A personal account which gives us some hope…
Pem Rutgers, The Hague. August 22, 2006
We had dinner the other night with the Irish youth leader Mark of the Anglican Church who is leaving us after two years, and the assistant chaplain Rosy.
Rosy asked directly whether we thought BBC (World) is biased in reporting on the crisis/war. My husband Bram said: “Well they surely have a lot more reporters on location in Lebanon.” And Mark said wholeheartedly: “They are. It is disgraceful.”
We started to discuss nations’ sympathies and confusements. Each one labouring under its own particular historical burden.
Mark the Irishman living in the North growing up amidst a religious bloody conflict and working now with youth will participate in the next youth camp for Israeli and Palestinian teenagers we are preparing for coming summer. He has been involved in encounters between people from opposite sides. These camps are drops in the ocean. But a grain in the earth can shoot up and become big when fully grown. Just need careful tending.
Our first experience in the summer of 2004 has given us hope. Kids from “opposite sides” staying with families with teenage children, sharing a room: even sharing one double bed feel more or less safe in the context of a camp and families. They could bring out their emotions and fears, their griefs and losses. Could mourn together. While doing a lot of fun things in the open air as well.
Finally on the way from the lakes North to The Hague in the bus they had a group encounter which started naturally and spontaneously. And after that they were inseparable.
When a politician from the European Union came to speak to them about keeping peace etc. they opposed him together. In doing this together, being in agreement that you can not compare the European détente with the Middle East, they experienced for the first time - as one kid said - unity and togetherness.
One Israeli girl and a girl from Bethlehem have since then gone on holiday together in Ireland, speaking to a youth conference. Tina (Bethlehem) shared a room with Orit and said to her: “You have soldiers eyes.” And Orit retorted: “And you carry bombs”. At the final meeting during a farewell service they said confidentially: “We are the generation that will make peace.” We all sat with thick tears in our eyes.
They followed this up by making music together which they had done all along while at camp. The youth leaders were skilled young people from Israel and the leader was a Palestinian from Bethlehem. They all work with an organisation in Jerusalem by name of Musalaha. The director is Salim Munayer.
Salim has recently written a piece on “Discernment and reconciliation in the fogs of the war”.
No need to say anything, I just want, as Ralph Prins ( survivor of the camps) and a great artist, just turned 80, calls it: “Light a candle’s flame in the dark.” Like you three are doing.
Indeed, "hate talk” we do not need. Let’s follow David’s example and turn a deaf ear and go one step further as he does, by not allowing that kind of talk in our own houses
Thursday, August 24, 2006
A few home truths from Uri Avneri - the corrupting effect of the occupation on the army
Good morning, Elijah!
Uri Avneri
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/he/channels/avnery/1156357257/
A STORY has it that Oscar Wilde once attended the premiere of a colleague's play and every few minutes raised his hat. When asked about this odd behavior, he replied: "I am a courteous person. I raise my hat when I meet an old acquaintance."
If I wore a hat, I would have to raise it every few minutes these days when I view TV talk shows, listen to the radio or read the papers. I keep meeting things I wrote years ago, and especially things I have written since the beginning of this war.
For example: for decades I have warned again and again that the occupation is corrupting our army. Now the papers are full of learned articles by respected commentators, who have discovered - surprise! surprise! - that the occupation has corrupted our army.
In such cases we say in Hebrew: "Good morning, Elijah!" You have woken up at long last.
If there is a touch of irony in my remark, I do apologize. After all, I wrote in the hope that my words would convince the readers - and especially people of the Israeli establishment - and that they would pass them on. When this is happening now, I am quite happy about the plagiarism.
But it is important to spell out how the occupation has "corrupted our army". Otherwise it is just an empty slogan, and we shall learn nothing from it.
A PERSONAL flashback: in the middle of the 1948 war I had an unpleasant experience. After a day of heavy fighting, I was sleeping soundly in a field near the Arab village Suafir (now Sapir). All around me were sleeping the other soldiers of my company, Samson's Foxes. Suddenly I was woken up by a tremendous explosion. An Egyptian plane had dropped a bomb on us. Killed: none. Wounded: 1.
How's that? Very simple: we were all lying in our personal foxholes, which we had dug, in spite of our fatigue, before going to sleep. It was self-evident to us that when we arrived anywhere, the first thing to do was dig in. Sometimes we changed locations three times a day, and every time we dug foxholes. We knew that our lives depended on it.
Not anymore. In one of the most deadly incidents in the Second Lebanon War, 12 members of a company were killed by a rocket near Kfar Giladi, while sitting around in an open field. The soldiers later complained that they had not been led to a shelter. Have today's soldiers never heard of a foxhole? Have they been issued with personal shovels at all?
Inside Lebanon, why did the soldiers congregate in the rooms of houses, where they were hit by anti-tank missiles, instead of digging foxholes?
It seems that the army has been weaned from this practice. No wonder: an army that is dealing with "terrorists" in the West Bank and Gaza does not need to take any special precautions. After all, no air force drops bombs on them, no artillery shells them. They need no special protection.
THAT IS true of all our armed forces on land, in the air and on the sea. It is certainly a luxury to fight against an enemy who cannot defend himself properly. But it is dangerous to get used to it.
The navy, for example. For years now it has been sailing along the shores of Gaza and Lebanon, shelling at pleasure, arresting fishermen, checking ships. It never dreamed that the enemy could shoot back. Suddenly it happened - and on live television, too. Hizbullah hit it with a land-to-sea missile.
There was no end to the surprise. It was almost considered as Chutzpah. What, an enemy who shoots back? What next? And why did Army Intelligence not warn us that they have such an unheard of thing, a land-to-sea missile?
IN THE air as on the sea. For years now, Air Force pilots shoot and bomb and kill at will. They are able to hit a moving car with great precision (together with the passers-by, of course.) Their technical level is excellent. But what? Nobody is shooting at them while they are doing this.
The Royal Air Force boys during the Blitz ("the few to whom so many owe so much") had to confront the determined pilots of the Luftwaffe, and most of them were killed. Later, the British and Americans who bombed Germany ran the gauntlet of murderous flak.
But our pilots have no such problems. When they are in action over the West Bank and Gaza, there are no enemy pilots, no surface-to-air missiles, no flak. The sky belongs to them, and they can concentrate on their real job: to destroy the infrastructure of life and act as flying executioners, "eliminate" the objects of "targeted liquidations", feeling only a "slight bang on the wing" while releasing a one-ton bomb over a residential area.
Does that create a good air force? Does that prepare them for battle with a real enemy? In Lebanon the pilots have not (yet) met anti-aircraft fire. The only helicopter shot down was hit by anti-tank fire while landing troops. But what about the next war everybody is speaking about?
AND THE ground troops? Were they prepared for this war?
For 39 years now they have been compelled to carry our the jobs of a colonial police force: to run after children throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, to drag away women trying to protect their sons from arrest, to capture people sleeping at home. To stand for hours at the checkpoints and decide whether to let a pregnant woman reach the hospital or send back a sick old man. At the worst, they have to invade a casbah, to face untrained "terrorists" who have nothing but Kalashnikovs to fight against the tanks and airplanes of their occupiers, as well as courage and an unbelievable determination.
Suddenly these soldiers were sent to Lebanon to confront tough, well trained and highly motivated guerilla fighters who are ready to die while carrying out their mission. Fighters who have learned to appear from an unexpected direction, to disappear into well-prepared bunkers, to use advanced and effective weapons.
"We were not trained for this war!" the reserve soldiers now complain. They are right. Where could they have been trained? In the alleys of Jabalieh refugee camp? In the well-rehearsed scenes of embraces and tears, while removing pampered settlers with "sensitivity and determination"? Clearly it was easier to blockade Yasser Arafat and his few untrained bodyguards in the Mukata'ah compound in Ramallah than to conquer Bint Jbeil over and over again.
That applies even more to the tanks. It is easy to drive a tank along the main street of Gaza or over a row of houses in a refugee camp, facing only stone-throwing boys, when the opponent has no trained fighters or half-way modern weapons. It's a hell of a difference driving the same tank in a built-up area in Lebanon, when a trained guerilla with an effective anti-tank weapon can lurk behind every corner. That's a different story altogether. The more so as our army's most modern tank is not immune from missiles.
The deepest rot appeared in the logistics system. It just did not function. And why should it? There is no need for complex logistics to bring water and food to the soldiers at the Kalandia checkpoint.
THE SIMPLE truth is that for decades now our army has not faced a serious military force. The last time was 24 years ago, during the First Lebanon War, when it fought against the Syrian army.
At the time we said in my magazine, Haolam Hazeh, that the war was a complete military failure, a fact that was suppressed by all the military commentators. In that war, too, our army did not reach its targets on time according to the plan: it reached them either late or not at all. In the Syrian sector the army did not reach its assigned objective at all: the Beirut-Damascus road. In the Palestinian sector, it reached that road much too late, and only after violating the agreed cease-fire.
