Paul Beckett : Mahmoud Abbas and the Ubiquitous Pen

Does Hillary Clinton carry with her an elegant Montblanc pen?
Mahmoud Abbas:
'Is This A Pen I See Before Me?'

What a minefield Abbas must now traverse... How can he be the one now to legitimize more than 40 years of oppression and land theft by Israel?

By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / October 20, 2010

Once again, the great charade. The endless shuttles, the brinksmanship. A Middle East “peace process” is, well, in process.

It is all so familiar now. All the details -- including the lack of details -- are there, warmed over from Oslo, from Madrid, from Clinton’s Camp David.

But IS it a charade? Maybe not. Perhaps Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thinks she can finish the work her husband Bill failed to finish at Camp David in 2000.

The big question (as ever) is: can the Palestinians be made, this time, to sign the unconditional surrender document that is there on the table?

Mahmoud Abbas with visage of Yasser Arafat in background. Image from Palestine Chronicle.
Does Hillary perhaps carry in her purse or briefcase the very pen -- an elegant Montblanc fountain pen, perhaps -- that poor old Yasser Arafat finally refused to take up with his palsied hand at Camp David? Does she think that Mahmoud Abbas, another old man, can be made to take the pen and sign?

She seems to. The effort is serious. The Europeans have been arrayed. The ever-serviceable Tony Blair was moved into position three years ago, as the Special Envoy representing the Quartet (the U.S., the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations). Blair is thus able to tell Abbas he can expect no help to come from other quarters.

Mubarak as well is in position, presumably with the same message. Meanwhile, George Mitchell, yet another old man, toggles between Ramallah and Jerusalem pretending tirelessly that this is a process of negotiation between equals.

How does Abbas feel about it all? Is it my imagination that he looks profoundly sad as he is made to walk with the real power-holders down a White House hallway?

He surely worries about that pen, ready for his hand. He must remember so well the fate of his old comrade-in-arms, Yasser Arafat. Arafat was brought to Camp David with a promise that, should the talks fail, the failure would not be hung around his neck.

He was presented with a deal which, the Americans would have said, was the best deal the Palestinians could ever hope for. (Undoubtedly the Palestinians are frequently reminded that each deal they rejected in the past was better than the next one to come.)

President Clinton seemed to believe. He apparently trusted his two managers of the Camp David process (Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk) even though both had long and deep ties to Israel’s expansionist governments. Big, bluff, charismatic Bill Clinton held the pen and urged Arafat to sign. Surely Bill would not lend himself to a shameful and dishonest deal.

But it WAS a shameful and dishonest deal. The Israelis had not really made any solid commitments at all, either to the Americans or the Palestinians. The maps were vague. The percentages of withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories were dishonestly calculated.

In fact, Palestinian territory would be broken into enclaves divided by the inexorably expansive processes of settlements, roads, nature preserves, security reserves, etc. [See map below.]

Map from UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2007.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

And, while words like sovereignty and independence were grandly used, the reality was that a Palestinian “state” would not have any of the essential attributes of sovereignty. It would be permanently disarmed. It would not have control of international boundaries (the Jordan valley would remain under Israeli control).

It would not control its own airspace and sea space. It would not have security power over its “state” territory except over its own people, whom the “state” would be expected to keep under control. Astonishingly, the “state” would not even control Palestinian water resources, large proportions of which now go to Israel.

On top of that, as Arafat saw, all the obligations falling on Palestinians were front-loaded. Palestine would give up rights under international law immediately and for all time. (And these rights, and the refusal to surrender them, represent the only thing the Palestinians have to negotiate with.)

Obligations falling on Israel, such as withdrawal of a large proportion of the smaller and more isolated settlements, not only were vague, but they were back-loaded: things that might happen in the future. Or might not. They would be dependent not only on the realities of Israeli politics (“Withdraw settlements? –are you crazy?”), but on the good behavior of Palestinians. Good behavior defined and judged by Israel, that is.

Unlike virtually every case of new statehood since 1945, Palestinian “statehood” would be probationary, not immediate. Quite possibly, for a very long time.

Arafat could not sign. He didn’t. Immediately, the “failure” of Camp David WAS hung around his neck. Subsequently, with no effective protest from the U.S., this aged nationalist leader was imprisoned in his offices, with Israeli bulldozers making the space smaller and smaller and uglier and uglier. The most humiliating circumstances of existence, including overflowing toilets, were arranged for his old age.

Still he remained, an obstacle to the unconditional surrender that Israel wanted the Americans to arrange. Ariel Sharon was impatient, wanting to impose his own “final settlement” before he died. Arafat, old, palsied, maltreated, and seemingly feeble, did not cooperate by dying. Finally he did die, in France, in a way that seems to have mystified the French doctors who examined him before and after. We may never know the cause of death.

What a minefield Abbas must now traverse. If, in the face of Israel’s continued seizure of Palestinian land (humiliating for himself as also for the U.S.) he breaks off negotiations, how much different from Yasser Arafat’s will be his own fate? And how much more misery will be visited on the people of the West Bank and Gaza in Israel’s never ending (and so far never successful) effort to break their will?

But what else is possible for Abbas? He is Abu Mazen, for most of his life a representative of the anti-colonial aspirations of the Palestinian people. How can he be the one now to legitimize more than 40 years of oppression and land theft by Israel?

Poor Mahmud Abbas. Perhaps this is a charade, soon to pass. But what if it’s not? If not, and if Hillary and Tony have their way, the pen WILL be put before him. When it is, the most powerful men and women of the world will be there, smiling and radiating good faith as they nudge him gently but oh-so-firmly in the pen’s direction. What to do? What to do?

(A later article will explore in more detail the shape of a final settlement that the leadership of Israel could accept, whether as part of the present “peace process,” or a later one.)

[Dr. Paul A. Beckett is a specialist on international politics who lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He can be reached at beckettpa@gmail.com.]

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Rabbi Arthur Waskow : Gaza Flotilla as Exodus '47 Revisited

SS Exodus 1947 after British takever. Banner says "HAGANAH Ship EXODUS 1947." Image from Wikimedia Commons.
Is the Gaza flotilla story
'Exodus '47' with roles reversed?

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow / The Rag Blog / June 8, 2010

See 'Kill a Turk and rest,' by Uri Avnery, and 'Uri Avnery assaulted by rightist thugs,' Below.

A very wide spectrum of Jewish as well as world opinion has condemned the Israeli navy’s attack on the Mazi marmara, and have condemned the arrogance of the mindset behind the attack -- from Leon Wieseltier of the New Republic, usually a very strong supporter of Israel, to Uri Avnery, Israel’s own oldest and most venerated living peace activist.

(Especially since the death May 30 of Louva Eliav, who died -- in a sadly appropriate moment -- just as the Israeli Navy was attacking the Gaza Flotilla. “Louva,” whom I knew in the 1970s, was one of the great heroes of decent Labor Zionism, both in growing Israeli society from the grassroots in the first decades of the State, in serving for many years in the Knesset and in Labor Party leadership, and in campaigning day and night in the ‘70s for peace with the Palestinians. I knew him in those days, and mourn his death -- almost a signal of the death of that kind of Labor Zionism at the hands of the right-wing, violence-obsessed, Israeli government and right-wing goons.)

I mention the goons for a reason. After a 10,000-person demonstration in Tel Aviv the other day -- condemning the Navy’s attack on the Gaza Flotilla -- a bunch of right-wingers physically assaulted Uri Avnery, an 86-year-old Israeli peace activist. He had recently written a very strong and smart critique of the Israeli mindset that led to attacking the flotilla. He compared the political effects of that attack to the effects of the British attack on the Exodus 1i47, laden with Jewish refugees -- which he lived through. I am including that essay here.

I have known Uri Avnery since 1969, when I spent a summer in Israel, visited Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, came home convinced that what people called the “mild occupation” would of necessity not remain mild forever, and began to organize support for a “two-state solution.”

Avnery had been (he says of himself) a “terrorist” against the British Empire and its oppressive mandate/occupation of Palestine in the 1940s. After 1948, he focused his life on making peace with the Palestinians. He edited the biggest-circulation national news-magazine, Haolam Hazeh, and was twice elected to Knesset (once sharing a seat with Eliav). He has ceaselessly campaigned for a two-state peace, opposes whole-society “BDS “ -- boycotts, divestment, sanctions) against Israel, and supports the notion of bold U.S. action for Middle East peace.

