21/10 (Photo: Rich Katz)
My turn:
Our JRC Israel/Palestine Study Tour has been over for almost a week now, but I think I speak for everyone when I say it was a transformative experience for us all. I’ll also say that I am bursting with pride and admiration for my fellow JRC travelers.
I don’t know for sure, but I’m fairly certain this was an unprecedented Jewish congregational Israel tour. Most trips of this kind generally offer what I’d call a “hermetically-sealed” experience of Israel: an itinerary that remains largely west of the Green Line, offering participants a decidedly Jewish-centric perspective. I think most would agree it’s unusual for a rabbi to bring nineteen of his congregants on a trip that focused almost exclusively on East Jerusalem and the West Bank, spending the night in refugee camps, meeting with Palestinians, and learning from Palestinian civil society activists.
If I ever had any doubt, the reaction we encountered from those we met along the way drove this point dramatically home for us. Whenever we introduced ourselves and explained what we were doing, we’d invariably get the same open-mouthed reaction from our hosts. As the Israeli reporter Orly Halpern wrote me immediately after meeting with our group:
It was great meeting your open-minded and courageous congregation, Brant. Courageous because they were willing to hear the Other.
So yes, I’m very proud. Proud that we could take such a trip, and particularly proud of the congregational members who stepped forward to participate in it. Each and every one of them was willing to be deeply challenged – to lower their their ingrained defenses enough to face very real and painful truths – a reality that often directly contradicted the image of Israel with which they were raised.
Jewish Settlement in the heart of the Muslim Quarter (Photo: Rich Katz)
To be sure, it’s one thing to read about Israel’s oppression of Palestinians in the newspaper or hear about it second-hand; it’s quite another to witness it right in front of you where it’s impossible to rationalize or explain away. These congregants were willing to go places – literally and figuratively – where most American Jews remain resolutely unwilling to go. They were ready to let down their guard and be touched and transformed by what they saw.
And they were. Over and over and over again.
There will undoubtedly be those who will criticize us for taking a trip such as this, who will claim that our tour was “not balanced,” that is was unduly “biased,” that we didn’t take time to hear from the “other side.” I can’t help but be struck that these kinds of concerns are never raised when Jewish congregations organize Israel trips that pay scant attention to Palestinians and Palestinian life. And I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anyone in the American Jewish establishment criticize Birthright trips for being too “one-sided.”
I also believe that in our obsessive need to achieve balance, we conveniently ignore the fact that this is an inherently unbalanced conflict. As trip participant Marge Frank so eloquently put it in her previous guest post, “When one people is being oppressed and occupied by another, there is only one side to the story: that of the oppressed.” For most American Jews, it seems to me, the truth of Israel’s oppression of Palestinians is impossibly difficult to admit – and so we habitually explain it away, rationalize it, or deflect it in the name of balance.
With Daoud Nasser in one of the natural caves on his family farm, Tent of Nations (Photo: Rich Katz)
At the end of the day, the experiences I wrote about on my blog this past week weren’t mere isolated examples of Israeli bad behavior. The home demolitions in Silwan, the attempted expropriation of Daoud Nasser’s family farm, the dehumanizing checkpoints, the racial separation and settlers’ harassment in Hevron – in the end I believe these are all part of a larger fabric of persecution. As painful as this might be for us to admit, these are not merely exceptional blemishes on the face of an otherwise healthy state. If any of us had any doubt about this, it became painfully difficult for us to deny once we saw it with our own eyes.
Kobi and Aziz, Hevron (photo: Rich Katz)
While our group experienced some profoundly dark truths, however, we also bore witness to very real signs of hope: the resilience and dignity of the Palestinian people and the inspiring example of those Israelis who stand in solidarity with them. In this regard we had no more powerful example of than Aziz and Kobi, our Palestinian and Israeli tour guides – two very courageous men who have transcended their own painful pasts and are now devoting their lives to reconciliation, justice and peace. As every member of our group will agree, they were truly our guides in every sense of the word.
For myself, I’m irrevocably committed to this journey now – and I am heartened beyond measure to know that there are American Jews who are willing to take it with me.
Busy Hevron street, (H1) (Photo: Rich Katz)
Shehadeh St. in Hevron (H2), now rendered completely off-limits to Palestinians
Demonstration at Silwan Peace Tent, E. Jerusalem 12/24/10 (Photo: Rich Katz)
Translation: "There is no holiness in an occupied city." Silwan demonstration, 12/24/10 (Photo: Rich Katz)
Here is a guest post from Marge Frank, one of the participants from our trip:
Brant asked me to post on his blog, as the only Israeli-American on our tour, in order to add this perspective to the discussion. I am honored to do so, albeit a bit overwhelmed as to how to choose what to share. This has been the most amazing, depressing, overwhelming, and transformative experience of my life and I’m still reeling from the multitude of emotions I’ve experienced.