The last serious war of our army was the Yom Kippur war. After the initial disgraceful setbacks, it did indeed attain an impressive victory. But that was only six years into the occupation. Now, 33 years later, we see the full damage done by the cancer called occupation, which by now has spread to all the organs of the military body.
How to stop the cancer?
The military commentator Ze'ev Schiff has a patent medicine. Schiff generally reflects the views of the army high command. (Perhaps over the last 40 years, there may have been instances when he voiced opinions that were not identical with those of the General Staff, but if so, they have escaped me.) He proposes to shift the burden of occupation from the army to the Border Police.
Sounds reasonable, but is completely unrealistic. How can Israel create a second big force to maintain the occupation, on top of the army, which already costs something approaching 12 billion dollars a year?
But, thank goodness, there is another remedy. An amazingly simple one: to free ourselves from the occupation once and for all. To get out of the occupied territories in agreement and cooperation with the Palestinians. To make peace with the Palestinian people, so they can establish their independent state side by side with Israel.
And, while we are at it, to make peace with Syria and Lebanon, too.
So that the "Defense Army for Israel", as it is officially called in Hebrew, can go back to its original purpose: to defend the recognized international borders of the State of Israel.
Uri Avneri
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/he/channels/avnery/1156357257/
A STORY has it that Oscar Wilde once attended the premiere of a colleague's play and every few minutes raised his hat. When asked about this odd behavior, he replied: "I am a courteous person. I raise my hat when I meet an old acquaintance."
If I wore a hat, I would have to raise it every few minutes these days when I view TV talk shows, listen to the radio or read the papers. I keep meeting things I wrote years ago, and especially things I have written since the beginning of this war.
For example: for decades I have warned again and again that the occupation is corrupting our army. Now the papers are full of learned articles by respected commentators, who have discovered - surprise! surprise! - that the occupation has corrupted our army.
In such cases we say in Hebrew: "Good morning, Elijah!" You have woken up at long last.
If there is a touch of irony in my remark, I do apologize. After all, I wrote in the hope that my words would convince the readers - and especially people of the Israeli establishment - and that they would pass them on. When this is happening now, I am quite happy about the plagiarism.
But it is important to spell out how the occupation has "corrupted our army". Otherwise it is just an empty slogan, and we shall learn nothing from it.
A PERSONAL flashback: in the middle of the 1948 war I had an unpleasant experience. After a day of heavy fighting, I was sleeping soundly in a field near the Arab village Suafir (now Sapir). All around me were sleeping the other soldiers of my company, Samson's Foxes. Suddenly I was woken up by a tremendous explosion. An Egyptian plane had dropped a bomb on us. Killed: none. Wounded: 1.
How's that? Very simple: we were all lying in our personal foxholes, which we had dug, in spite of our fatigue, before going to sleep. It was self-evident to us that when we arrived anywhere, the first thing to do was dig in. Sometimes we changed locations three times a day, and every time we dug foxholes. We knew that our lives depended on it.
Not anymore. In one of the most deadly incidents in the Second Lebanon War, 12 members of a company were killed by a rocket near Kfar Giladi, while sitting around in an open field. The soldiers later complained that they had not been led to a shelter. Have today's soldiers never heard of a foxhole? Have they been issued with personal shovels at all?
Inside Lebanon, why did the soldiers congregate in the rooms of houses, where they were hit by anti-tank missiles, instead of digging foxholes?
It seems that the army has been weaned from this practice. No wonder: an army that is dealing with "terrorists" in the West Bank and Gaza does not need to take any special precautions. After all, no air force drops bombs on them, no artillery shells them. They need no special protection.
THAT IS true of all our armed forces on land, in the air and on the sea. It is certainly a luxury to fight against an enemy who cannot defend himself properly. But it is dangerous to get used to it.
The navy, for example. For years now it has been sailing along the shores of Gaza and Lebanon, shelling at pleasure, arresting fishermen, checking ships. It never dreamed that the enemy could shoot back. Suddenly it happened - and on live television, too. Hizbullah hit it with a land-to-sea missile.
There was no end to the surprise. It was almost considered as Chutzpah. What, an enemy who shoots back? What next? And why did Army Intelligence not warn us that they have such an unheard of thing, a land-to-sea missile?
IN THE air as on the sea. For years now, Air Force pilots shoot and bomb and kill at will. They are able to hit a moving car with great precision (together with the passers-by, of course.) Their technical level is excellent. But what? Nobody is shooting at them while they are doing this.
The Royal Air Force boys during the Blitz ("the few to whom so many owe so much") had to confront the determined pilots of the Luftwaffe, and most of them were killed. Later, the British and Americans who bombed Germany ran the gauntlet of murderous flak.
But our pilots have no such problems. When they are in action over the West Bank and Gaza, there are no enemy pilots, no surface-to-air missiles, no flak. The sky belongs to them, and they can concentrate on their real job: to destroy the infrastructure of life and act as flying executioners, "eliminate" the objects of "targeted liquidations", feeling only a "slight bang on the wing" while releasing a one-ton bomb over a residential area.
Does that create a good air force? Does that prepare them for battle with a real enemy? In Lebanon the pilots have not (yet) met anti-aircraft fire. The only helicopter shot down was hit by anti-tank fire while landing troops. But what about the next war everybody is speaking about?
AND THE ground troops? Were they prepared for this war?
For 39 years now they have been compelled to carry our the jobs of a colonial police force: to run after children throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, to drag away women trying to protect their sons from arrest, to capture people sleeping at home. To stand for hours at the checkpoints and decide whether to let a pregnant woman reach the hospital or send back a sick old man. At the worst, they have to invade a casbah, to face untrained "terrorists" who have nothing but Kalashnikovs to fight against the tanks and airplanes of their occupiers, as well as courage and an unbelievable determination.
Suddenly these soldiers were sent to Lebanon to confront tough, well trained and highly motivated guerilla fighters who are ready to die while carrying out their mission. Fighters who have learned to appear from an unexpected direction, to disappear into well-prepared bunkers, to use advanced and effective weapons.
"We were not trained for this war!" the reserve soldiers now complain. They are right. Where could they have been trained? In the alleys of Jabalieh refugee camp? In the well-rehearsed scenes of embraces and tears, while removing pampered settlers with "sensitivity and determination"? Clearly it was easier to blockade Yasser Arafat and his few untrained bodyguards in the Mukata'ah compound in Ramallah than to conquer Bint Jbeil over and over again.
That applies even more to the tanks. It is easy to drive a tank along the main street of Gaza or over a row of houses in a refugee camp, facing only stone-throwing boys, when the opponent has no trained fighters or half-way modern weapons. It's a hell of a difference driving the same tank in a built-up area in Lebanon, when a trained guerilla with an effective anti-tank weapon can lurk behind every corner. That's a different story altogether. The more so as our army's most modern tank is not immune from missiles.
The deepest rot appeared in the logistics system. It just did not function. And why should it? There is no need for complex logistics to bring water and food to the soldiers at the Kalandia checkpoint.
THE SIMPLE truth is that for decades now our army has not faced a serious military force. The last time was 24 years ago, during the First Lebanon War, when it fought against the Syrian army.
At the time we said in my magazine, Haolam Hazeh, that the war was a complete military failure, a fact that was suppressed by all the military commentators. In that war, too, our army did not reach its targets on time according to the plan: it reached them either late or not at all. In the Syrian sector the army did not reach its assigned objective at all: the Beirut-Damascus road. In the Palestinian sector, it reached that road much too late, and only after violating the agreed cease-fire.
The last serious war of our army was the Yom Kippur war. After the initial disgraceful setbacks, it did indeed attain an impressive victory. But that was only six years into the occupation. Now, 33 years later, we see the full damage done by the cancer called occupation, which by now has spread to all the organs of the military body.
How to stop the cancer?
The military commentator Ze'ev Schiff has a patent medicine. Schiff generally reflects the views of the army high command. (Perhaps over the last 40 years, there may have been instances when he voiced opinions that were not identical with those of the General Staff, but if so, they have escaped me.) He proposes to shift the burden of occupation from the army to the Border Police.
Sounds reasonable, but is completely unrealistic. How can Israel create a second big force to maintain the occupation, on top of the army, which already costs something approaching 12 billion dollars a year?
But, thank goodness, there is another remedy. An amazingly simple one: to free ourselves from the occupation once and for all. To get out of the occupied territories in agreement and cooperation with the Palestinians. To make peace with the Palestinian people, so they can establish their independent state side by side with Israel.
And, while we are at it, to make peace with Syria and Lebanon, too.