May the stoney-hearted right-wingers who attacked him find their arms and legs so stone-heavy that they cannot harm him, while their hearts and minds soften and open to hear the need for peace.

Shalom, salaam, peace,

Arthur

[Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director, The Shalom Center; co-author, The Tent of Abraham; author of Godwrestling: Round 2, Down-to-Earth Judaism, Torah of the Earth, and a dozen other books on Jewish thought and practice, as well as books on U.S. public policy. The Shalom Center voices a new prophetic agenda in Jewish, multireligious, and American life. To receive the weekly on-line Shalom Report, click here.]

Ship from the flotilla for Gaza, seen in the Mediterranean Sea, May 31, 2010. Photo by Uriel Sinai / Reuters.

'Kill a Turk and rest'

By Uri Avnery / June 5, 2010

On the high seas, outside territorial waters, the ship was stopped by the navy. The commandos stormed it. Hundreds of people on the deck resisted, the soldiers used force. Some of the passengers were killed, scores injured. The ship was brought into harbor, the passengers were taken off by force. The world saw them walking on the quay, men and women, young and old, all of them worn out, one after another, each being marched between two soldiers...

The ship was called "Exodus 1947." It left France in the hope of breaking the British blockade, which was imposed to prevent ships loaded with Holocaust survivors from reaching the shores of Palestine. If it had been allowed to reach the country, the illegal immigrants would have come ashore and the British would have sent them to detention camps in Cyprus, as they had done before. Nobody would have taken any notice of the episode for more than two days.

But the person in charge was Ernest Bevin, a Labour Party leader, an arrogant, rude and power-loving British minister. He was not about to let a bunch of Jews dictate to him. He decided to teach them a lesson the entire world would witness. "This is a provocation!" he exclaimed, and of course he was right. The main aim was indeed to create a provocation, in order to draw the eyes of the world to the British blockade.

What followed is well known: the episode dragged on and on, one stupidity led to another, the whole world sympathized with the passengers. But the British did not give in and paid the price. A heavy price.

Many believe that the "Exodus" incident was the turning point in the struggle for the creation of the State of Israel. Britain collapsed under the weight of international condemnation and decided to give up its mandate over Palestine. There were, of course, many more weighty reasons for this decision, but the "Exodus" proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back.


I am not the only one who was reminded of this episode this week. Actually, it was almost impossible not to be reminded of it, especially for those of us who lived in Palestine at the time and witnessed it.

There are, of course, important differences. Then the passengers were Holocaust survivors, this time they were peace activists from all over the world. But then and now the world saw heavily armed soldiers brutally attack unarmed passengers, who resist with everything that comes to hand, sticks and bare hands. Then and now it happened on the high seas -- 40 km from the shore then, 65 km now.

In retrospect, the British behavior throughout the affair seems incredibly stupid. But Bevin was no fool, and the British officers who commanded the action were not nincompoops. After all, they had just finished a World War on the winning side.

If they behaved with complete folly from beginning to end, it was the result of arrogance, insensitivity and boundless contempt for world public opinion.

Ehud Barak is the Israeli Bevin. He is not a fool, either, nor are our top brass. But they are responsible for a chain of acts of folly, the disastrous implications of which are hard to assess. Former minister and present commentator Yossi Sarid called the ministerial "committee of seven," which decides on security matters, "seven idiots" -- and I must protest. It is an insult to idiots.


The preparations for the flotilla went on for more than a year. Hundreds of e-mail messages went back and forth. I myself received many dozens. There was no secret. Everything was out in the open.

There was a lot of time for all our political and military institutions to prepare for the approach of the ships. The politicians consulted. The soldiers trained. The diplomats reported. The intelligence people did their job.

Nothing helped. All the decisions were wrong from the first moment to this moment. And it's not yet the end.

The idea of a flotilla as a means to break the blockade borders on genius. It placed the Israeli government on the horns of a dilemma -- the choice between several alternatives, all of them bad. Every general hopes to get his opponent into such a situation.

The alternatives were:

(a) To let the flotilla reach Gaza without hindrance. The cabinet secretary supported this option. That would have led to the end of the blockade, because after this flotilla more and larger ones would have come.

(b) To stop the ships in territorial waters, inspect their cargo and make sure they were not carrying weapons or "terrorists," then let them continue on their way. That would have aroused some vague protests in the world but upheld the principle of a blockade.

(c) To capture them on the high seas and bring them to Ashdod, risking a face-to-face battle with activists on board.

As our governments have always done, when faced with the choice between several bad alternatives, the Netanyahu government chose the worst.

Anyone who followed the preparations as reported in the media could have foreseen that they would lead to people being killed and injured. One does not storm a Turkish ship and expect cute little girls to present one with flowers. The Turks are not known as people who give in easily.

The orders given to the forces and made public included the three fateful words: "at any cost." Every soldier knows what these three terrible words mean. Moreover, on the list of objectives, the consideration for the passengers appeared only in third place, after safeguarding the safety of the soldiers and fulfilling the task.

If Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, the Chief of Staff and the commander of the navy did not understand that this would lead to killing and wounding people, then it must be concluded -- even by those who were reluctant to consider this until now -- that they are grossly incompetent. They must be told, in the immortal words of Oliver Cromwell to Parliament: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"


This event points again to one of the most serious aspects of the situation: we live in a bubble, in a kind of mental ghetto, which cuts us off and prevents us from seeing another reality, the one perceived by the rest of the world. A psychiatrist might judge this to be the symptom of a severe mental problem.

The propaganda of the government and the army tells a simple story: our heroic soldiers, determined and sensitive, the elite of the elite, descended on the ship in order "to talk" and were attacked by a wild and violent crowd. Official spokesmen repeated again and again the word "lynching."

On the first day, almost all the Israeli media accepted this. After all, it is clear that we, the Jews, are the victims. Always. That applies to Jewish soldiers, too. True, we storm a foreign ship at sea, but turn at once into victims who have no choice but to defend ourselves against violent and incited anti-Semites.

It is impossible not to be reminded of the classic Jewish joke about the Jewish mother in Russia taking leave of her son, who has been called up to serve the Czar in the war against Turkey. "Don't overexert yourself,'" she implores him. "Kill a Turk and rest. Kill another Turk and rest again..."

"But mother," the son interrupts, "What if the Turk kills me?"

"You?" exclaims the mother, "But why? What have you done to him?"

To any normal person, this may sound crazy. Heavily armed soldiers of an elite commando unit board a ship on the high seas in the middle of the night, from the sea and from the air -- and they are the victims?

But there is a grain of truth there: they are the victims of arrogant and incompetent commanders, irresponsible politicians and the media fed by them. And, actually, of the Israeli public, since most of the people voted for this government or for the opposition, which is no different.

The "Exodus" affair was repeated, but with a change of roles. Now we are the British.

Somewhere, a new Leon Uris is planning to write his next book, Exodus 2010. A new Otto Preminger is planning a film that will become a blockbuster. A new Paul Newman will star in it -- after all, there is no shortage of talented Turkish actors.


More than 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson declared that every nation must act with a "decent respect to the opinions of mankind." Israeli leaders have never accepted the wisdom of this maxim. They adhere to the dictum of David Ben-Gurion: "It is not important what the Gentiles say, it is important what the Jews do." Perhaps he assumed that the Jews would not act foolishly.

Making enemies of the Turks is more than foolish. For decades, Turkey has been our closest ally in the region, much more close than is generally known. Turkey could play, in the future, an important role as a mediator between Israel and the Arab-Muslim world, between Israel and Syria, and, yes, even between Israel and Iran. Perhaps we have succeeded now in uniting the Turkish people against us -- and some say that this is the only matter on which the Turks are now united.

This is Chapter 2 of "Cast Lead." Then we aroused most countries in the world against us, shocked our few friends and gladdened our enemies. Now we have done it again, and perhaps with even greater success. World public opinion is turning against us.