We’ve just finished the first full day of JRC’s Israel/Palestine study tour – which we devoted to understanding and experiencing Jerusalem as a “shared holy city.” While this might sound like an obvious fact, many Jews today (including myself) have been raised and socialized to regard Israel, if you will, as a “Jewish city that just happens to be important to some other faiths as well.”
To this end we made a point of visiting and spending time at the three main holy sites of the city: the Western Wall, the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Afterwards we met with two Shaykh Yusuf Abu Sneina, Imam of the al-Aqsa mosque and Rabbi Yechiel Grenimann of Rabbis for Human Rights. Tomorrow morning we’ll be meeting with Revered Naim Ateek of the Sabeel Institute to round out our visits with faith leaders.
Our tour is being led by Aziz Abu Sarah and Kobi Skolnick - who are Palestinian and Israeli respectively. Both Aziz and Kobi are remarkable individuals with powerful personal stories. Aziz is a native of Jerusalem who became radicalized at a young age after the death of his older brother at the hands of the IDF. He became active in the youth movement of Fatah and participated extensively in Palestinian resistance actions during the First Intifada.
Aziz has since become actively involved in Israeli-Palestinian coexistence work. He was one of the original staff members of the Bereaved Parents Circle and works with Rabbi Marc Gopin at the Institute for Conflict Resolution at George Mason University. Aziz and Rabbi Gopin have also founded Mejdi, a business that promotes coexistence through educational tourism and small business cooperation. (You can read an extensive interview with Aziz here.)
Kobi’s story is no less amazing. Born into a Chabad family in Israel, he moved to a settlement in the West Bank during his high school years. There he become a member of Kach – the Jewish extremist movement founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane that actively promotes violence against Palestinians. During his service in the Israeli army Kobi went though a personal transformation as he confronted the reality of the conflict.
Today, Kobi is highly involved in the Israeli-Palestinian peace movement – he was one of the original members of Breaking the Silence and now studies conflict resolution. He travels widely as a trained mediator and facilitator.
Among other things, the genuine friendship between Aziz and Kobi has powerfully affected the members of our group. Considering their respective backgrounds and personal journeys, their working relationship and very obvious affection for one another is moving and inspiring indeed. (The picture above was taken this morning at next to the Dome of the Rock. That’s me in the middle, with Aziz on the left and Kobi on the right.)
Tomorrow we’re off to tour East Jerusalem and Bethlehem before spending two nights in the Deheishe refugee camp. Stay tuned.
I first learned about these simultaneous events through Dana’s numerous tweets from the ground. Here’s a sampling:
- While the Human Rights March gets underway in Tel Aviv, I am on my to Ni’ilin/Nabi Saleh
- Ni’ilin demo underway while tel aviv marches
- While tel aviv marches for human rights, palestinians are attacked with tear gas
- Human rights day is underway, tel aviv is talking peace while ni’ilin and bil’in are under cover tear gas. I am on the way to nabi saleh
- 10000 people march in tel aviv for human rights and we could not get 20 israelis in ni’ilin. Upsetting
Dana later made the point explicitly in his blog post: for those interested in human rights, the real struggle is not occurring in the streets of Tel Aviv but in the villages of the West Bank, where Palestinian nonviolent activists are regularly brutalized by Israeli military forces. How differently things might have turned out if these thousands of Israelis had saw fit to demonstrate alongside Palestinians in Ni’ilin and Nabi Saleh?
The (Tel Aviv march) brought together various Israeli NGO’s and thousands of concerned citizens in the spirit of presenting a face of Israel that supports human rights and progressive values. Placards were carried through the streets supporting gay rights, woman’s rights, African refugees rights and, also, coexistence between Jews and Arabs. Police lined the streets of the demonstration to ensure the safety of the protesters and keep confrontation with the right wing counter protesters at bay (one has to hand it to the right in Israel, a counter protest to human rights?!). If the Tel Aviv Human Rights Day march wanted to have more authenticity in terms of Palestinian/Israeli coexistence, it should have had more connection with the human rights struggle happening simultaneously in the West Bank.
I’m in complete agreement. Those who seek human rights in Israel/Palestine would do well to support the cause of justice in the Occupied Territories – and in particular, the popular Palestinian committees whose demonstrations are regularly broken up by the IDF with violence and whose leaders are regularly imprisoned without cause.