So that the "Defense Army for Israel", as it is officially called in Hebrew, can go back to its original purpose: to defend the recognized international borders of the State of Israel.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
A historical note - Harry Truman in 1948 in favour of an international trusteeship for Palestine
JIM REED: As the world shrugs
CBC News Viewpoint July 19, 2006
The world is watching while war takes its toll of innocent lives, as Israel is forced to defend itself by attacking a neighbour. No leader, no statesman has come forward to offer any better alternative.
On one side is a powerless government - Lebanon - held hostage by a band of dedicated proponents of terror as a solution to a political dilemma. And on the other side is a powerful government acting on its own without international help.
The impotence and indeed the indifference of the international community have never been more starkly demonstrated than now, during this crisis in the Middle East.
The outside world stands by, as it has for more than half a century, and watches and waits while hundreds and in the end perhaps thousands of innocent people die as they have been dying for generations.
Most people shrug and say, "Well that's the Middle East for you," and go on about their business.
But with the proliferation of high-tech weapons, the hardening of attitudes on all sides and the widespread suffering of innocent civilian victims, simply standing by and doing nothing seems callous.
There's no shortage of finger pointing, however — and the blame game is being played by all the parties including us bystanders. Israel is blamed for over-reacting - but when your soldiers are captured, rockets are landing on your towns and cities and your people are being killed, who are we to say what reaction is appropriate?
History teaches us that nation states often behave irresponsibly or without sufficient regard to the consequences of certain actions and behaviour, in much the same way individual human beings often do.
Foresaw a multitude of tragedies
Occasionally, however, a national leader shows real insight and courage, as U.S. President Harry S. Truman did in 1948, with regard to the events in Palestine.
Truman and his secretary of state, General George C. Marshall, both foresaw the multitude of tragedies that would follow hot on the heels of an unsupervised partition of Palestine. On March 25, 1948, Truman made a speech in which he outlined what he felt the United Nations ought to do at the time.
He pointed out that the United States vigorously supported the UN partition committee's majority report, which recommended the division of Palestine into three separate provinces.
One was to serve as a homeland for the Jewish people, one was to be a Palestinian Arab state and the third was to be an international zone, which included the city of Jerusalem. That city was slated to be governed by an international council, representing the nations of the world.
However, both Truman and Marshall expressed concern that Great Britain, which was the central authority in Palestine prior to partition, was prepared to abdicate its responsibility for maintaining security and stability in the territory.
In his speech on that warm and sunny Thursday in March, Truman issued a plea that, as we witness events unfolding now, seems prescient indeed.
Truman was well aware of the violence already occurring in the area, well before the target date for dividing it up. The prospect of even more violence genuinely bothered him and he spoke publicly about it and the imminent dangers and consequences of war.
"If we are to avert tragedy in Palestine," he said, "an immediate truce must be reached between the Arabs and the Jews." Truman proposed an international trusteeship for Palestine "to provide a government to keep the peace."
'Violence and bloodshed'
The trusteeship was being proposed, he said, "only after we had exhausted every effort to find a way to carry out partition by peaceful means." He emphasized that the trusteeship was not meant to be a substitute for the plan of partition, but was intended only to be "an effort to fill the vacuum soon to be created by the termination of the British mandate on May 15th."
Truman and Marshall envisioned the chaos that would result if the partition process were not properly policed and Truman put the problem in clear language. Here's the core of what he had to say:
"The United Kingdom has announced its firm intention to abandon its mandate in Palestine on May 15. Unless emergency action is taken, there will be no public authority in Palestine on that date capable of preserving law and order. Violence and bloodshed will descend upon the Holy Land.
"Large-scale fighting among the people of that country will be the inevitable result. Such fighting would infect the entire Middle East and could lead to consequences of the gravest sort involving the peace of this Nation (the United States) and of the world."
It's almost as if old Harry could see into the future and imagine what we've been looking at lately on our TV screens and reading in our newspapers, "...consequences of the gravest sort involving the peace of the Nation (the U.S.) and of the world."
The world didn't listen to Harry Truman in 1948 and today, there's no leader who has either his insight or his courage.
CBC News Viewpoint July 19, 2006
The world is watching while war takes its toll of innocent lives, as Israel is forced to defend itself by attacking a neighbour. No leader, no statesman has come forward to offer any better alternative.
On one side is a powerless government - Lebanon - held hostage by a band of dedicated proponents of terror as a solution to a political dilemma. And on the other side is a powerful government acting on its own without international help.
The impotence and indeed the indifference of the international community have never been more starkly demonstrated than now, during this crisis in the Middle East.
The outside world stands by, as it has for more than half a century, and watches and waits while hundreds and in the end perhaps thousands of innocent people die as they have been dying for generations.
Most people shrug and say, "Well that's the Middle East for you," and go on about their business.
But with the proliferation of high-tech weapons, the hardening of attitudes on all sides and the widespread suffering of innocent civilian victims, simply standing by and doing nothing seems callous.
There's no shortage of finger pointing, however — and the blame game is being played by all the parties including us bystanders. Israel is blamed for over-reacting - but when your soldiers are captured, rockets are landing on your towns and cities and your people are being killed, who are we to say what reaction is appropriate?
History teaches us that nation states often behave irresponsibly or without sufficient regard to the consequences of certain actions and behaviour, in much the same way individual human beings often do.
Foresaw a multitude of tragedies
Occasionally, however, a national leader shows real insight and courage, as U.S. President Harry S. Truman did in 1948, with regard to the events in Palestine.
Truman and his secretary of state, General George C. Marshall, both foresaw the multitude of tragedies that would follow hot on the heels of an unsupervised partition of Palestine. On March 25, 1948, Truman made a speech in which he outlined what he felt the United Nations ought to do at the time.
He pointed out that the United States vigorously supported the UN partition committee's majority report, which recommended the division of Palestine into three separate provinces.
One was to serve as a homeland for the Jewish people, one was to be a Palestinian Arab state and the third was to be an international zone, which included the city of Jerusalem. That city was slated to be governed by an international council, representing the nations of the world.
However, both Truman and Marshall expressed concern that Great Britain, which was the central authority in Palestine prior to partition, was prepared to abdicate its responsibility for maintaining security and stability in the territory.
In his speech on that warm and sunny Thursday in March, Truman issued a plea that, as we witness events unfolding now, seems prescient indeed.
Truman was well aware of the violence already occurring in the area, well before the target date for dividing it up. The prospect of even more violence genuinely bothered him and he spoke publicly about it and the imminent dangers and consequences of war.
"If we are to avert tragedy in Palestine," he said, "an immediate truce must be reached between the Arabs and the Jews." Truman proposed an international trusteeship for Palestine "to provide a government to keep the peace."
'Violence and bloodshed'
The trusteeship was being proposed, he said, "only after we had exhausted every effort to find a way to carry out partition by peaceful means." He emphasized that the trusteeship was not meant to be a substitute for the plan of partition, but was intended only to be "an effort to fill the vacuum soon to be created by the termination of the British mandate on May 15th."
Truman and Marshall envisioned the chaos that would result if the partition process were not properly policed and Truman put the problem in clear language. Here's the core of what he had to say:
"The United Kingdom has announced its firm intention to abandon its mandate in Palestine on May 15. Unless emergency action is taken, there will be no public authority in Palestine on that date capable of preserving law and order. Violence and bloodshed will descend upon the Holy Land.
"Large-scale fighting among the people of that country will be the inevitable result. Such fighting would infect the entire Middle East and could lead to consequences of the gravest sort involving the peace of this Nation (the United States) and of the world."
It's almost as if old Harry could see into the future and imagine what we've been looking at lately on our TV screens and reading in our newspapers, "...consequences of the gravest sort involving the peace of the Nation (the U.S.) and of the world."
The world didn't listen to Harry Truman in 1948 and today, there's no leader who has either his insight or his courage.
You who make peace in high places, Help us make peace down here on earth
Speech at Solidarity Rally for Israel
Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks
Sunday 23 July 2006
Solidarity rally for Israel, JFS, Kenton, London
We have come together today to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Israel and to say a simple prayer.
Ribbono shel olam:
Let your people Israel live in peace.
Let there be an end to bloodshed and violence.
Let there be an end to hostility and hate.
Let Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev come home.
Let Israel’s defence forces come home.
What else did Your people ever want, except the right to live with security, without fear, in peace? Almighty G-d, let your people Israel live in peace.
Today we stand in solidarity with Israel, and rarely have I felt so proud of Anglo-Jewry as I have done these past few days. Especially of our young people. Last week 1300 of them, from youth groups right across the religious spectrum, went out to Israel. Every one of them, or their families, might have said, ‘No, not now. It’s too dangerous.’ Yet almost none of them did. I want to say to every one of those young people: Kol hakavod. You make us proud.
And today I want a message to go forth from us to Israel to say: Israel, you make us proud.