This is a slow process. It resembles the accumulation of water behind a dam. The water rises slowly, quietly, and the change is hardly noticeable. But when it reaches a critical level, the dam bursts and the disaster is upon us. We are steadily approaching this point.

"Kill a Turk and rest," the mother says in the joke. Our government does not even rest. It seems that they will not stop until they have made enemies of the last of our friends.

[Parts of this article were published in Ma'ariv, Israel's second largest newspaper.]

Uri Avnery. Image from Plenetary Movement.
Uri Avnery assaulted by rightist thugs
After Tel Aviv protest of flotilla attack

'The Government Is Drowning All of Us.'

June 6, 2010

A disaster was averted yesterday (June 5) at Tel-Aviv's Museum Square, when rightists threw a smoke grenade into the middle of the protest rally, obviously hoping for a panic to break out and cause the protesters to trample on each other. But the demonstrators remained calm, nobody started to run and just a small space in the middle of the crowd remained empty. The speaker did not stop talking even when the cloud of smoke reached the stage. The audience included many children.

Half an hour later, a dozen rightist thugs attacked Gush Shalom's 86 year old Uri Avnery, when he was on his way from the rally in the company of his wife, Rachel, Adam Keller, and his wife Beate Siversmidt. Avnery had just entered a taxi, when a dozen rightist thugs attacked him and tried to drag him out of the car. At the critical moment, the police arrived and made it possible for the car to leave. Gush spokesman Adam Keller said: "These cowards did not dare to attack us when we were many, but they were heroes when they caught Avnery alone."

The incident took place when the more than 10,000 demonstrators were dispersing, after marching through the streets of Tel Aviv in protest against the attack on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla.

Not only was this one of the largest peace demonstrations for a long time, but also the first time that all parts of the Israeli peace camp -- from Gush Shalom and Hadash to Peace Now and Meretz -- did unite for common action

The main slogans were "The Government Is Drowning All of Us" and "We must Row towards Peace!" -- alluding to the attack on the flotilla. The protesters called in unison "Jews and Arabs Refuse to be Enemies!"

The demonstrators assembled at Rabin Square and marched to Museum Square, where the protest rally was held. Originally, this was planned as a demonstration against the occupation on its 43th anniversary, and for peace based on "Two States for Two Peoples" and "Jerusalem -- Capital of the Two States," but recent events turned it mainly into a protest against the attack on the flotilla.

One of the new sights was the great number of national flags, which were flown alongside the red flags of Hadash, the green flags of Meretz and the two-flag emblems of Gush Shalom. Many peace activists have decided that the national flag should no longer be left to the rightists.

"The violence of the rightists is a direct result of the brainwashing, which has been going on throughout the last week," Avnery commented. "A huge propaganda machine has incited the public in order to cover up the terrible mistakes made by our political and military leadership, mistakes which are becoming worse from day to day."

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Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn : Gaza Freedom Marchers Clubbed by Cairo Cops

Cairo riot police confront Gaza Freedom March. Top photo from AP. Bottom photo by Brandon Delyzer from rabble.ca.
Gaza Freedom March:
Lively demonstration at the Egyptian Museum

By Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn / The Rag Blog / January 1, 2010

Also see 'Egyptian security forces attack Gaza protesters,' by Max Ajl, Below.

CAIRO -- In Cairo yesterday, a spirited, highly visible and noisy demonstration held sway at a central traffic point -- the Nile Corniche -- across from the Egyptian Museum for seven hours, affixing huge banners in Arabic and English to trees and fences. In Gaza, a peace march took place including the 80 GFM participants who were able to enter the blockaded and occupied part of Palestine.

More than 500 people converged in small groups at the museum at 10 a.m. to press for freedom for Gaza and Palestine. Police blockaded the small hotels where marchers were staying, preventing dozens of people from leaving for several hours, and harshly attempted to contain the demonstration.

As the groups came together in the street, numerous marchers were clubbed to the ground, kicked and thrown into the center of Tahrir Square where police barricades and circles of Egyptian security quickly closed in. Those covering the action, observers, and members of the legal team, were seized by security police and pushed into the square.

Medical team personnel treated gashes, lacerations, broken noses, and bruised ribs. As has been true all week, Egyptian citizens who joined in or manifested support were treated most severely or were taken away.

The day before, the French GFM delegation had gone to the pyramids; someone faked an illness and while security forces moved in to respond, they unfurled a giant Palestinian flag across the pyramid. From that photo, they made an enormous color streamer, stamped with GAZA, now rippling in the square. The endless stream of Cairo traffic (23 million people living in this city), buses, taxis, cars and crowds, heard and saw the protest.

At 11:30 pm, under a full moon, we participated in a candlelight vigil in Tahrir Square where we danced and sang in the New Year.

Five days of rallies, actions, frustration and setback: the GFM wanted to enter Gaza 1,400 strong to express solidarity with civil society, witness their struggle for survival and self-determination, and join in a massive peace march. Instead, we found ourselves in Cairo for the week, a determined group from 42 countries trying mightily to realize our original goal in different circumstances.

In the end, we found unity among differences, common ground, and new alliances. There was a gallant effort to make a way out of no way, to keep focused on Gaza and the needs and desires of the Palestinian people, and to press forward to a more robust international peace and justice movement. If there was a silver lining here, perhaps this was it.

Egyptian security forces
Attack Gaza protesters and blockade hotels

By Max Ajl / December 31, 2010

CAIRO -- Egyptian security forces were attacking protesters in Tahrir Square, at the core of downtown Cairo, after they sat down in the middle of a busy Cairo street, protesting the imprisonment of the people of Gaza. Others were literally barricaded inside their hotel, the entrance surrounded by steel riot barriers. Egyptian security forces refuse to allow them to leave. Green personnel carriers line the streets. It is pandemonium.

The protesters are part of the Gaza Freedom March, a group of 1,400 delegates from 42 countries, including France, the United States, the Philippines, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Brazil, Australia and Japan. They converged on Cairo intending to march with Gazan civil society in a massive show of nonviolent resistance against the blockade, which 16 international NGO's and charities condemned in a report released December 22 as "preventing reconstruction and recovery" in the Gaza Strip and which the United Nations Development Program has criticized as contributing to Gaza's "de-development."

But Egypt refused them entry into Gaza, just days before most of the marchers were to arrive in Cairo. Since then, the marchers have convoked a series of vigils, demonstrations and marches, accompanied by song, chants and bright banners. The Egyptian state has responded with repression, putting groups of riot police around marchers, harassing hunger strikers, canceling permits, detaining marchers and threatening them with water cannons, arrest and deportation.

Two days ago, Egypt attempted to placate the marchers by offering the organizers permission for a token 100 marchers to enter Gaza. Initially, a segment of the steering committee accepted the offer.

But after many of the core delegations refused to submit to tokenism, including the French EuroPalestine group, which has spent nearly a week sleeping in tents in front of their embassy, and the South African contingent, with leadership strengthened in the crucible of the anti-apartheid struggle, a fuller, more representative segment of the steering committee rejected the offer in deliberations that lasted until dawn, and attempted to prevent the buses from leaving.

Two young Palestinian-American sisters, Dana and Lara Elbrno, their father from Gaza, were among those who refused to go. They said they could not accept the offer and were unwilling to accept the terms the Egyptian government had imposed: the buses allowed into Gaza under the auspices of CodePink and not the Gaza Freedom March, their purpose framed explicitly as a humanitarian convoy and not a political symbol -- ultimately, they said, the conversion of a political statement against the siege into charity.

Others, selected among the 100, refused the offer too. Palestinian author Ali Abunimah and Filipino politician and writer Walden Bello of the Akbayan Party disembarked when they heard that the Gaza Freedom March's core partners in Palestinian civil society, including Haidar Eid, a literature professor at Al-Aqsa University and Omar Barghouthi, the founder of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign, also spurned the offer, claiming it was divisive, and so, "we deeply feel, terrible for the solidarity movement."

The GFM steering committee in Gaza reportedly abstained from receiving those who boarded the buses in Cairo. The real Gaza Freedom March remains "stalled in Cairo," says march communications coordinator Ziyaad Lunat.