I often wonder what Israeli leaders think they will achieve if they succeed in their goal of suppressing the Palestinian popular struggle? Is it possible that they believe that our people can sit quietly and watch as our land is taken from us? Do they think that we can face our children and tell them that, like us, they will never experience freedom? Or do they actually prefer violence and killing to our form of nonviolent struggle because it camouflages their ongoing theft and gives them an excuse to continue using us as guinea pigs for their weapons?
My eldest daughter Luma was nine years old when I was arrested. She is now ten. After my arrest she began going to the Friday demonstrations in our village. She always carries a picture of me in her arms. The adults try to look after her but I still worry for my little girl. I wish that she could enjoy her childhood like other children, that she could be studying and playing with her friends. But through the walls and barbed wire that separates us I hear my daughter’s message to me, saying: “Baba, they cannot stop us. If they take you away, we will take your place and continue to struggle for justice.” This is the message that I want to bring you today. From beyond the walls, the barbed wire, and the prison bars that separate Palestinians and Israelis.
Click here to send a letter to Secretary of State Clinton requesting that she advocate the release of Abdallah Abu Rahmah and demand that Israel cease its targeting of the Palestinian popular resistance.
Last week, I addressed the growing consensus that Afghanistan has become our 21st century Vietnam. If you agree, then please send this letter to your senators and representatives:
Dear _________,
I am writing to urge you to speak out forcefully against extending the Afghanistan war through 2014 and to hold President Obama to his promise to begin a withdrawal of US troops in July of 2011.
The war in Afghanistan isn’t making Americans safer. We would be better off focusing on policing and intelligence to deal with terrorists and using diplomacy, development and humanitarian aid to help stabilize Afghanistan.
We can’t afford the loss of lives and dollars that would come with continuing this war, and I don’t want my tax dollars supporting a war that isn’t in our national interest.
I urge you to take advantage of every opportunity to speak out on this through opinion pieces, press releases, floor statements, media appearances and dear colleague letters. Please let me know what action you will take.
Click here to send the letter. I encourage you customize your message – even one sentence explaining your personal thoughts can make your statement all the more effective.
The president doesn’t need to wait until next July to start pulling out troops. He should start withdrawals today, this afternoon, before dinner. He should drag generals by the four-starred shirt to the radios to give the signal if that’s what it takes. He should admit that our national interest isn’t served by throwing a 100,000-plus-troop war machine at a dirt-poor country to catch fewer than 100 nutcases. We should be in the White House’s face, in the Pentagon’s face, every day, telling them that we won’t tolerate mealy-mouthed dithering on “conditions” while our sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers get ground into record numbers of amputees and coffin-filler.
And we should make damn sure they know we won’t sit around and watch while they drag kids too young to really remember how they felt on September 11, 2001, into a war that we’re too proud to admit is a failure.
It’s not working. It’s not going to work. It’s over. Shut it down. Bring them home.
Just saw “Budrus” last night. (Why it takes independent films forever and a day to get to Chicago is beyond me. Aren’t we even considered a movie market any more? Sheesh…)
My two cents:
I think it’s a brilliant film in so many ways. I simultaneously experienced it as a compelling “how-to textbook” on grassroots organizing, an honest portrait of real nonviolent resistance in action, an up-close document of the human impact of the Occupation and a compassionate profile of life in one West Bank village.
It is also a masterfully constructed film that often transcends the documentary genre itself. Filmmakers Julia Bacha, Ronit Avni and Rula Salameh present us with a true story that has a genuine dramatic arc.
The story in short: in 2003, Ayed Morrar a remarkable Palestinian community leader, organized a nonviolent resistance movement to save his village Budrus from being destroyed by Israel’s Separation Barrier. He brought together an impressive coalition of local Fatah and Hamas members along with Israeli and international solidarity activists to resist the wall’s construction.
After some initial success, Budrus was put under military curfew and their resistance effort threatened to come apart. In the end, however, after ten months of steadfast resistance, the Israeli government relented and redrew the route of the fence, saving the village.
There is no question that “Budrus” is a profound and authentic document of what well-organized nonviolent resistance can truly achieve. It’s the kind of story that would move you even if it wasn’t actually true. And I won’t deny the story of these villagers’ courage left me deeply inspired.
And yet…
…and yet I must also confess to having a nagging feeling that there was one critical puzzle piece left out of the story. The film is essentially the document of one village and it more or less takes place within the bubble of this village’s exclusive universe. But I was somewhat disappointed that “Budrus” failed to explore the overall context of institutional oppression in which this one village’s story took place.