In a mere 58 years, in a country half the size of Lake Michigan, you have done things that are unbelievable. You have gathered together Jews from more than a hundred different countries speaking more than eighty different languages and out of them made a great nation. You have taken a land with no natural resources and turned it into one of the great economies of the modern world. You have created a democracy in a part of the world where no one thought it possible. You have taken a desolate land and made it blossom and bear fruit. And you have developed medical technologies to save life.
Wherever in the world there has been a natural disaster, you have been among the first to offer humanitarian aid. Through six decades under almost continuous threat you have given the world poets and philosophers and musicians and novelists whose heart is Jewish and whose love is for all humanity. You have taken the language of the Bible and made it speak again You have taken a people from the valley of the shadow of death and made it live again. You have taken hope itself – hatikvah shnot alpayim – and made it breath again. Israel: you are our people and our pride and we stand with you today.
Why then does a people who have consistently said Yes to life and No to death, who have consistently said Yes to peace and No to terror, find itself today fighting in Lebanon and Gaza? The answer is so simple, yet so unbelievable, that we must hear it clearly and unequivocally: Israel is fighting today in Lebanon because six years ago it withdrew from Lebanon. Israel is fighting today in Gaza because one year ago it withdrew from Gaza.
And Israel discovered the terrible truth spoken by the late Mother Theresa that no good deed goes unpunished! Every gesture of goodwill undertaken by Israel has been seized on by its enemies as a sign of weakness. Every Israeli effort towards peace has led without exception to an increase in violence against Israel. The Oslo Peace Process led directly to the first Palestinian suicide attacks in Israel. Taba: the most generous offer Israel ever made to the Palestinians, led directly to the most concerted set of terrorist attacks against any nation in modern history. The Gaza Withdrawal, the most painful act Israel has ever had to undertake, led within less than a year to 1000 Kassam rocket attacks on Israeli civilian targets including schoolchildren.
And finally the Lebanon withdrawal, undertaken by Israel six years ago in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 425. That resolution was immediately broken by Hizbullah, about which the United Nations special envoy to Lebanon warned at the time, in November 2000, “Such breaches of international peace and security in the south threaten to ignite a new spiral of violence with tragic consequences for the civilian population.”
That failure led in 2004 to the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 which called categorically for the disarming of militias in Lebanon. Again rejected. This time Kofi Annan himself protested to the Syrians. The effect? The arming of Hizbullah with weapons that threaten the very heart of Israel. Israel withdrew from Lebanon. Israel does not want to be in Lebanon. It does not want to do any of the things it is now doing. It accepted in good faith the commitment of the United Nations that it would not have to.
It is acting today only because the international community has failed to ensure that its neighbours met their obligations when Israel met hers. Israel, the Israel we know and love, is a people that pursues peace, yearns for peace, sings about peace, needs peace. For 58 years it has done everything a nation could do in pursuit of peace, and it has been rewarded instead with violence and terror. It has done what the world has asked it to do, and the result has been that it has been left vulnerable and alone.
Which of us does not weep when we see the news day after day? Does any of us, God forbid, take satisfaction at the devastation of Lebanon? Is that who we are? Let me be clear and unambiguous. We weep not just for Israel but for the people of Lebanon also.
Lebanon was once a great country, a centre of civilization A beacon in the Middle East… Until Jordan drove the Palestinians out of Jordan into Lebanon Until Syria used them to terrorise the Lebanese Until Iran armed and funded and manipulated them; Until the whole country of Lebanon, every man, woman and child, became a hostage. And so a great country was destroyed and reduced to ruins. And today Israel is fighting in Lebanon so that Israel should not become, G-d forbid, another Lebanon, as any country in the world will become if it lacks the clarity and courage to say No to terror and Yes to peace.
Tragically Jews have learned over the centuries that when their enemies speaking of killing them, driving them into the sea, wiping them off the face of the earth, they mean what they say.
What Hizbullah and Hamas have said in word and deed is this:
We will kill you if you stay
and we will kill you if you leave.
We will kill you if you retaliate
and we will kill you if you don’t retaliate.
What can Israel do but to seek to end the terror that threatens and is meant to threaten its very existence? When alone among the 192 nations that make up the United Nations, after 58 years it still finds its very right to exist denied?
Friends, let me tell you what is wrong with terror. It is not just that it murders the innocent: the young, the old, the defenseless, the uninvolved. It is that it murders innocence itself. It turns virtue into weakness, decency into vulnerability. And if we, if Israel, if Europe, if America do not take a stand against terror, if we ignore it as the world ignored it for so long, then it will leave a stain on the human future that no tears, no regrets, will ever remove.
The battle Israel is fighting today is not for itself alone. It is for the sake of all those who say no to terror. No to the desecration of life. No to killing in the name of God. Whether they live in Bali or Beslan, or Madrid or Mumbai. And therefore let me end with simple words of prayer:
Ribbono shel olam:
Be with your people Israel now.
Hear their cry.
Heed their tears.
Listen to this, our prayer on their behalf.
Grant peace to all your children, Jew, Christian and Muslim alike.
Help us live together, respecting one another.
Help us cherish life.
Help us to use the powers You gave us, to heal, to mend, to build.
We ask of You, Almighty God, just one thing:
You who make peace in high places.
Help us make peace down here on earth.
Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks
Sunday 23 July 2006
Solidarity rally for Israel, JFS, Kenton, London
We have come together today to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Israel and to say a simple prayer.
Ribbono shel olam:
Let your people Israel live in peace.
Let there be an end to bloodshed and violence.
Let there be an end to hostility and hate.
Let Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev come home.
Let Israel’s defence forces come home.
What else did Your people ever want, except the right to live with security, without fear, in peace? Almighty G-d, let your people Israel live in peace.
Today we stand in solidarity with Israel, and rarely have I felt so proud of Anglo-Jewry as I have done these past few days. Especially of our young people. Last week 1300 of them, from youth groups right across the religious spectrum, went out to Israel. Every one of them, or their families, might have said, ‘No, not now. It’s too dangerous.’ Yet almost none of them did. I want to say to every one of those young people: Kol hakavod. You make us proud.
And today I want a message to go forth from us to Israel to say: Israel, you make us proud.
In a mere 58 years, in a country half the size of Lake Michigan, you have done things that are unbelievable. You have gathered together Jews from more than a hundred different countries speaking more than eighty different languages and out of them made a great nation. You have taken a land with no natural resources and turned it into one of the great economies of the modern world. You have created a democracy in a part of the world where no one thought it possible. You have taken a desolate land and made it blossom and bear fruit. And you have developed medical technologies to save life.
Wherever in the world there has been a natural disaster, you have been among the first to offer humanitarian aid. Through six decades under almost continuous threat you have given the world poets and philosophers and musicians and novelists whose heart is Jewish and whose love is for all humanity. You have taken the language of the Bible and made it speak again You have taken a people from the valley of the shadow of death and made it live again. You have taken hope itself – hatikvah shnot alpayim – and made it breath again. Israel: you are our people and our pride and we stand with you today.
Why then does a people who have consistently said Yes to life and No to death, who have consistently said Yes to peace and No to terror, find itself today fighting in Lebanon and Gaza? The answer is so simple, yet so unbelievable, that we must hear it clearly and unequivocally: Israel is fighting today in Lebanon because six years ago it withdrew from Lebanon. Israel is fighting today in Gaza because one year ago it withdrew from Gaza.
And Israel discovered the terrible truth spoken by the late Mother Theresa that no good deed goes unpunished! Every gesture of goodwill undertaken by Israel has been seized on by its enemies as a sign of weakness. Every Israeli effort towards peace has led without exception to an increase in violence against Israel. The Oslo Peace Process led directly to the first Palestinian suicide attacks in Israel. Taba: the most generous offer Israel ever made to the Palestinians, led directly to the most concerted set of terrorist attacks against any nation in modern history. The Gaza Withdrawal, the most painful act Israel has ever had to undertake, led within less than a year to 1000 Kassam rocket attacks on Israeli civilian targets including schoolchildren.
And finally the Lebanon withdrawal, undertaken by Israel six years ago in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 425. That resolution was immediately broken by Hizbullah, about which the United Nations special envoy to Lebanon warned at the time, in November 2000, “Such breaches of international peace and security in the south threaten to ignite a new spiral of violence with tragic consequences for the civilian population.”
That failure led in 2004 to the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 which called categorically for the disarming of militias in Lebanon. Again rejected. This time Kofi Annan himself protested to the Syrians. The effect? The arming of Hizbullah with weapons that threaten the very heart of Israel. Israel withdrew from Lebanon. Israel does not want to be in Lebanon. It does not want to do any of the things it is now doing. It accepted in good faith the commitment of the United Nations that it would not have to.
It is acting today only because the international community has failed to ensure that its neighbours met their obligations when Israel met hers. Israel, the Israel we know and love, is a people that pursues peace, yearns for peace, sings about peace, needs peace. For 58 years it has done everything a nation could do in pursuit of peace, and it has been rewarded instead with violence and terror. It has done what the world has asked it to do, and the result has been that it has been left vulnerable and alone.