Or surrounded. A huge group of internationals attempted to march in the direction of Gaza from Tahrir Square. The marchers, hundreds of them, came to the streets from cafes, hookah bars, the KFCs and Hardees that sit on the sidewalks surrounding the square, swarming in from points all around, stopping traffic on the circular ring road around the center of the square. Then they collided with Egyptian riot police.

They sat down, blocking several lanes of traffic for 45 minutes. Retaliation was violent. The plainclothes police picked the protesters up, one by one, pulling them by the hair, roughly throwing them around, until they had them cloistered on a corner, and then closed the museum and the metro. They broke cameras and video cards, and left one delegate with several fractured ribs.

Several were hit, some left bloodied and bruised. One, Suleika Jaouad, a student at Princeton University, was punched in the face. As she says, "I was witness to bloody, indiscriminate violence." She was on the periphery of the protest and says she was "assaulted just for being there and attempting to film the police brutality - evidence that they clearly did not want to be documented."

Things got much quieter when the protesters were no longer blocking traffic. They quickly set up an encampment. Conscripted riot police, in visored black helmets, stood around them, blocking sight of anything except for the multi-colored banner hanging from the tree around which they were clustered. Gael Murphy, one of the organizers of the march, says that the protesters "renamed Tahrir Square Free Gaza Square" and sang songs, played the accordion and waved banners reading "those who stand up for human rights will never be wrong."

There were many chants of "Free Gaza." Marchers were jumping up and down, practically screaming. One attendee, Max Geller of Brookline, Massachusetts, said, "It's at a fever pitch, it looks like a rock concert." The excitement level was alpine. Bill Ayers added, "We shine a light on a dark spot in Gaza," in the process offering "solidarity with the people of Gaza, letting them know that they're not alone."

While the protesters were alternately sitting down and being slammed around in Tahrir Square, others were trapped inside their hotels. Egyptian security forces had preemptively barricaded many of them, in a desperate bid to prevent them from joining today's protests.

One march participant, Desiree Fairoz, after speaking to the police from outside, attempting to convince them to remove the barriers, "was lifted by the Egyptian police forces and literally tossed over the fence."

Nonetheless, over 300 internationals made it to the protest, in a show of solidarity with Gaza's inhabitants and Palestinian society that has riveted the world's attention on Gaza, and made front-page news in the Egyptian press. Despite not getting to Gaza, it was unprecedented. As one South African marcher commented, "The Gaza Freedom March got 1,400 people to Cairo to march in solidarity with the Palestinian people. That's amazing."

Source / truthout

• Also see Bernardine Dohrn : Gaza Freedom March: Reimagining Change / The Rag Blog / December 31, 2010

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New York : Marching for the Children of Gaza

Thousands marched in New York on Dec. 27, 2009, in support of the people of Gaza. Photo by Bud Korotzer / NLN.
Marching for the children of Gaza:
Thousands demonstrate in New York City

By Fran Korotzer / The Rag Blog / January 1, 2010

NEW YORK -- On December 27, the first anniversary of Israel’s brutal attack on Gaza that left 1,400 dead (mostly civilians), thousands wounded, and hundreds of thousands homeless, 2,000 people met in New York’s Times Square.

The throng marched through streets filled with New Yorkers and tourists in holiday mode, passed crowded Rockefeller Center, and ended at the Israeli Consulate at 42nd Street and 2nd Avenue. Participants represented all ages and all racial and ethnic groups. The march was timed to coincide with marches in solidarity with the people of Gaza that are taking place all over the world.

As the marchers moved through the streets they carried signs and Palestinian flags and chanted, “Israel, Israel, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide.” Or, “Gaza, Gaza, don’t you cry. Palestine will never die.” Many wore buttons supporting the Palestinian liberation struggle. One woman had “Resistance is not Terrorism” printed on the back of her jacket.

A large group of orthodox Jews who oppose the Israeli state marched too. Seeing them, some Jewish people in the streets cursed them and spit at them. They appeared to take it in stride.

At one point a call came in from Kevin Ovington, one of the leaders of the Viva Palestina convoy which was in Jordan with 500 people from 17 countries, and 250 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza. Egypt was not allowing them to pass through to Gaza so a hunger strike had begun. He said that they were “determined to enter Gaza and break the siege.” He said, “One day we will all be together in a free Palestine.” The marchers were asked to call the Egyptian Embassy and urge them to allow the Freedom Marchers and humanitarian aid to pass into Gaza.

Outside the Israeli Consulate in New York, the marchers demanded an end to the blockade which protesters argue is a violation of international law.

[Fran Korotzer is an independent journalist and a contributor to Next Left Notes, where this article also appears.]

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Bernardine Dohrn : Gaza Freedom March: Reimagining Change

UPDATE: See 'Gaza Freedom march converges on Midan Tahrir,' Below.

Above, photo from Palestine Chronicle / Aljazeera. Below, holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, center, and Gaza Freedom March activists in Cairo Tuesday. Photo by Amr Nabil / AP / Christian Science Monitor.
A Movement reimagining change:
Freedom marchers head for Gaza

By Bernardine Dohrn / The Rag Blog / December 31, 2009

More on the Gaza Freedom March, Below.

CAIRO -- It has been a tumultuous 15 hours. Two buses, carrying 100 people from the GFM and loads of humanitarian supplies, just departed from Cairo for Gaza. This was a victory and a concession. The decisions and the manner in which this opportunity was framed and promoted by various actors fractured the GFM participants in familiar and unlikely, real and sectarian ways -- all documented by media cameras and hundreds of Egyptian security forces.

Ali Abunimah, Veterans for Peace organizers, Israeli journalist Amira Hess, and this writer were among the 100 people on the list to go, who arrived at 6:30 this morning, on the corner of Ramsis by the 6th October Bridge at the Al Gona Bridge, to depart for Gaza.

Tuesday morning, delegates from several countries went to their embassies in Cairo to plead for help getting to Gaza. Most were met with predictable bureaucratic intransigence. The French, however, staged an extraordinary encampment in front of their embassy and their ambassador and his wife came out and spent time speaking with them individually and in small groups.

That action continues today. Bill [Ayers] and I went to the American Embassy at 10 a.m. and asked to see the Ambassador. We were ushered into a holding pen a block away from the embassy building where we joined 35 people already there, surrounded by Egyptian soldiers. Over the next four hours, another dozen Americans arrived, and those of us who asked to leave were denied.

Meanwhile, Medea Benjamin, Kit Kiteredge, and Ali Abunimah were meeting with an embassy official and stressing that we intended to go to Gaza on a nonviolent, humanitarian mission, and requesting their assistance. Further, they asked that the embassy officials release the U.S. citizens who were now clearly being detained outside.

Ali emerged first to tell us that their discussion achieved nothing, and they were now requesting that we be free to go. This process took another hour. Ali refused to enter the holding cage, and spoke to us from outside. At one point, out of nowhere, military personnel grabbed Ali, and Medea -- who was standing a few feet away -- sprang to action, shouting “No! No!” and grabbing Ali’s arm and pulling him down to the ground with her. As soon as they were prone, the security backed off. It was an impressive display of nonviolent direct action and solidarity in-the-moment, performed with speed, force and clarity.

In late afternoon, a huge demonstration took place outside the Syndicate of Journalists, a traditional site of political mobilizations in downtown Cairo. The GFM was a force, and joined by large numbers of Egyptian citizens chanting in solidarity with Palestine and in opposition to the visit that day by Netanyahu. This action got widespread coverage throughout the Arab world.

Late last night, it was announced at the nightly team leaders’ meeting that our three days of actions across Cairo, the international pressure around the world, and consistent efforts by CodePink leadership to meet with high level Egyptian officials -- including a meeting yesterday at the offices of Suzanne Mubarak -- resulted in an agreement with the Egyptian government that two buses could leave for the Rafah crossing into Gaza early Wednesday.

The names of the 100, however, had to be submitted to Egyptian officials by Tuesday evening. This resulted in a (necessarily) rushed process, without the opportunity for full debate, discussion, and input about criteria for selection, or about the strategic goals of sending a smaller, incomplete team of people to enter Gaza and participate in the New Year’s freedom march with the people there. By mid-evening, whole delegations (South Africa, New York) announced that they would not participate. In part, they critiqued the process of decision-making; in part, they took the position, “all of us or none.”