The film does indeed explain how the barrier cut significantly into Palestinian lands rather than simply follow the route of the Green Line. The filmmakers, however, never address the reasons why Israel chose to do this. There are many references to Israel’s security needs, but notably, no one ever asks the critical question: why, if security was the only reason for the barrier, didn’t Israel build it along the internationally recognized border between the West Bank and Israel proper?
The answer, of course, is that this wall is not just about security. It is also very much about about the settlements and about Israel’s desire to create its own unilateral border in advance of a final negotiated settlement. To wit: it is ultimately about taking land away from Palestinians.
If the film had included but one talking head to address this reality, viewers would understand the true stakes of Budrus’ struggle. But by leaving this context unexamined, the filmmakers essentially document one village’s travail without really explaining how it fits into a much larger injustice.
In truth, it must also be admitted that Budrus’ victory was and continues to be notably exceptional. While the film mentions briefly at the end that this kind of nonviolent resistance is ongoing in other West Bank villages, none of these villages have experienced anything near the level of Budrus’ success.
In fact, the exact opposite is happening. The Israeli military is brutally clamping down on the leaders of the popular committees that organize nonviolent campaigns. And although this repression is not regularly reported in the mainstream media, it is in fact unfolding on an almost daily basis.
Adeeb, by the way, was sentenced to one year but also remains in jail beyond his release date as the military prosecutors appeal his sentence. He will stay imprisoned “indefinitely” – which likely means for a long, long time. (That is Adeeb Abu Rahmah in the clip above. I encourage you to watch this incredible video document in its entirety if you can).
These kinds of actions, tragically, are taking a huge toll on local nonviolent resistance campaigns. With many of their leaders in jail or targeted for imprisonment, local committees (with the notable exception of Sheikh Jarrah) are reporting fewer numbers at their demonstrations. Those of us who are justifiably inspired by Budrus’ story should find these developments deeply, deeply troubling.
Bottom line? Please see “Budrus” and encourage your friends to do the same. Buy copies when it comes out on DVD and give them to anyone you know that needs to know that despite media portrayals to the contrary, there is a significant and important nonviolent resistance movement in the Palestinian community.
But after you see it, please don’t leave the film with the impression that this movement is experiencing the kind of success you’ve just witnessed. Israel is quite rightly threatened by Palestinian nonviolent resistance, and is currently doing its level best to crush this movement under its military heel. Alas, it is too often succeeding.
To learn more about these campaigns, you should regularly visit the blog of activist Joseph Dana, who has been indefatigably reporting from the ground in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. (He’s probably uploaded enough video onto his site to make hundreds of documentary films on the subject.)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has agreed to push his cabinet to freeze most construction on settlements in the West Bank for 90 days to break an impasse in peace negotiations with the Palestinians, an official briefed on talks between the United States and Israel said Saturday evening.
In return, the Obama administration has offered Israel a package of security incentives and fighter jets worth $3 billion that would be contingent on the signing of a peace agreement, the official said. The United States would also block any moves in the United Nations Security Council that would try to shape a final peace agreement.
The quid pro quo was hashed out by Mr. Netanyahu and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in seven and a half hours of talks in New York on Thursday.
Let’s parse this now:
According to Peace Now’s most recent research, in six short weeks, Israel has all but made up for the construction it lost during the ten month freeze. So that means we’re back to square one. And since this new ninety day freeze is “nonrenewable,” this latest breakthrough is essentially meaningless (except perhaps as a face-saving maneuver on for the Obama administration).
(I personally find American Jewry’s deafening silence over what is going on in East Jerusalem to be beyond egregious. Can’t find it in your heart to address the humanitarian implications? Fine. But if you are at all a proponent of the two state solution, you should at least be concerned that Israel’s actions have now made the prospects for a shared capital in Jerusalem all but impossible).
By any other name, this latest diplomatic “breakthrough” is nothing but a fig leaf. Does anyone really believe that anything substantive will be accomplished during a ninety day settlement (non) freeze? When will our community find the courage to name these dangerously empty gestures for what they really and truly are?
My posts on "Shalom Rav" focus primarily on Judaism and social justice, with a particular emphasis on Israel/Palestine. Please check in regularly and feel free to share your comments.
I'm the Rabbi of Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, IL. The opinions I share here, however, are mine alone. They don't reflect the positions of my congregation or any other organization with which I am affiliated.
Will the Obama administration ever be ready to act as an honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process? Another test seems to be looming.