Which of us does not weep when we see the news day after day? Does any of us, God forbid, take satisfaction at the devastation of Lebanon? Is that who we are? Let me be clear and unambiguous. We weep not just for Israel but for the people of Lebanon also.
Lebanon was once a great country, a centre of civilization A beacon in the Middle East… Until Jordan drove the Palestinians out of Jordan into Lebanon Until Syria used them to terrorise the Lebanese Until Iran armed and funded and manipulated them; Until the whole country of Lebanon, every man, woman and child, became a hostage. And so a great country was destroyed and reduced to ruins. And today Israel is fighting in Lebanon so that Israel should not become, G-d forbid, another Lebanon, as any country in the world will become if it lacks the clarity and courage to say No to terror and Yes to peace.
Tragically Jews have learned over the centuries that when their enemies speaking of killing them, driving them into the sea, wiping them off the face of the earth, they mean what they say.
What Hizbullah and Hamas have said in word and deed is this:
We will kill you if you stay
and we will kill you if you leave.
We will kill you if you retaliate
and we will kill you if you don’t retaliate.
What can Israel do but to seek to end the terror that threatens and is meant to threaten its very existence? When alone among the 192 nations that make up the United Nations, after 58 years it still finds its very right to exist denied?
Friends, let me tell you what is wrong with terror. It is not just that it murders the innocent: the young, the old, the defenseless, the uninvolved. It is that it murders innocence itself. It turns virtue into weakness, decency into vulnerability. And if we, if Israel, if Europe, if America do not take a stand against terror, if we ignore it as the world ignored it for so long, then it will leave a stain on the human future that no tears, no regrets, will ever remove.
The battle Israel is fighting today is not for itself alone. It is for the sake of all those who say no to terror. No to the desecration of life. No to killing in the name of God. Whether they live in Bali or Beslan, or Madrid or Mumbai. And therefore let me end with simple words of prayer:
Ribbono shel olam:
Be with your people Israel now.
Hear their cry.
Heed their tears.
Listen to this, our prayer on their behalf.
Grant peace to all your children, Jew, Christian and Muslim alike.
Help us live together, respecting one another.
Help us cherish life.
Help us to use the powers You gave us, to heal, to mend, to build.
We ask of You, Almighty God, just one thing:
You who make peace in high places.
Help us make peace down here on earth.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Where are you, Motti Ashkenazi of 2006?
Where are the voices of protest?
By Yoel Marcus
Haaretz, August 22, 2006
The war has created a serious dilemma for the Israeli public. We went to battle with unparalleled self-confidence and came home bent and bowed. The call to war of our leaders, from the prime minister to the chief of staff, promised a crushing victory. The greater the promises, the deeper our disappointment. The army failed to achieve two of the war's objectives - freeing the captured soldiers and stopping the missile attacks on Israel.
The chief of staff, mistakenly believing that Hezbollah could be knocked out from the air, discovered too late that ground troops would have to be mobilized. Most of the soldiers lacked proper training. They were equipped with weapons that went out with the flood, and armor that could be penetrated by anti-tank missiles.
In 48 hours, 34 soldiers were killed for no rhyme or reason. The reservists felt duped. Like cannon fodder. God only knows how things might have ended if President Bush had not rushed to draw up a cease-fire agreement that gave us an honorable way of retreating from this unfortunate military campaign.
Ehud Olmert's promise that Israel would soon be a fun place to live has become the joke of the year. The arrogance projected by our heads of state, including the defense minister, who promised that Nasrallah would never forget his name, and Olmert, who assured us that victory was already in our hands, has only made the public angrier. Israel's citizens want to know who is responsible around here.
Who is responsible for the fact that the substandard shelters that the state comptroller complained about in 2001 were not repaired? Who is responsible for the fact that the political and military echelons have ignored the recommendations of the National Security Council from one decade to the next? Who is responsible for the fact that the government and its agents performed so poorly during the war? Who is responsible for the fact that Hamas has discovered our weak spot, and it won't be long before its pathetic Qassams are replaced by Katyushas and long-range missiles?
The frustration of the public has triggered some tough responses. One proposal is to bring down the government with early elections, which probably won't help much. The Kadima party doesn't really exist, and Labor has gone to the dogs since it gave up its socialist ideology and Amir Peretz, the defender of the poor, was given the portfolio he knows least about. There are no alternative leaders on the horizon. "The cupboard is bare," as Eitan Haber put it.
Another proposal is to sack the chief of staff, Dan Halutz, who has the ultimate defense at his fingertips: "I recommended, but you approved." Peretz has already chosen the option he likes best - an internal committee that will be friendly toward his superiors, the kind that will conduct an investigation, but without getting too fanatic about it. In short, a farce.
A third proposal is a national commission of inquiry. By law, however, such commissions are headed by a justice of the Supreme Court, and he makes the rules. Our government ministers are not going to offer up their necks to a panel whose decisions constitute the last word on who is guilty.
The Agranat Commission, which investigated the blunders of the Yom Kippur War, recommended the dismissal of the chief of staff and the head of the Southern Command - both stars of the Six-Day War - but vindicated Israel's political leaders. In spite of this war, which dropped on us out of the blue, a war that Moshe Dayan described as "the destruction of the Third Temple" in which 3,000 soldiers died, Golda Meir and Dayan ran again and won the elections.
An army captain by the name of Motti Ashkenazi was called up for emergency reserve duty on September 26, 1973. Together with his men, he was sent off to Budapest, the northernmost outpost on the Bar-Lev line. The outpost withstood five days of intense bombardment by Egyptian forces. After five days, Ashkenazi and his soldiers were rescued.
Upon his release from the army on February 3, 1974, Ashkenazi began a one-man vigil outside the Prime Minister's Office and demanded Dayan's resignation. He stood there alone for many days. But little by little, other embittered reserve soldiers joined him. One man's dissent became a massive protest movement that forced Golda and Dayan to step down.
As we hear more and more of the reservists' horror stories and the nightmare endured by hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens driven from their homes by rocket fire, and our politicians try harder and harder to dodge responsibility, the question grows louder and shriller: Where are you, Motti Ashkenazi of 2006?
By Yoel Marcus
Haaretz, August 22, 2006
The war has created a serious dilemma for the Israeli public. We went to battle with unparalleled self-confidence and came home bent and bowed. The call to war of our leaders, from the prime minister to the chief of staff, promised a crushing victory. The greater the promises, the deeper our disappointment. The army failed to achieve two of the war's objectives - freeing the captured soldiers and stopping the missile attacks on Israel.
The chief of staff, mistakenly believing that Hezbollah could be knocked out from the air, discovered too late that ground troops would have to be mobilized. Most of the soldiers lacked proper training. They were equipped with weapons that went out with the flood, and armor that could be penetrated by anti-tank missiles.
In 48 hours, 34 soldiers were killed for no rhyme or reason. The reservists felt duped. Like cannon fodder. God only knows how things might have ended if President Bush had not rushed to draw up a cease-fire agreement that gave us an honorable way of retreating from this unfortunate military campaign.
Ehud Olmert's promise that Israel would soon be a fun place to live has become the joke of the year. The arrogance projected by our heads of state, including the defense minister, who promised that Nasrallah would never forget his name, and Olmert, who assured us that victory was already in our hands, has only made the public angrier. Israel's citizens want to know who is responsible around here.
Who is responsible for the fact that the substandard shelters that the state comptroller complained about in 2001 were not repaired? Who is responsible for the fact that the political and military echelons have ignored the recommendations of the National Security Council from one decade to the next? Who is responsible for the fact that the government and its agents performed so poorly during the war? Who is responsible for the fact that Hamas has discovered our weak spot, and it won't be long before its pathetic Qassams are replaced by Katyushas and long-range missiles?
The frustration of the public has triggered some tough responses. One proposal is to bring down the government with early elections, which probably won't help much. The Kadima party doesn't really exist, and Labor has gone to the dogs since it gave up its socialist ideology and Amir Peretz, the defender of the poor, was given the portfolio he knows least about. There are no alternative leaders on the horizon. "The cupboard is bare," as Eitan Haber put it.
Another proposal is to sack the chief of staff, Dan Halutz, who has the ultimate defense at his fingertips: "I recommended, but you approved." Peretz has already chosen the option he likes best - an internal committee that will be friendly toward his superiors, the kind that will conduct an investigation, but without getting too fanatic about it. In short, a farce.
A third proposal is a national commission of inquiry. By law, however, such commissions are headed by a justice of the Supreme Court, and he makes the rules. Our government ministers are not going to offer up their necks to a panel whose decisions constitute the last word on who is guilty.