As we stood in the morning chill of the stunningly polluted Cairo sky, those boarding the buses felt that it was a partial victory to have two busloads depart for Gaza, that we would take supplies, and witness the realities of life under the occupation/blockade. We thought that our primary objective was to break the isolation of Gaza, and to join with the civil society forces there who wanted us to come join them. The GFM forces opposed to the compromise that left 1,300 of the GFM still in Cairo, gathered at the departure point and began painting banners and chanting against the departure of the buses. Egyptian security grew.

We boarded the buses, loaded supplies, handed over our passports and sat on the buses, excited and exhausted, watching the opposition to our departure gather steam. Signs were hoisted, some began shouting and crying, and chants to Don’t Go, Get off the Bus, and All of Us or None grew in force. Many, unhappy to have worked so hard to get here and who built critical support for Palestinian solidarity and human rights, felt that it was unfair to be left behind, and not to have been consulted. People wavered.

Resentment and criticism of leadership (legitimate and small-minded) and the obvious manipulation of the situation by the Egyptian (and Israeli and U.S.) governments escalated. Al Jazeera ran a story quoting the Egyptian Prime Minister who proclaimed that only the reliable and respectable people had been selected to travel to Gaza (!), leaving behind the rabble rousers and unruly GFM marchers, and claiming credit for delivering the humanitarian supplies to the people of Gaza.

It was clear to us in the hours of debate and delay that some would leave for Gaza, and that others would stay in Cairo to press the demand that the border be opened, the blockade ended, and that all of the GFM participants be allowed to enter Gaza. One of the great difficulties throughout these several days has been to keep ourselves and all participants focused on Gaza.

We find ourselves unwillingly in Cairo, drawn into clashes with authorities and one another on side issues, when what we most want it to keep our eyes on the Palestinian people and our spirits with those confined in Gaza. This is the challenge of the next three days. A large group of us is planning to try to walk to Gaza starting tomorrow, December 31. Buses and taxis containing smaller groups have been turned back all week, and the situation remains fluid, dynamic, and fraught.

The activists who entered Gaza were joined by a few hundred Palestinians as they marched to the Erez crossing. Photo from AFP.

Protesting the siege:
International contingent marching to Gaza

CAIRO -- Following Egypt's refusal to allow the Gaza Freedom Marchers to enter Gaza, the more than 1,300 peace-and-justice activists are setting out on foot. Despite police blockades set up throughout downtown Cairo in an attempt to pen the protesters in and prevent them from demonstrating in solidarity with Palestinians, the internationals are unfurling their banners and calling on supporters of peace around the world to join them to demand the end of the siege of Gaza.

Egypt's offer to allow 100 of the 1,400 marchers to enter Gaza was denounced as insufficient and deliberately divisive by the organizers. Meanwhile, the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs has sought to spin this last-minute offer as an act of goodwill for Palestinians and isolation of "troublemakers." The Gaza Freedom March categorically rejects these assertions. Activists are in Cairo because they are being prevented by the Egyptian government from reaching Gaza. "We do not wish to be here, Gaza has always been our final destination", said Max Ajl one of the marchers.

Some individuals managed to overcome the police barricades and began the march at the meeting point in Tahreer Square in downtown Cairo. They were joined by Egyptians who also wished to denounce the role of their government in sustaining the Gaza siege. The authorities have sought to separate international from the locals. The police is brutally attacking the nonviolent marchers.

Many plainclothes police officers have infiltrated the crowds and are violently assaulting them. "I was lifted by the Egyptian police forces and literally tossed over the fence," said Desiree Fairooz, one of the protesters. Marchers are chanting and resisting the attempt to disperse them, vowing to remain in the square until they are allowed to go to Gaza. The GFM banner is hanging up high in a tree in the square. Some marchers are bleeding and riot police destroyed their cameras.

The Gaza Freedom March represents people from 43 countries with a diversity of backgrounds. They include peoples of all faiths, community leaders, peace activists, doctors, artists, students, politicians, authors and many others. They share a commitment to nonviolence and a determination to break the siege of Gaza.

"Egypt has tried every way possible to isolate us and to crush our spirit," the march organizers say. "However, we remain as committed as ever to standing up against tyranny and repression. We will march as far as we can towards Gaza, and if we are stopped by force, we will hold our ground in protest. We call on those committed to justice and peace everywhere to support our stand for freedom for Palestinians."

Among the participants are Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice Walker, Filipino Parliament member Walden Bello and former European Parliamentarian Luisa Morgantini from Italy. More than 20 of the marchers, including 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, have launched a hunger strike against the Egyptian crack-down and are now entering their fourth day.

Source / Gaza Freedom March!

Photo from Reuters.
Endorse the Gaza Freedom March!

Israel’s blockade of Gaza is a flagrant violation of international law that has led to mass suffering. The U.S., the European Union, and the rest of the international community are complicit.

The law is clear. The conscience of humankind is shocked. Yet, the siege of Gaza continues. It is time for us to take action! On Dec. 31, we will end the year by marching alongside the Palestinian people of Gaza in a non-violent demonstration that breaches the illegal blockade.

Our purpose in this March is lifting the siege on Gaza. We demand that Israel end the blockade. We also call upon Egypt to open Gaza’s Rafah border. Palestinians must have freedom to travel for study, work, and much-needed medical treatment and to receive visitors from abroad.

As an international coalition we are not in a position to advocate a specific political solution to this conflict. Yet our faith in our common humanity leads us to call on all parties to respect and uphold international law and fundamental human rights to bring an end to the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967 and pursue a just and lasting peace.

The march can only succeed if it arouses the conscience of humanity.

Statement of Context

Amnesty International has called the Gaza blockade a "form of collective punishment of the entire population of Gaza, a flagrant violation of Israel's obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention." Human Rights Watch has called the blockade a "serious violation of international law." The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Richard Falk, condemned Israel’s siege of Gaza as amounting to a “crime against humanity.”

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter has said the Palestinian people trapped in Gaza are being treated "like animals," and has called for "ending of the siege of Gaza" that is depriving "one and a half million people of the necessities of life."

One of the world's leading authorities on Gaza, Sara Roy of Harvard University, has said that the consequence of the siege "is undeniably one of mass suffering, created largely by Israel, but with the active complicity of the international community, especially the U.S. and European Union."

The law is clear. The conscience of humankind is shocked.

[....]

Sources of Inspiration

The Gaza Freedom March is inspired by decades of nonviolent Palestinian resistance from the mass popular uprising of the first Intifada to the West Bank villagers currently resisting the land grab of Israel's annexationist wall.

It draws inspiration from the Gazans themselves, who formed a human chain from Rafah to Erez, tore down the border barrier separating Gaza from Egypt, and marched to the six checkpoints separating the occupied Gaza Strip from Israel.

The Freedom March also draws inspiration from the international volunteers who have stood by Palestinian farmers harvesting their crops, from the crews on the vessels who have challenged the Gaza blockade by sea, and from the drivers of the convoys who have delivered humanitarian aid to Gaza.

And it is inspired by Nelson Mandela who said: “I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. ... I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”

It heeds the words of Mahatma Gandhi, who called his movement Satyagraha-Hold on to the truth, and holds to the truth that Israel's siege of Gaza is illegal and inhuman.

Gandhi said that the purpose of nonviolent action is to "quicken" the conscience of humankind. Through the Freedom March, humankind will not just deplore Israeli brutality but take action to stop it.

Palestinian civil society has followed in the footsteps of Mandela and Gandhi. Just as those two leaders called on international civil society to boycott the goods and institutions of their oppressors, Palestinian associations, trade unions, and mass movements have since 2005 been calling on all people of conscience to support a non-violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions until Israel fully complies with its obligations under international law.

The Freedom March also draws inspiration from the civil rights movement in the United States.

If Israel devalues Palestinian life then internationals must both interpose their bodies to shield Palestinians from Israeli brutality and bear personal witness to the inhumanity that Palestinians daily confront.

If Israel defies international law then people of conscience must send non-violent marshals from around the world to enforce the law of the international community in Gaza. The International Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza will dispatch contingents from around the world to Gaza to mark the anniversary of Israel's bloody 22-day assault on Gaza in December 2008 - January 2009.