The Agranat Commission, which investigated the blunders of the Yom Kippur War, recommended the dismissal of the chief of staff and the head of the Southern Command - both stars of the Six-Day War - but vindicated Israel's political leaders. In spite of this war, which dropped on us out of the blue, a war that Moshe Dayan described as "the destruction of the Third Temple" in which 3,000 soldiers died, Golda Meir and Dayan ran again and won the elections.
An army captain by the name of Motti Ashkenazi was called up for emergency reserve duty on September 26, 1973. Together with his men, he was sent off to Budapest, the northernmost outpost on the Bar-Lev line. The outpost withstood five days of intense bombardment by Egyptian forces. After five days, Ashkenazi and his soldiers were rescued.
Upon his release from the army on February 3, 1974, Ashkenazi began a one-man vigil outside the Prime Minister's Office and demanded Dayan's resignation. He stood there alone for many days. But little by little, other embittered reserve soldiers joined him. One man's dissent became a massive protest movement that forced Golda and Dayan to step down.
As we hear more and more of the reservists' horror stories and the nightmare endured by hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens driven from their homes by rocket fire, and our politicians try harder and harder to dodge responsibility, the question grows louder and shriller: Where are you, Motti Ashkenazi of 2006?
Sunday, August 20, 2006
There is no such thing as unilateral peace...
Talking only to ourselves
Daniel Ben Simon
Haaretz, August 17, 2006
I am trying to recall when I last saw Israeli leaders talking with Arab leaders about peace, and finding it hard to remember. In recent years, our compulsive tendency to talk to ourselves about an agreement with the Arabs has been strengthening, as though the real conflict in the Middle East were between the right and the left. The fruitless discussions between these two tired bodies have had two goals: to neutralize any possibility of change and to freeze the reality on the ground, for fear that any step toward peace will ignite a domestic war among the Jews. And if we are already fated to go to war, say our architects to themselves, it is better to have a war against the Arabs. It is torturous to think that had similar diplomatic energy been invested vis-a-vis Palestinian leaders, Lebanese leaders and Syrian leaders, perhaps everything would look different. Perhaps we would even be living in peace with them.
Is it possible that the miserable war in Lebanon and the endless slaughter in Gaza are an outcome of the lack of willingness to talk with our neighbors? When was the last time we tried to talk to the Palestinians about their future and about our future? When was the last time we sent out probes to the Lebanese about signing a peace agreement with them?
When was the last time we tried to renew the truncated negotiations with the Syrians about the possibility of arriving at a peace agreement? For six years now Israeli politics has been at a standstill. Ever since prime minister Ehud Barak shoved Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat into the lodge at Camp David in July 2000, there has been no serious contact between an Israeli leader and an Arab leader with whom we are in conflict. The result is dreadful. Israel has slammed doors on its neighbors and has made up its mind to set arrangements on its own, in dialogue with itself, while ignoring its neighbors as though it were a lone juniper tree in the desert. It is possible that for this insult, we are now paying the price.
To a large extent both the slaughter in Gaza after the disengagement and the war in Lebanon prove the failure of the unilateral approach. How is it possible, asks every reasonable individual, that we pulled out of Lebanon and they are attacking us? How is it possible, asks every reasonable individual, that we pulled out of Gaza and they are still attacking us? Is it any wonder that the lack of gratitude on both these fronts has led many Israelis to the conclusion that hatred for Jews is imprinted in the Muslim genome and that the urge to go to war is imprinted in the Arab character?
And perhaps this outburst of aggression has its source in our egotistic nature, in our refusal to relate to our neighbors, in our unwillingness to see them from the distance of a meter. There is no such thing as unilateral peace, just as there is no such thing as unilateral war. It takes two to dance the dance of death, and to dance the dance of joy. We have decided to dance with ourselves, as though the Arabs were shapeless, transparent and not worth speaking to.
And it isn`t as though in the past there haven`t been bilateral contacts that aroused hope. However, they can be counted on one hand. Only two months ago a cheerful meeting was held between our new prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan. How many smiles they scattered, and how many times they clapped one another on the shoulder. Olmert was at his best. He laughed, he joked, he chummed and he demonstrated impressive communications skills. He spoke with everyone - apart from the only person at that meeting who justified a serious discussion. And indeed, Olmert`s aides worked for days so that their boss would not shake the hand of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
These are the achievements of Israeli diplomacy vis-a-vis the Palestinians during the past six years: Ehud Barak pushed Arafat at Camp David, the same Barak invited Arafat to dinner at his home, prime minister Ariel Sharon invited Abbas to a meeting at the Prime Minister`s Residence, Olmert bestowed a hug on Abbas. Two gestures, one conversation and one dinner party during the course of six whole years. Not a bad output for a country mired in a bloody conflict with the Palestinian people.
And during this entire time, Israel has withdrawn into itself, refusing to look sideways. It exited Lebanon in anger and it exited in similar anger from the Gaza Strip, without having attempted to coordinate the moves with those concerned. It is also planning to exit the West Bank with a similar, unilateral slam of the door.
Instead of speaking with our enemies we speak with our friends, not to say our patrons, the Americans, as though we were lowly vassals. We have adopted English almost as a mother tongue and we relate to Arabic as almost an existential threat. Thus far, the subordination of our lives, our values and our future to the Americans has not proved itself. We have never been as insecure as we are today. As part of our despair we are surrounding ourselves with a wall and turning the symbol of national rebirth into a fortified Jewish ghetto closed on all sides.
If the despair with our neighbors and with peace spreads, the Israelis are liable to deposit the reins of the state in the hands of dangerous fanatics like Yisrael Beiteinu MK Avigdor Lieberman. 'For insane situations, you need insane people in charge,' said an inhabitant of Kiryat Shmona last week who thus reflected the new mood and mentioned Lieberman as a wonder drug.
If Olmert does not hold out any hope soon and does not start talking with the Lebanese and the Palestinians and the Syrians, the despair is liable to push the Israelis toward extreme solutions.
Daniel Ben Simon
Haaretz, August 17, 2006
I am trying to recall when I last saw Israeli leaders talking with Arab leaders about peace, and finding it hard to remember. In recent years, our compulsive tendency to talk to ourselves about an agreement with the Arabs has been strengthening, as though the real conflict in the Middle East were between the right and the left. The fruitless discussions between these two tired bodies have had two goals: to neutralize any possibility of change and to freeze the reality on the ground, for fear that any step toward peace will ignite a domestic war among the Jews. And if we are already fated to go to war, say our architects to themselves, it is better to have a war against the Arabs. It is torturous to think that had similar diplomatic energy been invested vis-a-vis Palestinian leaders, Lebanese leaders and Syrian leaders, perhaps everything would look different. Perhaps we would even be living in peace with them.
Is it possible that the miserable war in Lebanon and the endless slaughter in Gaza are an outcome of the lack of willingness to talk with our neighbors? When was the last time we tried to talk to the Palestinians about their future and about our future? When was the last time we sent out probes to the Lebanese about signing a peace agreement with them?
When was the last time we tried to renew the truncated negotiations with the Syrians about the possibility of arriving at a peace agreement? For six years now Israeli politics has been at a standstill. Ever since prime minister Ehud Barak shoved Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat into the lodge at Camp David in July 2000, there has been no serious contact between an Israeli leader and an Arab leader with whom we are in conflict. The result is dreadful. Israel has slammed doors on its neighbors and has made up its mind to set arrangements on its own, in dialogue with itself, while ignoring its neighbors as though it were a lone juniper tree in the desert. It is possible that for this insult, we are now paying the price.
To a large extent both the slaughter in Gaza after the disengagement and the war in Lebanon prove the failure of the unilateral approach. How is it possible, asks every reasonable individual, that we pulled out of Lebanon and they are attacking us? How is it possible, asks every reasonable individual, that we pulled out of Gaza and they are still attacking us? Is it any wonder that the lack of gratitude on both these fronts has led many Israelis to the conclusion that hatred for Jews is imprinted in the Muslim genome and that the urge to go to war is imprinted in the Arab character?
And perhaps this outburst of aggression has its source in our egotistic nature, in our refusal to relate to our neighbors, in our unwillingness to see them from the distance of a meter. There is no such thing as unilateral peace, just as there is no such thing as unilateral war. It takes two to dance the dance of death, and to dance the dance of joy. We have decided to dance with ourselves, as though the Arabs were shapeless, transparent and not worth speaking to.
And it isn`t as though in the past there haven`t been bilateral contacts that aroused hope. However, they can be counted on one hand. Only two months ago a cheerful meeting was held between our new prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan. How many smiles they scattered, and how many times they clapped one another on the shoulder. Olmert was at his best. He laughed, he joked, he chummed and he demonstrated impressive communications skills. He spoke with everyone - apart from the only person at that meeting who justified a serious discussion. And indeed, Olmert`s aides worked for days so that their boss would not shake the hand of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
These are the achievements of Israeli diplomacy vis-a-vis the Palestinians during the past six years: Ehud Barak pushed Arafat at Camp David, the same Barak invited Arafat to dinner at his home, prime minister Ariel Sharon invited Abbas to a meeting at the Prime Minister`s Residence, Olmert bestowed a hug on Abbas. Two gestures, one conversation and one dinner party during the course of six whole years. Not a bad output for a country mired in a bloody conflict with the Palestinian people.
And during this entire time, Israel has withdrawn into itself, refusing to look sideways. It exited Lebanon in anger and it exited in similar anger from the Gaza Strip, without having attempted to coordinate the moves with those concerned. It is also planning to exit the West Bank with a similar, unilateral slam of the door.
Instead of speaking with our enemies we speak with our friends, not to say our patrons, the Americans, as though we were lowly vassals. We have adopted English almost as a mother tongue and we relate to Arabic as almost an existential threat. Thus far, the subordination of our lives, our values and our future to the Americans has not proved itself. We have never been as insecure as we are today. As part of our despair we are surrounding ourselves with a wall and turning the symbol of national rebirth into a fortified Jewish ghetto closed on all sides.
If the despair with our neighbors and with peace spreads, the Israelis are liable to deposit the reins of the state in the hands of dangerous fanatics like Yisrael Beiteinu MK Avigdor Lieberman. 'For insane situations, you need insane people in charge,' said an inhabitant of Kiryat Shmona last week who thus reflected the new mood and mentioned Lieberman as a wonder drug.
If Olmert does not hold out any hope soon and does not start talking with the Lebanese and the Palestinians and the Syrians, the despair is liable to push the Israelis toward extreme solutions.
If it wasn’t so sad, it might be funny,,,
The war is over, the in-fight is beginning
Jerusalem Times: Opinion
August 20, 2006
This week in Israel….. Behind the news with Gershon Baskin
With the passing of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, the cease fire came into effect and the Israeli troops began heading home. The last 30 hours of the war that the government implemented while the Security Council was already in session brought about no military achievement and only led to more than 30 additional, unnecessary casualties. It has been reported that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was against launching the expanded ground operation up to the Litani, yet he gave in to the pressure of the military and of Minister of Defense Amir Peretz.. Olmert, as Prime Minister, as he himself stated in his last Knesset address, bears full responsibility for the decisions made by the government. This was one of the most foolish and costly decisions taken by his government.
The investigation committee established by Peretz to assess the operational aspects of the war (headed by former Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak) has no authority to judge the decisions made by the politicians. Olmert and Peretz should also have to answer to the public for leading the country into a war without achievable goals, with faulty tactical plans, and without taking into account the huge price that the home front would have to pay. Olmert’s taking responsibility has to be more than just words. Peretz must also stand before a real investigation so that the public can understand how and why he made the decisions that he did that cost so many human lives, so much physical damage in Israel and in Lebanon, and so much suffering.
It is still too early to determine who won and who lost this war. The outcome and the balance of accounts will only come in the aftermath in the months to come. If the Lebanese army is capable of deploying, as it has begun, and if it keeps armed Hizbollah combatants away from the south, then Israel and Lebanon will have both won, and that is good. Hizbollah will not simply go away, nor will we probably ever know what losses Hizbollah really suffered in the war, because they simply do not publish the truth.
The Government of Fouad Siniora (no relation to Hanna Siniora) seems to be coming out on top fully backed by Saad Hariri and even Walid Jumblat - this is good for Lebanon and good for the region. Israel suffered damages to more than 1,500 apartments and homes with massive damage to the forests and open spaces. Lebanon suffered damage to more than 15,000 apartments (some people are saying up to 30,000). The international community is now directing itself to raise funds for the reconstruction of Lebanon, while the government of Israel and the Jewish agency are doing the same for the north of Israel. Shimon Peres is off to the States on a fundraising tour. The losses, reconstruction costs and rebuilding the army will probably come to more than $2 billion. There go all of the budgetary reserves that were supposed to be invested in education, health and welfare.
A problem with the concept
Many people are blaming the lack of experience of Olmert, Peretz and Halutz for the less than satisfactory results of the war. The problem is, however, one that developed way before these gentlemen were sitting at the helm. In my assessment, the problem rests with the concept of what the Israeli army is and what kind of wars it was prepared to face. The problem’s roots can be found in the policies that were developed and implemented in the days of Chief of Staff Ehud Barak (1991-1995). Barak’s concept, mirroring what he saw in the United States following the first Gulf war was that Israel needed a small, intelligent and sophisticated fighting force. Translating that concept into policy and planning meant investing huge sums first and foremost in the air force, in modern technologies, and in scaling down the reserve forces, depending on elite units of the regular army. Since 1991, Israel invested the major parts of its military budgets into these areas and scaled down the dependence on ground infantry units. The overall dependence of Israel on the air force during the beginning of this war was not because the Chief of Staff came from the air force, but because that was the entire military concept of the IDF since Barak’s time. This concept is good perhaps for the United States when it attacked Kosovo, or even when they launched the attack against the Saddam Hussein regime, but is it the right concept for Israel? Perhaps, if Israel had to go to war against another army it would be right, but it appeared to be quite wrong regarding a war against a guerilla fighting force. Now, in the aftermath of the war, the army needs to be re-equipped and serious re-evaluation of the future needs of the army must be undertaken. The IDF needs to be prepared for a war against another army, but it also needs to be prepared for a possible second round.
The Government in shambles
Unconnected to the war, but in addition to it, the government seems to be coming apart. Olmert is under investigation for an alleged bribe concerning real estate; the Minister of Justice Haim Ramon is resigning over an alleged sexual abuse charge, the Chief of Staff was accused of selling his stock portfolio on the day the war began (although not illegal – it stinks), Shimon Peres is under investigation for illegal campaign funds, and the cherry on the cake concerns the sexual harassment charges against the President, Moshe Katzav who will probably have to resign before his term of office ends.
It has also been reported that since the beginning of the war, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs were hardly speaking with each other. According to the reports, Tzipi Livni was opposed to many of the government decisions concerning the war and chose to take a low profile. When the diplomatic efforts were launched and negotiations were underway on the text of the UN Resolution, Livni wanted to go to NY to be there, but Olmert prevented her from going. Olmert controlled all of the negotiations on the UN text by himself with his top advisors, leaving Livni out of the loop.
Today it was reported that Livni appointed her chief political advisor, Yaki Dayan to begin investigating and assessing the possibilities for opening up the Israeli-Syrian track. It is not clear if she made that decision with the agreement of the Prime Minister or perhaps despite his possible disagreement.
Today even Olmert is admitting that his realignment plan is off the agenda. The main aim of the government for the coming year will be the rebuilding of the north of the country. If it wasn’t so sad, it might be funny. Olmert, who came into office with his great promises of reshaping the country and setting Israel’s final boundaries, is now busy rebuilding what should not have been destroyed from the first place. The reason for going to war was the Hizbollah unprovoked attack against Israel, the killing of eight soldiers and the kidnapping of two others. Israel certainly had a casus belli - the question is whether or not it was wise to launch such a massive attack in order to achieve what has been achieved. Perhaps a more tempered response and a massive diplomatic offensive could have achieved the same or better results, and with a lot less damage?
New elections? – not now
The Government has a lot to answer for and the loss of support for the leaders in the public opinion polls is completely understandable (Olmert and Peretz are both in the mid to low 20’s approval rating after reaching the 70’s at the beginning of the war a few weeks ago). If the government wasn’t so young and if there weren’t so many new MK’s, the talk about early elections might have to be taken more seriously. But other than a few of the parties in the opposition, no one wants to go to new elections – they haven’t yet heated up their new seats and they are not get ready to take the risk of not returning to them. Olmert will probably try to expand his government, but it doesn’t seem that there are too many parties or opposition MK’s who are running to step on what now appears to be a sinking ship. Meretz won’t join, nor are they being asked. Meretz was divided at the beginning of the war, like the Peace Now movement, feeling that the war was justified, but by its end, most of their membership had joined the anti-war camp. Olmert has spoken about Lieberman and his right-wing Yisrael Beitenu joining the government, but even without the realignment platform, it does not seem likely that Labour and Lieberman can sit together. Perhaps Olmert will finally conclude the negotiations with the Orthodox United Torah Judaism party that have been dragging on since the government was formed months ago. Whoever joins this government, if anyone, still has to chart a course through some very unfriendly waters in the coming months. Even with the summer recess underway, a civil-society protest movement that may develop against the Government and against Olmert and Peretz specifically, will cause additional headaches to the Prime Minister. Together with that, we can be sure that the opposition will work overtime to have the Knesset meet frequently during recess.
Gaza next?