The Freedom March takes no sides in internal Palestinian politics. It sides only with international law and the primacy of human rights.

The March is yet another link in the chain of non-violent resistance to Israel's flagrant disregard of international law.

Citizens of the world are called upon to join ranks with Palestinians in the January 1st March to lift the inhumane siege of Gaza.

Please join us.

Go here to learn more and to sign the pledge.

UPDATE:
Gaza Freedom march converges on Midan Tahrir

By Joshua Brollier / December 31, 2009

CAIRO -- Today at 10 a.m., the Gaza Freedom march converged on Midan Tahrir, or Liberation Square in English. This was no easy task for the marchers. We left in small groups to avoid being followed by police who were monitoring our hotels. Several of the larger hotels were monitored more closely, and the Lotus Hotel was completely barricaded, making it impossible for most of the Marchers to leave.

Many marchers, maybe three to four hundred, did make it to the square and a delegation of women gave the signal to converge by waving large flags. We moved into the streets with the intention to occupy a major thoroughfare and march towards Gaza.

Egyptian police and riot cops fanned out of alleyways and side streets as quickly as we came together. The police then attempted to push us out of the street and into the square. As planned, we continued to try to march, but things quickly came to a head. Most of the marchers decided to sit down and lock arms.

The Egyptian cops swiftly became violent and began grabbing, beating, and pulling marchers who did not leave the street. I was kicked in the side and back, punched in the head and slapped in the face. My glasses were broken and one plainclothes officer pulled violently on my hair for what seemed like nearly a minute.

I managed to hold on to one of my comrades,and we held the space in the street for a while longer. Many of the police in uniform were trying to avoid violence, but a handful of plain clothes officers were taking pot shots at the crowd of peaceful and non-violent protesters. Eventually the police succeeded in moving the marchers to the sidewalk where we were barricaded and surrounded by several rows of cops.

I emerged alright from the incident, but several others were not so fortunate. One young man had his shoulder dislocated and others were close to passing out from the trauma of the encounter.

Though we were removed from the square, beaten and prohibited from marching, our spirits were quickly rekindled through the solidarity born out of the struggle and by remembering the much worse hardships that Palestinians often face when they attempt to hold peaceful demonstrations; it is not uncommon for Israeli troops to fire on crowds of Palestinians with rubber and real bullets merely for assembling.

It is difficult to imagine the horror of being trapped in Gaza and having to endure an onslaught like the one that occurred last January. We held a moment of complete silence as we honored those who had died. Not even a cop made a noise.

So we chanted, we marched, we danced, drummed and sang, as we were together in Midan Tahrir. We may not have liberated the Gazan border, but my spirit certainly felt liberated for standing and sitting in solidarity with the Palestinians. We held the space for approximately six hours.

We were a truly international group, and it was inspiring to hear about the different facets of the movement across the world. Many people’s commitments to resisting injustice were renewed; some talked of a Cairo Declaration to unite the worldwide struggle for Palestinian freedom.

After holding a consensus meeting among the different delegations, we decided to disperse and regroup for another action later tonight. What a way to hold a New Year’s celebration; taking action with some of the finest people I’ve ever encountered! It may be held at the French Embassy since many from the French delegation that were encamped at their embassy were prevented by the police from entering the square.

I heard that the group of 85 delegates that headed to Rafah with humanitarian aid did make it into Gaza and have marched there with 6,000 Palestinians to the Israeli border. When reaching the border, the internationals,when within 500 meters of the border,sat down while holding a press conference. I hope to find more details on the scene in Gaza soon.

I’m wishing a happy New Year to all, worldwide! I hope this year to be a year of liberation. May we have liberation in our own hearts, in our relationships, in all of our various countries and especially, liberation to the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

[Joshua Brollier is a Chicago peace activist who co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence.]

Source / Voices for Creative Nonviolence

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Bob Simmons : A Medical Mission to Palestine (Documentary Video)

A Medical Mission to Palestine - Part 1 from Telebob on Vimeo.

Good works done by good people:
A Medical Mission to Palestine

By Bob Simmons / The Rag Blog / December 3, 2009

See Parts 2-4 of A Medical Mission to Palestine, Below.

The hardest part of making this documentary was trying not to come right out and say it. The main problem with health care in Palestine is Israel.

In July of 2009, I took a trip to the country of occupied Palestine, or the West Bank, or, in the words of some Israelis, the “newly acquired lands.” What I saw was not shocking if you have been paying attention. But for me, an American who has rarely been overly concerned about the heated politics of the Middle East, it was a revelation.

I was lucky to have been included as a witness on a recent Physicians for Peace mission to Ramallah on the West Bank. My role was simply to document some of the clinics and seminars that Physicians for Peace conduct while guests of the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian Authority. I had been asked to use video to communicate some of the small victories of the mission -- a child who found a new life because of a pharyngeal flap operation, a repair of a hare lip cleft palate, or maybe some other “happy ending” story that would quickly and graphically demonstrate the enormous good that PfP does on these missions to the “troubled areas” of the world.

I was up for it.

Little did I know that what I would find would change my view of the Palestine question forever.

And little did I know how hard it would be not to be “political” with my small story about a mission to make a small difference in the world.

But the truth of the matter is, there is nothing in Palestine now that is not political, from the smallest act of buying a banana, to the issue of whether the Palestinians should be allowed to have radiology machines capable of treating the population with modern techniques, whether the local drug store can carry antibiotics or not, whether they will have simple antiseptics, or whether one can go to the hospital to have a baby or be forced to have it at home with a midwife in a house with no running water. It's all political. In some places in the world the phrase “Oh, I am not political,” is a luxury that is not a real option. And this is especially true for anyone who lives on the West Bank.

With this video I wanted to tell a story of the good works done by some good people who were trying to make a difference in people's lives in the Middle East. But I discovered that if I tried to get rid of the politics, I couldn't tell the story. It's as simple as a map that shows where people now live, and who used to live where.

Map from the United Nations.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

It's a map that tells a story that no rhetoric can explain away. It's as simple as the 400 miles of walls being erected by Israel as they disenfranchise a people, and no matter how much they deny it, Israelis "ethnically cleanse" the lands where they plan to live. Not all Israelis of course, but the party in power believes that the “manifest destiny” of Israel requires that they make life as hard as possible for the population of the country that they plan someday to completely occupy.

“The Palestinians can leave, they can go anywhere in the Middle East, they are Arabs. We are Jews, we only have here, our motherland.”

Thus, no story about health care in Palestine can be free of the background of the political issues that surround every act in the West Bank.

Physicians for Peace are the good guys. They go into countries all over the world. They bring skills and relationships and the best wishes and the best impulses on the planet. They bring with them the heart and soul of America.

Some people say "support our troops"; my instincts say, if you want to support America, then do what you can to support the people who win hearts and minds through their generosity and sense of decency. As someone once said, any fool can burn down a barn, but it takes skill and care to build one.

A Medical Mission to Palestine is about building the things that matter.

[Bob Simmons is a veteran broadcaster with over 30 years experience in most aspects of radio. He is a graduate of the University of Texas and presently lives in Austin where he has business interests and pursues his longtime avocations of photography and video production.]

A Medical Mission to Palestine - Part 2 from Telebob on Vimeo.

A Medical Mission to Palestine - Part 3 from Telebob on Vimeo.

A Medical Mission to Palestine - Part 4 from Telebob on Vimeo.

Also see:

• Occupied Palestine: How the West Was Lost, a Photo Essay by Bob Simmons / The Rag Blog / July 24, 2009

The Rag Blog

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Rabbi Arthur Waskow : J Street Meets at River's Edge

Graffiti art by Banksy on Israeli security wall in Bethlehem.
After 40 Years of Wilderness:
Gathering is Pro-Peace, Pro-Israel

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow / The Rag Blog / October 25, 2009

For the next few days, in Washington, DC, 1200 people are gathering in the name of a "pro-Israel, pro-peace" U.S. policy. Because of my broken leg, I can't be physically there. But my mind and spirit and 40 years of my work are there today.

Forty years ago, in the summer of 1969, I visited Israel for the first time. On the same trip, guided by a brilliant Israeli kibbutznik-sociologist, Dan Leon, I also visited Palestinian leaders in Hebron, East Jerusalem, and Gaza -- old-fashioned notables, social workers, lawyers.

To a person, they told me they had marched and spoken out against occupation by Jordan or Egypt, and would oppose occupation by Israel. They said they had no objection to Israel as it had been before the 1967 war. They wanted to be citizens of a free Palestine, at peace with Israel and Jordan and everyone else.

I saw an occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem that was still relatively mild. (There were as yet, in the areas I visited, no Israeli settlers grabbing Palestinian land.) But I came back to America knowing this occupation was deeply dangerous. I knew this as a secular historian, and I knew it as a Jew who had just rediscovered the power and truth of the Passover Seder -- that call to liberation from all pharaohs, all occupations.

This is what I knew: No occupation by one people over another, against its will, can be mild forever. Sooner or later, fury will rise in those occupied and arrogance in those who occupy. Resistance is inevitable -- probably violent, just barely possibly nonviolent. And violent repression is almost inevitable.

So I organized a network of peace activists some Jews and some not -- Dr. Benjamin Spock, Rabbis Arthur Green and Arnold Jacob Wolf, Denise Levertov and Stewart Meacham, Abbie Hoffman and John Ruskay, Michael Lerner and myself (neither of us yet rabbis) --- to place a statement in the New York Review of Books calling for a peace settlement between Israel and a Palestinian state.

We were then and for years a voice crying in the wilderness, against rage from the Israeli government and from many pro-Arab activists who urged a "one-state secular democratic Palestine," and contempt or indifference from all American and Jewish officialdom.

Why am I mentioning this ancient history? Precisely because it was 40 years ago. Now, today, the biblical "40 years in the Wilderness" later, J Street has organized and 20 other organizations, including The Shalom Center, are participating in an historic pro-peace conference in Washington, DC, with 1200 people taking part and dozens of Members of Congress joining as hosts.

All 21 groups are calling on a rhetorically friendly U.S. government to push not only for a two-state peace settlement but one joined by all the Arab states. To do so even though that means dealing with a divided Palestinian leadership and a hostile Israeli government. Some of us would say the U.S. should not just mouth support for that peace settlement but insist on it. Use its clout to insist on it.

Will the Obama Administration fulfill its lofty rhetoric? Not yet clear. What would make that happen?

Public demand. Insistence by enough Americans to matter. Americans who care enough to insist.

If my auto accident were not preventing my speaking at J Street, this is what I'd be saying:

That there are only two clusters of Americans who care enough about the Middle East to make a difference.

One is Big Oil and its allies the Cowboy Neo-Cons who foisted the Iraq war upon us. That difference was a disaster.

And the other is passionate Jews, passionate Christians, and passionate Muslims who view as sacred the region walked by Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah, and who have deep ties of spirit and emotion to their brothers and sisters in that region.

Of course we know that some of the passionate Christians, far from seeking peace in the footsteps of the Jesus who said to his own follower, "Whoever lifts the sword dies by the sword," seek the Great Armageddon War and worship their version of a Killer Christ who will with sword and H-bomb murder all unbelievers.

Some of the passionate Jews seek not the renewal of Jewish culture or their own safety in the everyday joys of Shalom, Peace, that the rabbis taught as the very Name and essence of God -- but worship the military might of a State with 200-plus nuclear weapons that can win military control of every foot of land that any biblical verse might have named as Israelite.

Some of the passionate Muslims are so consumed with rage against the Crusades and colonialism of centuries past and the oppressions and occupations of today that they cannot bear the notion of living in peace with former enemies, cannot celebrate the One Who says in the Quran, "I made the many peoples not to despise each other but to know the inner richness of the many different faces of the One."

For we know, "the worst are full of passionate intensity."

But so can also be the best. We need an Abrahamic Alliance of the passionate best.

Shalom, salaam, peace!

Arthur

[Rabbi Arthur Waskow is director of The Shalom Center. He can be reached at awaskow@shalomctr.org.]

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Leonard Cohen's 'Concert for Reconciliation'

Leonard Cohen Sings The Anthem

Words to this song are below.

Cohen defies critics with Israeli gig...
Veteran plays to 47,000 in Tel Aviv despite accusations of 'immorality'

By Donald Macintyre / September 26, 2009

It was vintage Leonard Cohen. "We don't know when we'll pass this way again," he told the sell-out audience at the Ramat Gan football stadium: "But we promise to give you everything we've got tonight." And he did.

Any worries fans had after the 75-year-old Canadian poet-singer-songwriter collapsed while performing "Bird on the Wire" in Valencia last week (apparently from food poisoning) quickly dissipated.

Disbelieving laughs rippled through the crowd at those familiar lines in "Chelsea Hotel", the beguiling elegy to his late Sixties fling with Janis Joplin: "You told me again you preferred handsome men/but for me you would make an exception". And certainly the maestro, in customary suit and fedora, looked as good as he sounded in the still warmth of this Tel Aviv September night, his first concert in Israel for more than 25 years.

He – literally – danced off the stage before each of three encores, one of which charmed the enraptured crowd to their feet in an excited singalong, thousands waving their green glow sticks in time to "So Long Marianne". He and his gravelly bass baritone voice were at peak form, from a gloriously funky "I'm Your Man" to the dark and haunting "Famous Blue Raincoat" and, of course, "Hallelujah" (which served as a reminder that none of the many cover versions are as good).

But this is Israel, and the political context cannot be ignored.

Mr Cohen, Jewish like the vast majority of his audience, had billed the gig on Thursday night as "A Concert for Reconciliation, Tolerance and Peace". And this was not the usual vacuous platitude. For he had also agreed to donate its $1.5m to $2m proceeds to a new fund he is behind to promote coexistence projects.

One of these is the Parents Circle – Families Forum, a unique organisation of bereaved Israeli and Palestinians who have lost close relatives in the conflict and who meet regularly together to share their painful experiences across the divide.

In the face of protests by proponents of a cultural boycott of Israel that he was playing Tel Aviv at all, Mr Cohen had planned a similar concert in the West Bank city of Ramallah, with proceeds earmarked for a Palestinian prisoners' charity. But that was successfully blocked by boycott campaigners – including, according to his American manager, Robert B Kory, a number of "British academics" – who argue that concerts like this and Paul McCartney's last year validate Israel as a "normal country" as it tramples Palestinian rights.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) said that such attempts at "balance" not only "immorally equate the oppressor with the oppressed ... [but] are conscious acts of complicity in Israel's violation of international law and human rights".

The campaign has been given fresh impetus by Israel's winter offensive on Gaza, which left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead.

But the Parents Circle was undeterred. At a reception before the concert, the writer and long-time peace campaigner David Grossman said: "It seems so easy to believe that war is the only possibility and that Israelis and Palestinians will continue to kill each other." But Mr Grossman, whose tank commander son was killed on the last weekend of the 2006 Lebanon war, added: "But those gathered here tonight know what we have inflicted upon each other and the price we have paid. Leonard Cohen, through his art, indicates that he understands this suffering."

Another of the 47,000 at the concert was Ali Abu Awwad, a 37-year-old Palestinian who was jailed for four years for his part in the first intifada, and whose brother Yusef was shot and killed at the outset of the second.

Mr Awwad has since toured mosques and synagogues in Europe and the US on behalf of the Parent's Circle with Robi Damelin, a 65-year-old Israeli, who has complained that the occupation is "killing the moral fibre of Israel" and whose son David was killed by a Palestinian sniper while serving in the Army in 2002.

"It's not our destiny to keep dying," Mr Awwad said. "I can't boycott a great heart like Leonard Cohen. I was jailed for four years, my mother was jailed for four years. I lost my brother. I am proud that Leonard Cohen is supporting us."

For PACBI, "those sincerely interested in defending Palestinian rights ... should not play Israel, period". But for Mr Cohen, grassroots reconciliation, however modest in its reach, reflects the words of "Anthem", the song he pointedly sang straight after plugging Parents Circle work from the stage: "There is a crack, a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in."