I visited Gaza last week. Many people there believe that Israel will take its Lebanese frustrations out on Gaza. Already severely hit and suffering, Gaza is mentally preparing itself for a new Israeli onslaught. There has been no real progress in freeing the kidnapped soldier Gilead Shalit. Israel is still looking for the address that is in charge of the soldier. The assessments from senior Hamas personalities in Gaza and from senior Israeli officials are that Gilead Shalit is alive and well. But in both camps, no one is sure who and where the decisions are being made about his future. In the meantime, it can be expected that Israel will prepare for a massive ground offensive in the coming weeks if the soldier is not returned to Israel. The Government needs an achievement and needs to rebuild the morale of the country. Finding the soldier and punishing the Palestinians at the same time would boost support for the government which only gives more reason to believe that this is in the plans. If this is the path taken, the chances of survival for Shalit are probably less than 50:50, there will most likely be Israeli casualties and there will certainly be massive Palestinian casualties. This is not the path that should be taken, but if there will be no progress on the issue of Shalit, it seems that it is inevitable, unfortunately.
Jerusalem Times: Opinion
August 20, 2006
This week in Israel….. Behind the news with Gershon Baskin
With the passing of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, the cease fire came into effect and the Israeli troops began heading home. The last 30 hours of the war that the government implemented while the Security Council was already in session brought about no military achievement and only led to more than 30 additional, unnecessary casualties. It has been reported that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was against launching the expanded ground operation up to the Litani, yet he gave in to the pressure of the military and of Minister of Defense Amir Peretz.. Olmert, as Prime Minister, as he himself stated in his last Knesset address, bears full responsibility for the decisions made by the government. This was one of the most foolish and costly decisions taken by his government.
The investigation committee established by Peretz to assess the operational aspects of the war (headed by former Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak) has no authority to judge the decisions made by the politicians. Olmert and Peretz should also have to answer to the public for leading the country into a war without achievable goals, with faulty tactical plans, and without taking into account the huge price that the home front would have to pay. Olmert’s taking responsibility has to be more than just words. Peretz must also stand before a real investigation so that the public can understand how and why he made the decisions that he did that cost so many human lives, so much physical damage in Israel and in Lebanon, and so much suffering.
It is still too early to determine who won and who lost this war. The outcome and the balance of accounts will only come in the aftermath in the months to come. If the Lebanese army is capable of deploying, as it has begun, and if it keeps armed Hizbollah combatants away from the south, then Israel and Lebanon will have both won, and that is good. Hizbollah will not simply go away, nor will we probably ever know what losses Hizbollah really suffered in the war, because they simply do not publish the truth.
The Government of Fouad Siniora (no relation to Hanna Siniora) seems to be coming out on top fully backed by Saad Hariri and even Walid Jumblat - this is good for Lebanon and good for the region. Israel suffered damages to more than 1,500 apartments and homes with massive damage to the forests and open spaces. Lebanon suffered damage to more than 15,000 apartments (some people are saying up to 30,000). The international community is now directing itself to raise funds for the reconstruction of Lebanon, while the government of Israel and the Jewish agency are doing the same for the north of Israel. Shimon Peres is off to the States on a fundraising tour. The losses, reconstruction costs and rebuilding the army will probably come to more than $2 billion. There go all of the budgetary reserves that were supposed to be invested in education, health and welfare.
A problem with the concept
Many people are blaming the lack of experience of Olmert, Peretz and Halutz for the less than satisfactory results of the war. The problem is, however, one that developed way before these gentlemen were sitting at the helm. In my assessment, the problem rests with the concept of what the Israeli army is and what kind of wars it was prepared to face. The problem’s roots can be found in the policies that were developed and implemented in the days of Chief of Staff Ehud Barak (1991-1995). Barak’s concept, mirroring what he saw in the United States following the first Gulf war was that Israel needed a small, intelligent and sophisticated fighting force. Translating that concept into policy and planning meant investing huge sums first and foremost in the air force, in modern technologies, and in scaling down the reserve forces, depending on elite units of the regular army. Since 1991, Israel invested the major parts of its military budgets into these areas and scaled down the dependence on ground infantry units. The overall dependence of Israel on the air force during the beginning of this war was not because the Chief of Staff came from the air force, but because that was the entire military concept of the IDF since Barak’s time. This concept is good perhaps for the United States when it attacked Kosovo, or even when they launched the attack against the Saddam Hussein regime, but is it the right concept for Israel? Perhaps, if Israel had to go to war against another army it would be right, but it appeared to be quite wrong regarding a war against a guerilla fighting force. Now, in the aftermath of the war, the army needs to be re-equipped and serious re-evaluation of the future needs of the army must be undertaken. The IDF needs to be prepared for a war against another army, but it also needs to be prepared for a possible second round.
The Government in shambles
Unconnected to the war, but in addition to it, the government seems to be coming apart. Olmert is under investigation for an alleged bribe concerning real estate; the Minister of Justice Haim Ramon is resigning over an alleged sexual abuse charge, the Chief of Staff was accused of selling his stock portfolio on the day the war began (although not illegal – it stinks), Shimon Peres is under investigation for illegal campaign funds, and the cherry on the cake concerns the sexual harassment charges against the President, Moshe Katzav who will probably have to resign before his term of office ends.
It has also been reported that since the beginning of the war, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs were hardly speaking with each other. According to the reports, Tzipi Livni was opposed to many of the government decisions concerning the war and chose to take a low profile. When the diplomatic efforts were launched and negotiations were underway on the text of the UN Resolution, Livni wanted to go to NY to be there, but Olmert prevented her from going. Olmert controlled all of the negotiations on the UN text by himself with his top advisors, leaving Livni out of the loop.
Today it was reported that Livni appointed her chief political advisor, Yaki Dayan to begin investigating and assessing the possibilities for opening up the Israeli-Syrian track. It is not clear if she made that decision with the agreement of the Prime Minister or perhaps despite his possible disagreement.
Today even Olmert is admitting that his realignment plan is off the agenda. The main aim of the government for the coming year will be the rebuilding of the north of the country. If it wasn’t so sad, it might be funny. Olmert, who came into office with his great promises of reshaping the country and setting Israel’s final boundaries, is now busy rebuilding what should not have been destroyed from the first place. The reason for going to war was the Hizbollah unprovoked attack against Israel, the killing of eight soldiers and the kidnapping of two others. Israel certainly had a casus belli - the question is whether or not it was wise to launch such a massive attack in order to achieve what has been achieved. Perhaps a more tempered response and a massive diplomatic offensive could have achieved the same or better results, and with a lot less damage?
New elections? – not now
The Government has a lot to answer for and the loss of support for the leaders in the public opinion polls is completely understandable (Olmert and Peretz are both in the mid to low 20’s approval rating after reaching the 70’s at the beginning of the war a few weeks ago). If the government wasn’t so young and if there weren’t so many new MK’s, the talk about early elections might have to be taken more seriously. But other than a few of the parties in the opposition, no one wants to go to new elections – they haven’t yet heated up their new seats and they are not get ready to take the risk of not returning to them. Olmert will probably try to expand his government, but it doesn’t seem that there are too many parties or opposition MK’s who are running to step on what now appears to be a sinking ship. Meretz won’t join, nor are they being asked. Meretz was divided at the beginning of the war, like the Peace Now movement, feeling that the war was justified, but by its end, most of their membership had joined the anti-war camp. Olmert has spoken about Lieberman and his right-wing Yisrael Beitenu joining the government, but even without the realignment platform, it does not seem likely that Labour and Lieberman can sit together. Perhaps Olmert will finally conclude the negotiations with the Orthodox United Torah Judaism party that have been dragging on since the government was formed months ago. Whoever joins this government, if anyone, still has to chart a course through some very unfriendly waters in the coming months. Even with the summer recess underway, a civil-society protest movement that may develop against the Government and against Olmert and Peretz specifically, will cause additional headaches to the Prime Minister. Together with that, we can be sure that the opposition will work overtime to have the Knesset meet frequently during recess.
Gaza next?
I visited Gaza last week. Many people there believe that Israel will take its Lebanese frustrations out on Gaza. Already severely hit and suffering, Gaza is mentally preparing itself for a new Israeli onslaught. There has been no real progress in freeing the kidnapped soldier Gilead Shalit. Israel is still looking for the address that is in charge of the soldier. The assessments from senior Hamas personalities in Gaza and from senior Israeli officials are that Gilead Shalit is alive and well. But in both camps, no one is sure who and where the decisions are being made about his future. In the meantime, it can be expected that Israel will prepare for a massive ground offensive in the coming weeks if the soldier is not returned to Israel. The Government needs an achievement and needs to rebuild the morale of the country. Finding the soldier and punishing the Palestinians at the same time would boost support for the government which only gives more reason to believe that this is in the plans. If this is the path taken, the chances of survival for Shalit are probably less than 50:50, there will most likely be Israeli casualties and there will certainly be massive Palestinian casualties. This is not the path that should be taken, but if there will be no progress on the issue of Shalit, it seems that it is inevitable, unfortunately.
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