Source / The Independent

'Anthem' by L. Cohen

The birds they sang at the break of day
"Start again", I seemed to hear them say
Don't dwell on what has passed away
Or what is yet to be

Now the wars they will be fought again
The holy dove, she will be caught again
Bought and sold and bought again
The dove is never free

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

We asked for signs, and the signs were sent
The birth betrayed, the marriage spent
Yeah, the widowhood of every single government
Signs for all to see

I can't run no more with that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places say their prayers out loud
But they've summoned up a thundercloud
And they're going to hear from me

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

You can add up the parts, but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march on your little broken drum,
Every heart, every heart to love will come
But like a refugee

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

That's how the light gets in
That's how the light gets in

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Rabbi Arthur Waskow: Yom Kippur and the Middle East : Our Misdeeds and Theirs

Rabbi Rebecca Alpert blows Shofar at Fast for Gaza event at Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. At right is Rabbi Arthur Waskow.

We are called to reexamine our actions

Jews -- and all others who care for peace -- must act in new ways to turn toward compassion, truth, justice, and peace.

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow / The Rag Blog / September 24, 2009

During these days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Jews are called on to reexamine our own actions -- our "missings of the mark." The emphasis is on OUR sins -- not those of individuals alone, but of the community -- and the sins of ourselves, not of other people, even our enemies. We are also called on not only to confess our misdeeds but CHANGE what we do.

In that light, the Israeli government's recent behavior flies in the face of this profound Jewish wisdom. So Jews -- and all others who care for peace -- must act in new ways to turn toward compassion, truth, justice, and peace.

Two major actions we might take NOW, at this solemn time of year:

• joining the Jewish and Interfaith Fast for Gaza; and
• signing up for the Conference called by 18 pro-Israel, pro-peace organizations, including The Shalom Center, that will be held in Washington DC October 25-28. Links and details are below.

Against the consensus of almost all decent and democratic opinion in the world, the present Israeli government has:

1. Continued the blockade of civilian goods from entering Gaza, imposing malnutrition, homelessness, abysmal poverty, and despair on its people;


2. Denounced the Goldstone report on the commission of probable war crimes by BOTH Hamas and the Israeli government during and since the Gaza War;


3. Continued to destroy Palestinian homes, disrupt Palestinian neighborhoods, and insert Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem;


4. Continued sending more settlers into the Palestinian West Bank.

I want to say a bit more about the Goldstone report. Before Goldstone, it had smelly origins -- commissioned by an anti-Israel corner of the UN. But through the workings of international politics in the direction of justice, the job was handed to an affirmative Jew with strong Zionist connections, a giant of international law, who insisted on studying the possibility of war crimes by both Hamas and the government of Israel.

The report finds high probability that on both sides there were war crimes, cites the evidence in great detail, and asserts the need for formal judicial investigation by both governments. It proposes giving both six months to do this, and if they fail, asking the Security Council to refer the evidence to the International Criminal Court.

Eminently sensible.

As the ancient rabbis said, the glory of human wisdom begins in a smelly drop (of semen). So what? The content of the report is the point. Its 600-plus pages of evidence are the point. Its truth or falsity, not its smelly origins, are the point.

The U.S. government's critique of the Goldstone Report, as voiced by Ambassador Susan Rice, is rooted in this fallacy of origins. It almost signals the silliness of this approach by then urging that all action on the report be confined to precisely this smelly corner of the UN, rather than to other places that are far more just. More likely, beneath this fallacious rhetoric was a policy evasion of the duty of all governments to make sure that if war crimes were committed, they are punished.

Goldstone himself is a distinguished South African Jew whose daughter has called him a Zionist, who took an important role in the truth and reconciliation process in South Africa, and who served as chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda from 1994 to 1996. He was a member of the Commission of Enquiry into the Activities of Nazism in Argentina (CEANA) which was established in 1997 to identify Nazi war criminals who had emigrated to Argentina, and transferred victim assets (Nazi gold) there.

From the beginning, his UN task was to look into possible war crimes by both sides in the Gaza War. He attempted to interview Israelis who had been attacked in Sderot, but his team was denied entry to Israel. So the commission paid to have Israeli witnesses travel to where their evidence could be heard.

The Israeli government's hostility from the git-go seems to me the behavior of a guilty party that did not want even-handed judgment, even if that meant its enemies as well as itself were judged.

The Goldstone Report indeed said there was serious evidence of specific war crimes by both sides, and called for judicial trials. President Shimon Peres of Israel attacked the report in the following terms:

"War itself is a crime. The aggressor is the criminal. The side exercising self-defense has no other alternative.
[….]
"The report legitimizes terrorist activity, the pursuit of murder and death. The report disregards the duty and right of self defense, held by every sovereign state as enshrined in the UN Charter."

There are two falsehoods in this statement. First, far from "legitimizing" terrorist activity, the report describes it as a war crime. Secondly, Mr. Peres ignored the truth of international law that even a war of "self-defense" has limits in how it can be fought. For example, white phosphorus cannot be used against civilians. The Palestinians, of course, claim that their war was one of self-defense. But even if it were, it was forbidden to fight it by attacking civilian neighborhoods.

The Israeli government could have responded by saying it welcomed full judicial process and would live by its result. Its actual response therefore compounds its original misdeeds.


Let me then propose an action agenda for tshuvah (repentance and change) for this sacred time, and beyond:

1. Join the Jewish Fast for Gaza (Taanit Tzedek) -- a one day a month fast to call for an end to the blockade of civilian items and a decision by the U.S. and Israeli governments to negotiate with the Gaza leadership. Four weeks ago, the founders of the Fast -- Rabbis Brian Walt and Brant Rosen -- were personally attacked for their work by an Israeli with words like "borderline anti-Semitic."

In fact, Rabbis Walt and Rosen are Reconstructionist rabbis of great honor and repute. Rabbi Walt founded a vibrant and flourishing congregation in Philadelphia, Mishkan Shalom, and left it to devote full-time work to Rabbis for Human Rights/ North America, directing its support for RHR in Israel and its work to oppose the use of torture by the U.S. government. Rabbi Rosen leads the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation of Evanston Illinois, which among other notable feats, totally rebuilt its building to the level of green effectiveness worthy to receive the LEED Platinum designation, alone among all U.S. synagogues.

Their response to that attack on them and the Fast for Gaza (which has been affirmed by more than 70 rabbis, as well as a number of Christian clergy and Imams and hundreds of others) has now been published by the Jerusalem Post. Notably, it utterly refrains from name-calling or recriminations against their attacker, and focuses on the facts about Gaza that gave rise to the Taanit Tzedek.

To read their response and join the Fast, click here.

2. Sign up for the unprecedented conference on October 25-28 in Washington DC called by J Street and 17 other pro-Israel, pro-peace organizations, including The Shalom Center, to work for US policy to become serious and unremitting for a two-state peace, including support for the Obama Administration's demand for a total freeze on all increase of Israeli settlers or settlements on the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Click here.

Shalom, salaam, shantih -- Peace!

Arthur

P.S. Meanwhile, part of the American Jewish official leadership has urged all American rabbis to use the High Holy Days to emphasize the sins of the present government of Iran against its own people, against the history and legitimacy of the Jewish people, and against international comity and concern. This effort called for tougher sanctions against Iran. Those sins are real and glaring, and should be addressed not only by Jews but by veryone committed to peace.

But focusing only on them at this moment -- when we are wisely taught to address our own misdeeds -- encourages American Jews to turn away from acknowledging and addressing the sins of the two governments that might be considered "ours": the US and Israeli governments.

And when we do turn to the Iranian misdeeds, I think tougher sanctions are likely to unify the Iranian people to support even a government they loathe against what they will see as foreign "oppression," rather than encouraging them to strengthen their resistance to Ahmadinejad. We should discuss ways to do the second.

P.S. 2. I came through my leg surgery last Friday fairly well, and I expect to leave the hospital Wednesday or Thursday. We are once more seeking the insurance company's support to go to an intensive rehab facility. I'll keep you updated. I did make some new discoveries about the relationship of patient pain to physicians' judgments. That deserves its own report.

• Written to chevra, from Hahnemann Hospital, September 22 / 4 Tishrei

[Rabbi Arthur Waskow is director of The Shalom Center. He can be reached at awaskow@shalomctr.org.]

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